Chapter I (2)

Still Mephistopheles keeps the promise which he has made. He succeeds in revivifying the company by fresh sums of money, obtained in conformity with his nature, not by unearthing buried treasures from the heart of the mountains by means of the wishing-rod, but by making paper-money! It is not, indeed, real coin, but the effect is the same, for in society everything rests upon the caprice of acceptance; its own life and preservation are thereby guaranteed by itself, and its authority, here represented by the Emperor, has infinite power. The paper notes, this money stamped by the airy imagination, spread everywhere confidence and lively enjoyment. It is evident that the means of prosperity have not been wanting, nor stores of eatables and drinkables, but a form was needed to set the accumulated materials in motion, and to weave them into the changes of circulation. With delight, the Chancellor, Steward, Commander-in-Chief, Treasurer, report the flourishing condition of the army and the citizens; presents without stint give rise to the wildest luxury, which extends from the nobles of the realm down to the page and fool, and in such joyfulness everybody can unhesitatingly look about him for new means of pleasure. Because the company has its essence in the production of the notes, its internal must strive for the artistic; every one feels best when he, though known, remains unrecognized, and thus a theatrical tendency developes itself. For here the matter has nothing to do with the dramatic as real art, in reference to the egotism which binds the company together. The theatre collects the idle multitude, and it has nothing to do but to see, to hear, to compare, and to judge. Theatrical enjoyment surpasses all other kinds in comfort, and is at the same time the most varied. The Emperor wishes that the great magician, Faust, should play a drama before himself and the court, and show Paris and Helen. To this design Mephistopheles can give no direct aid; in a dark gallery he declares, in conversation with Faust, that the latter himself must create the shapes, and therefore must go to the Mothers. Faust shudders at their names. Mephistopheles gives him a small but important key, with which he must enter the shadowy realm of the Mothers for a glowing tripod, and bring back the same; by burning incense upon it, he would be able to create whatever shape he wished. As a reason why _he_ is unable to form them, Mephistopheles says expressly that he is in the service of big-necked dwarfs and witches, and not of heroines, and that the Heathen have their own Hell, with which he, the Christian and romantic Devil, has nothing to do. And yet he possesses the key to it, and hence it is not unknown to him. And why does Faust shudder at the names of the Mothers? Who are these women who are spoken of so mysteriously? If it were said, the Imagination, _Mothers_ would be an inept expression; if it were said, the Past, Present and Future, Faust’s shuddering could not be sufficiently accounted for, since how should Time frighten him who has already lived through the terrors of Death? From the predicates which are attached to the Mothers, how they everlastingly occupy the busy mind with all the forms of creation; how from the shades which surround them in thousand-fold variety, from the Being which is Nothing, All becomes; how from their empty, most lonely depth the living existence comes forth to the surface of Appearance; from such designations scarcely anything else can be understood by the realm of the Mothers than the world of Pure Thought. This explanation might startle at the first glance, but we need only put Idea for Thought—we need only remember the Idea-world of Plato in order to comprehend the matter better. The eternal thoughts, the Ideas, are they not the still, shadowy abyss, in which blooming Life buds, into whose dark, agitated depths it sends down its roots? Mephistopheles has the key; for the Understanding, which is negative Determination, is necessary in order not to perish in the infinite universality of Thought; it is itself, however, only the Negative, and therefore cannot bring the actual Idea, Beauty, to appearance, but he, in his devilish barrenness, must hand this work over to Faust; he can only recommend to the latter moderation, so as not to lose himself among the phantoms, and he is curious to know whether Faust will return. But Faust shudders because he is not to experience earthly solitude alone, like that of the boundless ocean, when yet star follows star, and wave follows wave; the deepest solitude of the creative spirit, the retirement into the invisible, yet almighty Thought, the sinking into the eternal Idea is demanded of him. Whoever has had the boldness of this Thought—whoever has ventured to penetrate into the magic circle of the Logical, and its world-subduing Dialectic, into this most simple element of infinite formation and transformation, has overcome all, and has nothing more to fear, as the Homunculus afterwards expresses it, because he has beheld the naked essence, because Necessity has stripped herself to his gaze. But it is also to be observed that the tripod is mentioned, for by this there is an evident allusion to subjective Enthusiasm and individual Imagination, by which the Idea in Art is brought out of its universality to the determinate existence of concrete Appearance. Beauty is identical in content with Truth, but its form belongs to the sphere of the Sensuous.—While Faust is striving after Beauty, Mephistopheles is besieged by women in the illuminated halls, to improve their looks and assist them in their love affairs. After this delicate point is settled, no superstition is too excessive, no sympathetic cure too strange—as, for example, a tread of the foot—and the knave fools them until they, with a love-lorn page, become too much for him.—Next the stage, by its decorations, which represents Grecian architecture, causes a discussion of the antique and romantic taste; Mephistopheles has humorously taken possession of the prompter’s box, and so the entertainment goes on in parlor fashion, till Faust actually appears, and Paris and Helen, in the name of the all-powerful Mothers, are formed from the incense which ascends in magic power. The Public indulges itself in an outpouring of egotistical criticism; the men despise the unmanly Paris, and interest themselves deeply in the charms of Helen; the women ridicule the coquettish beauty with envious moralizing, and fall in love for the nonce with the fair youth. But as Paris is about to lead away Helen, Faust, seized with the deepest passion for her wonderful beauty, falls upon the stage and destroys his own work. The phantoms vanish; still the purpose remains to obtain Helen; that is, the artist must hold on to the Ideal, but he must know that it is the Ideal. Faust confuses it with common Actuality, and he has to learn that absolute Beauty is not of an earthly, but of a fleeting, etherial nature.

