,,three ,,philosophical ,,poets ,,lucretius1 ,,dante1 ,,and ,,goethe ,,by ,,george ,,santayana ,,professor ,,of ,,philosophy ,,in ,,harvard ,,university ,,harvard ,,studies ,,in ,,comparative ,,literature ,,volume ,i ,,cambridge ,,harvard ,,university #aiaj ,,preface ,the present volume is composed1 with a few additions1 of six lectures read at ,columbia ,university in ,february1 #aiaj1 and repeated in ,april of the same year1 at the ,university of ,wisconsin4 ,these lectures1 in turn1 were based on a regular course which ,i had been giving for some time at ,harvard ,college4 ,though produced under such learned auspices1 my book can make no great claims to learning4 ,it contains the impressions of an amateur1 the appreciations of an ordinary reader1 concerning three great writers1 two of whom at least might furnish matter enough for the studies of a lifetime1 and actually have academies1 libraries1 and university chairs especially consecrated to their memory4 ,i am no specialist in the study of ,lucretius2 ,i am not a ,dante scholar nor a ,goethe scholar4 ,i can report no facts and propose no hypotheses about these men which are not at hand in their familiar works1 or in well-known commentaries upon them4 ,my excuse for writing about them1 notwithstanding1 is merely the human excuse which every new poet has for writing about the spring4 ,they have attracted me2 they have moved me to reflection2 they have revealed to me certain aspects of nature and of philosophy which ,i am prompted by mere sincerity to express1 if anybody seems interested or willing to listen4 ,what ,i can offer the benevolent reader1 therefore1 is no learned investigation4 ,it is only a piece of literary criticism1 together with a first broad lesson in the history of philosophy--and1 perhaps1 in philosophy itself4 ,g4,s4 ,harvard ,college ,june1 #aiaj ,,contents ,i ,,introduction ,lucretius1 ,dante1 and ,goethe sum up the chief phases of ,european philosophy1--naturalism1 supernaturalism1 and romanticism--,ideal relation between philosophy and poetry4 ,,ii ,,lucretius ,development of ,greek cosmology--,democritus--,epicurean moral sentiment--,changes inspired by it in the system of ,democritus--,accidental alliance of materialism with hedonism--,imaginative value of naturalism3 ,the ,lucretian ,venus1 or the propitious movement in nature--,the ,lucretian ,mars1 or the destructive movement--,preponderant melancholy1 and the reason for it--,materiality of the soul--,the fear of death and the fear of life--,lucretius a true poet of nature--,comparison with ,shelley and ,wordsworth--,things he might have added consistently3 ,indefeasible worth of his insight and sentiment4 ,,iii ,,dante ,character of ,platonism--,its cosmology a parable--,combination of this with ,hebraic philosophy of history--,theory of the ,papacy and the ,empire adopted by ,dante--,his judgement on ,florence--,dante as a lyric poet--,beatrice the woman1 the symbol1 and the reality--,love1 magic1 and symbolism constitutive principles of ,dante's universe--,idea of the ,divine ,comedy--,the scheme of virtues and vices--,retributive theory of rewards and punishments--,esoteric view of this1 which makes even punishment intrinsic to the sins--,examples--,dantesque cosmography--,the genius of the poet--,his universal scope--,his triumphant execution of the ,comedy--,his defects1 in spite of which he remains the type of a supreme poet4 ,,iv ,,goethe',s ,,faust ,page ,the romantic spirit--,the ideals of the ,renaissance--,expression of both in the legendary ,faust--,marlowe's version--,tendency to vindicate ,faust--,contrast with ,calderon's 8,wonder-working ,magician0--,the original ,faust of ,goethe1--universal ambition and eternal dissatisfaction --,modifications--,the series of experiments in living--,the story of ,gretchen fitted in--,goethe's naturalistic theory of life and rejuvenation3 ,helen--,the classic manner and the judgement on classicism--,faust's last ambition--,the conflict over his soul and his ascent to heaven symbolical--,moral of the whole4 ,v ,,conclusion ,comparison of the three poets--,their relative rank--,ideal of a philosophic or comprehensive poet--,untried possibilities of art4 ,i ,,introduction ,the sole advantage in possessing great works of literature lies in what they can help us to become4 ,in themselves1 as feats performed by their authors1 they would have forfeited none of their truth or greatness if they had perished before our day4 ,we can neither take away nor add to their past value or inherent dignity4 ,it is only they1 in so far as they are appropriate food and not poison for us1 that can add to the present value and dignity of our minds4 ,foreign classics have to be retranslated and reinterpreted for each generation1 to render their old naturalness in a natural way1 and keep their perennial humanity living and capable of assimilation4 ,even native classics have to be reapprehended by every reader4 ,it is this continual digestion of the substance supplied by the past that alone renders the insights of the past still potent in the present and for the future4 ,living criticism1 genuine appreciation1 is the interest we draw from year to year on the unrecoverable capital of human genius4 ,regarded from this point of view1 as substances to be digested1 the poetic remains of ,lucretius1 ,dante1 and ,goethe 7though it is his ,faust only that ,i shall speak of7 afford rather a varied feast4 ,in their doctrine and genius they may seem to be too much opposed to be at all convergent or combinable in their wisdom4 ,some1 who know and care for one1 perhaps1 of these poets1 may be disposed to doubt whether they have anything vital to learn from the other two4 ,yet it is as a pupil--,i hope a discriminating pupil--of each in turn that ,i mean to speak2 and ,i venture to maintain that in what makes them great they are compatible2 that without any vagueness or doubleness in one's criterion of taste one may admire enthusiastically the poetry of each in turn2 and that one may accept the essential philosophy1 the positive intuition1 of each1 without lack of definition or system in one's own thinking4 ,indeed1 the diversity of these three poets passes1 if ,i may use the ,hegelian dialect1 into a unity of a higher kind4 ,each is typical of an age4 ,taken together they sum up all ,european philosophy4 ,lucretius adopts the most radical and the most correct of those cosmological systems which the genius of early ,greece had devised4 ,he sees the world to be one great edifice1 one great machine1 all its parts reacting upon one another1 and growing out of one another in obedience to a general pervasive process or life4 ,his poem describes the nature1 that is1 the birth and composition1 of all things4 ,it shows how they are compounded out of elements1 and how these elements1 which he thinks are atoms in perpetual motion1 are being constantly redistributed1 so that old things perish and new things arise4 ,into this view of the world he fits a view of human life as it ought to be led under such conditions4 ,his materialism is completed by an aspiration towards freedom and quietness of spirit4 ,allowed to look once upon the wonderful spectacle1 which is to repeat itself in the world for ever1 we should look and admire1 for to-morrow we die2 we should eat1 drink1 and be merry1 but moderately and with much art1 lest we die miserably1 and die to-day4 ,this is one complete system of philosophy1--materialism in natural science1 humanism in ethics4 ,such was the gist of all ,greek philosophy before ,socrates1 of that philosophy which was truly ,hellenic and corresponded with the movement which produced ,greek manners1 ,greek government1 and ,greek art--a movement towards simplicity1 autonomy1 and reasonableness in everything1 from dress to religion4 ,such is the gist also of what may be called the philosophy of the ,renaissance1 the reassertion of science and liberty in the modern world1 by ,bacon1 by ,spinoza1 by the whole contemporary school that looks to science for its view of the facts1 and to the happiness of men on earth for its ideal4 ,this system is called naturalism2 and of this ,lucretius is the unrivalled poet4 ,skip a thousand years and more1 and a contrasting spectacle is before us4 ,all minds1 all institutions1 are dominated by a religion that represents the soul as a pilgrim upon earth2 the world is fallen and subject to the devil2 pain and poverty are considered normal1 happiness impossible here and to be hoped for only in a future life1 provided the snares and pleasures of the present life have not entrapped us4 ,meantime a sort of ,jacob's ladder stretches from the stone on which the wayfarer lays his head into the heaven he hopes for2 and the angels he sees ascending and descending upon it are beautiful stories1 wonderful theories1 and comforting rites4 ,through these he partakes1 even on earth1 of what will be his heavenly existence4 ,he partly understands his destiny2 his own history and that of the world are transfigured before him and1 without ceasing to be sad1 become beautiful4 ,the raptures of a perfect conformity with the will of ,god1 and of union with ,him1 overtake him in his prayers4 ,this is supernaturalism1 a system represented in ,christendom chiefly by the ,catholic ,church1 but adopted also by the later pagans1 and widespread in ,asia from remote antiquity down to the present time4 ,little as the momentary temper of ,europe and ,america may now incline to such a view1 it is always possible for the individual1 or for the race1 to return to it4 ,its sources are in the solitude of the spirit and in the disparity1 or the opposition1 between what the spirit feels it is fitted to do1 and what1 in this world1 it is condemned to waste itself upon4 ,the unmatched poet of this supernaturalism is ,dante4 ,skip again some five hundred years1 and there is another change of scene4 ,the ,teutonic races that had previously conquered ,europe have begun to dominate and understand themselves4 ,they have become ,protestants1 or protesters against the ,roman world4 ,an infinite fountain of life seems to be unlocked within their bosom4 ,they turn successively to the ,bible1 to learning1 to patriotism1 to industry1 for new objects to love and fresh worlds to conquer2 but they have too much vitality1 or too little maturity1 to rest in any of these things4 ,a demon drives them on2 and this demon1 divine and immortal in its apparent waywardness1 is their inmost self4 ,it is their insatiable will1 their radical courage4 ,nay1 though this be a hard saying to the uninitiated1 their will is the creator of all those objects by which it is sometimes amused1 and sometimes baffled1 but never tamed4 ,their will summons all opportunities and dangers out of nothing to feed its appetite for action2 and in that ideal function lies their sole reality4 ,once attained1 things are transcended4 ,like the episodes of a spent dream1 they are to be smiled at and forgotten2 the spirit that feigned and discarded them remains always strong and undefiled2 it aches for new conquests over new fictions4 ,this is romanticism4 ,it is an attitude often found in ,english poetry1 and characteristic of ,german philosophy4 ,it was adopted by ,emerson and ought to be sympathetic to ,americans2 for it expresses the self-trust of world-building youth1 and mystical faith in will and action4 ,the greatest monument to this romanticism is ,goethe's ,faust4 ,can it be an accident that the most adequate and probably the most lasting exposition of these three schools of philosophy should have been made by poets8 ,are poets1 at heart1 in search of a philosophy8 ,or is philosophy1 in the end1 nothing but poetry8 ,let us consider the situation4 ,if we think of philosophy as an investigation into truth1 or as reasoning upon truths supposed to be discovered1 there is nothing in philosophy akin to poetry4 ,there is nothing poetic about the works of ,epicurus1 or ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas1 or ,kant2 they are leafless forests4 ,in ,lucretius and in ,dante themselves we find passages where nothing is poetical except the metre1 or some incidental ornament4 ,in such passages the form of poetry is thrown over the substance of prose1 as ,lucretius himself confesses where he says3 8,as when physicians would contrive to administer loathsome wormwood to little boys they first moisten the rim of the cup round about with sweet and golden honey1 that the children's1 unsuspecting youth may be beguiled--to the lips1 but no further--while they drink down the bitter potion1 by deception not betrayed1 but rather by that stratagem made whole and restored2444 so ,i have willed to set forth our doctrine before thee in sweet-sounding ,pierian song1 and to smear it1 as it were1 with the ,muses' honey40#a ,but poetry cannot be spread upon things like butter2 it must play upon them like light1 and be the medium through which we see them4 ,lucretius does himself an injustice4 ,if his philosophy had been wormwood to him1 he could not have said1 as he does just before this passage3 8,like a sharp blow of the thyrsus1 a great hope of praise vibrates through my heart and fills my breast with tender love of the ,muses1 whereby now1 instinct with flowering fancy1 ,i traverse pathless haunts of the ,pierides1 by no man's foot trodden before4 ,it is joy to reach undefiled fountains and quaff2 it is joy to gather fresh flowers and weave a matchless crown for my head of those bays with which never yet the ,muses veiled the brow of any man2 first1 in that ,i teach sublime truths and come to free the soul from the strangling knots of superstition2 then1 in that on so dark a theme ,i pour forth so clear a song1 suffusing all with poetic beauty1444 if haply by such means ,i might keep thy mind intent upon my verses1 until thine eye fathoms the whole structure of nature1 and the fixed form that makes it beautiful40#b ,here1 ,i think1 we have the solution to our doubt4 ,the reasonings and investigations of philosophy are arduous1 and if poetry is to be linked with them1 it can be artificially only1 and with a bad grace4 ,but the vision of philosophy is sublime4 ,the order it reveals in the world is something beautiful1 tragic1 sympathetic to the mind1 and just what every poet1 on a small or on a large scale1 is always trying to catch4 ,in philosophy itself investigation and reasoning are only preparatory and servile parts1 means to an end4 ,they terminate in insight1 or what in the noblest sense of the word may be called theory1 1--a steady contemplation of all things in their order and worth4 ,such contemplation is imaginative4 ,no one can reach it who has not enlarged his mind and tamed his heart4 ,a philosopher who attains it is1 for the moment1 a poet2 and a poet who turns his practised and passionate imagination on the order of all things1 or on anything in the light of the whole1 is for that moment a philosopher4 ,nevertheless1 even if we grant that the philosopher1 in his best moments1 is a poet1 we may suspect that the poet has his worst moments when he tries to be a philosopher1 or rather1 when he succeeds in being one4 ,philosophy is something reasoned and heavy2 poetry something winged1 flashing1 inspired4 ,take almost any longish poem1 and the parts of it are better than the whole4 ,a poet is able to put together a few words1 a cadence or two1 a single interesting image4 ,he renders in that way some moment of comparatively high tension1 of comparatively keen sentiment4 ,but at the next moment the tension is relaxed1 the sentiment has faded1 and what succeeds is usually incongruous with what went before1 or at least inferior4 ,the thought drifts away from what it had started to be4 ,it is lost in the sands of versification4 ,as man is now constituted1 to be brief is almost a condition of being inspired4 ,shall we say1 then1--and ,i now broach an idea by which ,i set some store1--that poetry is essentially short-winded1 that what is poetic is necessarily intermittent in the writings of poets1 that only the fleeting moment1 the mood1 the episode1 can be rapturously felt1 or rapturously rendered1 while life as a whole1 history1 character1 