iOETHE 
 
 o o o o o o o 
 
 Representative of the 
 Modern Art Spirit 
 
 o o o o o o o 
 
 By WILLIAM M. BRYANT 
 
 l\ ) 
 

 THE GIFT OF 
 
 . '^ ^ ^2^., :^. 
 
 
 ...Ar.H.t.l^. "^.Z^/f-^:. 
 
. .193.89?" ""'™""'>"-"'"^ 
 
 3 1924 026 180 343 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026180343 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 
 
 I. The World-Energy aud its Self-Conserya- 
 
 lion.— 12 mo $1.50 
 
 II. The Philosophy of Art, being the second part 
 
 of Hegel's uEsthetik, in which are unfolded, 
 historically, the three great fundamental 
 phases of the art-activity of the world. 
 Translated and accompanied with an Intro- 
 ductory Essay giving an outline of the 
 entire ^sthetik. (Out of print.) 
 
 III. Philosopby of Landscape Painting.— 16 mo., 
 
 pp. 300 $1 00 
 
 IV. Eternity, a Thread in the Weaving of a 
 
 Life. — 16 mo., pp. 40 $0 25 
 
 V. A Syllabns of Psychology.— Second Edition |o 25 
 
 VI. A Text-Book of Psychology. (In prepara- 
 tion.) 
 
 VII. The Sonl of Myths. (To appear shortly.) 
 
■piRF'TM" 
 
 Men 
 
 T-^T 
 
 ©BEIP i^IT 5fI11T 
 
 ^MTE SO@@L ®F rHIL@S@riHlT/'' ST, ^^-^.^^ «u«,. 
 
 Kimn Ho lETi^r 
 
 1663; 
 TmE RlVEf^lDE PCiBLI^MINCj CO. 
 706 Olive .StkeeTj 
 •5r, Loaia, Mo. 
 
 q? 
 
 CcPYnOMTED - - 1669. 
 
"if , 
 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 iLLi^n To M/^iKiis, LL ho 
 
 Leader of PhujO-sopmic Thouqut 
 IN America. 
 
mtrm 
 
 s said to have once exclaimed : "Happy is he who from his 
 1 youth knows what art is." In this respect, as in so many 
 others, he is himself to be counted as one of the happy. For if the 
 art of which he had knowledge in his youth was not of the highest 
 degree of excellence, it was nevertheless of such character and 
 variety as greatly to stimulate his interest in every department of 
 art. 
 
 At the same time, during the period of his youth, there was a 
 veritable confusion of tongues in Germany respecting the proper 
 standard of work and achievement in art. And this was, as might 
 be expected, especially true of poetry — the most complex of all 
 the forms of art and, as it proved, the form in which Goethe was 
 to unfold his finest powers. 
 
 Safely out of this confusion of tongues he was to be led by the 
 clear voice of the greatest of English singers. Other influences 
 there were indeed, but this was the greatest of all for him. Under 
 the influence of Shakespeare, Goethe became perfectly clear that 
 the heart, the very soul of a great poem, as of any other work of 
 art, must be a great theme ; so that the poem itself is but a living 
 idea spontaneously unfolded into a rhythmic organic form. 
 
 It is in this relation between these two great poets that I find 
 the clue to what I shall have to say to you at the present time. 
 
 Goethe himself makes explicit reference to the dependence o f 
 the individual upon the characteristics of his own time, and declares 
 it to be inconceivable that one should be the sam^ individual had 
 he been born ten years earlier or ten years later. 
 
Applying this principle to the case of Shakespeare, an acute 
 critic has remarked that the preeminence of this poet over all others 
 is to be explained, not merely by his transcendent genius, but also 
 by the altogether unique conditions of the mental and moral life of 
 his time. 
 
 Within the century a new world had opened up for exploration 
 and conquest. Everywhere new hopes had been awakened and the 
 intellectual life quickened. Through this process the untitled man 
 had given abundant evidence of his worth; so that there was 
 emerging into ever clearer view a title likely to prove superior to all 
 others — manhood for its own sake. 
 
 To this class without titles, but creating for itself a new title, 
 the writers as well as the performers of dramas belonged. The great 
 world itself had become a most fascinating stage, and men and 
 women, without distinction of rank, had proven to be players of 
 most extraordinary parts upon this stage. 
 
 There was a wonderful access of life in man, and especially in 
 the man of low degree who had hitherto seemed to have no ground 
 for confident self-assertion. Now all had changed. And with the 
 buoyant sense of achievement there grew a desire to see the re- 
 enactment of the great deeds of the world. 
 
 With such conditions the revival of the drama on a new basis 
 was btit inevitable. Equally natural too was it that, as our critic 
 further suggests : " The distinctive feature of the English drama 
 should be this : that it had its birth among the common people ; 
 that its appeals were made to common people ; and that its growth 
 was the natural development of the forest plant, not the artificial 
 development of the conservatory." 
 
 In other words, the English drama is specifically the outgrowth 
 of extraordinary conditions, through which men were awakening to 
 a more rational view of themselves and of the world in which they 
 lived. 
 
 Evidently then, if we would rightly estimate Shakespeare in his 
 character as a man of genius, we must regard him as not merely 
 
 — 4 — 
 
the finest product, but also as a perfectly natural product of that 
 great, unique period of discovery in which the Middle Ages cul- 
 minated, and which also served to usher in the Modem Time. 
 
 The world of antiquity had been characterized by the mutual 
 exclusion and antagonism of different peoples. The period still so 
 persistently called the Dark Ages, was characterized by the forcible 
 subordination indeed of one people by another, but also, and not 
 less decidedly by the complete blending of the conquerors with the 
 conquered. 
 
 It seemed, orrather it now seems to us on first view, to have been 
 a period of utter confusion. And yet, on closer view, the confusion 
 is seen to have been but the outer aspect of the profound process 
 of the interi-a&vaa. of the finest elements then existing in humanity. 
 Race blended with race. Thought fused with thought. Language 
 mingled with language. Europe was a vast laboratory. European 
 history was a mighty and prolonged chemical reaction ; and the 
 product of all this activity was: that new and still more finely en- 
 dowed races sprang up, with vastly increased powers of intelligence, 
 requiring and spontaneously producing a correspondingly increased 
 complexity of modes of expression. 
 
 The middle age period was a period of ever intensifying eager- 
 ness and reasonableness of inquiry. Hence it could not fail to 
 culminate in a great period of Discovery — the crowning triumph in 
 which is the matured, and yet ever maturing, self-discovery of Man. 
 
 It was, doubtless, in some sense a period well worthy of being 
 named the Dark Ages. But in the midst of it all there was ever 
 working a divine process which was but the continuation of what 
 was long ago symbolized as the "Light shining in darkness," while 
 at every step in the process it became more and more evident that 
 "the darkness quencheth it not" and can never have power to per- 
 manently reduce its splendor. 
 