The second act brings us away from our well-known German home to the bottom of the sea and its mysterious secrets. Faust is in search of Helen; where else can he find her, perfect Beauty, than in Greece? But first he seeks her, and meets therefore mere shapes, which unfold themselves from natural existence, which are not yet actual humanity. Indeed, since he seeks natural Beauty—for spiritual Beauty he has already enjoyed in the heavenly disposition of Margaret—the whole realm of Nature opens upon us; all the elements appear in succession; the rocks upon which the earnest Sphinxes rest, in which the Ants, Dactyls, Gnomes work, give the surrounding ground; the moist waters contain in their bosom the seeds of all things. The holy fire infolds it with eager flame: according to the old legend, Venus sprang from the foam of the sea.—Next we find ourselves at Wittenberg, in the ancient dwelling, where it is easy to see by the cob-webs, dried-up ink, tarnished paper, and dust, that many years have passed since Faust went out into the world. Mephistopheles, from the old coat in which he once instructed the knowledge-seeking pupil, shakes out the lice and crickets which swarm around the old master with a joyful greeting, as also Parseeism makes Ahriman the father of all vermin. Faust lies on his bed, sleeps and dreams the lustful story of Leda, which, in the end, is nothing more than the most decent and hence producible representation of generation. While Mephistopheles in a humorous, and as well as the Devil can, even in an idyllic manner, amuses himself, while he inquires sympathetically after Wagner of the present Famulus, a pupil who, in the meanwhile, has become a Baccalaureate, comes storming in, in order to see what the master is doing who formerly inculcated such wise doctrines, and in order to show what a prodigiously reasonable man he has himself become. A persiflage of many expressions of the modern German Natural Philosophy seems recognizable in this talk. Despising age, praising himself as the dawn of a new life, he spouts his Idealism, by means of which he creates everything, Sun, Moon and Stars, purely by the absoluteness of subjective Thought. Mephistopheles, though the pupil assails him bitterly, listens to his wise speeches with lamb-like patience, and after this refreshing scene, goes into Wagner’s laboratory. The good man has stayed at home, and has applied himself to Chemistry, to create, through its processes, men. To his tender, humane, respectable, intelligent mind, the common way of begetting children is too vulgar and unworthy of spirit. Science must create man; a real materialism will produce him. Mephistopheles comes along just at this time, to whom Wagner beckons silence, and whispers anxiously to him his undertaking, as in the glass retort the hermaphroditic boy, the Homunculus, begins to stir. But alas! the Artificial requires enclosed space. The poor fellow can live only in the glass retort, the outer world is too rough for him, and still he has the greatest desire to be actually born. A longing, universal feeling for natural life sparkles from him with clear brilliancy, and cousin Mephistopheles takes him along to the classic _Walpurgisnacht_, where Homunculus hopes to find a favorable moment. Mephistopheles is related to the little man for this reason, because the latter is only the product of nature, because God’s breath has not been breathed into him as into a real man.

After these ironical scenes, the fearful night of the Pharsalian Fields succeeds, where the antique world terminated its free life. This plain, associated with dark remembrances and bloody shadows, is the scene of the Classical _Walpurgisnacht_. Goethe could choose no other spot, for just upon this battle-field the spirit of Greek and Roman antiquity ceased to be a living actuality. As an external reason, it is well known that Thessaly was to the ancients the land of wizards, and especially of witches, so that from this point of view the parallel with the German Blocksberg is very striking. Faust, driven by impatience to obtain Helen, is in the beginning sent from place to place to learn her residence, until Chiron takes him upon the neck which had once borne that most loving beauty, and with a passing sneer at the conjectural troubles of the Philologist, tells him of the Argonauts, of the most beautiful man, of Hercules, until he stops his wild course at the dwelling of the prophetic Manto, who promises to lead Faust to Helen on Olympus. Mephistopheles wanders in the meanwhile among Sphinxes, Griffons, Sirens, etc. To him, the Devil of the Christian and Germanic world, this classic ground is not at all pleasing; he longs for the excellent Blocksberg of the North, and its ghostly visages; with the Lamiæ indeed he resolves to have his own sport, but is roguishly bemocked; finally, he comes to the horrible Phorcyads, and after their pattern he equips himself with one eye and a tusk for his own amusement; that is, he becomes the absolutely Ugly, while Faust is wooing the highest Beauty. In the Christian world the Devil is also represented as fundamentally ugly and repulsive; but he can also, under all forms, appear as an angel of light. In the Art-world, on the contrary, he can be known only as the Ugly. In all these scenes there is a mingling of the High and the Low, of the Horrible and the Ridiculous, of vexation and whimsicality, of the Enigmatical and the Perspicuous, so that no better contradictions could be wished for a _Walpurgisnacht_. The Homunculus on his part is ceaselessly striving to come to birth, and betakes himself to Thales and Anaxagoras, who dispute whether the world arose in a dry or wet way. Thales leads the little man to Nereus, who, however, refuses to aid the seeker, partly because he has become angry with men, who, like Paris and Ulysses, have always acted against his advice, and partly because he is about to celebrate a great feast. Afterwards they go to Proteus, who at first is also reticent, but soon takes an interest in Homunculus, as he beholds his shining brilliancy, for he feels that he is related to the changing fire, and gives warning that as the latter can become everything, he should be careful about becoming a man, for it is the most miserable of all existences. In the meanwhile, the Peneios roars; the earth-shaking Seismos breaks forth with a loud noise; the silent and industrious mountain-spirits become wakeful. But always more clearly the water declares itself as the womb of all things; the festive train of the Telchines points to the hoary Cabiri; bewitchingly resound the songs of the Sirens; Hippocamps, Tritons, Nereids, Pselli and Marsi arise from the green, pearl-decked ground; the throne of Nereus and Galatea arches over the crystalline depths; at their feet the eager Homunculus falls to pieces, and all-moving Eros in darting flames streams forth. Ravishing songs float aloft, celebrating the holy elements, which the ever-creating Love holds together and purifies. Thales is just as little in the right as Anaxagoras; together, both are right, for Nature is kindled to perpetual new life by the marriage of Fire and Water.