and destiny are objects unfit for imagination to dwell on1 and repellent to poetic art8 ,i cannot think so4 ,if it be a fact1 as it often is1 that we find little things pleasing and great things arid and formless1 and if we are better poets in a line than in an epic1 that is simply due to lack of faculty on our part1 lack of imagination and memory1 and above all to lack of discipline4 ,this might be shown1 ,i think1 by psychological analysis1 if we cared to rely on something so abstract and so debatable4 ,for in what does the short-winded poet himself excel the common unimaginative person who talks or who stares8 ,is it that he thinks even less8 ,rather1 ,i suppose1 in that he feels more2 in that his moment of intuition1 though fleeting1 has a vision1 a scope1 a symbolic something about it that renders it deep and expressive4 ,intensity1 even momentary intensity1 if it can be expressed at all1 comports fullness and suggestion compressed into that intense moment4 ,yes1 everything that comes to us at all must come to us at some time or other4 ,it is always the fleeting moment in which we live4 ,to this fleeting moment the philosopher1 as well as the poet1 is actually confined4 ,each must enrich it with his endless vistas1 vistas necessarily focused1 if they are to be disclosed at all1 in the eye of the observer1 here and now4 ,what makes the difference between a moment of poetic insight and a vulgar moment is that the passions of the poetic moment have more perspective4 ,even the short-winded poet selects his words so that they have a magic momentum in them which carries us1 we know not how1 to mountain-tops of intuition4 ,is not the poetic quality of phrases and images due to their concentrating and liberating the confused promptings left in us by a long experience8 ,when we feel the poetic thrill1 is it not that we find sweep in the concise and depth in the clear1 as we might find all the lights of the sea in the water of a jewel8 ,and what is a philosophic thought but such an epitome8 ,if a short passage is poetical because it is pregnant with suggestion of a few things1 which stretches our attention and makes us rapt and serious1 how much more poetical ought a vision to be which was pregnant with all we care for8 ,focus a little experience1 give some scope and depth to your feeling1 and it grows imaginative2 give it more scope and more depth1 focus all experience within it1 make it a philosopher's vision of the world1 and it will grow imaginative in a superlative degree1 and be supremely poetical4 ,the difficulty1 after having the experience to symbolize1 lies only in having enough imagination to hold and suspend it in a thought2 and further to give this thought such verbal expression that others maybe able to decipher it1 and to be stirred by it as by a wind of suggestion sweeping the whole forest of their memories4 ,poetry1 then1 is not poetical for being short-winded or incidental1 but1 on the contrary1 for being comprehensive and having range4 ,if too much matter renders it heavy1 that is the fault of the poet's weak intellect1 not of the outstretched world4 ,a quicker eye1 a more synthetic imagination1 might grasp a larger subject with the same ease4 ,the picture that would render this larger subject would not be flatter and feebler for its extent1 but1 on the contrary1 deeper and stronger1 since it would possess as much unity as the little one with greater volume4 ,as in a supreme dramatic crisis all our life seems to be focused in the present1 and used in colouring our consciousness and shaping our decisions1 so for each philosophic poet the whole world of man is gathered together2 and he is never so much a poet as when1 in a single cry1 he summons all that has affinity to him in the universe1 and salutes his ultimate destiny4 ,it is the acme of life to understand life4 ,the height of poetry is to speak the language of the gods4 ,but enough of psychological analysis and of reasoning in the void4 ,three historical illustrations will prove my point more clearly and more conclusively4 99 99 99 99 99 #a ,lucretius1 ,i4 #icf-dg3 ,veluti pueris absinthia tetra medentes ,cum dare conantur1 prius oras pocula circura ,contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore1 ,ut puerorum aetas improvida ludificetur ,labrorum tenus1 interea perpotet amarum ,absinthi laticem1 deceptaque non capiatur1 ,sed potius tali pacto recreata valescat3 ,sic ego nunc 444 volui tibi suaviloquenti ,carmine ,pierio rationem exponere nostram1 ,et quasi musaeo dulci contingere melle4 #b ,lucretius1 i4 #ibb-cd1 #idh-ej3 ,acri ,percussit thyrso laudis spes magna meum cor ,et simul incussit suavem mi in pectus amorem ,musarum1 quo nunc instinctus mente vigenti ,avia ,pieridum peragro loca nullius ante ,trita solo3 iuvat integros accedere fontes1 ,atque haurire2 iuvatque novos decerpere flores1 ,insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam1 ,unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae4 ,primum1 quod magnis doceo de rebus1 et artis ,religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo3 ,deinde1 quod obscura de re tam lucida pango ,carmina1 musaeo contingens cuncta lepore4444 ,si tibi forte animum tali ratione tenere ,versibus in nostris possem1 dum perspicis omnem ,naturam rerum1 qua constet compta figura4 ,,ii ,,lucretius ,there is perhaps no important poem the antecedents of which can be traced so exhaustively as can those of the work of ,lucretius1 ,de ,rerum ,natura4 ,these antecedents1 however1 do not lie in the poet himself4 ,if they did1 we should not be able to trace them1 since we know nothing1 or next to nothing1 about ,lucretius the man4 ,in a chronicon1 compiled by ,st4 ,jerome largely out of ,suetonius1 in which miscellaneous events are noted which occurred in each successive year1 we read for the year #id ,b4,c43 8,titus ,lucretius1 poet1 is born4 ,after a love-philtre had turned him mad1 and he had written1 in the intervals of his insanity1 several books which ,cicero revised1 he killed himself by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age40 ,the love-philtre in this report sounds apocryphal2 and the story of the madness and suicide attributes too edifying an end to an atheist and ,epicurean not to be suspected4 ,if anything lends colour to the story it is a certain consonance which we may feel between its tragic incidents and the genius of the poet as revealed in his work1 where we find a strange scorn of love1 a strange vehemence1 and a high melancholy4 ,it is by no means incredible that the author of such a poem should have been at some time the slave of a pathological passion1 that his vehemence and inspiration should have passed into mania1 and that he should have taken his own life4 ,but the untrustworthy authority of ,st4 ,jerome cannot assure us whether what he repeats is a tradition founded on fact or an ingenious fiction4 ,our ignorance of the life of ,lucretius is not1 ,i think1 much to be regretted4 ,his work preserves that part of him which he himself would have wished to preserve4 ,perfect conviction ignores itself1 proclaiming the public truth4 ,to reach this no doubt requires a peculiar genius which is called intelligence2 for intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are4 ,but where intelligence is attained1 the rest of a man1 like the scaffolding to a finished building1 becomes irrelevant4 ,we do not wish it to intercept our view of the solid structure1 which alone was intended by the artist--if he was building for others1 and was not a coxcomb4 ,it is his intellectual vision that the naturalist in particular wishes to hand down to posterity1 not the shabby incidents that preceded that vision in his own person4 ,these incidents1 even if they were by chance interesting1 could not be repeated in us2 but the vision into which the thinker poured his faculties1 and to which he devoted his vigils1 is communicable to us also1 and may become a part of ourselves4 ,since ,lucretius is thus identical for us with his poem1 and is lost in his philosophy1 the antecedents of ,lucretius are simply the stages by which his conception of nature first shaped itself in the human mind4 ,to retrace these stages is easy2 some of them are only too familiar2 yet the very triteness of the subject may blind us to the grandeur and audacity of the intellectual feat involved4 ,a naturalistic conception of things is a great work of imagination1--greater1 ,i think1 than any dramatic or moral mythology3 it is a conception fit to inspire great poetry1 and in the end1 perhaps1 it will prove the only conception able to inspire it4 ,we are told of the old ,xenophanes that he looked up into the round heaven and cried1 8,the ,all is ,one40 ,what is logically a truism may often be1 imaginatively1 a great discovery1 because no one before may have thought of the obvious analogy which the truism registers4 ,so1 in this case1 the unity of all things is logically an evident1 if barren1 truth2 for the most disparate and unrelated worlds would still be a multitude1 and so an aggregate1 and so1 in some sense1 a unity4 ,yet it was a great imaginative feat to cast the eye deliberately round the entire horizon1 and to draw mentally the sum of all reality1 discovering that reality makes such a sum1 and may be called one2 as any stone or animal1 though composed of many parts1 is yet called one in common parlance4 ,it was doubtless some prehistoric man of genius1 long before ,xenophanes1 who first applied in this way to all things together that notion of unity and wholeness which everybody had gained by observation of things singly1 and who first ventured to speak of 8the world40 ,to do so is to set the problem for all natural philosophy1 and in a certain measure to anticipate the solution of that problem2 for it is to ask how things hang together1 and to assume that they do hang together in one way or another4 ,to cry 8,the ,all is ,one10 and to perceive that all things are in one landscape and form a system by their juxtaposition1 is the rude beginning of wisdom in natural philosophy4 ,but it is easy to go farther1 and to see that things form a unity in a far deeper and more mysterious way4 ,one of the first things1 for instance1 that impresses the poet1 the man of feeling and reflection1 is that these objects that people the world all pass away1 and that the place there-of knows them no more4 ,yet1 when they vanish1 nothingness does not succeed2 other things arise in their stead4 ,nature remains always young and whole in spite of death at work everywhere2 and what takes the place of what continually disappears is often remarkably like it in character4 ,universal instability is not incompatible with a great monotony in things2 so that while ,heraclitus lamented that everything was in flux1 ,ecclesiastes1 who was also entirely convinced of that truth1 could lament that there was nothing new under the sun4 ,this double experience of mutation and recurrence1 an experience at once sentimental and scientific1 soon brought with it a very great thought1 perhaps the greatest thought that mankind has ever hit upon1 and which was the chief inspiration of ,lucretius4 ,it is that all we observe about us1 and ourselves also1 may be so many passing forms of a permanent substance4 ,this substance1 while remaining the same in quantity and in inward quality1 is constantly redistributed2 in its redistribution it forms those aggregates which we call things1 and which we find constantly disappearing and reappearing4 ,all things are dust1 and to dust they return2 a dust1 however1 eternally fertile1 and destined to fall perpetually into new1 and doubtless beautiful1 forms4 ,this notion of substance lends a much greater unity to the outspread world2 it persuades us that all things pass into one another1 and have a common ground from which they spring successively1 and to which they return4 ,the spectacle of inexorable change1 the triumph of time1 or whatever we may call it1 has always been a favourite theme for lyric and tragic poetry1 and for religious meditation4 ,to perceive universal mutation1 to feel the vanity of life1 has always been the beginning of seriousness4 ,it is the condition for any beautiful1 measured1 or tender philosophy4 ,prior to that1 everything is barbarous1 both in morals and in poetry2 for until then mankind has not learned to renounce anything1 has not outgrown the instinctive egotism and optimism of the young animal1 and has not removed the centre of its being1 or of its faith1 from the will to the imagination4 ,to discover substance1 then1 is a great step in the life of reason1 even if substance be conceived quite negatively as a term that serves merely to mark1 by contrast1 the unsubstantiality1 the vanity1 of all particular moments and things4 ,that is the way in which ,indian poetry and philosophy conceived substance4 ,but the step taken by ,greek physics1 and by the poetry of ,lucretius1 passes beyond4 ,lucretius and the ,greeks1 in observing universal mutation and the vanity of life1 conceived behind appearance a great intelligible process1 an evolution in nature4 ,the reality became interesting1 as well as the illusion4 ,physics became scientific1 which had previously been merely spectacular4 ,here was a much richer theme for the poet and philosopher1 who was launched upon the discovery of the ground and secret causes of this gay or melancholy flux4 ,the understanding that enabled him to discover these causes did for the ,european what no ,indian mystic1 what no despiser of understanding anywhere1 suffers himself to do2 namely1 to dominate1 foretell1 and transform this changing show with a virile1 practical intelligence4 ,the man who discovers the secret springs of appearances opens to contemplation a second positive world1 the workshop and busy depths of nature1 where a prodigious mechanism is continually supporting our life1 and making ready for it from afar by the most exquisite adjustments4 ,the march of this mechanism1 while it produces life and often fosters it1 yet as often makes it difficult and condemns it to extinction4 ,this truth1 which the conception of natural substance first makes intelligible1 justifies the elegies which the poets of illusion and disillusion have always written upon human things4 ,it is a truth with a melancholy side2 but being a truth1 it satisfies and exalts the rational mind1 that craves truth as truth1 whether it be sad or comforting1 and wishes to pursue a possible1 not an impossible1 happiness4 ,so far1 ,greek science had made out that the world was one1 that there was a substance1 that this was a physical substance1 distributed and moving in space4 ,it was matter4 ,the question remained1 ,what is the precise nature of matter1 and how does it produce the appearances we observe8 ,the only answer that concerns us here is that given by ,lucretius2 an answer he accepted from ,epicurus1 his master in everything1 who in turn had accepted it from ,democritus4 ,now ,democritus had made a notable advance over the systems that selected one obvious substance1 like water1 or collected all the obvious substances1 as ,anaxagoras had done1 and tried to make the world out of them4 ,democritus thought that the substance of everything ought not to have any of the qualities present in some things and absent in others2 it ought to have only the qualities present in all things4 ,it should be merely matter4 ,materiality1 according to him1 consisted of extension1 figure1 and solidity2 in the thinnest ether1 if we looked sharp enough1 we should find nothing but particles possessing these properties4 ,all other qualities of things were apparent only1 and imputed to them by a convention of the mind4 ,the mind was a born mythologist1 and projected its feelings into their causes4 ,light1 colour1 taste1 warmth1 beauty1 excellence1 were such imputed and conventional qualities2 only space and matter were real4 ,but empty space was no less real than matter4 ,consequently1 although the atoms of matter never changed their form1 real changes could take place in nature1 because their position might change in a real space4 ,unlike the useless substance of the ,indians1 the substance