 To repeat, then, the man of antiquity was limited by the very 
 conditions of his Ufe to the narrowest provincialism. The man of 
 the Middle Ages in his turn was swept onward by a current he was 
 
 -5- 
 
unable to comprehend. But this current may now be seen to have 
 been essentially nothing else than the determined struggle of human 
 reason toward complete self-consciousness and therefore toward 
 genuine Freedom. And this struggle it was which, with ever^n- 
 creasing victory, prepared the way for, and also gave rise to. Mod- 
 ern Man who, as a conscious citizen of the world of Reason, is now 
 working out, and must henceforth continue to work out, his own 
 salvation — no longer indeed with fear and trembling, but rather, 
 as becomes him, with boundless hope and indestructible self- 
 reliance. 
 
 This is especially the character of the Modem Man as por- 
 trayed in the dramas of Shakespeare. Nay, it is precisely this 
 unconquerable enthusiasm, this divinity in humanity, that consti- 
 tutes the central theme of all modern history. Everywhere man is 
 seen to be approaching with ever-increasing steadiness, and along 
 all the natural avenues of the world, toward his own maturity as a 
 rational being and hence toward his own complete reconciliation 
 with the divine World-Order. 
 
 And if the process, now visibly going forward in and through 
 modern man, seems less miraculous than the life of the man of 
 mediaeval times it is nevertheless more truly godlike. The struggle 
 is not less earnest, but far more intelligent, and thus it is successful 
 in a far higher sense and in far higher degree. 
 
 It is, I repeat, this concrete unfolding of Divinity in Humanity 
 that constitutes the central theme of all modern art. And I have 
 now to ask you to consider with me the question : How far may 
 we reasonably regard Goethe as a representative of the spirit that, 
 on the one hand, creates our modern works of art, and, on the other 
 hand, is appealed to in those works ? 
 
 The true answer can, as 1 think, be found in no other way so 
 well — perhaps in no other way at all — than through a consideration 
 of successive characteristic works in which Goethe's own views as 
 to art are unfolded. 
 
 In this way we shall see that in this as in other respects Goethe's 
 
views passed through several clearly distinct stages in attaining 
 maturity. And we shall also find that the fully matured Goethe is 
 the true representative of the modern art-spirit. 
 
 Three of his works especially serve to illustrate the essential 
 stages of progress in his general estimate of the nature and functions 
 of art. The first is the Goetz von Berlichingen. The second is the 
 Iphigenie auf Tauris. The third is the Faust, and especially the 
 Helena, or so much of the second part of Faust as deals directly 
 with the relation between the Classic and the Romantic world. 
 
 The Goetz von Berlichingen is the earliest of Goethe's serious 
 attempts at dramatic representation. In it the youth of but twenty- 
 two years proves himself the enthusiastic disciple of Shakespeare. 
 He will not be bound by the letter of the narrow, conventional rule 
 of the "unities." He will simply note how the world he has chosen 
 to represent unfolds into outer reality through the workings of its 
 own inner nature. Thus and not otherwise will he portray it. 
 
 The theme is historical. More specifically it is the transition 
 from the feudal to the imperial phase of the social organism. 
 
 In the development of this theme the heroic individual is made 
 the representative of the self-asserting exclusiveness characteristic 
 of the feudal system. His noble qualities compel our admiration 
 and even our personal sympathy. 
 
 And yet a calm judgment no less certainly compels our assent 
 to the justice of his overthrow. It is true that his exalted personal 
 integrity shines out all the more conspicuously in contrast with the 
 unscrupulous cunning of those who represent the opposite cause. 
 Thus far his indignation at their want of honor is wholly justified. 
 And so long as the cause is lost sight of in the individual, we can- 
 not but regard the culmination of this drama as an immoral one — 
 though even here the evil-working individuals are represented as 
 suffering the just penalties of their evil deeds. 
 
 On the other hand, however, there is offered us in this drama by 
 no means a portrayal of a conflict between mere private interests. 
 Such conflict appears only incidentally, and not as the real theme of 
 
the representation. Rather the overthrow of Goetz is demanded by 
 the highest law of morality, because he has identified himself with 
 the doomed cause of exclusivism — doomed because it bars the 
 way to the further development of man. 
 
 The perpetuation of feudalism is the perpetuation of provincial- 
 ism. It is to hopelessly confine the growing youth of the world in a 
 cradle of oak and thus to make of him a monstrous dwarf. 
 
 Thus, however abundant, and varied, and substantial may be 
 the grounds for admiration of the hero as an individual, his life 
 must inevitably prove a failure, for the reason that his life has come 
 to depend for its chief significance upon a cause which in its very 
 nature is doomed to perish. 
 
 On the contrary the imperial cause stands for the widening and 
 enriching of the conditions of human progress. It is a means — and 
 at this stage an essential means — serving to lift man out of the 
 dwarfage of provincialism and to make of him a citizen of the 
 world, symmetrical, and of full stature. 
 
 Hence it is that the representatives of this cause, even though 
 they may be hopelessly dwarfed as individuals, are yet borne onward 
 to certain success in its outward, conspicuous form. Their security 
 as individuals, their only real significance in the world, lies in the 
 fact that they are identified with a cause which in its very nature is 
 destined to present victory and to the final conquest of the world — 
 though in the course of this conquest the cause in its outward 
 aspect must undergo many and radical transformations. 
 
 It is better then that the misguided hero, while preserving his" 
 personal integrity, should fail in the outer purpose of his life rather 
 than that, through his success in this mistaken outer purpose, he 
 should be the cause of failure in the essential inward lives of multi- 
 tudes of other individuals. On the other hand it is better also that 
 a few unworthy individuals should be allowed a momentary outward 
 success so long as, by being the chance representatives of a valid 
 cause, they prove to be instruments in advancing the conditions for 
 the truest success on the part of a people, which truest success con- 
 
 — 8 — 
 
sists in the symetrical unfolding of their intellectual and moral life. 
 
 At the beginning of the Christian era it was better that the 
 legions of Varus should be destroyed, so that the German people 
 might have unrestricted opportunity to develop the noble qualities 
 of their race to maturity. At the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury of the Christian era^ when the German people had matured 
 those qualities so far as was possible for them to do in isolation 
 from the other elements of a fully rounded civilization, it was better 
 that such men as Goetz — the representatives of continued exclu- 
 sivism — should perish, so that the German people might be brought 
 into complete organic relations with the rest of the world, and thus 
 enter with all their noble vigor into genuine, cosmopolitan life. 
 
 Considered in and for himself each individual is of infinite sig- 
 nificance. But any one individual considered with reference to his 
 mere accidental private interests proves to be wholly insignificant, 
 and especially when he puts himself in opposition to the essential, 
 permanent interests of all other individuals. 
 
 Nay, to do this is to put himself in opposition to that universal, 
 ideal, or true self toward the realization of which it is the common 
 duty of all men to struggle. In other words : when any one indi- 
 vidual enters into conflict with all other individuals, he also in that 
 very fact enters into fatal conflict with his own true self. And the 
 consequence of this is, necessarily, not self-fulfillment, but self-annul- 
 ment. 
 
