A FAUST PKOBLKM. 1 55 



We are tempted to ask : What has Leibniz to do here, and 

 what, for tlie purpose of explaining Mephisto's words, does it 

 matter whether lie was an optimist or not? and what is " sich 

 bekennen als Teufel in Sinne des Optimismus"? 1 cannot help 

 making Faust's words my own and asking, " Was ist mit die^em 

 Ratsehvort gemeint ? " 



But Mr. Fischer's power of astounding his reader is far 

 from exhausted. He continues : 



(2) There follows the second declaration, which strikes the first 

 down to the ground [" zu Boden schlagt"]. 



" I am the Spirit • . . Element." 



These words of Mephisto [says Mr. Fischer] are the most definite 

 expression of pessimism : the non-existence of the world would he pre- 

 ferable to its existence. Faust, however, pays no attention to this state- 

 ment (of Alephisto's) ; he is still brooding on the riddle of the first: 

 You call yourself a part, " yet showst complete to me." or " yet you 

 stand before me a thing complete." 



This fiction that Faust does not hsten to Mephisto's answer 

 certainly helps us out of the difficulty which would otherwise 

 present itself if we accepted Mr. Fischer's interpretation, c'/.c., 

 that Faust does not at once demand an explanation of the con- 

 tradiction. But is it conceivable that Goethe wishes us to believe 

 that Faust asks, " What do you mean?" and then does not listen 

 to the answer? And again, is it conceivable that Mephisto, 

 having uttered an expression of optimism ( which Goethe thought 

 sufficiently obscure in its paradoxical wording to let Faust, a 

 scholar, a man of culture and wide learning, ask, "" What do you 

 mean?" but in which ]\Ir. Fischer evidently finds nothing to 

 puzzle him) can, in answer to Faust's request for explanation, 

 simply flatly contradict himself ? 



What follows in Mr. Fischer's commentary does, strictly 

 speaking, not concern us here, as it refers to that question of 

 " part or integer," and to Alephisto's utterances about his own 

 origin, his being " part of the darkness which brought forth the 

 light." Yet, we can scarcely avoid quoting some of it, because 

 wdiat is said by Fischer about the lines that follow bears in- 

 directly on our passage, and further illustrates Fischer's amazing 

 theorv of contradictions in Mephisto's words, and of Faust's 

 mental attitude in this conversation. ■ 



(3) Now [thus our commentator continues] Mephisto still further- 

 intensifies and obscures his enigmatic nature ; not only does he overthrow 

 his first declaration by his second, but he now upsets both by the third- 



And after quoting and shortly disctissing the next ten lines 

 spoken by ]\lephisto. Mr. Fischer tells us that Faust's reply of 

 three lines : " I see the plan thou art pursuing," etc., is " vollig 

 unmotivirt " (completely unmotived). Is this because Faust's 

 intellect has become confused by Mephisto's lack of logic? Far 

 from it! 



" It is not [so we are told] by what ]\Iephisto lias said that these 

 words of Faust are ' motivirt ' (motived), but by . • . that which 