of ,democritus could offer a calculable ground for the flux of appearances2 for this substance was distributed unequally in the void1 and was constantly moving4 ,every appearance1 however fleeting1 corresponded to a precise configuration of substance2 it arose with that configuration and perished with it4 ,this substance1 accordingly1 was physical1 not metaphysical4 ,it was no dialectical term1 but a scientific anticipation1 a prophecy as to what an observer who should be properly equipped would discover in the interior of bodies4 ,materialism is not a system of metaphysics2 it is a speculation in chemistry and physiology1 to the effect that1 if analysis could go deep enough1 it would find that all substance was homogeneous1 and that all motion was regular4 ,though matter was homogeneous1 the forms of the ultimate particles1 according to ,democritus1 were various2 and sundry combinations of them constituted the sundry objects in nature4 ,motion was not1 as the vulgar 7and ,aristotle7 supposed1 unnatural1 and produced magically by some moral cause2 it had been eternal and was native to the atoms4 ,on striking1 they rebounded2 and the mechanical currents or vortices which these contacts occasioned formed a multitude of stellar systems1 called worlds1 with which infinite space was studded4 ,mechanism as to motion1 atomism as to structure1 materialism as to substance1 that is the whole system of ,democritus4 ,it is as wonderful in its insight1 in its sense for the ideal demands of method and understanding1 as it is strange and audacious in its simplicity4 ,only the most convinced rationalist1 the boldest prophet1 could embrace it dogmatically2 yet time has largely given it the proof4 ,if ,democritus could look down upon the present state of science1 he would laugh1 as he was in the habit of doing1 partly at the confirmation we can furnish to portions of his philosophy1 and partly at our stupidity that cannot guess the rest4 ,there are two maxims in ,lucretius that suffice1 even to this day1 to distinguish a thinker who is a naturalist from one who is not4 8,nothing10 he says1 8arises in the body in order that we may use it1 but what arises brings forth its use40#a ,this is that discarding of final causes on which all progress in science depends4 ,the other maxim runs3 8,one thing will grow plain when compared with another3 and blind night shall not obliterate the path for thee1 before thou hast thoroughly scanned the ultimate things of nature2 so much will things throw light on things40#b ,nature is her own standard2 and if she seems to us unnatural1 there is no hope for our minds4 ,the ethics of ,democritus1 in so far as we may judge from scanty evidence1 were merely descriptive or satirical4 ,he was an aristocratic observer1 a scorner of fools4 ,nature was laughing at us all2 the wise man considered his fate and1 by knowing it1 raised himself in a measure above it4 ,all living things pursued the greatest happiness they could see their way to2 but they were marvellously short-sighted2 and the business of the philosopher was to foresee and pursue the greatest happiness that was really possible4 ,this1 in so rough a world1 was to be found chiefly in abstention and retrenchment4 ,if you asked for little1 it was more probable that the event would not disappoint you4 ,it was important not to be a fool1 but it was very hard4 ,the system of ,democritus was adopted by ,epicurus1 but not because ,epicurus had any keenness of scientific vision4 ,on the contrary1 ,epicurus1 the ,herbert ,spencer of antiquity1 was in his natural philosophy an encyclopaedia of second-hand knowledge4 ,prolix and minute1 vague and inconsistent1 he gathered his scientific miscellany with an eye fixed not on nature1 but on the exigencies of an inward faith1--a faith accepted on moral grounds1 deemed necessary to salvation1 and defended at all costs1 with any available weapon4 ,it is instructive that materialism should have been adopted at that juncture on the same irrelevant moral grounds on which it has usually been rejected4 ,epicurus1 strange as it may sound to those who have heard1 with horror or envy1 of wallowing in his sty1 ,epicurus was a saint4 ,the ways of the world filled him with dismay4 ,the ,athens of his time1 which some of us would give our eyes to see1 retained all its splendour amid its political decay2 but nothing there interested or pleased ,epicurus4 ,theatres1 porches1 gymnasiums1 and above all the agora1 reeked1 to his sense1 with vanity and folly4 ,retired in his private garden1 with a few friends and disciples1 he sought the ways of peace2 he lived abstemiously2 he spoke gently2 he gave alms to the poor2 he preached against wealth1 against ambition1 against passion4 ,he defended free-will because he wished to exercise it in withdrawing from the world1 and in not swimming with the current4 ,he denied the supernatural1 since belief in it would have a disquieting influence on the mind1 and render too many things compulsory and momentous4 ,there was no future life3 the art of living wisely must not be distorted by such wild imaginings4 ,all things happened in due course of nature2 the gods were too remote and too happy1 secluded like good ,epicureans1 to meddle with earthly things4 ,nothing ruffled what ,wordsworth calls their 8voluptuous unconcern40 ,nevertheless1 it was pleasant to frequent their temples4 ,there1 as in the spaces where they dwelt between the worlds1 the gods were silent and beautiful1 and wore the human form4 ,their statues1 when an unhappy man gazed at them1 reminded him of happiness2 he was refreshed and weaned for a moment from the senseless tumult of human affairs4 ,from those groves and hallowed sanctuaries the philosopher returned to his garden strengthened in his wisdom1 happier in his isolation1 more friendly and more indifferent to all the world4 ,thus the life of ,epicurus1 as ,st4 ,jerome bears witness1 was 8full of herbs1 fruits1 and abstinences40 ,there was a hush in it1 as of bereavement4 ,his was a philosophy of the decadence1 a philosophy of negation1 and of flight from the world4 ,although science for its own sake could not interest so monkish a nature1 yet science might be useful in buttressing the faith1 or in removing objections to it4 ,epicurus therefore departed from the reserve of ,socrates1 and looked for a natural philosophy that might support his ethics4 ,of all the systems extant--and they were legion--he found that of ,democritus the most helpful and edifying4 ,better than any other it would persuade men to renounce the madness that must be renounced and to enjoy the pleasures that may be enjoyed4 ,but1 since it was adopted on these external and pragmatic grounds1 the system of ,democritus did not need to be adopted entire4 ,in fact1 one change at least was imperative4 ,the motion of the atoms must not be wholly regular and mechanical4 ,chance must be admitted1 that ,fate might be removed4 ,fate was a terrifying notion4 ,it was spoken of by the people with superstitious unction4 ,chance was something humbler1 more congenial to the man in the street4 ,if only the atoms were allowed to deflect a little now and then from their courses1 the future might remain unpredictable1 and free-will might be saved4 ,therefore1 ,epicurus decreed that the atoms deflected1 and fantastic arguments were added to show that this intrusion of chance would aid in the organization of nature2 for the declension of the atoms1 as it is called1 would explain how the original parallel downpour of them might have yielded to vortices1 and so to organized bodies4 ,let us pass on4 ,materialism1 like any system of natural philosophy1 carries with it no commandments and no advice4 ,it merely describes the world1 including the aspirations and consciences of mortals1 and refers all to a material ground4 ,the materialist1 being a man1 will not fail to have preferences1 and even a conscience1 of his own2 but his precepts and policy will express1 not the logical implications of his science1 but his human instincts1 as inheritance and experience may have shaped them4 ,any system of ethics might accordingly coexist with materialism2 for if materialism declares certain things 7like immortality7 to be impossible1 it cannot declare them to be undesirable4 ,nevertheless1 it is not likely that a man so constituted as to embrace materialism will be so constituted as to pursue things which he considers unattainable4 ,there is therefore a psychological1 though no logical1 bond between materialism and a homely morality4 ,the materialist is primarily an observer2 and he will probably be such in ethics also2 that is1 he will have no ethics1 except the emotion produced upon him by the march of the world4 ,if he is an esprit fort and really disinterested1 he will love life2 as we all love perfect vitality1 or what strikes us as such1 in gulls and porpoises4 ,this1 ,i think1 is the ethical sentiment psychologically consonant with a vigorous materialism3 sympathy with the movement of things1 interest in the rising wave1 delight at the foam it bursts into1 before it sinks again4 ,nature does not distinguish the better from the worse1 but the lover of nature does4 ,he calls better what1 being analogous to his own life1 enhances his vitality and probably possesses some vitality of its own4 ,this is the ethical feeling of ,spinoza1 the greatest of modern naturalists in philosophy2 and we shall see how ,lucretius1 in spite of his fidelity to the ascetic ,epicurus1 is carried by his poetic ecstasy in the same direction4 ,but mark the crux of this union3 the materialist will love the life of nature when he loves his own life2 but if he should hate his own life1 how should the life of nature please him8 ,now ,epicurus1 for the most part1 hated life4 ,his moral system1 called hedonism1 recommends that sort of pleasure which has no excitement and no risk about it4 ,this ideal is modest1 and even chaste1 but it is not vital4 ,epicurus was remarkable for his mercy1 his friendliness1 his utter horror of war1 of sacrifice1 of suffering4 ,these are not sentiments that a genuine naturalist would be apt to share4 ,pity and repentance1 ,spinoza said1 were vain and evil2 what increased a man's power and his joy increased his goodness also4 ,the naturalist will believe in a certain hardness1 as ,nietzsche did2 he will incline to a certain scorn1 as the laughter of ,democritus was scornful4 ,he will not count too scrupulously the cost of what he achieves2 he will be an imperialist1 rapt in the joy of achieving something4 ,in a word1 the moral hue of materialism in a formative age1 or in an aggressive mind1 would be aristocratic and imaginative2 but in a decadent age1 or in a soul that is renouncing everything1 it would be1 as in ,epicurus1 humanitarian and timidly sensual4 ,we have now before us the antecedents and components of ,lucretius' poem on nature4 ,there remains the genius of the poet himself4 ,the greatest thing about this genius is its power of losing itself in its object1 its impersonality4 ,we seem to be reading not the poetry of a poet about things1 but the poetry of things themselves4 ,that things have their poetry1 not because of what we make them symbols of1 but because of their own movement and life1 is what ,lucretius proves once for all to mankind4 ,of course1 the poetry we see in nature is due to the emotion the spectacle produces in us2 the life of nature might be as romantic and sublime as it chose1 it would be dust and ashes to us if there were nothing sublime and romantic in ourselves to be stirred by it to sympathy4 ,but our emotion may be ingenuous2 it may be concerned with what nature really is and does1 has been and will do for ever4 ,it need not arise from a selfish preoccupation with what these immense realities involve for our own persons or may be used to suggest to our self-indulgent fancy4 ,no1 the poetry of nature may be discerned merely by the power of intuition which it awakens and the understanding which it employs4 ,these faculties1 more1 ,i should say1 than our moodiness or stuffy dreams1 draw taut the strings of the soul1 and bring out her full vitality and music4 ,naturalism is a philosophy of observation1 and of an imagination that extends the observable2 all the sights and sounds of nature enter into it1 and lend it their directness1 pungency1 and coercive stress4 ,at the same time1 naturalism is an intellectual philosophy2 it divines substance behind appearance1 continuity behind change1 law behind fortune4 ,it therefore attaches all those sights and sounds to a hidden background that connects and explains them4 ,so understood1 nature has depth as well as surface1 force and necessity as well as sensuous variety4 ,before the sublimity of this insight1 all forms of the pathetic fallacy seem cheap and artificial4 ,mythology1 that to a childish mind is the only possible poetry1 sounds like bad rhetoric in comparison4 ,the naturalistic poet abandons fairy land1 because he has discovered nature1 history1 the actual passions of man4 ,his imagination has reached maturity2 its pleasure is to dominate1 not to play4 ,poetic dominion over things as they are is seen best in ,shakespeare for the ways of men1 and in ,lucretius for the ways of nature4 ,unapproachably vivid1 relentless1 direct in detail1 he is unflinchingly grand and serious in his grouping of the facts4 ,it is the truth that absorbs him and carries him along4 ,he wishes us to be convinced and sobered by the fact1 by the overwhelming evidence of thing after thing1 raining down upon us1 all bearing witness with one voice to the nature of the world4 ,suppose1 however1--and it is a tenable supposition1--that ,lucretius is quite wrong in his science1 and that there is no space1 no substance1 and no nature4 ,his poem would then lose its pertinence to our lives and personal convictions2 it would not lose its imaginative grandeur4 ,we could still conceive a world composed as he describes4 ,fancy what emotions those who lived in such a world would have felt on the day when a ,democritus or a ,lucretius revealed to them their actual situation4 ,how great the blindness or the madness dissipated1 and how wonderful the vision gained6 ,how clear the future1 how intelligible the past1 how marvellous the swarming atoms1 in their unintentional1 perpetual fertility6 ,what the sky is to our eyes on a starry night1 that every nook and cranny of nature would resemble1 with here and there the tentative smile of life playing about those constellations4 ,surely that universe1 for those who lived in it1 would have had its poetry4 ,it would have been the poetry of naturalism4 ,lucretius1 thinking he lived in such a world1 heard the music of it1 and wrote it down4 ,and yet1 when he set himself to make his poem out of the system of ,epicurus1 the greatness of that task seems to have overwhelmed him4 ,he was to unfold for the first time1 in sonorous but unwieldy ,latin1 the birth and nature of all things1 as ,greek subtlety had discerned them4 ,he was to dispel superstition1 to refute antagonists1 to lay the sure foundations of science and of wisdom1 to summon mankind compellingly from its cruel passions and follies to a life of simplicity and peace4 ,he was himself combative and distracted enough--as it is often our troubles1 more than our attainments1 that determine our ideals4 ,yet in heralding the advent of human happiness1 and in painting that of the gods1 he was to attain his own1 soaring upon the strong wings of his hexameters into an ecstasy of contemplation and enthusiasm4 ,when it is so great an emotion to read these verses1 what must it have been to compose them8 ,yet could he succeed8 ,could such great things fall to his lot8 ,yes1 they might1 if only the creative forces of nature1 always infinite and always at hand1 could pass into his brain and into his spirit2 if only the seeds of corruption and madness1 which were always coursing through the air1 could be blown back for a moment2 and if the din of civil conflicts could be suspended while he thought and wrote4 ,to a fortunate conjunction of atoms1 a child owes his first being4 ,to a propitious season and atmosphere1 a poet owes his inspiration