The consequent need for what Benjamin presents as a Goethean modification of Early German Romanticism is laid out in the afterword. The relation between these criticisms of Romanticism and Goethe’s thought is suggested in the claim that, “Ultimately the mystical thesis that art itself is one work…stands in exact correlation with the principle which asserts the indestructibility of works that are purified in irony” (SW 1, 167). With its mistaken emphasis on the singularity of the Idea of art, Romantic fulfilment only coincides with the infinity of the unconditioned, meaning that fulfilment is an essentially non-historical category of the infinite. Such criticism cannot be described as judgement, since all authentic judgement involves an essential negative moment of completion in “self-annihilation” (SW 1, 152). Consequently, because ‘Romantic messianism is not at work in its full force’ here (SW 1, 168), the Romantics were increasingly forced to turn to the “accoutrements” of ethics, religion and politics to provide the content required to complete their theory of art. 