The difference between this _Walpurgisnacht_ and the one in the First Part lies in the fact, that the principle of the latter is the relation of Spirit to God. In the Christian world the first question is, what is the position of man towards God; therefore there appear forms which are self-contradictory, lacerated spiritually, torn in pieces by the curse of condemnation to all torture. Classic Life has for its basis the relation to Nature; the mysterious Cabiri were only the master-workmen of Nature. Nature finds in man her highest goal; in his fair figure, in the majesty of his form she ends her striving; and therefore the contradictions of the classic _Walpurgisnacht_ are not so foreign to Mephistopheles, who has to do with Good and Bad, that he does not feel his contact with them, but still they are not native to him. The general contradiction which we meet with, and which also in Mephistopheles expresses itself by the cloven foot at least, is the union of the human and animal frame; the human is at first only half existent, on earth in Sphinxes, Oreads, Sirens, Centaurs; in water, in Hippocamps, Tritons, Nymphs, Dorids, etc. For the fair bodies of the latter still share the moist luxuriance of their element. Thus Nature expands itself in innumerable creations in order to purify itself in man, in the self-conscious spirit, in order to pacify and shut off in him the infinite impulse to formation, because it passes beyond him to no new form. He is the embodied image of God. The inclosed Homunculus, with his fiery trembling eagerness to pass over into an independent actuality, is, as it were, the serio-comic representation of this tendency, until he breaks the narrow glass, and now is what he should be, the union of the elements, for this is Eros according to the most ancient Greek conception, as we still find even in the Philosophers.

In the third act Goethe has adhered to the old legend, according to which, Faust, by means of Mephistopheles, obtained Helen as a concubine, and begat a son, Justus Faustus. Certainly, the employment of this feature was very difficult; and still, even in our days, a poet, L. Bechstein, in his Faust, has been wrecked upon this rock. He has Helen marry Faust; they beget a child; but finally, when Faust makes his will, and turns away unlovingly from wife and child, it is discovered that the Grecian Helen, who in the copperplates is also costumed completely in the antique manner, is a German countess of real flesh and blood, who has been substituted by the Devil; an undeceiving which ought to excite the deepest sympathy. Goethe has finely idealized this legend; he has expressed therein the union of the romantic and classic arts. The third act, this Phantasmagory, is perhaps the most perfect of all, and executed in the liveliest manner. As noble as is the diction of the first and second acts, especially in the lyrical portions, it is here nevertheless by far surpassed. Such a majesty and simplicity, such strength and mildness, unity and variety, in so small a space, are astonishing. First resounds the interchange of the dignity of Æschylus and Sophocles, with the sharp-steeled wit of Aristophanes; then is heard the tone of the Spanish romances, an agreeable, iambic measure, a sweet, ravishing melody; finally, new styles break forth, like the fragments of a prophecy; ancient and modern rhythms clash, and the harmony is destroyed.—Helen returns, after the burning of Troy, to the home of her spouse, Menelaus; the stewardess, aged, wrinkled, ugly, but experienced and intelligent, Phorcyas, receives her mistress in the citadel by command. Opposed to Beauty, as was before said, Mephistopheles can only appear as ugliness, because in the realm of beautiful forms, the Ugly is the Wicked. There arises a quarrel between the graceful, yet pretentious youth of the Chorus, and world-wise, yet stubborn Old Age. Helen has to appease it, and she learns with horror from Phorcyas that Menelaus is going to sacrifice her.—Still, (as on the one hand Grecian fugitives, after the conquest of Constantinople, instilled everywhere into German Life the taste for classic Beauty, and as, on the other hand, one of the Ottomans in Theophania—like Faust—won a Helen, and thereby everywhere arose a striving after the appropriation of the Antique,) the old stewardess saves her, and bears her through the air together with her beautiful train, to the Gothic citadel of Faust, where the humble and graceful behavior of the iron men towards the women, in striking contrast to their hard treatment on the banks of the Eurotas, at once wins the female heart. The watchman of the tower, Lynceus, lost in wondering delight over the approaching beauty, forgets to announce her, and has brought upon himself a heavy punishment; but Helen, the cause of his misdemeanor, is to be judge in his case, and she pardons him.

