ave God constantly on their tongues He becomes a
phrase, a mere name uttered without any accompanying idea. If they were
penetrated by God's greatness, they would rather be dumb and for very
reverence not dare to name Him.'

Goethe accepted not without a certain amount of pride the title given
him by some of his contemporaries--that of 'the last of the Heathen.'
But which of us will doubt the sincerity or fail to be touched by the
humility of his words: 'And yet perhaps I am such a Christian as Christ
Himself would wish me to be.'

There are doubtless but very few (and I confess that I am not one of
these select few) who can accept Goethe in all his many-sidedness. We
ordinary mortals are incapable of such Protean versatility and are sure
to find points, often many and important points, where we are strongly
repelled by his teachings and his personality. The idealist is
scandalized by his vigorous realism, the realist and materialist by his
idealism, the dogmatist by his free thought, the free-thinker by his
reverence towards religion, while the scientific expert is apt to regard
him as a mere poet, oblivious or ignorant of the fact that, although
without scientific training, besides propounding theories on Colour
which were for a time accepted by leading authorities on that subject
and besides making a discovery which had escaped the investigations of
professional Anatomists (that of the intermaxillary bone), Goethe was
the discoverer of a law, that of the metamorphosis of leaves and
flowers, which may be said to have almost revolutionised the science of
Botany.

Let us now turn to our subject and attempt to trace to its first sources
this strange and suggestive legend of Faust, the great Magician.

And first, we shall see our way more clearly if we consider what is
really the nature of that magic, or black art, which played such an
important part in the medieval imagination.

Perhaps we may say that by 'magic' was denoted that art by which one was
supposed to gain a knowledge of, and a power over, the prime elements of
Nature and its cosmic potencies, so as to be able to combine and use
them independently of natural laws. It is this power that Faust in
Goethe's play longs to attain:

... To find the force
That binds the world and guides its course,
Its germs and vital powers explore
And peddle with worthless words no more.

In almost every age and nation we find a vital Power, an