 Such, as it seems to me, is the central thought of this earliest of 
 Goethe's dramatic representations. 
 
 But what has all this to do with Goethe as a representative of 
 the modern art-spirit ? Explicitly, nothing. Implicitly, very much. 
 
 Goethe speaks here as an artist, not as an art-critic. He has 
 discovered the chief of all the unities and revels — ^nay, rather, as yet 
 he struggles — in the discovery. Underlying his rejection of the 
 formal unities of the traditional drama there appears the clear, un- 
 hesitating acceptance of that vital, all-inclusive unity which is to 
 become the guiding principle of modern art and which may be 
 
 — 9 — 
 
named : the absolute continuity of human Life. The life of every 
 man is bound up organically with the life of every other man. 
 
 In this, too, there is involved the corollary that provincialism or 
 exclusivism is no less fatal to the ultimate interests of art than to 
 the ultimate interests of any other phase of man's existence. 
 
 At the same time it is not to be denied that this special applica- 
 tion to art of the fundamental idea dramatically unfolded in the 
 Goetz is only latent there. The artist is ever a spontaneous critic ; 
 the true art-critic has ever latent within him the essential character- 
 istics of the artist. To which of these two classes any individual 
 will ultimately be found to belong must depend upon whether the 
 critical or the creative predominates within him. 
 
 With Goethe there can be no question that the creative pre- 
 dominates through his whole life. Nor can there be any question 
 that through his whole life the critical unfolded continuously into 
 ever greater clearness and power as a factor of his mind. For this 
 reason is he known as a "philosophic poet." Reflection comes 
 more and more to the surface, even in his poetic work, as he ad- 
 vances in years. Hence while the guiding principle of his art-work 
 is to be traced out from that work itself, yet suggestions of utmost 
 value to the art-critic are found in explicit, though detached, form 
 throughout his conversations and other incidental utterances. 
 
 A marked advance in both the creative and the critical aspect of 
 Goethe's power is evident when we turn from the Goetz to the Iphi- 
 genia. The former is and remains a prose drama. It represents 
 the prosaic-historical. In it too Goethe is still himself so far a pro- 
 vincial as to dwell with decided partiality upon the hero of provin- 
 cialism. Doubtless the most explicit factor in the motive which 
 impels him to this representation is the feeling that the Teutonic 
 hero should be vindicated. And yet, as we have seen, he accepts 
 without hesitation the necessity of the final overthrow of his hero. 
 If prose is felt to be the proper form of expression in which to rep- 
 resent the career of so one-sided a hero, yet the true art-spirit, 
 
already so vigorous and clear in Goethe, will not permit that, in the 
 culmination, poetic justice should be left unsatisfied. 
 
 The Iphigenia, on the other hand, passes through a remarkable 
 transformation, or even series of transformations, being first written 
 out in prose and afterward with a fairly loving care and with intense 
 enthusiasm developed into the beautiful versified form in which it is 
 now commonly known. 
 
 What interests us here especially however is the new point of 
 view at which Goethe had arrived respecting art. And this again is 
 to be found, partly in the central conception of the drama, partly in 
 the chief inference to be drawn from that conception. 
 
 We have but to note at the outset that the selection of the 
 theme indicates the character of the newly unfolded tendency, while 
 in the mode of its treatment we may trace the limits of the newly 
 formed creed. 
 
 The theme indeed is of special significance. It is found, too, 
 not in the Teutonic world, but in the classic world of antiquity. 
 The pure maiden who was about to take upon herself the sacred 
 obligations of wedlock has been sacrificed for the purpose of secur- 
 ing the restoration to the family of one who has proven herself 
 unfaithful to those obligations. 
 
 At the same time Helen, as the wife of a Grecian prince, repre- 
 sents the sacred institution of the family, and this in direct con- 
 nection with the state, through the power of which alone the family 
 is rendered secure. And not only so, but as the most beautiful of 
 women^ she represents the fundamental art-interest of symetry, of 
 perfect rhythmic form. 
 
 Doubly then is her restoration demanded — on the one hand, that 
 the morality of social life may be reaffirmed as inviolable ; and on 
 the other hand that the world of art may not permanently lose one 
 of its essential factors. The destiny of Helen is the destiny at once 
 of morality and of art. 
 
 Nor can these elements of human life be preserved — still less can 
 they be restored when lost — otherwise than through sacrifice ; and 
 
no sacrifice can be acceptable to the Gods save as the sacrifice is 
 based upon purity of purpose and of life. 
 
 Neither can the unwilling sacrifice avail aught. Agamemnon 
 may indeed present his daughter as an offering to the offended 
 divinity, but unless the will of that daughter fully coincide in the 
 offering, preferring the furtherance of the sacred cause of the 
 Greeks to her own happiness, the sacrifice will be to no purpose ; as 
 even Euripides did not fail to see and emphasize in his representa- 
 tion of this theme. 
 
 Thus Iphigenia also represents a divine element ; and this 
 element is the very soul of that of which Helen more conspicuously 
 forms the type. Unless vivified by purity the element of perfect 
 rhythmic beauty cannot survive as such, but must swiftly pass into 
 monstrous forms. 
 
 It is this divine element of purity, already clearly involved in the 
 ancient myth, which Goethe takes up and unfolds into beautiful 
 form akin to the finest models of classic grace, and yet so as to 
 radiate from every line the deeper estimate of purity which the 
 modern mind has formed. 
 
 Even to the mind of antiquity, indeed the clue to this deeper 
 estimate was in some sense already visible. There too the sacrifice 
 which the pure one is called upon to make shall in no sense be a 
 sacrifice of purity itself. If from Iphigenia there is taken away the 
 happiness and sacred offices of wedded hfe, she is given in lieu of 
 this a miraculously preserved life with a wholly divine destiny. 
 
 Significantly enough, too, is this secured to her; for in the 
 moment of sacrifice she is caught up unhurt and borne away to 
 unknown regions by the very Goddess at whose demand the sacri- 
 fice has been made. 
 
 Truly from the solution of one problem another mystery 
 beckons ! And it is in pursuance of this divine intimation that 
 Goethe has been able to discover and make plain to us the positive, 
 diviner import that from the first lay enfolded in this myth. 
 
 It is true that the divinity does not permit the daughter of 
 
Agamemnon to enter upon the expected office as priestess in that 
 temple of purity known by the name of Home, but the same divine 
 will has decreed that through her sacrifice on this side, she shall soon 
 find herself officiating as priestess before the altar in the temple of 
 the Goddess of Purity herself — ^her mission henceforth being to tame 
 the wild passions of men and bring them into glad harmony with 
 the same divine will to which she freely bows, and thus to secure 
 their ennobling along with her own. 
 
 Nay, the very furies themselves shall lose all their power to cause 
 distress to him who bows as suppUant when she ministers. 
 