Faust and all his vassals do homage to the powerful beauty, in whom the antique pathos soon disappears. In the new surroundings, in the mutual exchange of quick and confiding love, the sweet rhyme soon flows from their kissing lips. An attack of Menelaus interrupts the loving courtship; but Valor, which in the battle for Beauty and favor of the ladies, seeks its highest honor and purport, is unconquerable, and the swift might of the army victoriously opposes Menelaus. Christian chivalry protects the jewel of beauty which has fled to it for safety, against all barbarism pressing on from the East.—Thus the days of the lovers pass rapidly away in secret grottoes amid pastoral dalliance; as once Mars refreshed himself in the arms of Venus, so in the Middle Ages knights passed gladly from the storm of war to the sweet service of women in quiet trustfulness. Yet the son whom they beget, longs to free himself from this idle, Arcadian life. The nature of both the mother and the father drives him forward, and soon consummates the matter. Beautiful and graceful as Helen, the insatiate longing for freedom glows in him as in Faust. He strikes the lyre with wonderful, enchanting power; he revels wildly amid applauding maidens; he rushes from the bottom of the valley to the tops of the mountains, to see far out into the world, and to breathe freely in the free air. His elastic desire raises him, a second Icarus, high in the clouds; but he soon falls dead at the feet of the parents, while an aureola, like a comet, streaks the Heavens. Thus perished Lord Byron. He is a poet more romantic than Goethe, to whom, however, Art gave no final satisfaction, because he had a sympathy for the sufferings of nations and of mankind, which called him pressingly to action. His poems are full of this striving. In them he weeps away his grief for freedom. Walter Scott, who never passed out of the Middle Ages, is read more than Byron. But Byron is more powerful than he, because the Idea took deeper root, and that demoniacal character concentrated in itself all the struggles of our agitated time. Divine poesy softened not the wild sorrow of his heart, and the sacrifice of himself for the freedom of a beloved people and land could not reproduce classic Beauty. The fair mother, who evidently did not understand the stormy, self-conscious character of her son, sinks after him into the lower world. As everything in this phantasmagory is allegorical, I ask whether this can mean anything else than that freedom is necessary for beauty, and beauty also for freedom? Euphorion is boundless in his striving; the warnings of the parents avail not. He topples over into destruction. But Helen, i.e. Beauty, cannot survive him, for all beauty is the expression of freedom, of independence, although it does not need to know the fact. Only Faust, who unites all in himself, who strives to reach beyond Nature and Art, Present and Past, that is, the knowing of the True, survives her; upon her garments, which expand like a cloud, he moves forth. What remains now, since the impulse of spiritual Life, the clarification of Nature in Art, the immediate spiritual Beauty, have vanished? Nothing but Nature in her nakedness, whose choruses of Oreads, Dryads and Nymphs swarm forth into the mountains, woods and vineyards, for bacchantic revelry; an invention which belongs to the highest effort of all poetry. It is a great kindness in the Devil, when Phorcyas at last discloses herself as Mephistopheles, and where there is need, offers herself as commentator.

The life of Art, of Beauty, darkens like a mist; upon the height of the mountain, Faust steps out of the departing cloud, and looks after it as it changes to other forms. His restless mind longs for new activity. He wants to battle with the waters, and from them win land; that is, the land shall be his own peculiar property, since he brings it forth artificially. As that money which he gave to the Emperor was not coined from any metal, but was a product of Thought; as that Beauty which charmed him was sought with trouble, and wrung from Nature, and as he, seizing the sword for the protection of Beauty, exchanged Love for the labor of chivalry,—so the land, the new product of his endeavor, not yet is, but he will first create it by means of his activity. A war of the Emperor with a pretender gives him an opportunity to realize his wish. He supports the Emperor in the decisive battle. Mephistopheles is indifferent to the Right and to freedom; the material gain of the war is the principal thing with him; so he takes along the three mighty robbers, Bully, Havequick and Holdfast. (See 2d Samuel, 23: 8.) The elements must also fight—the battle is won—and the grateful Emperor grants the request of Faust to leave the sea-shore for his possession. The State is again pacified by the destruction of the pretender; a rich booty in his camp repays many an injury; the four principal offices promise a joyful entertainment; but the Church comes in to claim possession of the ground, capital and interest, in order that the Emperor may be purified from the guilt of having had dealings with the suspicious magician. Humbly the Emperor promises all; but as the archbishop demands tithe from the strand of the sea which is not yet in existence, the Emperor turns away in great displeasure. The boundless rapacity of the Church causes the State to rise up against it. This act has not the lyrical fire of the previous ones; the action, if the war can thus be called, is diffuse; the battle, as broad as it is, is without real tension; the three robbers are allegorically true, if we look at the meaning which they express, but are in other respects not very attractive. In all the brilliant particulars, profound thoughts, striking turns, piquant wit, and wise arrangement, there is still wanting the living breath, the internal connection to exhibit a complete picture of the war. And still, from some indications, we may believe that this tediousness is designed, in order to portray ironically the dull uniformity, the spiritual waste of external political life, and the littleness of Egotism. For it must be remembered that the war is a civil war—the genuine poetic war, where people is against people, falls into Phantasmagory. The last scene would be in this respect the most successful. The continued persistency of the spiritual lord to obtain in the name of the heavenly church, earthly possessions, the original acquiescence of the Emperor, but his final displeasure at the boundless shamelessness of the priest, are excellently portrayed, and the pretentious pomp of the Alexandrine has never done better service.

