Yes! says Goethe, there is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again. "It is only when we are faithful," he says elsewhere, [2] "in arresting and noting our present thoughts, that we have any joy in tradition; since we find the best thoughts already uttered, the finest feelings already expressed. This it is that gives us the perception of that harmonious agreement to which man is called, and to which he must conform, often against his will as he is much too fond of fancying that the world begins afresh with himself."
