i. Thy highest aspiration nowadays
would be to find the mechanical equivalent of thought--to prove that
Shakespeare's and Dante's imagination was due only to a slightly
abnormal movement of brain-molecules--to find some method of measuring
faith, hope and charity in foot-pounds and thine own genius in electric
volts. Thou wouldst live and die, as other eminent scientists of these
latter days have done, in the certain hope and faith of demonstrating
irrefutably that this curious phenomenon which we call 'life' is nothing
but the chemical action set up by the carbonic acid and ammonia of the
protoplasm.

As they walk and talk there appears a black dog ranging to and fro
through a field, as if on the track of game. Ever nearer and nearer he
circles, and in his wake, as it appears to Faust, trails a flickering
phosphorescent gleam. But Wagner ridicules the idea as an optical
delusion. _He_ sees nothing but an ordinary black poodle. 'Call him,' he
says, 'and he'll come fawning on you, or sit up and do his tricks, or
jump into the water after sticks.' The poodle follows them--and makes
himself at home by the stove in Faust's study.

Faust has thus, after his first contact with the outer world of
humanity, returned once more to his cell--to the little world of his own
thoughts and feelings. He finds himself once more amidst his piled-up
books, his crucibles and retorts, his bones and skulls. He lights his
lamp and feels the old familiar glow of intellectual satisfaction. _But
the poodle is there._ Faust has brought home with him something that
will now haunt him to the last moment of his life. There has been
awakened in his nature the germ of that acorn (to use Goethe's metaphor
with regard to Hamlet) that will soon strike root and shatter the vase
in which it is planted.

At present he is almost unconscious of this new presence. He is buried
in thought, and his thoughts lead him toward the question of Revelation.
He is drawn to take up a Bible and turns, with a mind full of
metaphysical curiosity, to the passage 'In the beginning was the [Greek:
logos]--the Word.' More than once there comes from the poodle a growl of
disapprobation. Faust threatens to turn him out, and proceeds with his
biblical criticism.... 'In the beginning was the [Greek: logos].' How
shall he translate [Greek: logos]? It cannot mean merely a 'word.' ... A
word must have meaning, _thought_--and thought is nothing without
_act_.... So this 'Word,' this