In the fifth act we behold a wanderer, who is saved from shipwreck, and brought to the house of an aged couple, Philemon and Baucis. He visits the old people, eats at their frugal table, sees them still happy in their limited sphere, but listens with astonishment to them, as they tell of the improvements of their rich neighbor, and they express the fear of being ousted by him. Still, they pull the little bell of their chapel to kneel and pray with accustomed ceremony in presence of the ancient God.—The neighbor is Faust. He has raised dams, dug canals, built palaces, laid out ornamental gardens, educated the people, sent out navies. The Industry of our time occupies him unceasingly; he revels in the wealth of trade, in the turmoil of men, in the commerce of the world. That those aged people still have property in the middle of his possessions is extremely disagreeable to him, for just this little spot where the old mossy church stands, the sound of whose bell pierces his heart, where the airy lindens unfold themselves to the breeze, he would like to have as a belvedere to look over all his creations at a glance. Like a good man whose head is always full of plans, he means well to the people, and is willing to give them larger possessions where they can quietly await death, and he sends Mephistopheles to treat with them. But the aged people, who care not for eating and drinking, but for comfort, will not leave their happy hut; their refusal brings on disputes, and the dwelling, together with the aged couple and the lindens, perishes by fire in this conflict between the active Understanding and the poetry of Feeling, which, in the routine of pious custom, clings to what is old. Faust is vexed over the turn which affairs have taken, particularly over the loss of the beautiful lindens, but consoles himself with the purpose to build in their stead a watch-tower. Then before the palace, appear in the night, announcing death, four hoary women, Starvation, Want, Guilt and Care, as the Furies who accompany the external prosperity of our industrial century. Still, Care can only press through the key-hole of the chamber of the rich man, and places herself with fearful suddenness at his side. The Negative of Thought is to be excluded by no walls. But Faust immediately collects himself again; with impressive clearness he declares his opinion of life, of the value of the earthly Present; Care he hates, and does not recognize it as an independent existence. She will nevertheless make herself known to him at the end of his life, and passes over his face and makes him blind. Still, Faust expresses no solicitude, though deprived of his eyes by Care; no alteration is noticed in him, he is bent only upon his aims; the energy of his tension remains uniform: Spirit, Thought, is the true eye; though the external one is blinded, the internal one remains open and wakeful. The transition from this point to the conclusion is properly this: that from the activity of the finite Understanding, only a Finite can result. All industry, for whose development Mephistopheles is so serviceable, as he once was in war, cannot still the hunger of Spirit for Spirit. Industry creates only an aggregate of prosperity, no true happiness. Our century is truly great in industrial activity. But it should only be the means, the point of entrance for real freedom, which is within itself the Infinite. And Faust has to come to this, even on the brink of the grave. Mephistopheles, after this affair with Care, causes the grave of the old man to be dug by the shaking Lemures. Faust supposes, as he hears the noise of the spades, that his workmen are busily employed. Eagerly he talks over his plans with Mephistopheles, and at last he glows at the good fortune of standing upon free ground with a free people. Daily he feels that man must conquer Freedom and Life anew, and the presentiment that the traces of his uninterrupted striving would not perish in the Ages, is the highest moment of his whole existence. This confession of satisfaction kills him, and he falls to the earth dead. After trying everything, after turning from himself to the future of the race, after working unceasingly, he has ripened to the acknowledgement that the Individual only in the Whole, that Man only in the freedom of humanity can have repose. Mephistopheles believes that he has won his bet, causes the jaws of Hell to appear, and commands the Devils to look to the soul of Faust. But Angels come, strewing roses from above; the roses, the flowers of Love, cause pain where they fall; the Devils and Mephistopheles himself complain uproariously. He lashes himself with the falling roses, which cling to his neck like pitch and brimstone, and burn deeper than Hell-fire. First, he berates the Angels as hypocritical puppets, yet, more closely observed, he finds that they are most lovely youths. Only the long cloaks fit them too modestly, for, from behind particularly, the rascals had a very desirable look. While he is seeking out a tall fellow for himself, and is plunged wholly in his pederastic lust, the Angels carry away the immortal part of Faust to Heaven. Mephistopheles now reproaches himself with the greatest bitterness, because he has destroyed, through so trivial a desire, the fruits of so long a labor. This _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Devil must be considered as one of the happiest strokes of humor. The holy innocence of the Angels is not for him; he sees only their fine bodies; his lowness carries him into the Unnatural and Accidental, just where his greatest interest and egotism come in play. This result will surprise most people; but if they consider the nature of the Devil, it will be wholly satisfactory; in all cunning he is at last bemocked as a fool, and he destroys himself through himself.