 It is this richer phase of significance that Goethe discerns in 
 the myth and unfolds for us with so much enthusiasm in this beau- 
 tiful work. 
 
 And now with this central thought of the work in view, let us 
 see what further intimation it may have for us. 
 
 It is to be noted in the first place, that while Goethe was occu- 
 pied in developing this poem intaits final form, his mind was com- 
 pletely filled and satisfied with it ; and yet no long time had passed 
 when it seemed foreign and indifierent to him. 
 
 Through it he had seemingly been carried for the time quite over 
 into the classic phase of life, and out of the modern. On the other 
 hand, with the reaction from this extreme state of absorption in the 
 modes of thought and feeling peculiar to antiquity, he seemed for a 
 time again to separate himself completely from those modes of 
 thought and feeling and to hve exclusively as a modem. 
 
 Of course in either case this could not be altogether so in fact, 
 but this oscillation serves to show how much, even yet, the classic 
 and the modern (in the sense of the romantic) phases of thought 
 and feeling, lacked of being completely blended in Goethe's mental 
 life. 
 
 In this poem then, as I venture to think, there lies latent a sug- 
 gestion that belongs to and grows out of the distinctively modem 
 consciousness as represented by Goethe himself, even when most 
 completely absorbed in the modes of the antique spirit. 
 
 — 13 — 
 
For, after all, Goethe is not merely Goethe. He is necessarily 
 in greater or less degree a representative of the modern modes of 
 consciousness. And the fuller, the richer, the grander his individu- 
 ality, the more perfectly does that representative character belong 
 to him. 
 
 Thus, when he works upon a theme drawn from antiquity, it is 
 still as a modern that he works. All the essential interests of the 
 modern world are necessarily his interests. The deepest, worthiest 
 sentiments of the modern spirit are his sentiments. By these is he 
 actuated. These are of the very soul of his finest work. As a 
 poet, he can neither speak nor breathe without them. They are his 
 by inheritance. They are his by education. They are his by over- 
 whelming preference. He could not live out of them even if he 
 would, and clearly he would not even if he could. 
 
 For this reason it seems to me to be no mere illusion if we find 
 in this nobly beautiful poem an implicit suggestion of the subtle, re- 
 fining factor that is evermore completely permeating and trans- 
 figuring modern life. 
 
 For this we must look to the essential aspects of Christianity as 
 being the vital element of the modem world. 
 
 When this faith began unfolding in the world the element of 
 sensuous beauty had long been severed from the element of purity. 
 The Asiatic tendency had once more come and taken possession of 
 Helen. But now instead of bearing the individual Helen away, 
 that tendency had remained as a deadly corrupting influence in the 
 lands which previously had been the lands of Beauty and Purity in 
 unison. 
 
 No longer was there a whole world of invincible heroes to rise 
 up and join in the rescue of Helen from her false position of union 
 with impurity. On the contrary impurity was welcomed; and 
 instead of heroic believers in the Gods as the defenders of beautiful 
 purity, there was only a world of scoffers at both Purity and the 
 Gods. 
 
 Such the condition of the world into which was born the new 
 
 — 14 — 
 
faith with its infinite insistance upon absolute purity, even of the 
 very heart, as the one condition without which no man could ever 
 hope to behold the Divinity! No wonder then that those who 
 accepted this faith should turn away with horror from forms that, 
 however beautiful outwardly, were still only the more to be feared 
 as allurements toward inward deformity ! 
 
 Far better was it that Iphigenia should be consecrated to per- 
 petual service in the temple of the Goddess of Purity (which now 
 assumed the mystic form of the Church) than that she should 
 become a participant in the life of so corrupt a world ! 
 
 And the ministration of the priestess, through centuries, has not 
 been without avail. The ferocities of the Scythian world have been 
 measurably subdued. The noble Ideal, so long and so faithfully 
 presented to men, has by insensible degrees wrought itself into 
 realization until the priestess has long since become free to resume 
 her place in that other Temple of Purity there to continue securely 
 the same sublime mission. 
 
 The worship of the Madoana — the virgin Mother of God — has 
 been one of the most effective agencies in the rescuing of Helen, 
 the sensuous element in the Beautiful, from all degrading tendencies. 
 By degrees this worship is becoming substantial and universal. The 
 aureole and the nimbus have vanished from our canvases, not 
 because there is less faith than formerly, but rather because faith 
 has deepened into clearer vision. The divinity of the one Madonna 
 is not denied because of the recognition that divinity pertains to 
 Motherhood as such ; nor is the divinity of the Son of Mary in any 
 way endangered because the world is coming to see, in the perpet- 
 ual development of conscious units in the eternal Process of Crea- 
 tion, the ceaseless birth of the Son of God. 
 
 This vital unity and continuity of human life as the progressive 
 interfusion of the Moral and the Beautiful seems to me to constitute 
 the finest thread of significance in the poem we are just now con- 
 sidering. As portrayed by Goethe Iphigenia is the exalted spirit of 
 spotless purity, and that in its most positive significance. She rep- 
 
 — 15 — 
 
resents conscience rendered stainlessly beautiful, as well as invinci- 
 ble against evil, through being completely interfused with sun-clear 
 intelligence and utmost delicacy of truthfulness. 
 
 That is what I conceive to be in all men the "eternal- womanly" 
 which, through all confusions and spite of all unworthiness, still 
 lingers and ministers as the veritable priestess in the holiest of tem- 
 ples to lead us above. 
 
 And yet, permit me once more to repeat, this lies rather as a 
 latent intimation in Goethe's Iphigenia. The full development of 
 this point of view required the entire life's work of Goethe. And 
 this entire life's work, it is well known, is represented most ade- 
 quately in the Faust. 
 
 In that poem we see portrayed the life of a man of superior 
 natural gifts. When first introduced to us he has already passed 
 through the traditional forms of culture only to find, when he has 
 fairly entered into the struggle of life, that all ordinary human ambi- 
 tions are but empty mockeries. Thus there arises within him, and 
 yet as if before him, the "spirit of negation" whereby the vaUdity of 
 human Kfe itself comes to be questioned. Man is everything or 
 nothing. But which is he ? 
 
 Faust can find true answer to this question only by traversing 
 the entire world — ^partly goaded, partly lured by this same "spirit of 
 negation." 
 
 Recklessly following a law of his own nature he presently finds 
 himself in deadly conflict with a far higher law which inheres in his 
 nature no less certainly. As the inevitable result his outer world 
 crumbles into ruin, while his inner world becomes the wild vortex of 
 Walpurgis-night. 
 
 Man then is at least a destroying, suffering Reality. Hence 
 with returning sanity there comes a supreme effort toward expiation. 
 Faust would assume the consequences of his own deed. In this 
 lies the one hope of restoration for himself; and the more since it 
 is not the thought of self-restoration that prompts him. 
 