and his success4 ,conscious that his undertaking hangs upon these chance conjunctions1 ,lucretius begins by invoking the powers he is about to describe1 that they may give him breath and genius enough to describe them4 ,and at once these powers send him a happy inspiration1 perhaps a happy reminiscence of ,empedocles4 ,there are two great perspectives which the moralist may distinguish in the universal drift of atoms1--a creative movement1 producing what the moralist values1 and a destructive movement1 abolishing the same4 ,lucretius knows very well that this distinction is moral only1 or as people now say1 subjective4 ,no one else has pointed out so often and so clearly as he that nothing arises in this world not helped to life by the death of some other thing2#c so that the destructive movement creates and the creative movement destroys4 ,yet from the point of view of any particular life or interest1 the distinction between a creative force and a destructive force is real and all-important4 ,to make it is not to deny the mechanical structure of nature1 but only to show how this mechanical structure is fruitful morally1 how the outlying parts of it are friendly or hostile to me or to you1 its local and living products4 ,this double colouring of things is supremely interesting to the philosopher2 so much so that before his physical science has reached the mechanical stage1 he will doubtless regard the double aspect which things present to him as a dual principle in these things themselves4 ,so ,empedocles had spoken of ,love and ,strife as two forces which respectively gathered and disrupted the elements1 so as to carry on between them the ,penelope's labour of the world1 the one perpetually weaving fresh forms of life1 and the other perpetually undoing them4#d ,it needed but a slight concession to traditional rhetoric in order to exchange these names1 ,love and ,strife1 which designated divine powers in ,empedocles1 into the names of ,venus and ,mars1 which designated the same influences in ,roman mythology4 ,the ,mars and ,venus of ,lucretius are not moral forces1 incompatible with the mechanism of atoms2 they are this mechanism itself1 in so far as it now produces and now destroys life1 or any precious enterprise1 like this of ,lucretius in composing his saving poem4 ,mars and ,venus1 linked in each other's arms1 rule the universe together2 nothing arises save by the death of some other thing4 ,yet when what arises is happier in itself1 or more congenial to us1 than what is destroyed1 the poet says that ,venus prevails1 that she woos her captive lover to suspend his unprofitable raging4 ,at such times it is spring on earth2 the storms recede 7,i paraphrase the opening passage71#e the fields are covered with flowers1 the sunshine floods the serene sky1 and all the tribes of animals feel the mighty impulse of ,venus in their hearts4 ,the corn ripens in the plains1 and even the sea bears in safety the fleets that traverse it4 ,not least1 however1 of these works of ,venus is the ,roman people4 ,never was the formative power of nature better illustrated than in the vitality of this race1 which conquered so many other races1 or than in its assimilative power1 which civilized and pacified them4 ,legend had made ,venus the mother of ,aeneas1 and ,aeneas the progenitor of the ,romans4 ,lucretius seizes on this happy accident and identifies the ,venus of fable with the true ,venus1 the propitious power in all nature1 of which ,rome was indeed a crowning work4 ,but the poet's work1 also1 if it is to be accomplished worthily1 must look to the same propitious movement for its happy issue and for its power to persuade4 ,venus must be the patron of his art and philosophy4 ,she must keep ,memmius from the wars1 that he may read1 and be weaned from frivolous ambitions2 and she must stop the tumult of constant sedition1 that ,lucretius may lend his undivided mind to the precepts of ,epicurus1 and his whole heart to a sublime friendship1 which prompts him to devote to intense study all the watches of the starry night1 plotting the course of each invisible atom1 and mounting almost to the seat of the gods4#f ,this impersonation in the figure of ,venus of whatever makes for life would not be legitimate--it would really contradict a mechanical view of nature--if it were not balanced by a figure representing the opposite tendency1 the no less universal tendency towards death4 ,the ,mars of the opening passage1 subdued for a moment by the blandishments of love1 is raging in all the rest of the poem in his irrepressible fury4 ,these are the two sides of every transmutation1 that in creating1 one thing destroys another2 and this transmutation being perpetual1--nothing being durable except the void1 the atoms1 and their motion1--it follows that the tendency towards death is1 for any particular thing1 the final and victorious tendency4 ,the names of ,venus and ,mars1 not being essential to the poet's thought1 are allowed to drop out1 and the actual processes they stand for are described nakedly2 yet1 if the poem had ever been finished1 and ,lucretius had wished to make the end chime with the beginning1 and represent1 as it were1 one great cycle of the world1 it is conceivable that he might have placed at the close a mythical passage to match that at the beginning2 and we might have seen ,mars aroused from his luxurious lethargy1 reasserting his immortal nature1 and rushing1 firebrand in hand1 from the palace of love to spread destruction throughout the universe1 till all things should burn fiercely1 and be consumed together4 ,yet not quite all2 for the goddess herself would remain1 more divine and desirable than ever in her averted beauty4 ,instinctively into her bosom the ,god of ,war would sink again1 when weary and drunk with slaughter2 and a new world would arise from the scattered atoms of the old4 ,these endless revolutions1 taken in themselves1 exactly balance2 and ,i am not sure that1 impartially considered1 it is any sadder that new worlds should arise than that this world should always continue4 ,besides1 nature cannot take from us more than she has given1 and it would be captious and thankless in us to think of her as destructive only1 or destructive essentially1 after the unspeculative fashion of modern pessimists4 ,she destroys to create1 and creates to destroy1 her interest 7if we may express it so7 being not in particular things1 nor in their continuance1 but solely in the movement that underlies them1 in the flux of substance beneath4 ,life1 however1 belongs to form1 and not to matter2 or in the language of ,lucretius1 life is an eventum1 a redundant ideal product or incidental aspect1 involved in the equilibration of matter2 as the throw of sixes is an eventum1 a redundant ideal product or incidental aspect1 occasionally involved in shaking a dice-box4 ,yet1 as this throw makes the acme and best possible issue of a game of dice1 so life is the acme and best possible issue of the dance of atoms2 and it is from the point of view of this eventum that the whole process is viewed by us1 and is judged4 ,not until that happy chance has taken place1 do we exist morally1 or can we reflect or judge at all4 ,the philosopher is at the top of the wave1 he is the foam in the rolling tempest2 and as the wave must have risen before he bursts into being1 all that he lives to witness is the fall of the wave4 ,the decadence of all he lives by is the only prospect before him2 his whole philosophy must be a prophecy of death4 ,of the life that may come after1 when the atoms come together again1 he can imagine nothing2 the life he knows and shares1 all that is life to him1 is waning and almost spent4 ,therefore ,lucretius1 who is nothing if not honest1 is possessed by a profound melancholy4 ,vigorous and throbbing as are his pictures of spring1 of love1 of ambition1 of budding culture1 of intellectual victory1 they pale before the vivid strokes with which he paints the approach of death--fatigue of the will1 lassitude in pleasure1 corruption and disintegration in society1 the soil exhausted1 the wild animals tamed or exterminated1 poverty1 pestilence1 and famine at hand2 and for the individual1 almost at once1 the final dissipation of the atoms of his soul1 escaping from a relaxed body1 to mingle and lose themselves in the universal flow4 ,nothing comes out of nothing1 nothing falls back into nothing1 if we consider substance2 but everything comes from nothing and falls back into nothing if we consider things--the objects of love and of experience4 ,time can make no impression on the void or on the atoms2 nay1 time is itself an eventum created by the motion of atoms in the void2 but the triumph of time is absolute over persons1 and nations1 and worlds4#g ,in treating of the soul and of immortality ,lucretius is an imperfect psychologist and an arbitrary moralist4 ,his zeal to prove that the soul is mortal is inspired by the wish to dispel all fear of future punishments1 and so to liberate the mind for the calm and tepid enjoyment of this world4 ,there is something to be gained in this direction1 undoubtedly1 especially if tales about divine vengeance to come are used to sanction irrational practices1 and to prevent poor people from improving their lot4 ,at the same time1 it is hardly fair to assume that hell is the only prospect which immortality could possibly open to any of us2 and it is also unfair not to observe that the punishments which religious fables threaten the dead with are1 for the most part1 symbols for the actual degradation which evil-doing brings upon the living2 so that the fear of hell is not more deterrent or repressive than experience of life would be if it were clearly brought before the mind4 ,there is another element in this polemic against immortality which1 while highly interesting and characteristic of a decadent age1 betrays a very one-sided and1 at bottom1 untenable ideal4 ,this element is the fear of life4 ,epicurus had been a pure and tender moralist1 but pusillanimous4 ,he was so afraid of hurting and of being hurt1 so afraid of running risks or tempting fortune1 that he wished to prove that human life was a brief business1 not subject to any great transformations1 nor capable of any great achievements4 ,he taught accordingly that the atoms had produced already all the animals they could produce1 for though infinite in number the atoms were of few kinds4 ,consequently the possible sorts of being were finite and soon exhausted2 this world1 though on the eve of destruction1 was of recent date4 ,the worlds around it1 or to be produced in future1 could not afford anything essentially different4 ,all the suns were much alike1 and there was nothing new under them4 ,we need not1 then1 fear the world2 it is an explored and domestic scene1--a home1 a little garden1 six feet of earth for a man to stretch in4 ,if people rage and make a great noise1 it is not because there is much to win1 or much to fear1 but because people are mad4 ,let me not be mad1 thought ,epicurus2 let me be reasonable1 cultivating sentiments appropriate to a mortal who inhabits a world morally comfortable and small1 and physically poor in its infinite monotony4 ,the well-known lines of ,fitzgerald echo this sentiment perfectly3 ,a ,book of ,verses underneath the ,bough1 ,a ,jug of ,wine1 a ,loaf of ,bread--and ,thou ,beside me singing in the ,wilderness-- ,oh1 ,wilderness were ,paradise enow6 ,but what if the shadow of incalculable possibilities should fall across this sunny retreat8 ,what if after death we should awake in a world to which the atomic philosophy might not in the least apply8 ,observe that this suggestion is not in the least opposed to any of the arguments by which science might prove the atomic theory to be correct4 ,all that ,epicurus taught about the universe now before us might be perfectly true of it2 but what if to-morrow a new universe should have taken its place8 ,the suggestion is doubtless gratuitous1 and no busy man will be much troubled by it2 yet when the heart is empty it fills itself with such attenuated dreams4 ,the muffled pleasures of the wise man1 as ,epicurus conceived him1 were really a provocation to supernaturalism4 ,they left a great void2 and before long supernaturalism--we shall see it in ,dante--actually rushed in to quicken the pulses of life with fresh hopes and illusions1 or at least 7what may seem better than nothing7 with terrors and fanatical zeal4 ,with such tendencies already afoot as the myths and dogmas of ,plato had betrayed1 it was imperative for ,epicurus to banish anxiously all thought of what might follow death4 ,to this end are all his arguments about the material nature of the soul and her incapacity to survive the body4 ,to say that the soul is material has a strange and barbarous sound to modern ears4 ,we live after ,descartes1 who taught the world that the essence of the soul was consciousness2 and to call consciousness material would be to talk of the blackness of white4 ,but ancient usage gave the word soul a rather different meaning4 ,the essence of the soul was not so much to be conscious as to govern the formation of the body1 to warm1 move1 and guide it4 ,and if we think of the soul exclusively in this light1 it will not seem a paradox1 it may even seem a truism1 to say that the soul must be material4 ,for how are we to conceive that preexisting consciousness should govern the formation of the body1 move1 warm1 or guide it8 ,a spirit capable of such a miracle would in any case not be human1 but altogether divine4 ,the soul that ,lucretius calls material should not1 then1 be identified with consciousness1 but with the ground of consciousness1 which is at the same time the cause of life in the body4 ,this he conceives to be a swarm of very small and volatile atoms1 a sort of ether1 resident in all living seeds1 breathed in abundantly during life and breathed out at death4 ,even if this theory were accepted1 however1 it would not prove the point which ,lucretius has chiefly at heart1 namely1 that an after-life is impossible4 ,the atoms of the soul are indestructible1 like all atoms2 and if consciousness were attached to the fortunes of a small group of them1 or of one only 7as ,leibniz afterwards taught71 consciousness would continue to exist after these atoms had escaped from the body and were shooting through new fields of space4 ,indeed1 they might be the more aroused by that adventure1 as a bee might find the sky or the garden more exciting than the hive4 ,all that ,lucretius urges about the divisibility of the soul1 its diffused bodily seat1 and the perils it would meet outside fails to remove the ominous possibility that troubles him4 ,to convince us that we perish at death he has to rely on vulgar experience and inherent probability3 what changes is not indestructible2 what begins1 ends2 mental growth1 health1 sanity1 accompany the fortunes of the body as a whole 7not demonstrably those of the soul-atoms72 the passions are relevant to bodily life and to an earthly situation2 we should not be ourselves under a different mask or in a new setting2 we remember no previous existence if we had one1 and so1 in a future existence1 we should not remember this4 ,these reflections are impressive1 and they are enforced by ,lucretius with his usual vividness and smack of reality4 ,nothing is proved scientifically by such a deliverance1 yet it is good philosophy and good poetry2 it brings much experience together and passes a lofty judgment upon it4 ,the artist has his eye on the model2 he is painting death to the life4 ,if these considerations succeed in banishing the dread of an after-life1 there remains the distress which many feel at the idea of extinction2 and if we have ceased to fear death1 like ,hamlet1 for the dreams that may come after it1 we may still fear death instinctively1 like a stuck pig4 ,against this instinctive horror of dying ,lucretius has many brave arguments4 ,fools1 he says to us1 why do you fear what never can touch you8 ,while you still live1 death is absent2 and when you are dead1 you are so dead that you cannot know you are dead1 nor regret it4 ,you will be as much at ease