In conclusion, we see a woody, rocky wilderness, settled with hermits. It is not Heaven itself, but the transition to the same, where the soul is united to perfect clearness and happiness. Hence we find the glowing devotion and repentance of the _Pater ecstaticus_, the contemplation of the _Pater profundus_, the wrestling of the _Pater serapticus_, who, taking into his eyes the holy little boys because their organs are too weak for the Earth, shows them trees, rocks, waterfalls. The Angels bring in Faust, who, as Doctor Marianus, in the highest and purest cell, with burning prayer to the approaching queen of Heaven, seeks for grace. Around Maria is a choir of penitents, among whom are the Magna Peccatrix, the Mulier Samaritana, and Maria Ægyptiaca. They pray for the earthly soul; and one of the penitents, once called Margaret, kneeling, ventures a special intercession. The Mater Gloriosa appoints Margaret to lead the soul of Faust to higher spheres, for he shall follow her in anticipation. A fervent prayer streams from the lips of Doctor Marianus; the Chorus mysticus concludes with the assurance of the certainty of bliss through educating, purifying love. Aspiration, the Eternal feminine, is in Faust, however deeply he penetrates into every sphere of worldly activity. The analogy between Margaret and the Beatrice of Dante is here undeniable; also, the farther progress of Faust’s life we must consider similar, as he, like Dante, grows in the knowledge and feeling of the Divine till he arrives at its complete intuition; Dante beholds the Trinity perfectly free and independent, without being led farther by anybody. From this point of view, that the poet wanted to exhibit reconciliation as becoming, as a product of infinite growth, is found the justification of the fact that he alludes so slightly to God the Father, and to Christ the Redeemer, and, instead, brings out so prominently the worship of the Virgin, and the devotion of Woman. Devotion has a passive element which finds its fittest poetical support in women. These elements agree also very well with the rest of the poem, since Goethe, throughout the entire drama, has preserved the costume of the Middle Ages; otherwise, on account of the evident Protestant tendency of Faust, it would be difficult to find a necessary connection with the other parts of the poem.

As regards the history of Faust in itself, dramatically considered, the first four acts could perhaps be entirely omitted. The fifth, as it shows us that all striving, if its content is not religion, (the freedom of the Spirit,) can give no internal satisfaction, as it shows us that in the earnest striving after freedom, however much we may err, still the path to Heaven is open, and is only closed to him who does not strive, would have sufficiently exhibited the reconciliation. But Goethe wants to show not only this conclusion, which was all the legend demanded of him, but also the becoming of this result. Faust was for him and through him for the nation, and indeed for Europe, the representative of the world-comprehending, self-conscious internality of Spirit, and therefore he caused all the elements of the World to crystallize around this centre. Thus the acts of the Second Part are pictures, which, like frescoes, are painted beside one another upon the same wall, and Faust has actually become what was so often before said of him, a perfect manifestation of the Universe.

If we now cast a glance back to what we said in the beginning, of the opposition between the characters of Wilhelm Meister and Faust, that the former was _the determined from without_, the latter _the self-determining from within_, we can also seize this opposition so that Meister is always in pursuit of Culture, Faust of Freedom. Meister is therefore always desirous of new impressions, in order to have them work upon himself, extend his knowledge, complete his character. His capacity and zeal for Culture, the variety of the former, the diligence of the latter, forced him to a certain tameness and complaisance in relation to others. Faust on the contrary will himself work. He will possess only what he himself creates. Just for this reason he binds himself to the Devil, because the latter has the greatest worldly power, which Faust applies unsparingly for his own purposes, so that the Devil in reality finds in him a hard, whimsical, insatiate master. To Wilhelm the acquaintance of the Devil would indeed have been very interesting from a moral, psychological and æsthetic point of view, but he never would have formed a fraternity with him. This _autonomia_ and _autarkia_ of Faust have given a powerful impulse to the German people, and German literature. But if, in the continuation of Faust, there was an expectation of the same Titanic nature, it was disappointed. The monstrosity of the tendencies however, does not cease; a man must be blind not to see them. But in the place of pleasure, after the catastrophe with Margaret, an active participation in the world enters; a feature which Klinger and others have retained. But Labor in itself can still give no satisfaction, but its content, too, must be considered. Or rather, the external objectivity of Labor is indifferent; whether one is savant, artist, soldier, courtier, priest, manufacturer, merchant, etc., is a mere accident; whether he wills Freedom or not, is not accidental, for Spirit is in and for itself, free. With the narrow studio, in fellowship with Wagner, Faust begins; with Trade, with contests about boundaries, with his look upon the sea, which unites the nations, he ends his career.

In the World, Freedom indeed realizes itself, but as absolute, it can only come to existence in God.

It is therefore right when Goethe makes the transition from civil to religious freedom. Men cannot accomplish more than the realization of the freedom of the nations, for Mankind has its concrete existence only in the nations; if the nations are free, it is also free. Faust must thus be enraptured by this thought in the highest degree. But with it, he departs from the world—Heaven has opened itself above him. But, though Heaven sheds its grace, and lovingly receives the striving soul which has erred, still it demands repentance and complete purification from what is earthly. This struggle, this wrestling of the soul, I find expressed in the most sublime manner in the songs of the hermits and the choruses, and do not know what our time has produced superior in spiritual power, as well as in unwavering hope, though I must confess that I am not well enough versed in the fertile modern lyric literature of Pietism, to say whether such pearls are to be found in it.