 But those whom he has involved in his misdeeds — they too have 
 
 — 16 — 
 
been moral agents. The deed of the individual cannot be indi- 
 vidual merely. Margaret, too, can find atonement only through 
 expiation; and though the spirit of negation sees only the fact 
 that she is judged, yet the spirit of affirmation beholds in this 
 judgment that true justice, which is not merely "tempered with 
 mercy," but which is mercy itself in its veriest reality and through 
 which the lost one is saved. 
 
 Dreaming humanity strays unwittingly into the demonic. But 
 through the anguish inevitably following it awakes to a conscious- 
 ness of the Divine, eagerly lays hold upon the Eternal, and is lifted 
 through madness and death to wholeness and life. 
 
 Man is not merely a destroying, suffering Reality. He is also 
 a struggling, strangely unfolding, but none the less truly divine 
 Reality. 
 
 Thus, even while following the lead of the spirit of negation, 
 Faust has nevertheless learned that his own individual experiences 
 extend beyond himself, and necessarily involve the world in which 
 he lives. 
 
 Hence, to trace out his essential, positive relations to that world 
 and to develop his life in consistency with those relations — this be- 
 comes the one all-absorbing purpose of his further existence. 
 
 Preparatory to this new career his powers are refreshed by imme- 
 diate contact with nature. Here, separated from all human kind, 
 his distracted spirit is soothed and calmed by the subtle influences 
 of sky and air, and verdure-clad earth-masses. Here there can be 
 no evil. A subtle music as of the upper spheres enwraps him and 
 permeates his very being, bringing him by degrees into unison with 
 itself as with a dawning world of Reason. 
 
 He is found seeking sleep, and yet these soothing influences 
 awake him to a nobler consciousness. As with the coming of dawn, 
 Ariel sings of the storming of the hours and cries out : " What 
 wild tumult brings the light?" so Faust finds his "life's pulse beat- 
 ing freshly vital," and with joy greets the earth as one that 
 
 " Wakes and stirs a mighty resolution 
 Toward highest being ever forth to struggle." 
 
 — 17 — 
 
This struggle is itself, in truth, that "wild tumult" which the 
 dawning light of Reason brings. 
 
 Thus, and thus only, is life to be made rhythmical, attuned to 
 nature in the highest sense. 
 
 Faust has sought unconsciousness only so far as to be freed from 
 that special sense of guilt that takes away all power of resolution 
 towards a worthier life. And this attained he is prepared to under- 
 take all labors, to endure all dangers, to make any sacrifice, so that 
 Life in its uttermost Reality may be achieved. 
 
 Nor even here can the spirit of negation be wholly cast aside ; 
 for thus must affirmation also lose its highest import. In due sub- 
 ordination that mode of Reality named " Satan" is but the critical, 
 carefully discriminating power by which man is able to "prove all 
 things," that thus he may surely acquire and securely " hold fast 
 to that which is good," and to that alone. 
 
 Inseparable from each human life then, is this spirit of negation. 
 Only in its excess, only when it becomes perversive, and therefore 
 destructive of the good must it be utterly cast out. 
 
 The affirmative Faust is often quite lost to view indeed. But 
 this is in part because in the human world many forms are them- 
 selves nugatory, and hence must be met by the spirit of negation 
 so that the Good may survive and attain commensurate Reality. 
 
 Thus Faust's first entrance upon his truly positive career, is in 
 connection with the existing forms of political life — that is, in con- 
 nection with the world of human institutions. The critical spirit, 
 viewing these in the forms in which they are practically unfolded at 
 any given time, easily finds them sadly wanting. Hence we see 
 Faust dealing with them in the spirit of irony. They are but tran- 
 sitional forms, and hence cannot be taken altogether seriously by 
 the truly serious man. 
 
 To Faust all this is at the outset scarcely more than a pageant. 
 And yet, dealing with it as such and tracing its natural history, he 
 finds even in the pageantry of the world a factor that is valid, and 
 which must therefore be respected. 
 
 — i8 — 
 
This valid factor is the instinct of play. And this in truth is 
 but the rhythmic form of Reason. In other words, the one valid 
 element in the world's pageant is the soul of Truth in man seek- 
 ing, through these tentative, spectacular modes, to unfold itself into 
 commensurate outer form. 
 
 And this can take place only in progressive stages. Hence, with 
 each succeeding age there is ever increased necessity for critical 
 research. The positive Faust must borrow from the spirit of nega- 
 tion the magic key by which he descends into the mysterious depths 
 of antiquity, and receives from the mystic " mothers " all that is 
 living in the treasures of the Past. 
 
 At first this is undertaken chiefly with the hope of pleasing 
 Royalty — itself ever the chief figure in the world's great pageant. 
 But in the midst of the accomplishment of this initial purpose Faust 
 finds himself seized with a passionate longing to wholly and finally 
 possess as his very own these wondrous living treasures which he 
 has redeemed out of what had been previously looked upon as the 
 dead Past. 
 
 And yet the spirit of negation insists that these are only phan- 
 toms. 
 
 The positive Faust is enraptured at sight of Helena, the glorious 
 image of all that ever was vital in the antique world of art. This 
 surely shall be his and his forevermore. And yet in the self-same 
 instant the negative Faust, in other words the relentless spirit of 
 destructive criticism in the person of Mephistopheles, mockingly 
 declares that this Helena is really nothing but the phantom which 
 Faust himself has just been conjuring up. 
 
 Thus it is that, at the very moment when his life seems at the 
 point of being made perfect by the addition to it of this matchless 
 form of beauty, the form itself vanishes wholly from, his view. In 
 the same way too the form of Paris which had been revealed along with 
 that of Helena, now, by the merest touch of the magic key of critic- 
 ism, bursts into vapor and swiftly melts into utter vacuity, never 
 more to attain to visibility. 
 
 — 19 — 
 
To Faust the shock is overwhelming. For the moment he sinks 
 into unconsciousness ; and when we next see him he is lying in his 
 old narrow Gothic chamber relapsed into provincialism — only the 
 negative phase of his character (that is, Mephistopheles) wholly at 
 home and active. 
 
 And this too is not without its deeper import. For even the 
 positive Faust will be brought to declare at length that : 
 
 "It is full well, indeed, each way to give attention, 
 To see, as e'en the Devil sees, the whole creation." 
 
 At the same time the aggressive Teutonic spirit cannot rest in 
 mere negation. Out of science is bom a new, fresher spirit of 
 inquiry. This new, starry power, Homunculus, takes confident 
 command of the negative Faust — of Mephistopheles himself — and 
 thus bears away the positive Faust to a region suited to the renewal 
 and rationalization of his search for Helena. • 
 
 But this search cannot even yet be successful without a due 
 course of preparation. Faust must pass through the classical Wal- 
 purgis-night before he can find true alliance with Helena. 
 
 And let us note the fact that this classical Walpurgis-night is 
 radically different from that Scythian one through which Faust had 
 already passed. The latter was a culmination in a downward 
 career. The former is the initial stage of an upward career. It 
 shows itself to be mainly a commingling of the ruder, more enig- 
 matic forms evolved from the art-spirit of the ancient world while 
 that spirit was in its initial stage of development. At first the nega- 
 tive Faust finds these forms altogether strange and uncouth. 
 Whence, as Mephistopheles, he meets them in a spirit of mockery. 
 