as before you were born4 ,or is what troubles you the childish fear of being cold in the earth1 or feeling its weight stifling you8 ,but you will not be there2 the atoms of your soul--themselves unconscious--will be dancing in some sunbeam far away1 and you yourself will be nowhere2 you will absolutely not exist4 ,death is by definition a state that excludes experience4 ,if you fear it1 you fear a word4 ,to all this1 perhaps1 ,memmius1 or some other recalcitrant reader1 might retort that what he shrank from was not the metaphysical state of being dead1 but the very real agony of dying4 ,dying is something ghastly1 as being born is something ridiculous2 and1 even if no pain were involved in quitting or entering this world1 we might still say what ,dante's ,francesca says of it3 ,il modo ancor m'offende1--8,i shudder at the way of it40 ,lucretius1 for his part1 makes no attempt to show that everything is as it should be2 and if our way of coming into this life is ignoble1 and our way of leaving it pitiful1 that is no fault of his nor of his philosophy4 ,if the fear of death were merely the fear of dying1 it would be better dealt with by medicine than by argument4 ,there is1 or there might be1 an art of dying well1 of dying painlessly1 willingly1 and in season1--as in those noble partings which ,attic gravestones depict1--especially if we were allowed1 as ,lucretius would allow us1 to choose our own time4 ,but the radical fear of death1 ,i venture to think1 is something quite different4 ,it is the love of life4 ,epicurus1 who feared life1 seems to have missed here the primordial and colossal force he was fighting against4 ,had he perceived that force1 he would have been obliged to meet it in a more radical way1 by an enveloping movement1 as it were1 and an attack from the rear4 ,the love of life is not something rational1 or founded on experience of life4 ,it is something antecedent and spontaneous4 ,it is that ,venus ,genetrix which covers the earth with its flora and fauna4 ,it teaches every animal to seek its food and its mate1 and to protect its offspring2 as also to resist or fly from all injury to the body1 and most of all from threatened death4 ,it is the original impulse by which good is discriminated from evil1 and hope from fear4 ,nothing could be more futile1 therefore1 than to marshal arguments against that fear of death which is merely another name for the energy of life1 or the tendency to self-preservation4 ,arguments involve premises1 and these premises1 in the given case1 express some particular form of the love of life2 whence it is impossible to conclude that death is in no degree evil and not at all to be feared4 ,for what is most dreaded is not the agony of dying1 nor yet the strange impossibility that when we do not exist we should suffer for not existing4 ,what is dreaded is the defeat of a present will directed upon life and its various undertakings4 ,such a present will cannot be argued away1 but it may be weakened by contradictions arising within it1 by the irony of experience1 or by ascetic discipline4 ,to introduce ascetic discipline1 to bring out the irony of experience1 to expose the self-contradictions of the will1 would be the true means of mitigating the love of life2 and if the love of life were extinguished1 the fear of death1 like smoke rising from that fire1 would have vanished also4 ,indeed1 the force of the great passage against the fear of death1 at the end of the third book of ,lucretius1 comes chiefly from the picture it draws of the madness of life4 ,his philosophy deprecates covetousness1 ambition1 love1 and religion2 it takes a long step towards the surrender of life1 by surrendering all in life that is ardent1 on the ground that it is painful in the end and ignominious4 ,to escape from it all is a great deliverance4 ,and since genius must be ardent about something1 ,lucretius pours out his enthusiasm on ,epicurus1 who brought this deliverance and was the saviour of mankind4 ,yet this was only a beginning of salvation1 and the same principles carried further would have delivered us from the ,epicurean life and what it retained that was ,greek and naturalistic3 science1 friendship1 and the healthy pleasures of the body4 ,had it renounced these things also1 ,epicureanism would have become altogether ascetic1 a thorough system of mortification1 or the pursuit of death4 ,to those who sincerely pursue death1 death is no evil1 but the highest good4 ,no need in that case of elaborate arguments to prove that death should not be feared1 because it is nothing2 for in spite of being nothing--or rather because it is nothing--death can be loved by a fatigued and disillusioned spirit1 just as in spite of being nothing--or rather because it is nothing--it must be hated and feared by every vigorous animal4 ,one more point1 and ,i have done with this subject4 ,ancient culture was rhetorical4 ,it abounded in ideas that are verbally plausible1 and pass muster in a public speech1 but that1 if we stop to criticize them1 prove at once to be inexcusably false4 ,one of these rhetorical fallacies is the maxim that men cannot live for what they cannot witness4 ,what does it matter to you1 we may say in debate1 what happened before you were born1 or what may go on after you are buried8 ,and the orator who puts such a challenge may carry the audience with him1 and raise a laugh at the expense of human sincerity4 ,yet the very men who applaud are proud of their ancestors1 care for the future of their children1 and are very much interested in securing legally the execution of their last will and testament4 ,what may go on after their death concerns them deeply1 not because they expect to watch the event from hell or heaven1 but because they are interested ideally in what that event shall be1 although they are never to witness it4 ,lucretius himself1 in his sympathy with nature1 in his zeal for human enlightenment1 in his tears for ,iphigenia1 long since dead1 is not moved by the hope of observing1 or the memory of having observed1 what excites his emotion4 ,he forgets himself4 ,he sees the whole universe spread out in its true movement and proportions2 he sees mankind freed from the incubus of superstition1 and from the havoc of passion4 ,the vision kindles his enthusiasm1 exalts his imagination1 and swells his verse into unmistakable earnestness4 ,if we follow ,lucretius1 therefore1 in narrowing the sum of our personal fortunes to one brief and partial glimpse of earth1 we must not suppose that we need narrow at all the sphere of our moral interests4 ,on the contrary1 just in proportion as we despise superstitious terrors and sentimental hopes1 and as our imagination becomes self-forgetful1 we shall strengthen the direct and primitive concern which we feel in the world and in what may go on there1 before us1 after us1 or beyond our ken4 ,if1 like ,lucretius and every philosophical poet1 we range over all time and all existence1 we shall forget our own persons1 as he did1 and even wish them to be forgotten1 if only the things we care for may subsist or arise4 ,he who truly loves ,god1 says ,spinoza1 cannot wish that ,god should love him in return4 ,one who lives the life of the universe cannot be much concerned for his own4 ,after all1 the life of the universe is but the locus and extension of ours4 ,the atoms that have once served to produce life remain fit to reproduce it2 and although the body they might animate later would be a new one1 and would have a somewhat different career1 it would not1 according to ,lucretius1 be of a totally new species2 perhaps not more unlike ourselves than we are unlike one another1 or than each of us is unlike himself at the various stages of his life4 ,the soul of nature1 in the elements of it1 is then1 according to ,lucretius1 actually immortal2 only the human individuality1 the chance composition of those elements1 is transitory2 so that1 if a man could care for what happens to other men1 for what befell him when young or what may overtake him when old1 he might perfectly well care1 on the same imaginative principle1 for what may go on in the world for ever4 ,the finitude and injustice of his personal life would be broken down2 the illusion of selfishness would be dissipated2 and he might say to himself1 ,i have imagination1 and nothing that is real is alien to me4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the word nature has many senses2 but if we preserve the one which etymology justifies1 and which is the most philosophical as well1 nature should mean the principle of birth or genesis1 the universal mother1 the great cause1 or system of causes1 that brings phenomena to light4 ,if we take the word nature in this sense1 it may be said that ,lucretius1 more than any other man1 is the poet of nature4 ,of course1 being an ancient1 he is not particularly a poet of landscape4 ,he runs deeper than that2 he is a poet of the source of landscape1 a poet of matter4 ,a poet of landscape might try to suggest1 by well-chosen words1 the sensations of light1 movement1 and form which nature arouses in us2 but in this attempt he would encounter the insuperable difficulty which ,lessing long ago pointed out1 and warned poets of3 ,i mean the unfitness of language to render what is spatial and material2 its fitness to render only what1 like language itself1 is bodiless and flowing1--action1 feeling1 and thought4 ,it is noticeable1 accordingly1 that poets who are fascinated by pure sense and seek to write poems about it are called not impressionists1 but symbolists2 for in trying to render some absolute sensation they render rather the field of association in which that sensation lies1 or the emotions and half-thoughts that shoot and play about it in their fancy4 ,they become--against their will1 perhaps--psychological poets1 ringers of mental chimes1 and listeners for the chance overtones of consciousness4 ,hence we call them symbolists1 mixing perhaps some shade of disparagement in the term1 as if they were symbolists of an empty1 super-subtle1 or fatuous sort4 ,for they play with things luxuriously1 making them symbols for their thoughts1 instead of mending their thoughts intelligently1 to render them symbols for things4 ,a poet might be a symbolist in another sense1--if he broke up nature1 the object suggested by landscape to the mind1 and reverted to the elements of landscape1 not in order to associate these sensations lazily together1 but in order to build out of them in fancy a different nature1 a better world1 than that which they reveal to reason4 ,the elements of landscape1 chosen1 emphasized1 and recombined for this purpose1 would then be symbols for the ideal world they were made to suggest1 and for the ideal life that might be led in that paradise4 ,shelley is a symbolic landscape poet in this sense4 ,to ,shelley1 as ,francis ,thompson has said1 nature was a toy-shop2 his fancy took the materials of the landscape and wove them into a gossamer world1 a bright ethereal habitation for new-born irresponsible spirits4 ,shelley was the musician of landscape2 he traced out its unrealized suggestions2 transformed the things he saw into the things he would fain have seen4 ,in this idealization it was spirit that guided him1 the bent of his wild and exquisite imagination1 and he fancied sometimes that the grosser landscapes of earth were likewise the work of some half-spiritual stress1 of some restlessly dreaming power4 ,in this sense1 earthly landscape seemed to him the symbol of the earth spirit1 as the starlit crystal landscapes of his verse1 with their pensive flowers1 were symbols in which his own fevered spirit was expressed1 images in which his passion rested4 ,another sort of landscape poetry is to be found in ,wordsworth1 for whom the title of poet of nature might perhaps be claimed4 ,to him the landscape is an influence4 ,what he renders1 beyond such pictorial touches as language is capable of1 is the moral inspiration which the scene brings to him4 ,this moral inspiration is not drawn at all from the real processes of nature which every landscape manifests in some aspect and for one moment4 ,such would have been the method of ,lucretius2 he would have passed imaginatively from the landscape to the sources of the landscape2 he would have disclosed the poetry of matter1 not of spirit4 ,wordsworth1 on the contrary1 dwells on adventitious human matters4 ,he is no poet of genesis1 evolution1 and natural force in its myriad manifestations4 ,only a part of the cosmic process engages his interest1 or touches his soul--the strengthening or chastening of human purposes by the influences of landscape4 ,these influences are very real2 for as food or wine keeps the animal heart beating1 or quickens it1 so large spaces of calm sky1 or mountains1 or dells1 or solitary stretches of water1 expand the breast1 disperse the obsessions that cramp a man's daily existence1 and even if he be less contemplative and less virtuous than ,wordsworth1 make him1 for the moment1 a friend to all things1 and a friend to himself4 ,yet these influences are vague and for the most part fleeting4 ,wordsworth would hardly have felt them so distinctly and so constantly had he not found a further link to bind landscape to moral sentiment4 ,such a link exists4 ,the landscape is the scene of human life4 ,every spot1 every season1 is associated with the sort of existence which falls to men in that environment4 ,landscape for ,wordsworth's age and in his country was seldom without figures4 ,at least1 some visible trace of man guided the poet and set the key for his moral meditation4 ,country life was no less dear to ,wordsworth than landscape was2 it fitted into every picture2 and while the march of things1 as ,lucretius conceived it1 was not present to ,wordsworth's imagination1 the revolutions of society--the ,french ,revolution1 for instance--were constantly in his thoughts4 ,in so far as he was a poet of human life1 ,wordsworth was truly a poet of nature4 ,in so far1 however1 as he was a poet of landscape1 he was still fundamentally a poet of human life1 or merely of his personal experience4 ,when he talked of nature he was generally moralizing1 and altogether subject to the pathetic fallacy2 but when he talked of man1 or of himself1 he was unfolding a part of nature1 the upright human heart1 and studying it in its truth4 ,lucretius1 a poet of universal nature1 studied everything in its truth4 ,even moral life1 though he felt it much more narrowly and coldly than ,wordsworth did1 was better understood and better sung by him for being seen in its natural setting4 ,it is a fault of idealists to misrepresent idealism1 because they do not view it as a part of the world4 ,idealism is a part of the world1 a small and dependent part of it4 ,it is a small and dependent part even in the life of men4 ,this fact is nothing against idealism taken as a moral energy1 as a faculty of idealization and a habit of living in the familiar presence of an image of what would1 in everything1 be best4 ,but it is the ruin of idealism taken as a view of the central and universal power in the world4 ,for this reason ,lucretius1 who sees human life and human idealism in their natural setting1 has a saner and maturer view of both than has ,wordsworth1 for all his greater refinement4 ,nature1 for the ,latin poet1 is really nature4 ,he loves and fears her1 as she deserves to be loved and feared by her creatures4 ,whether it be a wind blowing1 a torrent rushing1 a lamb bleating1 the magic of love1 genius achieving its purpose1 or a war1 or a pestilence1 ,lucretius sees everything in its causes1 and in its total career4 ,one breath of lavish creation1 one iron law of change1 runs through the whole1 making all things kin in their inmost elements and in their last end4 ,here is the touch of nature indeed1 her largeness and eternity4 ,here is the true echo of the life of matter4 ,any comprehensive picture of nature and destiny1 if the picture be credited1 must arouse emotion1 and in a reflective and vivid mind must inspire poetry--for what is poetry but emotion1 fixing and colouring the objects from which it springs8 ,the sublime poem of ,lucretius1 