514: 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



something else, and to treat the one category as 

 fairly claiming our assent, the other as open to 

 further evidence. And yet, when he sees around 

 him those whose aspirations are so fair, whose 

 impulses so strong, whose receptive faculties so 

 sensitive, as to give objective reality to what is 



often but a reflex from themselves, or a projected 

 image of their own experience, he will be willing 

 to admit that there are influences which he can- 

 not as yet either fathom or measure, but whose 

 operation he must recognize among the facts of 

 oux existence. — Nature. 



SELLING THE SOUL. 



By K. H. HOENE. 



" This word ' Damnation ' terrifies not me, 

 For I confound Hell in Elysium. 

 A sound Magician is a demi-god! " 



—Marlowe's Faustus. 



" Cyprian. Oh, could I possess that woman, 

 To my aid from Hell I'd summon 

 A potent Devil, — and my soul 

 Give by bond to his control: 

 Suffering, wheresoever he swept it, 

 Endless tortures! 

 Demon (from below). I accept it." 



— Calderon's Magico Prodigioso. 



•' And had not his own willfulness 

 His soul unto the Devil bound, 

 He must, with certainty no less, 

 His self damnation soon have found." 



—Goethe's Faust. 



WITHOUT seeking to fix the exact date 

 when the greatest of Spanish poets wrote 

 his lyrical tragedy of " El Magico Prodigioso," it 

 is certain that one of the greatest of our English 

 dramatists had previously written " The Tragical 

 Life and Death of Doctor Faustus." It appears 

 to have been first published in 1604 (black-letter 

 4to), and Calderon de la Barca was not born till 

 1601. The subject or ruling principle of each 

 of these extraordinary dramas is essentially the 

 same, and is in some respects identical with the 

 " Faust " of the greatest poet of Germany. There 

 are no signs whatever that Calderon knew any- 

 thing of Marlowe's tragedy, either in the original 

 or through translation. That Goethe was con- 

 versant with both the above dramas is more than 

 probable, although there is only a general resem- 

 blance in some of his earlier scenes. Howbeit, 

 in our own period the richly-adorned poem of 

 Goethe has (very unjustly, in our opinion) con- 

 centrated and absorbed the exclusive attention 

 of the literary public in his version of the pro- 

 foundly interesting legend of Dr. Faustus. The 

 learned and admirable essay by Dr. Ilueffer is 

 scarcely an exception. 



The theological and philosophical arguments 

 in the German drama differ from those of the 

 Spanish poet, chiefly in their greater breadth and 

 their variety of illustration ; as also from those 

 of the English Faustus, who contents himself, for 

 the most part, with certain scholastic problems 

 in cosmogony and astronomy, and a declaration 

 of his determination to become a great magician. 

 To obtain this power he is ready to barter his 

 soul. He says : 



" Why should he not— is not his soul his own t " 

 A Good Angel and a Bad Angel appear to him, 

 and advance their several arguments. The latter 

 prevails with him, and then the magnificent Kit 

 Marlowe puts these words into the mouth of Faus- 

 tus: 



"Had I as many souls as there are stars, 

 I'd give them all 1 " 



The Bad Angel exhorts him to " despair in God, 

 and trust to Belzebub." Still, he is not without 

 serious misgivings ; and, when he is about to 

 sign the deed of gift with his blood, the influence 

 of the Good Angel prevails, and the blood sud- 

 denly stops flowing — 



" My blood congeals, and I can write no more 1 " 