 But by degrees Faust apprehends their deeper import. Thus he 
 becomes once more positive and learns through these strange forms 
 the way to the discovery of and rational union with Helena ; and 
 Helena, let us l-emember, represents the most refined forms of beauty 
 which were evolved from the art-spirit of the ancient world when 
 that spirit had attained maturity. 
 
 As Faust becomes more familiar with these strange forms he 
 finds himself drawn into fiiendly communion with them. Above all 
 
he questions eagerly the nobler ones among them ; though this is 
 always with reference to the one chief object of his search. 
 
 His first appeal is made to the Sphinx, whose destructive char- 
 acter had ceased with the discovery on the part of man that he him- 
 self is the growing solution of the world's greatest riddle. This 
 mighty being, now grown benevolent, exerts its dim gift of premoni- 
 tion in Faust's behalf and directs him to Cheiron, the noble centaur 
 who had been the wise instructor of Achilles. And Achilles in his 
 turn was, as we know, the greatest of the heroes in that expedition 
 the chief purpose of which was the restoration of Helen to her right- 
 ful place in the world's order. It is this same Cheiron who, with 
 his clearer knowledge and something like scientific foresight, now 
 gives to Faust the clue that shall surely lead him to successful issue 
 of his search. 
 
 The negative Faust (Mephistopheles) asserts himself, indeed, 
 but also speedily becomes entangled and bewildered. But from this 
 state he is rescued by Homunculus, the new starry phase of the 
 positive Faust. 
 
 Thus, passing through ceaseless metamorphoses, and following 
 the clew given him by Cheiron, Faust is brought into vital relation 
 with still more adequate aids. These are now wholly human and 
 appear in the characters of Thales and Anaxagoras, representatives 
 of the more matured intelligence characteristic of the classic world. 
 
 Following such guides he will discover the deeper truth of the 
 world of classic art. 
 
 Thus is figured the pupilage through which Faust must prepare 
 himself to rightly apprehend and thus to gain complete possession 
 of the antique world of Beauty represented by Helena. He can 
 hope for rational union only upon condition that he learn to rightly 
 apprehend the whole course of development of the intellectual and 
 moral life of the Greeks. For it was precisely this life that blos- 
 somed out at length into the classic forms of Beauty. 
 
 From Troy to Marathon and Salamis the supreme mission of 
 the Greeks was to save this divine element of Beauty from destruc- 
 
tion. This too, let us repeat, is the more significant as Helena at 
 the same time represents the sacred moral factor of human life 
 embodied in the family. And here again, though the individual 
 representative may be ever so imworthy, yet even for her own sake, 
 and still more in so far as she represents a sacred institution, no 
 sacrifice can be too great to bring about her restoration. 
 
 Nay, led by the enthusiasm developed into truly divine great- 
 ness through this long heroic struggle the Greeks nourished the ele- 
 ment of Beauty into fullest life. And by preserving its union with 
 the element of morality they had the happiness to behold its devel- 
 opment under their care into its divinest forms. 
 
 And yet they themselves were to become alienated from it and 
 to lose all genuine interest in its preservation. 
 
 Thus at length it is to Faust, who has put aside his provincial- 
 ism and has become a man of world-wide culture, that Helena now 
 comes of her own accord seeking protection and prolonged life. 
 
 And yet no sooner does she appear than her. matchless beauty 
 secures to her the undisputed rank of queen. For through his 
 recent pupilage Faust has not only become the master of a widely- 
 extended world but in so doing he has learned to render to genuine 
 Beauty the homage due to her divinest quaUties. His love for this 
 born queen of the world has become genuinely rational and has 
 thus assumed a transfigured form. 
 
 And now from this union of the Classic and the Romantic 
 phases of the human spirit there is born Euphorion, the clear and 
 fearless art-spirit of the distinctively modern world, whose work is 
 everywhere characterized by a consciousness both of the unity of 
 the world and of the divine nature and destiny of man. 
 
 Euphorion appears wilful, indeed, refusing recognition of all 
 outer authority. Neither Faust nor Helena, neither the rules of 
 Classic art on the one hand nor those of the Romantic spirit on the 
 other, can altogether control him. He knows no law but the law of 
 rational self-consistency, which often, indeed, in the initial stages of 
 its practical development seems little else than mere caprice. Tra- 
 
dition merely as such is impatiently set aside. And yet he that 
 "hopeth all things" also "endureth all things" — it may be even death 
 itself — in his pursuit of what seems to him of divinest significance. 
 
 Above all things indeed that which is of divinest significance 
 must ever be the exclusive object of pursuit to this new spirit. Not 
 the accidental, but the essential; not the fleeting but the abiding is 
 its aim. 
 
 Evidently then the modern art-spirit as represented by Goethe 
 repudiates absolutely the dictum that "the first rule of art is to 
 please." On the contrary, the first rule of all genuine art, and of 
 modern art more than of any other, is : Absolute faithfulness to 
 Truth. And the faithfulness of art to Truth is this : that it shall 
 make Truth pleasing and that alone. 
 
 True art, like true human effort of every kind, is addressed to 
 rational, normal human beings. Doubtless to please them is the 
 proper task of art. And art can please a ratiortal human soul only 
 in two ways : positively by exhibiting the True in its native beauty ; 
 and negatively by exhibiting the untrue in its native deformity. 
 
 Nor can the latter be the exclusive, nor even the chief, content 
 of any genuine work of art. The monstrous can be admitted into 
 such work only in contrast with and in distinct subordination to the 
 symmetrical, the indestructibly vital and rational. 
 
 The cry of "art for art's sake" is but a thinly disguised reappear- 
 ance of the ancient sophism that "man is the measure of all 
 things." It is altogether ambiguous. It is not the purpose of art 
 to please a degraded taste. 
 
 And if this is once admitted, then it follows that true art and 
 morality can never be divorced — that the highest and sole task of 
 art is to represent to mankind the beautiful forms into which Truth 
 in its native character must forever unfold. 
 
 Nay according to Goethe's representation each age must strug- 
 gle to find appropriate artistic expression for the richest phases of 
 truth to which fi-om time to time it attains. 
 
 Whence, it may be remarked by the way, that was evidendy a 
 
 — 23 — 
 
wholly mistaken view of art which, in the early part of the present 
 century, led a group of German artists to suppose that the best 
 interests of art require of its votaries that they should relapse into a 
 past and less adequate phase of faith and thought than that by 
 which their own age is characterized. 
 