Moreover, it is evident that the pliable Meister, and the stubborn Faust, are the two sides which were united in Goethe’s genius. He was a poet, and became a courtier; he was a courtier, and remained a poet. But in a more extensive sense this opposition is found in all modern nations, particularly among the Germans. They wish to obtain culture, and therefore shun no kind of society if they are improved. But they wish also to be free. They love culture so deeply that they, perhaps, for a while, have forgotten freedom. But then the Spirit warns them. They sigh, like Faust, that they have sat so long in a gloomy cell over Philosophy, Theology, etc. With the fierceness of lions, they throw all culture aside for the sake of freedom, and in noble delusion form an alliance—even with the Devil.

A CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS.
[Translated from the German of J. G. Fichte, by A. E. Kroeger.]

[NOTE. Below we give to our readers the translation of another
Introduction to the Science of Knowledge, written by Fichte
immediately after the one published in our previous number. Whereas
that first Introduction was written for readers who have as yet no
philosophical system of their own, the present one is intended more
particularly for those who have set philosophical notions, of which
they require to be disabused.—EDITOR.]

I believe the first introduction published in this Journal to be perfectly sufficient for unprejudiced readers, i. e. for readers who give themselves up to the writer without preconceived opinions, who, if they do not assist him, also do not resist him in his endeavors to carry them along. It is otherwise with readers who have already a philosophical system. Such readers have adopted certain maxims from their system, which have become fundamental principles for them; and whatsoever is not produced according to these maxims, is now pronounced false by them without further investigation, and without even reading such productions: it is pronounced false, because it has been produced in violation of their universally valid method. Unless this class of readers is to be abandoned altogether—and why should it be?—it is, above all, necessary to remove the obstacle which deprives us of their attention; or, in other words, to make them distrust their maxims.

Such a preliminary investigation concerning the _method_, is, above all, necessary in regard to the Science of Knowledge, the whole structure and significance whereof differs utterly from the structure and significance of all philosophical systems which have hitherto been current. The authors of these previous systems started from some conception or another; and utterly careless whence they got it, or out of what material they composed it, they then proceeded to analyze it, to combine it with others, regarding the origin whereof they were equally unconcerned; and this their argumentation itself is their philosophy. Hence their philosophy consists in _their own_ thinking. Quite different does the Science of Knowledge proceed. That which this Science makes the object of its thinking, is not a dead conception, remaining passive under the investigation, and receiving life only from it, but is rather itself living and active; generating out of itself and through itself cognitions, which the philosopher merely observes in their genesis. His business in the whole affair is nothing further than to place that living object of his investigation in proper activity, and to observe, grasp and comprehend this its activity as a Unit. He undertakes an experiment. It is his business to place the object in a position which permits the observation he wishes to make; it is his business to attend to all the manifestations of the object in this experiment, to follow them and connect them in proper order; but it is not his business to _cause_ the manifestations in the object. That is the business of the object itself: and he would work directly contrary to his purpose if he did not allow the object full freedom to develop itself—if he undertook but the least interference in this, its self-developing.

The philosopher of the first mentioned sort, on the contrary, does just the reverse. He produces a product of art. In working out his object he only takes into consideration its matter, and pays no attention to an internal self-developing power thereof. Nay, this power must be deadened before he undertakes his work, or else it might resist his labor. It is from the dead matter, therefore, that he produces something, and solely by means of his own power, in accordance with his previously resolved-upon conception.

While thus in the Science of Knowledge there are two utterly distinct series of mental activity—that of the Ego, which the philosopher observes, and that of the observations of the philosopher—all other philosophical systems have only _one_ series of thinking, viz: that of the thoughts of the philosopher, for his object is not introduced as thinking at all.

One of the chief grounds of so many objections to and misunderstandings of the Science of Knowledge lies in this: that these two series of thinking have not been held apart, or that what belonged to the one has been taken to belong to the other. This error occurred because Philosophy was held to consist only of one series. The act of one who produces a work of art is most certainly—since his object is not active—the appearance itself; but the description of him who has undertaken an experiment, is not the appearance itself, but the conception thereof.[1]

After this preliminary remark, the further application whereof we shall examine in the course of our article, let us now ask: how does the Science of Knowledge proceed to solve its problem?

The question it will have to answer, is, as we well know, the following: Whence comes the system of those representations which are accompanied by the feeling of necessity? Or, how do we to come claim objective validity for what is only subjective? Or, since objective validity is generally characterized as _being_, how do we come to accept a being? Now, since this question starts from a reflection that returns into itself—starts from the observation, that the immediate object of consciousness is after all merely consciousness itself,—it seems clear enough that the question can speak of no other being than of a being for us. It would be indeed a complete contradiction, to mistake it for a question concerning some being which had no relation to our consciousness. Nevertheless, the philosophers of our philosophical age are of all things most apt to plunge into such absurd contradictions.

The proposed question, how is a being for us possible? abstracts itself from all being; i. e. it must not be understood, as if the question posited a not-being; for in that case the conception of being would only be negated, but not abstracted from. On the contrary, the question does not entertain the conception of being at all, either positively or negatively. The proposed question asks for the ground of the predicate of being, whether it be applied positively or negatively; but all ground lies beyond the grounded, i. e. is opposed to it. The answer must, therefore, if it is to be an answer to this question, also abstract from all being. To maintain, _a priori_, in advance of an attempt, that such an abstraction is impossible in the answer, because it is impossible in itself, would be to maintain likewise, that such an abstraction is impossible in the question; and hence, that the question itself is not possible, and that the problem of a science of metaphysics, as the science which is to solve the problem of the ground of being for us, is not a problem for human reason.