expounding the least poetical of philosophies1 proves this point beyond a doubt4 ,yet ,lucretius was far from exhausting the inspiration which a poet might draw from materialism4 ,in the philosophy of ,epicurus1 even1 which had but a sickly hold on materialism1 there were two strains which ,lucretius did not take up1 and which are naturally rich in poetry1 the strain of piety and the strain of friendship4 ,it is usual and1 in one sense1 legitimate to speak of the ,epicureans as atheists1 since they denied providence and any government of ,god in the world4 ,yet they admitted the existence of gods1 living in the quiet spaces between those celestial whirlpools which form the various worlds4 ,to these gods they attributed the human form1 and the serene life to which ,epicurus aspired4 ,epicurus himself was so sincere in this belief1 and so much affected by it1 that he used to frequent the temples1 keep the feasts of the gods1 and often spend hours before their images in contemplation and prayer4 ,in this1 as in much else1 ,epicurus was carrying out to its logical conclusion the rational and reforming essence of ,hellenism4 ,in ,greek religion1 as in all other religions1 there was a background of vulgar superstition4 ,survivals and revivals of totem-worship1 taboo1 magic1 ritual barter1 and objectified rhetoric are to be found in it to the very end2 yet if we consider in ,greek religion its characteristic tendency1 and what rendered it distinctively ,greek1 we see that it was its unprecedented ideality1 disinterestedness1 and aestheticism4 ,to the ,greek1 in so far as he was a ,greek1 religion was an aspiration to grow like the gods by invoking their companionship1 rehearsing their story1 feeling vicariously the glow of their splendid prerogatives1 and placing them1 in the form of beautiful and very human statues1 constantly before his eyes4 ,this sympathetic interest in the immortals took the place1 in the typical ,greek mind1 of any vivid hope of human immortality2 perhaps it made such a hope seem superfluous and inappropriate4 ,mortality belonged to man1 as immortality to the gods2 and the one was the complement of the other4 ,imagine a poet who1 to the freedom and simplicity of ,homer1 should have added the more reverent idealism of a later age2 and what an inexhaustible fund of poetry might he not have found in this conception of the immortals leading a human life1 without its sordid contrarieties and limitations1 eternally young1 and frank1 and different6 ,hints of such poetry are to be found in ,plato1 myths that present the ideal suggestions of human life in pictures4 ,these he sometimes leaves general and pale1 calling them ideas2 but at other times he embodies them in deities1 or in detailed imaginary constructions1 like that of his ,republic4 ,this ,platonic habit of mind might have been carried further by some franker and less reactionary poet than ,plato was1 or tended to become1 as the years turned his wine into vinegar4 ,but the whole world was then getting sour4 ,imagination flagged1 or was diverted from the ,greek into the ,hebrew channel4 ,nevertheless1 the hymns of modern poets to the ancient gods1 and the irrepressible echoes of classic mythology in our literature1 show how easy it would have been for the later ancients themselves1 had they chosen1 to make immortal poetry out of their dying superstitions4 ,the denials of ,epicurus do not exclude this ideal use of religion2 on the contrary1 by excluding all the other uses of it--the commercial1 the mock-scientific1 and the selfish--they leave the moral interpretative aspect of religion standing alone1 ready to the poet's hand1 if any poet could be found pure and fertile enough to catch and to render it4 ,rationalized paganism might have had its ,dante1 a ,dante who should have been the pupil not of ,virgil and ,aquinas1 but of ,homer and ,plato4 ,lucretius was too literal1 positivistic1 and insistent for such a delicate task4 ,he was a ,roman4 ,moral mythology and ideal piety1 though his philosophy had room for them1 formed no part of his poetry4 ,what the other neglected theme1 friendship1 might have supplied1 we may see in the tone of another ,epicurean1 the poet ,horace4 ,friendship was highly honoured in all ancient states2 and the ,epicurean philosophy1 in banishing so many traditional forms of sentiment1 could only intensify the emphasis on friendship4 ,it taught men that they were an accident in the universe1 comrades afloat on the same raft together with no fate not common to them all1 and no possible helpers but one another4 ,lucretius does speak1 in a passage to which ,i have already referred1#h about the hope of sweet friendship that supports him in his labours2 and elsewhere#i he repeats the ,epicurean idyl about picnicking together on the green grass by a flowing brook2 but the little word 8together0 is all he vouchsafes us to mark what must be the chief ingredient in such rural happiness4 ,horace1 usually so much slighter than ,lucretius1 is less cursory here4 ,not only does he strike much oftener the note of friendship1 but his whole mind and temper breathe of friendliness and expected agreement4 ,there is1 in the very charm and artifice of his lines1 a sort of confidential joy in tasting with the kindred few the sweet or pungent savour of human things4 ,to be brief and gently ironical is to assume mutual intelligence2 and to assume mutual intelligence is to believe in friendship4 ,in ,lucretius1 on the other hand1 zeal is mightier than sympathy1 and scorn mightier than humour4 ,perhaps it would be asking too much of his uncompromising fervour that he should have unbent now and then and shown us in some detail what those pleasures of life may be which are without care and fear4 ,yet1 if it was impossible for him not to be always serious and austere1 he might at least have noted the melancholy of friendship--for friendship1 where nature has made minds isolated and bodies mortal1 is rich also in melancholy4 ,this again we may find in ,horace1 where once or twice he lets the 8something bitter0 bubble up from the heart even of this flower1 when he feels a vague need that survives satiety1 and yearns perversely for the impossible4#aj ,poor ,epicureans1 when they could not learn1 like their master1 to be saints6 ,so far the decadent materialism of ,epicurus might have carried a poet2 but a materialist in our days might find many other poetic themes to weave into his system4 ,to the picture which ,lucretius sketches of primitive civilization1 we might add the whole history of mankind4 ,to a consistent and vigorous materialism all personal and national dramas1 with the beauties of all the arts1 are no less natural and interesting than are flowers or animal bodies4 ,the moral pageantry of this world1 surveyed scientifically1 is calculated wonderfully to strengthen and refine the philosophy of abstention suggested to ,epicurus by the flux of material things and by the illusions of vulgar passion4 ,lucretius studies superstition1 but only as an enemy2 and the naturalistic poet should be the enemy of nothing4 ,his animus blinds him to half the object1 to its more beautiful half1 and makes us distrust his version of the meaner half he is aware of4 ,seen in its totality1 and surrounded by all the other products of human imagination1 superstition is not only moving in itself1 a capital subject for tragedy and for comedy1 but it reinforces the materialistic way of thinking1 and shows that it may be extended to the most complex and emotional spheres of existence4 ,at the same time1 a naturalism extended impartially over moral facts brings home a lesson of tolerance1 scepticism1 and independence which1 without contradicting ,epicurean principles1 would very much enlarge and transform ,epicurean sentiment4 ,history would have opened to the ,epicurean poet a new dimension of nature and a more varied spectacle of folly4 ,his imagination would have been enriched and his maxims fortified4 ,the emotions which ,lucretius associated with his atoms and void1 with his religious denials and his abstentions from action1 are emotions necessarily involved in life4 ,they will exist in any case1 though not necessarily associated with the doctrines by which this poet sought to clarify them4 ,they will remain standing1 whatever mechanism we put in the place of that which he believed in1--that is1 if we are serious1 and not trying to escape from the facts rather than to explain them4 ,if the ideas embodied in a philosophy represent a comprehensive survey of the facts1 and a mature sentiment in the presence of them1 any new ideas adopted instead will have to acquire the same values1 and nothing will be changed morally except the language or euphony of the mind4 ,of course one theory of the world must be true and the rest false1 at least if the categories of any theory are applicable to reality2 but the true theory like the false resides in imagination1 and the truth of it which the poet grasps is its truth to life4 ,if there are no atoms1 at least there must be habits of nature1 or laws of evolution1 or dialectics of progress1 or decrees of providence1 or intrusions of chance2 and before these equally external and groundless powers we must bow1 as ,lucretius bowed to his atoms4 ,it will always be important and inevitable to recognize something external1 something that generates or surrounds us2 and perhaps the only difference between materialism and other systems in this respect is that materialism has studied more scrupulously the detail and method of our dependence4 ,similarly1 even if ,lucretius was wrong1 and the soul is immortal1 it is nevertheless steadily changing its interests and its possessions4 ,our lives are mortal if our soul is not2 and the sentiment which reconciled ,lucretius to death is as much needed if we are to face many deaths1 as if we are to face only one4 ,the gradual losing of what we have been and are1 ,emerson says3 ,this losing is true dying2 ,this is lordly maris down-lying1 ,this his slow but sure reclining1 ,star by star his world resigning4 ,the maxim of ,lucretius1 that nothing arises save by the death of something else1 meets us still in our crawling immortality4 ,and his art of accepting and enjoying what the conditions of our being afford also has a perennial application4 ,dante1 the poet of faith1 will tell us that we must find our peace in the will that gives us our limited portion4 ,goethe1 the poet of romantic experience1 will tell us that we must renounce1 renounce perpetually4 ,thus wisdom clothes the same moral truths in many cosmic parables4 ,the doctrines of philosophers disagree where they are literal and arbitrary1--mere guesses about the unknown2 but they agree or complete one another where they are expressive or symbolic1 thoughts wrung by experience from the hearts of poets4 ,then all philosophies alike are ways of meeting and recording the same flux of images1 the same vicissitudes of good and evil1 which will visit all generations1 while man is man4 99 99 99 99 99 #a ,lucretius1 iv4 #hcd1 #hce3 ,nil 444 natumst in corpore1 ut uti ,possemus1 sed quod natumst id procreat usum4 #b ,ibid41 ,i4 #aaae-ah3 ,alid ex alio clarescet1 nec tibi caeca ,nox iter eripiet1 quin ultima naturai ,pervideas3 ita res accendent lumina rebus4 #c ,lucretius1 i4 #bfd1 #bfe3 ,alid ex alio reficit natura1 nec ullam ,rem gigni patitur1 nisi morte adiuta aliena4 #d ,an excellent expression of this view is put by ,plato into the mouth of the physician ,eryximachus in the ,symposium1 pp4 #ahf-hh4 #e ,lucretius1 i4 #a-ac3 neadum genetrix1 hominum divomque voluptas1 ,alma ,venus1 caeli subter labentia signa ,quae mare navigerum1 quae terras frugiferentis ,concelebras2 per te quoniam genus omne animantum ,concipitur1 visitque exortum lumina solis3 ,te1 dea1 te fugiunt venti1 te nubila caeli1 ,adventumque tuum3 tibi suaves daedala tellus ,submittit flores2 tibi rident aequora ponti1 ,placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum4 ,nam simul ac species patefactast verna diei1 ,et reserata viget genitabilis aura favoni2 ,ariae primum volucres te1 diva1 tuumque ,significant initum1 perculsae corda tua vi4 #f ,lucretius1 i4 #bd1 #bh-cj1 #da-dc1 #adj-dd3 ,te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse4444 ,quo magis aeternum da dictis1 diva1 leporem3 ,effice1 ut interea fera moenera militiai ,per maria ac terras omnes sopita quiescant4444 ,nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo ,possumus aequo animo1 nec ,memmi clara propago ,talibus in rebus communi desse saluti4444 ,sed tua me virtus tamen1 et sperata voluptas ,suavis amicitiae1 quemvis sufferre laborem ,suadet1 et inducit noctes vigilare serenas1 ,quaerentem1 dictis quibus et quo carmine demum ,clara tuae possim praepandere lumina menti4 #g ,lucretius1 ii4 #aaci-da1 #aadh-di1 #aafd-gd3 ,omnia debet enim cibus integrare novando1 ,et fulcire cibus1 cibus omnia sustentare4 ,nequidquam1444 ,sic igitur magni quoque circum moenia mundi ,expugnata dabunt labem putrisque ruinas4444 ,iamque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator ,crebrius incassum manuum cecidisse laborem3 ,et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert ,praeteritis1 laudat fortunas saepe parentis1444 ,nec tenet1 omnia paulatim tabescere et ire ,ad capulum1 spatio aetatis defessa vetusto4 #h ,cf4 pages #da1 #di4 #i ,lucretius1 ii4 #bi-cc3 ,inter se prostrati in gramine molli ,propter aquae rivum1 sub ramis arboris altae1 ,non magnis opibus iucunde corpora curant3 ,praesertim cum tempestas arridet1 et anni ,tempa conspergunt viridantis floribus herbas4 #aj ,horace1 ,odes1 iv4 #a3 ,iam nec spes animi credula mutui444 ,sed cur1 heu6 ,ligurine1 cur ,manat rara meas lacrima per genas8 ,,iii ,,dante ,in the ,phaedo of ,plato there is an incidental passage of supreme interest to the historian4 ,it foreshadows1 and accurately defines1 the whole transition from antiquity to the middle age1 from naturalism to supernaturalism1 from ,lucretius to ,dante4 ,socrates1 in his prison1 is addressing his disciples for the last time4 ,the general subject is immortality2 but in a pause in the argument ,socrates says3 8,in my youth 444 ,i heard some one reading1 as he said1 from a book of ,anaxagoras1 that ,reason was the disposer and cause of all1 and ,i was delighted at this notion1 which appeared quite admirable1 and ,i said to myself3 #8,if ,reason is the disposer1 ,reason will dispose all for the best1 and put each particular in the best place2' and ,i argued that if any desired to find out the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of anything1 he must find out what 444 was best for that thing4444 ,and ,i rejoiced to think that ,i had found in ,anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as ,i desired1 and ,i imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round2 and whichever was true1 he would proceed 444 to show the nature of the best1 and show that this was best2 and if he said that the earth was in the centre of the universe1 he would further explain that this position was the best1 and ,i should be satisfied with the explanation given1 and not want any other sort of cause4444 ,for ,i could not imagine that when he spoke of ,reason as the disposer of things1 he would give any other account of their being1 except that this was best4444 ,these hopes ,i would not have sold for a large sum of money1 and ,i seized the books and read them as fast as ,i could1 in my eagerness to know the better and the worse4 8,what expectations ,i had formed and how grievously was ,i disappointed6 ,as ,i proceeded1 ,i found my philosopher altogether forsaking ,reason or any other principle of order1 but having recourse to air1 and ether1 and water1 and other eccentricities4444 ,thus one man makes a vortex all round1 and steadies the earth by the heaven2 another gives the air as a support to the earth1 which is a sort of broad trough4 ,any power which in arranging them as they are arranges them for the best never enters into their minds2 and instead of finding any superior strength in it1 they rather expect to discover another ,atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good2 