 On the contrary when Euphorion dies — that is, when he passes 
 out of the initial into the maturer phase of his existence — Helena too 
 in her corporeal part, in so far as she is a mere representative of the 
 antique spirit, vanishes out of the embrace of Faust leaving him only 
 her mantel and veil, only the ideal of perfect plasticity and grace of 
 form to be applied henceforth in such new representations as the 
 advancing apprehension of Truth on the part of man may demand. 
 Such then is the culmination. The strictly modem form of art 
 begins with the renewed and more complete interfusion of the Clas- 
 sic with the Romantic form under the influence of the critical, scien- 
 tific spirit. It is the completely rationalized form of Romantic art ; 
 and, to indicate its close and vital relationship with the so-called 
 Humanities, it might very properly be called the Humanistic phase 
 of art. 
 
 But passing over this latter point as something merely incidental, 
 so far as the present purpose is concerned, it will be well to note in 
 more explicit form the central conclusions at which we have arrived. 
 We have seen that the outer, crude, natural man as represented 
 in the Goetz von Berlichingen, can find continued existence only by 
 being tamed and disciplined into a self-restrained, morally symetrical 
 being, through the ministration of the Priestess of the Temple of 
 Purity, represented by Iphigenia. Thus only may he attain at last 
 to a fully rounded, rhythmic life, through a rational union with 
 Belena, the perfect ideal of plastic Beauty, for whose redemption 
 and ultimate preservation the sacrifice of Iphigenia was made. 
 
 To Faust at the beginning of his career it seemed a question 
 whether man were all or nothing. To the matured Faust, man is 
 both all and nothing. He is the latter only in so far as he is merely 
 self-nugatory — the persistent Mephistopheles. He is the former in 
 
 — 24 — 
 
ever truer sense with the rational unfolding of his life. For all that 
 is noble and pure and divine is found to be involved in his ultimate 
 nature. 
 
 He treats with lofty scorn the eager, childish, imperial desire for 
 mere amusement with its obliviousness of sacred duty, and finds 
 more and more that that alone is worthy of genuine admiration 
 which proves itself to be the rythmic unfolding of eternal Truth. 
 
 That is the central, saving factor in the modern art-spirit, as it 
 has been, in greater or less degree of explicitness, the central, saving 
 factor in the art-spirit of every age. 
 
 The glib cry of "Art for Art's sake," can have no real meaning 
 apart from the infinitely significant motto : '■'•Life for Life's sake" 
 though here too it must be added that Life itself is really significant 
 for and worthy of man only so far as it is the process of unfolding 
 the divine nature into reality in the concrete individual man. 
 
 So far, then, from any natural conflict existing between art and 
 morality, no such conflict is really possible. The apparent existence 
 of such conflict is due solely to the perversion of the means and 
 methods of art to immoral purposes — as is the case with so much 
 of what is presented to the world to-day under the name of "P'rench 
 Art." 
 
 And yet in such case the truth is that the product is not a work 
 of art at all — any more than a will-o'-the-wisp is a star. Such pro- 
 duct contradicts the fundamental conception of art as the beautiful 
 expression of what is truest and divinest in human life. 
 
 Nay, that the art-interests of a people should become prevail- 
 ingly equivocal in moral tone, is itself a proof that such people is 
 aheady far advanced toward dissolution. Such state of art will 
 ever be found to be but one of many symptoms presaging utter 
 national decay. 
 
 Such was the case with the ancient Greeks in the declining 
 period of their art. Such was the case with the Italians, and 
 especially those of Rome during the sixteenth century. Such, it 
 seems but too evident, is the case with the French of to-day. 
 
 — 25 — 
 
Even in the blooming time of the Renascence the finest works 
 of art were done in Rome — but not by native Romans. To-day 
 the finest works of art are done in Paris — but not by native French- 
 men. 
 
 The general conclusion here reached respecting the relation be- 
 tween art and morality, may be confirmed by contrasting the 
 Romance with the Teutonic form of Christianity. 
 
 The Romance form was developed among the Italians, a peo- 
 ple from of old passionately fond of the spectacular. Nothing so 
 impressed and satisfied them as magnificent pageantry. 
 
 To the Roman populace at the beginning of the Christian era 
 there were two necessities — ^bread and the circus. And much de- 
 privation of the former would be endured by them if only the latter 
 were sufficiently frequent and bloody. This was art divorced com- 
 pletely from morality. 
 
 The later Italians were descendants of those Romans. The 
 ancient taste for the spectacular was inherited without diminution 
 in degree, but with complete transformation in character. 
 
 Instead of the ferocities of the circus, there was now the 
 mysterious, but magnificent and awe-inspiring pageant of Mother 
 Church. In this the Italian, into whose soul truth found easiest 
 entrance through the eyes, saw what were to him impressive evi- 
 dences of a present Divinity, restraining him from evil conduct, and 
 beckoning him toward a gentle, serenely beautiful life. 
 
 This grandly beautiful pageant which he saw before him appeared 
 to him as something that had come down out of Heaven. That it 
 was something which had arisen out of the depths of his own soul 
 and of the souls of those like him he could never have so much as 
 dreamed. 
 
 In truth it did come down out of Heaven, and also arose from 
 the depths of the Italian soul. It was under the divine stimulus of the 
 Christian faith that the Italian spirit became creative of these 
 magnificent forms through which the truths of Religion appealed, 
 and must ever appeal most effectively to souls whose highest en- 
 
 — 26 — 
 
dowment is in the art-i)roducing and art-appreciating quality of the 
 mind. 
 
 Thus with this people there was matured the outer rhythmic 
 form of the Christian Religion. What charmed them chiefly was 
 the element of outward Beauty which this faith, shining through 
 their souls, presented. 
 
 On the other hand, as soon as the Teutonic people came to 
 have a really vital appreciation of Christianity, they found this cere- 
 monial worship altogether ioreign to their mental constitution. The 
 pomp and pageant so dear and even so necessary to the Italian 
 mind, only obscured instead of revealing the essence of this faith 
 to the Teutonic inteUigence. 
 
 The Italian mind was eagerly perceptive and imaginative. The 
 Teutonic mind was self-restrained and predominantly reflective. 
 Hence to the Teuton the highest religious experience was, to feel 
 the presence of the Divine in his own soul. The outer show was to 
 him a hollow mockery. 
 
 Thus, through mutual exclusion the religion of the Teuton came 
 to consist almost solely of the inner Power of Godliness, while that 
 of the Italian tended more and more to confine itself to the outward 
 Beauty of Holiness. 
 
 In the Italian, then, we see a superficial morality, coupled with 
 a dominant delight in external form, while in the Teuton of the 
 Reformation period there is manifest, along with a rugged morality, 
 the complete sacrifice of outer form to inner substance. Accord- 
 ingly, as we would expect, the art of the Italians lost sadly in 
 character, while the art of the Teutons lacked sadly in plasticity 
 and grace of form. 
 
 And yet the Reformation was based upon the principle that 
 gives to modern art its chief element of vitality. For the Reforma- 
 tion was but the bringing into more explicit form that central 
 affirmation implied from the first in Christianity — ^the affirmation 
 that each individual human being has the absolute right, and there- 
 fore the absolute responsibility of private judgment. As was indi- 
 
 — 27 — 
 
cated at the outset, the principle here is : Manhood for its own sake. 
 It is by his own deed that man stands or falls. 
 
