his
truly spiritual relation to Frau von Stein a safe harbor for his
tempestuous feelings. He had been brought face to face, during his
sojourn in Italy, with the wonders of classic art. The study of
Spinoza and his own scientific investigations had confirmed him in a
thoroughly monistic view of the world and strengthened his belief in a
universal law which makes evil itself an integral part of the good.
The example of Schiller as well as his own practical experience had
taught him that the untrammelled living out of personality must go
hand in hand with incessant work for the common welfare of mankind.
All this is reflected in the completed Part First of 1808; it finds
its most comprehensive expression in Part Second, the bequest of the
dying poet to posterity.

Restless endeavor, incessant striving from lower spheres of life to
higher ones, from the sensuous to the spiritual, from enjoyment to
work, from creed to deed, from self to humanity--this is the moving
thought of Goethe's completed _Faust_. The keynote is struck in the
"Prologue in Heaven." Faust, so we hear, the daring idealist, the
servant of God, is to be tempted by Mephisto, the despiser of reason,
the materialistic scoffer. But we also hear, and we hear it from God's
own lips, that the tempter will not succeed. God allows the devil free
play, because he knows that he will frustrate his own ends. Faust will
be led astray--"man errs while he strives"; but he will not abandon
his higher aspirations; through aberration and sin he will find the
true way toward which his inner nature instinctively guides him. He
will not eat dust. Even in the compact with Mephisto the same
ineradicable optimism asserts itself. Faust's wager with the devil is
nothing but an act of temporary despair, and the very fact that he
does not hope anything from it shows that he will win it. He knows
that sensual enjoyment will never give him satisfaction; he knows
that, as long as he gives himself up to self-gratification, there will
never be a moment to which he would say: "Abide, thou art so fair!"
From the outset we feel that by living up to the very terms of the
compact, Faust will rise superior to it; that by rushing into the
whirlpool of earthly experience and passion, his being will be
heightened and expanded.

And thus, everything in the whole drama, all its incidents and all its
characters, become episodes in the rounding out of this grand,
all-comprehensive personality. Gret