of the obligatory and containing power of the good they think nothing2 and yet this is the principle which ,i would fain learn if anyone would teach me40#a ,here we have the programme of a new philosophy4 ,things are to be understood by their uses or purposes1 not by their elements or antecedents2 as the fact that ,socrates sits in his prison1 when he might have escaped to ,euboea1 is to be understood by his allegiance to his notion of what is best1 of his duty to himself and to his country1 and not by the composition of his bones and muscles4 ,such reasons as we give for our actions1 such grounds as might move the public assembly to decree this or that1 are to be given in explanation of the order of nature4 ,the world is a work of reason4 ,it must be interpreted1 as we interpret the actions of a man1 by its motives4 ,and these motives we must guess1 not by a fanciful dramatic mythology1 such as the poets of old had invented1 but by a conscientious study of the better and the worse in the conduct of our own lives4 ,for instance1 the highest occupation1 according to ,plato1 is the study of philosophy2 but this would not be possible for man if he had to be continually feeding1 like a grazing animal1 with its nose to the ground4 ,now1 to obviate the necessity of eating all the time1 long intestines are useful2 therefore the cause of long intestines is the study of philosophy4 ,again1 the eyes1 nose1 and mouth are in the front of the head1 because 7says ,plato7 the front is the nobler side1--as if the back would not have been the nobler side 7and the front side7 had the eyes1 nose1 and mouth been there6 ,this method is what ,molire ridicules in ,le ,malade ,imaginaire1 when the chorus sings that opium puts people to sleep because it has a dormitive virtue1 the nature of which is to make the senses slumber4 ,all this is ridiculous physics enough2 but ,plato knew--though he forgot sometimes--that his physics were playful4 ,what it is important for us now to remember is rather that1 under this childish or metaphorical physics1 there is a serious morality4 ,after all1 the use of opium is that it is a narcotic2 no matter why1 physically1 it is one4 ,the use of the body is the mind1 whatever the origin of the body may be4 ,and it seems to dignify and vindicate these uses to say that they are the 8causes0 of the organs that make them possible4 ,what is true of particular organs or substances is true of the whole frame of nature4 ,its use is to serve the good--to make life1 happiness1 and virtue possible4 ,therefore1 speaking in parables1 ,plato says with his whole school3 ,discover the right principle of action1 and you will have discovered the ruling force in the universe4 ,evoke in your rapt aspiration the essence of a supreme good1 and you will have understood why the spheres revolve1 why the earth is fertile1 and why mankind suffers and exists4 ,observation must yield to dialectic2 political art must yield to aspiration4 ,it took many hundred years for the revolution to work itself out2 ,plato had a prophetic genius1 and looked away from what he was 7for he was a ,greek7 to what mankind was to become in the next cycle of civilization4 ,in ,dante the revolution is complete1 not merely intellectually 7for it had been completed intellectually long before1 in the ,neoplatonists and the ,fathers of the ,church71 but complete morally and poetically1 in that all the habits of the mind and all the sanctions of public life had been assimilated to it4 ,there had been time to reinterpret everything1 obliterating the natural lines of cleavage in the world1 and substituting moral lines of cleavage for them4 ,nature was a compound of ideal purposes and inert matter4 ,life was a conflict between sin and grace4 ,the environment was a battle-ground between a host of angels and a legion of demons4 ,the better and the worse had actually become1 as ,socrates desired1 the sole principles of understanding4 ,having become ,socratic1 the thinking part of mankind devoted all its energies henceforward to defining good and evil in all their grades1 and in their ultimate essence2 a task which ,dante brings to a perfect conclusion4 ,so earnestly and exclusively did they speculate about moral distinctions that they saw them in almost visible shapes1 as ,plato had seen his ideas4 ,they materialized the terms of their moral philosophy into existing objects and powers4 ,the highest good--in ,plato still chiefly a political ideal1 the aim of policy and art--became ,god1 the creator of the world4 ,the various stages or elements of perfection became persons in the ,godhead1 or angelic intelligences1 or aerial demons1 or lower types of the animal soul4 ,evil was identified with matter4 ,the various stages of imperfection were ascribed to the grossness of various bodies1 which weighted and smothered the spark of divinity that animated them4 ,this spark1 however1 might be released2 then it would fly up again to its parent fire and a soul would be saved4 ,this philosophy was not a serious description of nature or evolution2 but it was a serious judgement upon them4 ,the good1 the better1 the best1 had been discerned2 and a mythical bevy of powers1 symbolizing these degrees of excellence1 had been first talked of and then believed in4 ,myth1 when another man has invented it1 can pass for history2 and when this man is a ,plato1 and has lived long ago1 it can pass for revelation4 ,in this way moral values came to be regarded as forces working in nature4 ,but if they worked in nature1 which was a compound of evil matter and perfect form1 they must exist outside3 for the ideal of excellence beckons from afar2 it is what we pine for and are not4 ,the forces that worked in nature were accordingly supernatural virtues1 dominations1 and powers2 each natural thing had its supernatural incubus1 a guardian angel1 or a devil that possessed it4 ,the supernatural--that is1 something moral or ideal regarded as a power and an existence--was all about us4 ,everything in the world was an effect of something beyond the world2 everything in life was a step to something beyond life4 ,into this system ,christianity fitted easily4 ,it enriched it by adding miraculous history to symbolic cosmology4 ,the ,platonists had conceived a cosmos in which there were higher and lower beings1 marshalled in concentric circles1 around this vile but pivotal lump of earth4 ,the ,christians supplied a dramatic action for which that stage seemed admirably fitted1 a story in which the whole human race1 or the single soul1 passed successively through these higher and lower stages4 ,there had been a fall1 and there might be a salvation4 ,in a sense1 even this conception of descent from the good1 and ascent towards it again1 was ,platonic4 ,according to the ,platonists1 the good eternally shed its vital influence1 like light1 and received 7though unawares and without increase of excellence to itself7 reflected rays that1 in the form of love and thought1 reverted to it from the ends of the universe4 ,but according to the ,platonist this radiation of life and focusing of aspiration were both perpetual4 ,the double movement was eternal4 ,the history of the world was monotonous2 or rather the world had no significant history1 but only a movement like that of a fountain playing for ever1 or like the circulation of water that is always falling from the clouds in rain and always rising again in vapour4 ,this fall1 or emanation of the world from the deity1 was the origin of evil for the ,platonists2 evil consisted merely infinitude1 materiality1 or otherness from ,god4 ,if anything besides ,god was to exist1 it had to be imperfect2 instability and conflict were essential to finitude and to existence4 ,salvation1 on the other hand1 was the return current of aspiration on the part of the creature to revert to its source2 an aspiration which was expressed in various types of being1 fixed in the eternal1--types which led up1 like the steps of a temple1 to the ineffable good at the top4 ,in the ,christian system this cosmic circulation became only a figure or symbol expressing the true creation1 the true fall1 and the true salvation2 all three being really episodes in a historical drama1 occurring only once4 ,the material world was only a scene1 a stage-setting1 designed expressly to be appropriate for the play2 and this play was the history of mankind1 especially of ,israel and of the ,church4 ,the persons and events of this history had a philosophic import2 each played some part in a providential plan4 ,each illustrated creation1 sin1 and salvation in some degree1 and on some particular level4 ,the ,jews had never felt uncomfortable at being material2 even in the other world they hoped to remain so1 and their immortality was a resurrection of the flesh4 ,it did not seem plausible to them that this excellent frame of things should be nothing but a faint1 troubled1 and unintended echo of the good4 ,on the contrary1 they thought this world so good1 intrinsically1 that they were sure ,god must have made it expressly1 and not by an unconscious effluence of his virtue1 as the ,platonists had believed4 ,their wonder at the power and ingenuity of the deity reached its maximum when they thought of him as the cunning contriver of nature1 and of themselves4 ,nevertheless the work seemed to show some imperfections2 indeed1 its moral excellence was potential rather than actual1 a suggestion of what might be1 rather than an accomplished fact4 ,and so1 to explain the unexpected flaws in a creation which they thought essentially good1 they put back at the beginning of things an experience they had daily in the present1 namely1 that trouble springs from bad conduct4 ,the ,jews were intent watchers of fortune and of its vicissitudes4 ,the careers of men were their meditation by day and by night2 and it takes little attention to perceive that frivolity1 indifference1 knavery1 and debauchery do not make for well-being in this world4 ,and like other hard-pressed peoples1 the ancient ,jews had a pathetic admiration for safety and plenty4 ,how little they must have known these things1 to think of them so rapturously and so poetically6 ,not merely their personal prudence1 but their corporate and religious zeal made them abhor that bad conduct which defeated prosperity4 ,it was not mere folly1 but wickedness and the abomination of desolation4 ,with the lessons of conduct continually in mind1 they framed the theory that all suffering1 and even death1 were the wages of sin4 ,finally they went so far as to attribute evil in all creation to the casual sin of a first man1 and to the taint of it transmitted to his descendants2 thus passing over the suffering and death of all creatures that are not human with an indifference that would have astonished the ,hindoos4 ,the imperfection of things1 in the ,hebraic view1 was due to accidents in their operation2 not1 as in the ,platonic view1 to their essential separation from their source and their end4 ,it is in harmony with this that salvation too should come by virtue of some special act1 like the incarnation or death of ,christ4 ,just so1 the ,jews had conceived salvation as a revival of their national existence and greatness1 to be brought about by the patience and fidelity of the elect1 with tremendous miracles supervening to reward these virtues4 ,thus their conception of the fall and of the redemption was historical4 ,and this was a great advantage to a man of imagination inheriting their system2 for the personages and the miracles that figured in their sacred histories afforded a rich subject for fancy to work upon1 and for the arts to depict4 ,the patriarchs from ,adam down1 the kings and prophets1 the creation1 ,eden1 the deluge1 the deliverance out of ,egypt1 the thunders and the law of ,sinai1 the temple1 the exile--all this and much more that fills the ,bible was a rich fund1 a familiar tradition living in the ,church1 on which ,dante could draw1 as he drew at the same time from the parallel classic tradition which he also inherited4 ,to lend all these ,biblical persons and incidents a philosophical dignity he had only to fit them1 as the ,fathers of the ,church had done1 into the ,neoplatonic cosmology1 or1 as the doctors of his own time were doing1 into the ,aristotelian ethics4 ,so interpreted1 sacred history acquired for the philosopher a new importance besides that which it had seemed to have to ,israel in exile1 or to the ,christian soul conscious of sin4 ,every episode became the symbol for some moral state or some moral principle4 ,every preacher in ,christendom1 as he repeated his homily on the gospel of the day1 was invited to rear a structure of spiritual interpretations upon the literal sense of the narrative1 which nevertheless he was always to hold and preserve as a foundation for the others4#b ,in a world made by ,god for the illustration of his glory1 things and events1 though real1 must be also symbolical2 for there is intention and propriety behind them4 ,the creation1 the deluge1 the incarnation1 crucifixion1 and resurrection of ,christ1 the coming of the ,holy ,ghost with flames of fire and the gift of tongues1 were all historical facts4 ,the ,church was heir to the chosen people2 it was an historic and political institution1 with a destiny in this world1 in which all her children should share1 and for which they should fight4 ,at the same time all those facts1 were mysteries and sacraments for the private soul2 they were channels for the same moral graces that were embodied in the order of the heavenly spheres1 and in the types of moral life on earth4 ,thus the ,hebrew tradition brought to ,dante's mind the consciousness of a providential history1 a great earthly task1--to be transmitted from generation to generation1--and a great hope4 ,the ,greek tradition brought him natural and moral philosophy4 ,these contributions1 joined together1 had made ,christian theology4 ,although this theology was the guide to ,dante's imagination1 and his general theme1 yet it was not his only interest2 or rather he put into the framework of orthodox theology theories and visions of his own1 fusing all into one moral unity and one poetical enthusiasm4 ,the fusion was perfect between the personal and the traditional elements4 ,he threw politics and love into the melting-pot1 and they1 too1 lost their impurities and were refined into a philosophic religion4 ,theology became1 to his mind1 the guardian of patriotism1 and1 in a strangely literal sense1 the angel of love4 ,the political theory of ,dante is a sublime and largely original one4 ,it suffers only from its extreme ideality1 which makes it inapplicable1 and has caused it to be studied less than it deserves4 ,a man's country1 in the modern sense1 is something that arose yesterday1 that is constantly changing its limits and its ideals2 it is something that cannot last for ever4 ,it is the product of geographical and historical accidents4 ,the diversities between our different nations are irrational2 each of them has the same right1 or want of right1 to its peculiarities4 ,a man who is just and reasonable must nowadays1 so far as his imagination permits1 share the patriotism of the rivals and enemies of his country1--a patriotism as inevitable and pathetic as his own4 ,nationality being an irrational accident1 like sex or complexion1 a man's allegiance to his country must be conditional1 at least if he is a philosopher4 ,his patriotism has to be subordinated to rational allegiance to such things as justice and humanity4 ,very different was the situation in ,dante's case4 ,for him the love of country could be something absolute1 and at the same time something reasonable1 deliberate1 and moral4 ,what he found claiming his allegiance was a political body quite ideal1 providential1 and universal4 ,this political body had two heads1 like the heraldic eagle1--the pope and the emperor4 ,both were1 by right1 universal potentates2 both should have their seat in ,rome2 and both should direct their government to the same end1 although by different means and in different spheres4 ,the pope should watch over the faith and discipline of the ,church4 ,he should