Carlsbad, June 22, 1808.  It is an extraordinary fact that man in himself, so far as he avails himself of his sound mind, is the greatest and most precise physical apparatus that can be.  And it is in fact the greatest evil of the newer physics that experiments are, as it were, separated from man himself, so that nature is recognised only in what is ascertained by artificial instruments.  It is exactly so with calculation.  Much is true which cannot be computed, just as much can never be experimentally demonstrated.

Man, however, stands so high that that which otherwise admits of no representation is represented in him.  What, then, is a string and all its mechanical division compared with the ear of the musician?  Indeed, it may be said what are the elementary phenomena of nature compared with man, who must first master and modify them all in order to assimilate them to himself?

II.—­Music and Musicians

Weimar, November 16, 1816.  I send you a few words with reference to your proposal to write a cantata for the Reformation Jubilee.  It might best be contrived after the method of Handel’s “Messiah,” into which you have so deeply penetrated.

As the main idea of Lutheranism rests on a very excellent foundation, it affords a fine opportunity both for poetical and also for musical treatment.  Now, this basis rests on the decided contrast between the law and the Gospel, and secondly on the accommodation of these two extremes.  And now, if in order to attain a higher standpoint we substitute for those two words the terms “necessity” and “freedom,” with their synonyms, their remoteness and proximity, you see clearly that everything interesting to mankind is contained in this circle.

And thus Luther perceives in the Old and New Testaments the symbol of the great and ever-recurring world-order.  On the one hand, the law, striving after love; on the other, love, striving back towards the law, and fulfilling it, though not of its own power and strength, but through faith; and that, too, by exclusive faith in the all-powerful Messiah proclaimed to all.

Thus, briefly, are we convinced that Lutheranism can never be united with the Papacy, but that it does not contradict pure reason, so soon as reason decides to regard the Bible as the mirror of the world; which certainly should not be difficult.  To express these ideas in a poem adapted to music, I should begin with the thunder on Mount Sinai, with the Thou shalt! and conclude with the resurrection of Christ, and the Thou wilt!