TO AN EXTRAORDINARY and perhaps even singular degree, Herder's life and work are defined by the practice, function, and meaning of criticism. Despite the numerous other roles he occupied — and there were many: theologian, philosopher, linguist, historian, ethnographer, to name only a few — it was in his activity as a critic that Herder revealed his greatest strengths and arguably produced his most lasting achievements. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that Herder approached virtually everything he did as a critic, that his thinking and expression as a whole are a reflection or product of a fundamentally critical habit of mind. It was so much a part of his basic constitution that even Herder's personal relationships were inevitably affected by it, often negatively. Although Herder could be, and often was, generous, kind, and helpful to those around him, he was also capable of meting out biting sarcasm and caustic humor to an equal degree. Goethe, who first met Herder in Strasbourg in 1770 and was instrumental in bringing him to Weimar six years later, was often on the receiving end of Herder's prickliness, and once remarked in a private conversation many years after his death that “je mehr man Herdern geliebt, je mehr habe man sich von ihm entfernt, entfernt halten müssen, um ihn nicht totzuschlagen” (the more one loved Herder, the more one had to move away from him and keep one's distance, in order not to strike him dead). More diplomatically, in a written reminiscence of his friend, Goethe pointed to the inner contradictions that lay at the heart of Herder’s personality: