WHEN Goethe wrote “Faust,” he left no question of his pre-eminence among German poets, but it can be questioned if even the idea which inspired Faust is as lofty or as deep as Schiller’s idea that the “Spieltrieb” is the impulse of higher civilization. As a hypothesis, it begins where the “agnostic” theory of the “survival of the fittest” under pressure of environment ends. The Darwinian theory shows man compelled by necessity to develop so much intelligence as will save him from destruction. The theory of Schiller shows him led by his affections to develop into the Infinity beyond Necessity. The “pressure of environment” may account for the kraal of the Kaffir, and the snow hut of the Eskimo, but Schiller’s hypothesis accounts for the Parthenon and the dome of St. Peter’s. He saw that men improve most by doing not what they must, but what they love best, and he found his solution of the problem of progress in Liberty and Love. Children who mold the rude image of a man from clay after a rain, or savages who scrawl a drawing into the face of a cliff, are compelled by no other necessity than that of doing their own pleasure—of the “Spieltrieb” or “play impulse,” acting under perfect liberty. But in such acts, Schiller saw the beginnings of all those arts which express the higher operations of mind.

  As an essayist he is greatly superior to Goethe in the power of connected and sustained statement. Few writers in or out of Germany have equaled him in this. It is as remarkable as in one sense it is regrettable, that a poet who expresses himself through verse in thronging images of sensuous beauty should, in defining in prose the high ideas which animate his verse, become abstract and severe to the last degree. In any ten lines of the essays in which he is stating his conclusions, the strongest intellect can find material for longer meditation than busy readers are generally able to give to ten pages. Hence Schiller has never been popular as an essayist, and he is never likely to become so. But those who will make a serious attempt to respond to the severe demands he makes on all who come to him for instruction are not likely either to forget him as a teacher or to cease to thank him.

  He was born at Marbach, Würtemberg, November 10th, 1759. In 1780, after concluding his studies in medicine, he became regimental surgeon at Stuttgart, where in 1781 he published his first notable work, “The Robbers.” Not only was he obliged to publish it at his own expense, but when it appeared, his “suzerain” and military superior, Duke Karl Eugen, of Würtemberg, ordered him as a regimental surgeon to write no more poetry. Seeing no recourse as a poet except to disobey as a military surgeon, Schiller did so. After being sentenced to a fortnight’s arrest for his contumacy, he “fled” to Mannheim and afterwards to Darmstadt and Frankfort, living under assumed names until he had made his own so famous that even Duke Karl Eugen concluded it would not be advisable to subject him to further military discipline for writing poetry. Returning to Mannheim in 1783, Schiller left it for Leipsic in 1785. Growing tired successively of Leipsic and Dresden, he removed in 1787 to Weimar, where he made his home for many years and where he died May 9th, 1805. His association with Goethe began in 1794, and it was of great advantage to both. Under the influence of the increased confidence in himself resulting from Goethe’s appreciation, Schiller wrote many of his best lyrics, including “The Song of the Bell,”—no doubt the best “ode” in the German language, if the word “ode” be understood in the modern sense. As a writer of odes (carmina) in the ancient sense, Schiller is not the equal of Goethe or of Heine. It was not that Schiller failed intellectually of fitness for the highest possible rank in poetry; the greatest poet of any age must be also its greatest musician; and in musical power over language, Schiller, who is second only to Goethe in everything else, is inferior also to Heine. Had it been otherwise he might easily have been the greatest poet, not only of Germany but of modern times, for his power of sustained thought and coherent expression surpasses that of Goethe. It is remarkable that the poems of Schiller should be classical in nearly everything but their melody, while those of Goethe, Teutonic in their spirit, derive their supreme charm from a closer approximation to the classical mode in melody than had been made by any other German poet.