That such an abstraction, and hence such a question, is contrary to reason, cannot be proven by objective grounds to those who maintain its possibility; for the latter assert that the possibility and necessity of the question is grounded upon the highest law of reason—that of self-determination, (Practical legislation,) under which all other laws of reason are subsumed, and from which they are all derived, but at the same time determined and limited to the sphere of their validity. They acknowledge the arguments of their opponents willingly enough, but deny their application to the present case; with what justice, their opponents can determine only by placing themselves upon the basis of this highest law, but hence, also, upon the basis of an answer to the disputed question, by which act they would cease to be opponents. Their opposition, indeed, can only arise from a subjective defect—from the consciousness that they never raised this question, and never felt the need of an answer to it. Against this their position, no objective grounds can, on the other hand, be made valid, by those who insist on an answer to the question; for the doubt, which raises that question, is grounded upon previous acts of freedom, which no demonstration can compel from any one.

III.

Let us now ask: Who is it that undertakes the demanded abstraction from all being? or, in which of the two series does it occur? Evidently, in the series of philosophical argumentation, for another series does not exist.

That, to which the philosopher holds, and from which he promises to explain all that is to be explained, is the consciousness, the subject. This subject he will, therefore, have to comprehend free from all representation of being, in order first to show up in it the ground of all being—of course, for itself. But if he abstracts from all being of and for the subject, nothing pertains to it but an acting. Particularly in relation to being is it the acting. The philosopher will, therefore, have to comprehend it in its acting, and from this point the aforementioned double series will first arise.

The fundamental assertion of the philosopher, as such, is this: as soon as the Ego is for itself, there necessarily arises for it at the same time an external being; the ground of the latter lies in the former; the latter is conditioned by the former. Self-consciousness and consciousness of a Something which is not that Self, is necessarily united; but the former is the conditioning and the latter the conditioned. To prove this assertion—not, perhaps, by argumentation, as valid for a system of a being in itself, but by observation of the original proceeding of reason, as valid for reason—the philosopher will have to show, firstly, how the Ego is and becomes for itself; and secondly, that this its own being for itself is not possible, unless at the same time there arises for it an external being, which is not it.

The first question, therefore, would be: how is the Ego for itself? and the first postulate: think thyself! construe the conception of thyself, and observe how thou proceedest in this construction.

The philosopher affirms that every one who will but do so, must necessarily discover that in the thinking of that conception, his activity, as intelligence, returns into itself, makes itself its own object.

If this is correct and admitted, the manner of the construction of the Ego, the manner of its being for itself, (and we never speak of another being,) is known; and the philosopher may then proceed to prove that this act is not possible without another act, whereby there arises for the Ego an external being.

It is thus, indeed, that the Science of Knowledge proceeds. Let us now consider with what justice it so proceeds.

IV.

First of all: what in the described act belongs to the philosopher, as philosopher, and what belongs to the Ego he is to observe? To the Ego nothing but the return to itself; everything else to the description of the philosopher, for whom, as mere fact, the system of all experience, which in its genesis the Ego is now to produce under his observation, has already existence.

The Ego returns _into itself_, is the assertion. Has it not then already being in advance of this return into itself, and independently thereof? Nay, must it not already be for itself, if merely for the possibility of making itself the object of its action? Again, if this is so, does not the whole philosophy presuppose what it ought first to explain?

I answer by no means. First through this act, and only by means of it—by means of an acting upon an acting—does the Ego _originally_ come to be _for itself_. It is only _for the philosopher_ that it has previous existence as a fact, because the philosopher has already gone through the whole experience. He must express himself as he does, to be but understood, and he can so express himself, because he long since has comprehended all the conceptions necessary thereunto.

Now, to return to the observed Ego: what is this its return into itself? Under what class of modifications of consciousness is it to be posited? It is no _comprehending_, for a comprehending first arises through the opposition of a non-Ego, and by the determining of the Ego in this opposition. Hence it is a mere _contemplation_. It is therefore not consciousness, not even self-consciousness. Indeed, it is precisely because this act alone produces no consciousness, that we proceed to another act, through which a non-Ego originates for us, and that a progress of philosophical argumentation and the required deduction of the system of experience becomes possible. That act only places the Ego in the possibility of self-consciousness—and thus of all other consciousness—but does not generate real consciousness. That act is but a part of the whole act of the intelligence, whereby it effects its consciousness; a part which only the philosopher separates from the whole act, but which is not originally so separated in the Ego.

But how about the philosopher, as such? This self-constructing Ego is none other than his own. He can contemplate that act of the Ego only in himself, and, in order to contemplate it, must realize it. He produces that act arbitrarily and with freedom.

But—this question may and has been raised—if your whole philosophy is erected upon something produced by an act of mere arbitrariness, does it not then become a mere creature of the brain, a pure imaginary picture? How is the philosopher going to secure to this purely subjective act its objectivity? How will he secure to that which is purely empirical and a moment of time—i. e. the time in which the philosopher philosophizes—its originality? How can he prove that his present free thinking in the midst of the series of his representations does correspond to the necessary thinking, whereby he first became for himself, and through which the whole series of his representations has been started?