We offer this presentation of Goethe with the special purpose in view of bringing out those features of his life which characterize him as a thinker or, perhaps better, as a philosopher. Though Goethe can not be called a philosopher proper, though he had a positive aversion to philosophy as a specialized study. He may fairly well be called a philosopher in the broad sense of the term. He was a thinking man who had a definite world-conception which dominated not only his particular life but also his poetry.