 Thus the Reformation is the emphatic reannouncement of the 
 divinity of man's nature. Though in present realization he may be 
 as nothing, yet in ultimate Ideal he is all. 
 
 And to lift himself from this initial nothingness to that divine all- 
 ness, or wholeness — that is the supreme mission of man. Through 
 that, and only through that, is he to give final and convincing proof 
 of his godlikeness. 
 
 In this principle, I repeat, there is found the chief element of 
 vitality in modern art. For, following this principle, modem art 
 must and does seek its themes, not from a far-away divine world, 
 but from the present divine world of humanity. The fundamental 
 relations of man to man — these constitute the essential themes of 
 modern art. 
 
 And when we reflect that the essential practical relations of man 
 to man constitute the very substance of all morality the insepara- 
 bility of art and morality is found to have its most explicit and most 
 emphatic affirmation precisely in the art-spirit of modern times. 
 
 Nay the essentially religious character of modern art especially is 
 also shown in the very same consideration ; and the more if we are 
 to accept the definition which makes the practical, positive aspect of 
 religion to consist in rendering rational aid to those who are in real 
 need — in ministering to the necessities of the typical or universal 
 Christ-nature by giving food, of body and of soul, to the least no 
 less than to the greatest of those who may be counted among the 
 brethren of the Christ. 
 
 It is true that productions which are irreligious and immoral are 
 now and then thoughtlessly classed among works of modern art 
 simply because of their faultlessness in a technical sense. And yet 
 these are at best no more than elaborate studies in technique, while 
 the immorality of the theme must exclude them utterly from being 
 classed as works of art at all. As already insisted they are simply 
 
 — 28 — 
 
examples of the perversion of the means and methods of art to im- 
 moral and therefore inartistic uses. 
 
 In this connection however it is to be carefully noted that 
 though the theme of a true work of art, as well as the mode of treat- 
 ment, must in every case be thoroughly moral, this by no means 
 excludes the representation of the immoral from such works. On 
 the contrary the moral quality may be heightened and the artistic 
 effect intensified by the representation of the moral and the immoral 
 side by side and allowing each to follow out the dialectic of its own 
 nature— the one to its own natural constructive result, the other to 
 its own and equally natural self-annulment. 
 
 Once more then the immoral cannot, on its own part, be the 
 theme for a genuine work of art ; nor can its introduction into such 
 work be justified at all save in so far as it is distinctly subordinate 
 and accessory to the proper moral content of the work. And this 
 it can be only in so far as it satisfies the demand of reason that the 
 self-contradiction inherent in immorality shall be shown to work out 
 its own natural effects in the agent adopting an immoral course of 
 conduct. 
 
 Tried by this standard Goethe's works are by no means found 
 wanting. The immoral appears often enough indeed ; but never as 
 a thing worthy of admiration or of imitation. Rather its fatal 
 defects and the dreadful destiny of the immoral individual are ever 
 kept before the mind as if in vivid warning. The immoral appears 
 not as something to be sought and cherished, but as something to 
 be shunned and hated or despised. 
 
 On the other hand the themes of his works are without excep- 
 tion thoroughly moral, and in the mode of treatment of these themes 
 Goethe shows how clear and how complete is his comprehension of 
 the nature of the moral quality as a self-preserving and self-unfold- 
 ing power whose native form is Beauty. 
 
 Finally the many-sidedness of Goethe — his splendid adequacy as 
 a representative of the marvelously complex modern art-spirit— is 
 shown in the Faust indeed more adequately than in any other of his 
 
 — 29 — 
 
works as an artist ; but it is shown even still more adequately in his 
 enthusiastic personal interest in all forms of art. As I have already 
 intimated he became more and more explicitly an art critic as he 
 advanced in years, so that much is to be learned respecting the true 
 method of criticism from his incidental suggestions concerning the 
 nature and extent of the several forms of art. 
 
 Not an element was omitted firom his all-embracing view ; and 
 his investigations in each field were betimes as eager and minute as 
 if he were an exclusive, life-time specialist in that field. 
 
 How clearly too he himself appreciated the fact that the most 
 perfect work of art is the individual Life in which the Beautiful and 
 the moral are completely interfused is shown most impressively in 
 the closing part of the Faust. 
 
 When Helena vanishes from Faust's embrace her mantle enfolds 
 him and bears him back to the scenes of his former efforts. Here 
 he is to enter once more into the prosaic practical phases of life. 
 And yet henceforth the very prose of his life is to unfold in accord- 
 ance with the plastic, rhythmic forms of Reason. 
 
 Life itself shall become the noblest of all works of art. His own 
 individual life shall attain its utmost completeness and beauty of 
 form through redeeming the waste places of the earth and adding to 
 the favorable conditions for the rational unfolding of other human 
 souls. 
 
 Through long years of such struggle much is accomphshed — so 
 much that Faust is able to vividly anticipate as aheady near at hand 
 a degree of fulfillment in his noble purposes, such that he can 
 sincerely desire the passing moment to stay and not pass because of 
 its exceeding fulness and rhythmical perfection of accomplishment. 
 
 Thus, by imperceptible degrees, through the rhythmic, reason- 
 guided struggle of a long-extended life, the vanishing, temporal 
 aspects of his existence have dissolved, and Faust is revealed to us 
 as a being whose true form is that of Eternity. For in his soul, the 
 torturing conflicts of passion have ceased, and in their stead there 
 
 -30 — 
 
has developed the abiding serenity of a beautiful, self-harmonized 
 power. 
 
 As, with Helena, the outer plastic form proved to be the enduring 
 element, so now with Faust the inner and ethical proves to be the 
 undying factor, the infinite vitality of which involves an exhaustless 
 capacity for the creation of ever new and richer forms in which to 
 give itself ever more beautiful expression ; the capacity to enter 
 into ever more perfectly rhythmical reality. 
 
 It is at this exalted moment, too, when the positive Faust has 
 attained to approximate completeness, that the merely negative 
 Faust is utterly consumed by the merest contact with the glowing 
 beauty of Truth and Purity, symbolized in the roses of Paradise 
 with which the angels fill the air ; while the redeemed Margaret, 
 under the direction of the glorified Madonna, leads the positive, 
 self-harmonized Faust, still upward into yet diviner spheres of ex- 
 istence. 
 
 "AH that is transient here 
 
 Proves but a shadow ; 
 
 The unattainable 
 
 Here is the Real ; 
 
 What can't be clothed in words 
 
 Here blooms into deeds ; 
 
 Th' Eternal-womanly 
 
 Draws us toward God." 
 
 With such final, significant words^ Goethe shows us that, in his 
 estimation, the closing of the Faust-drama is simply the transition 
 from the human to the divine world. The Beautiful is inexhaustible. 
 The one absolutely perfect work of art is the ever-widening drama 
 of a noble life. 
 
 — 31 —