[34]. This is probably the meaning of Napoleon’s significant words to Goethe: “What have we to-day to do with destiny? Policy is destiny.”
[35]. Corresponding to the 300-50 B.C. phase of the Classical world.
[36]. Which in the end gave its name to the Empire (Tsin = China).
[37]. See Vol. II, 521-539.
[38]. See Vol. II, 373 ff.
[39]. The work referred to is embodied in Vol. II (pp. 521 et seq., 562 et seq., 631 et seq.).
[40]. The philosophy of this book I owe to the philosophy of Goethe, which is practically unknown to-day, and also (but in a far less degree) to that of Nietzsche. The position of Goethe in West-European metaphysics is still not understood in the least; when philosophy is being discussed he is not even named. For unfortunately he did not set down his doctrines in a rigid system, and so the systematic philosophy has overlooked him. Nevertheless he was a philosopher. His place vis-à-vis Kant is the same as that of Plato—who similarly eludes the would-be-systematizer—vis-à-vis Aristotle. Plato and Goethe stand for the philosophy of Becoming, Aristotle and Kant the philosophy of Being. Here we have intuition opposed to analysis. Something that it is practically impossible to convey by the methods of reason is found in individual sayings and poems of Goethe, e.g., in the Orphische Urworte, and stanzas like “Wenn im Unendlichen” and “Sagt es Niemand,” which must be regarded as the expression of a perfectly definite metaphysical doctrine. I would not have one single word changed in this: "The Godhead is effective in the living and not in the dead, in the becoming and the changing, not in the become and the set-fast; and therefore, similarly, the reason (Vernunft) is concerned only to strive towards the divine through the becoming and the living, and the understanding (Verstand) only to make use of the become and the set-fast" (to Eckermann). This sentence comprises my entire philosophy.
[41]. At the end of the volume.
[42]. Weltanschauung im wörtlichen Sinne; Anschauung der Welt.
[43]. The case of mankind in the historyless state is discussed in Vol. II, pp. 58 et seq.