150 A "^'^ FAUST " PROBLEM. 



them, all the rest drops, if I may so call it, into its right place 

 without much effort on our part. What does Mephisto mean by 

 saying that he is " ern Teil von jener Kraft die stets das Bose 

 will und stets das Gute schafft?" That seems to be the first 

 question to which we have to seek an answer. That the mean- 

 ing is not clear, does not lie on the surface; that the answer is 

 not so self-evident that he who runs may ,read, and that this 

 obscurity is intended by Goethe, is proved by the fact that he 

 represents Faust himself as puzzled by the " enigma," of which 

 he asks a plainer statement. The other " nut for us to crack " 

 is : how do the words spoken next by Mephisto contain an answer 

 to Faust's " What do you mean by that?" and — if we look close 

 into it — we find that the answer depends largely on the sense of 

 " verneint." 



Among the commentators whose explanations we will examine, 

 Mr. Bayard Taylor cannot claim a place in the first rank. But 

 (as I said a little while ago) his translation, which I have used, 

 is on the whole a most excellent one, and his Notes will no 

 doubt be consulted by all English readers who cannot under- 

 stand the drama in the original, and to whom, consequently, 

 the commentaries in German are closed books. I therefore begin 

 by seeing what Mr. Taylor has to say. 



In declaring himself, lirst, to be part of that power "which always 

 wills the Bad, and always works the Good," Mephistopheles is unex- 

 pectedly frank. His expression coincides exactly with the declaration 

 of the Lord as to the service he is obliged to perform. In the passage 

 which follows he is equally honest, and the line, " I am the Spirit that 

 Denies," clearly (sic.) describes the part which he plays from beginning 

 to end. He is the spirit of Negation, and his being exists through oppo- 

 sition to the positive truth, and order and beauty, which proceed from 

 the never-ending creative energy of the Deity- . . ■ His irreverence and 

 irony are not only a part of his nature, but they are further increased 

 by the impotence of his efforts — which he freely admits in the following 

 passages — to disturb the Divine system. 



What — I feel inclined to ask — would Mr. Taylor say of in 

 author who wrote one of those old-fashioned dramas in which 

 virtue is the victim of the traditional villain, and the criminal 

 is finally defeated, if that author — on the first occason that the 

 villain enters upon the stage — put into his mouth words the sense 

 of which may be summed up : " I am the villain, I always try 

 to do evil ; but — don't be afraid ! it always comes out all right !" 

 And yet, if we accept Mr. Taylor's elucidation, Goethe has on 

 his conscience (artistic conscience) a blunder almost equally 

 absurd. Mr. Taylor is one of those who look upon Mephisto's 

 declaration that " he always wills the Bad " as an unexpected 

 frankness, and upon the second part of the declaration, that he 

 " always works the Good," as a confession of impotence. 



Mr. Taylor does not stand alone in this ; Mr. Boyesen,* 



* Boyesen, "Commentary on Goethe's 'Faust,'" pp. 151 and following 

 of his work " Goethe and Schiller." This generally excellent commen- 

 tary (which every reader of "Faust" should consult) has been trans- 

 lated into German by Otfrid Mylius and published in Reclams Universal 

 BibHothek (Nos. 152T. 1522 for the price of 40 Pfennig (about 5d.), 

 elegantly liound 80 Pfennig (about gld.). 



