In very peculiar measure Wieland was born for the higher circles of society, and even the highest would have been his proper element; for since he nowhere wished to stand supreme, but gladly sought to take part in everything, and was inclined to express himself with moderation regarding everything, he must inevitably appear an agreeable companion, and in still higher degree he would have been such in a more light-hearted nation which did not take too seriously every form of recreation.

For his poetic and his literary aspirations were alike addressed immediately to life, and though he did not seek a practical end with absolute invariability, yet he ever had a practical aim before his eyes, whether it was near or far.  Therefore his thought was always clear, his phraseology was lucid and readily intelligible, and since, with his extensive knowledge, he continually held to the interest of the day, followed it, and intelligently occupied himself with it, his conversation also was diversified and stimulating throughout; so that I have not readily become acquainted with anyone who more gladly received and more spiritedly responded to whatever happy idea others might bring forward.

Bearing in mind his type of thought, his mode of entertaining himself and others, and his honorable purpose of influencing his generation, he can scarcely be reproached for feeling an antagonism toward the more modern philosophical schools.  When, at an earlier period, Kant gave merely the preludes of his greater theories in his minor writings, and in a lighter style seemed to express himself problematically upon the most weighty themes, then he still stood close enough to our friend; but when the huge system was erected, all those who had thus far gone their way poetizing and philosophizing in full freedom, were forced to see in Kant’s monumental work a menacing citadel which would limit their serene excursions over the field of experience.

Yet not merely the philosophers, but also the poets, had much, and, indeed, everything, to fear from the new intellectual tendency, so soon as large numbers should allow themselves to be attracted by it.  It would at first appear as though its purpose was mainly directed toward knowledge, and then toward the theory of morals and its immediately subsidiary subjects.  It was readily obvious, however, that, if it was intended to establish, more firmly than had hitherto been the case, those weighty affairs of higher knowledge and of moral conduct, and if there the demand was made for a sterner, more coherent judgment, developed from the depths of humanity—­it was readily obvious, I repeat, that taste also would soon be referred to such principles, and, therefore, the attempt would be made absolutely to set aside individual fancies, chance culture, and popular peculiarities, and to evoke a more general law as a deciding factor.