bear witness1 in all lands and ages1 to the fact that life on earth was merely a preliminary to existence in the other world1 and should be a preparation for that4 ,the emperor1 on the other hand1 should guard peace and justice everywhere1 leaving to free cities or princes the regulation of local affairs4 ,these two powers had been established by ,god through special miracles and commissions4 ,an evident providential design1 culminating in them1 ran through all history4 ,to betray or resist these divine rights1 or to confound them1 was accordingly a sin of the first magnitude4 ,the evils from which society suffered were the consequence of such transgressions4 ,the pope had acquired temporal power1 which was alien to his purely spiritual office2 besides1 he had become a tool of the ,french king1 who was 7what no king should be7 at war with the emperor1 and rebellious against the supreme imperial authority2 indeed1 the pope had actually been seen to abandon ,rome for ,avignon1--an act which was a sort of satanic sacrament1 the outward sign of an inward disgrace4 ,the emperor1 in his turn1 had forgotten that he was ,king of the ,romans and ,caesar1 and was fond of loitering in his native ,germany1 among its forests and princelings1 as if the whole world were not by right his country1 and the object of his solicitude4 ,and here the larger1 theoretical patriotism of ,dante1 as a ,catholic and a ,roman1 passed into his narrower and actual patriotism as a ,florentine4 ,had ,florence been true to its duties and worthy of its privileges1 under the double authority of the ,church and the ,empire8 ,florence was a ,roman colony4 ,had it maintained the purity of its ,roman stock1 and a ,roman simplicity and austerity in its laws8 ,alas1 ,etruscan immigrants had contaminated its blood1 and this taint was responsible1 ,dante thought1 for the prevalent corruption of manners4 ,all that has made ,florence great in the history of the world was then only just beginning1--its industry1 refinements1 arts1 and literature4 ,but to ,dante that budding age seemed one of decadence and moral ruin4 ,he makes his ancestor1 the crusader ,cacciaguida1 praise the time when the narrow circuit of the walls held only one-fifth of its later inhabitants4 8,then the city abided in peace1 sober and chaste40#c ,the women plied the distaff1 or rocked the cradle1 and prattled to their children of the heroic legends of ,troy1 ,fiesole1 and ,rome4 ,a woman could turn from her glass with her face unpainted2 she wore no girdle far more deserving of admiration than her own person4 ,the birth of a daughter did not frighten a good burgher2 her dowry would not have to be excessive1 nor her marriage premature4 ,no houses were empty1 their masters being in exile2 none were disgraced by unmentionable orgies4#d ,this was not all2 for if luxury was a great curse to ,florence1 faction was a greater4 ,florence1 an imperial city1 far from assisting in the restitution of the emperors to their universal rights1 had fought against them traitorously1 in alliance with the ,french invader and the usurping pontiff4 ,it had thus undermined the only possible foundation of its own peace and dignity4 ,these were the theoretical sorrows that loomed behind the personal sorrows of ,dante in his poverty and exile4 ,they helped him to pour forth the intense bitterness of his heart with the breath of prophetic invective4 ,they made his hatred of the actual popes and of the actual ,florence so much fervid zeal for what the popes and ,florence ought to have been4 ,his political passions and political hopes were fused with a sublime political ideal2 that fusion sublimated them1 and made it possible for the expression of them to rise into poetry4 ,here is one iron string on which ,dante played1 and which gave a tragic strength to his music4 ,he recorded the villainies of priests1 princes1 and peoples4 ,he upbraided them for their infidelity to the tasks assigned to them by ,god1--tasks which ,dante conceived with a ,biblical definiteness and simplicity4 ,he lamented the consequences of this iniquity1 wasted provinces1 corrupted cities1 and the bodies of heroes rolling unburied down polluted streams4 ,these vigorous details were exalted by the immense significance that ,dante infused into them4 ,his ever-present definite ideal quickened his eye for the ebb and flow of things1 rendered the experience of them singly more poignant1 and the vision of them together more sustained and cumulative4 ,dante read contemporary ,italy as the ,hebrew prophets read the signs of their times2 and whatever allowance our critical judgement may make for generous illusions on the part of either1 there can be no doubt that their wholeness of soul1 and the prophetic absoluteness of their judgements1 made their hold on particular facts very strong1 and their sense for impending weal or woe quite over-powering4 ,nor does it seem that at bottom ,dante's political philosophy1 any more than that of the ,hebrew prophets1 missed the great causes and the great aims of human progress4 ,behind mythical and narrow conceptions of history1 he had a true sense for the moral principles that really condition our well-being4 ,a better science need subtract nothing from the insight he had into the difference between political good and evil4 ,what in his day seemed a dream--that mankind should be one great commonwealth--is now obvious to the idealist1 the socialist1 the merchant4 ,science and trade are giving1 in a very different form1 to be sure1 a practical realization to that idea4 ,and the other half of his theory1 that of the ,catholic ,church1 is maintained literally by that church itself to this day2 and the outsider might see in that ideal of a universal spiritual society a symbol or premonition of the right of the mind to freedom from legal compulsions1 or of the common allegiance of honest minds to science1 and to their common spiritual heritage and destiny4 ,on the other hand1 the sting of ,dante's private wrongs1 like the enthusiasm of his private loves1 lent a wonderful warmth and clearness to the great objects of his imagination4 ,we are too often kept from feeling great things greatly for want of power to assimilate them to the little things which we feel keenly and sincerely4 ,dante had1 in this respect1 the art of a ,platonic lover3 he could enlarge the object of his passion1 and keep the warmth and ardour of it undiminished4 ,he had been banished unjustly--,florentinus exul immeritus1 he liked to call himself4 ,that injustice rankled1 but it did not fester1 in his heart2 for his indignation spread to all wrong1 and thundered against ,florence1 ,europe1 and mankind1 in that they were corrupt and perfidious4 ,dante had loved4 ,the memory of that passion remained also1 but it did not degenerate into sentimentality2 for his adoration passed to a larger object and one less accidental4 ,his love had been a spark of that 8love which moves the sun and the other stars40#e ,he had known1 in that revelation1 the secret of the universe4 ,the spheres1 the angels1 the sciences1 were henceforth full of sweetness1 comfort1 and light4 ,of this ,platonic expansion of emotion1 till it suffuses all that deserves to kindle it1 we have a wonderful version in ,dante's ,vita ,nuova4 ,this book1 on the surface1 is an account of ,dante's meeting1 at the age of nine1 with ,beatrice1 a child even a little younger2 of another meeting with her at the age of eighteen2 of an overwhelming mystic passion which the lover wished to keep secret1 so much so that he feigned another attachment as a blind2 of a consequent estrangement2 and of the death of ,beatrice1 whereupon the poet resolved not to speak publicly of her again1 until he could praise her in such wise as no woman had ever been praised before4 ,this story is interspersed with poems of the most exquisite delicacy1 both in sentiment and in versification4 ,they are dreamlike1 allegorical1 musical meditations1 ambiguous in their veiled meanings1 but absolutely clear and perfect in their artful structure1 like a work of tracery and stained glass1 geometrical1 mystical1 and tender4 ,a singular limpidity of accent and image1 a singular navet1 is strangely combined in these pieces with scholastic distinctions and a delight in hiding and hinting1 as in a charade4 ,the learned will dispute for ever on the exact basis and meaning of these confessions of ,dante4 ,the learned are perhaps not those best fitted to solve the problem4 ,it is a matter for literary tact and sympathetic imagination4 ,it must be left to the delicate intelligence of the reader1 if he has it2 and if he has not1 ,dante does not wish to open his heart to him4 ,his enigmatical manner is his protection against the intrusion of uncongenial minds4 ,without passing beyond the sphere of learned criticism1 ,i think we may say this3 the various interpretations1 in this matter1 are not mutually exclusive4 ,symbolism and literalness1 in ,dante's time1 and in his practice1 are simultaneous4 ,for instance1 in any history of mediaeval philosophy you may read that a great subject of dispute in those days was the question whether universal terms or natures1 such as man1 or humanity1 existed before the particulars1 in the particulars1 or after the particulars1 by abstraction of what was common to them all4 ,now1 this matter was undoubtedly much disputed about2 but there is one comprehensive and orthodox solution1 which represents the true mind of the age1 above the peculiar hobbies or heresies of individuals4 ,this solution is that universal terms or natures exist before the particulars1 and in the particulars1 and after the particulars3 for ,god1 before he made the world1 knew how he intended to make it1 and had eternally in his mind the notions of a perfect man1 horse1 etc41 after which the particulars were to be modelled1 or to which1 in case of accident1 they were to be restored1 either by the healing and recuperative force of nature1 or by the ministrations of grace4 ,but universal terms or natures existed also in the particulars1 since the particulars illustrated them1 shared in them1 and were what they were by virtue of that participation4 ,nevertheless1 the universals existed also after the particulars3 for the discursive mind of man1 surveying the variety of natural things1 could not help noticing and abstracting the common types that often recur in them2 and this ex postfacto idea1 in the human mind1 is a universal term also4 ,to deny any of the three theories1 and not to see their consistency1 is to miss the mediaeval point of view1 which1 in every sense of the word1 was ,catholic4 ,just such a solution seems to me natural in the case of ,beatrice4 ,we have it on independent documentary evidence that in ,dante's time there actually lived in ,florence a certain ,bice ,portinari2 and there are many incidents in the ,vita ,nuova and in the ,commedia which hardly admit of an allegorical interpretation2 such as the death of ,beatrice1 and especially that of her father1 on which occasion ,dante writes a sympathetic poem4#f can see no reason why this lady1 as easily as any other person1 should not have called forth the dreamful passion of our poet4 ,that he had loved some one is certain4 ,most people have2 and why should ,dante1 in particular1 have found the language of love a natural veil for his philosophy1 if the passion and the language of love had not been his mother-tongue8 ,the language of love is no doubt usual in the allegories of mystics1 and was current in the conventional poetry of ,dante's time2 but mystics themselves are commonly crossed or potential lovers2 and the troubadours harped on the string of love simply because it was the most responsive string in their own natures1 and that which could most easily be made to vibrate in their hearers4 ,dante was not less sensitive than the average man of his generation2 and if he followed the fashion of minstrels and mystics1 it was because he shared their disposition4 ,the beautiful1 the unapproachable1 the divine1 had passed before him in some visible form2 it matters nothing whether this vision came once only1 and in the shape of the actual ,beatrice1 or continuously1 and in every shape through which a divine influence may seem to come to a poet4 ,no one would deserve this name of poet--and who deserves it more than ,dante8--if real sights and sounds never impressed him2 and he would hardly deserve it either1 if they impressed him only physically1 and for what they are in themselves4 ,his sensibility creates his ideal4 ,if to deny the existence of an historical ,beatrice seems violent and gratuitous1 it would be a much worse misunderstanding not to perceive that ,beatrice is also a symbol4 ,on one occasion1 as we read in the ,vita ,nuova1#g ,dante found himself1 in a church1 in the presence of ,beatrice4 ,his eyes were inevitably fixed upon her2 but as he wished to conceal his profound passion from the gossiping crowd1 he chose another lady1 who happened to stand in the direct line of vision between him and ,beatrice1 and pretended to be gazing at her1 in reality looking beyond her to ,beatrice4 ,this intervening lady1 la donna gentile1 became the screen to his true love4#h ,but his attentions to her were so assiduous that they were misinterpreted4 ,beatrice herself observed them1 and thinking he was going too far and not with an honourable purpose1 showed her displeasure by refusing to greet him as he passed4 ,this sounds real and earthly enough3 but what is our surprise when we read expressly1 in the ,convito1 that the donna gentile1 the screen to ,dante's true love1 is philosophy4#i ,if the donna gentile is philosophy1 the donna gentilissima1 ,beatrice1 must be something of the same sort1 only nobler4 ,she must be theology1 and theology ,beatrice undoubtedly is4 ,her very name is played upon1 if not selected1 to mean that she is what renders blessed1 what shows the path of salvation4 ,now the scene in the church becomes an allegory throughout4 ,the young ,dante1 we are given to understand1 was at heart a religious and devout soul1 looking for the highest wisdom4 ,but intervening between his human reason and revealed truth 7which he really was in love with1 and wished to win and to understand7 he found philosophy or1 as we should say1 science4 ,to science he gave his preliminary attention2 so much so that the mysteries of theology were momentarily obscured in his mind2 and his faith1 to his great sorrow1 refused to salute him as he passed4 ,he had fallen into materialistic errors2 he had interpreted the spots on the moon as if they could be due to physical1 not to ,socratic1 causes2 and his religious philosophy had lost its warmth1 even if his religious faith had not actually been endangered4 ,it is certain1 then1 that ,beatrice1 besides being a woman1 was also a symbol4 ,but this is not the end4 ,if ,beatrice is a symbol for theology1 theology itself is not-final4 ,it1 too1 is an avenue1 an interpretation4 ,the eyes of ,beatrice reflect a supernal light4 ,it is the ineffable vision of ,god1 the beatific vision1 that alone can make us happy and be the reason and the end of our loves and our pilgrimages4 ,a supreme ideal of peace and perfection which moves the lover1 and which moves the sky1 is more easily named than understood4 ,in the last canto of the ,paradiso1 where ,dante is attempting to describe the beatific vision1 he says many times over that our notion of this ideal must be vague and inadequate4 ,the value of the notion to a poet or a philosopher does not lie in what it contains positively1 but in the attitude which it causes him to assume towards real experience4 ,or perhaps it would be better to say that to have an ideal does not mean so much to have any image in the fancy1 any ,utopia more or less articulate1 but rather to take a consistent moral attitude towards all the things of this world1 to judge and coordinate our interests1 to establish a hierarchy of goods and evils1 and to value events and persons1 not by a casual personal impression or instinct1 but according to their real nature and tendency4 ,so understood1 an ultimate ideal is no mere vision of the philosophical dreamer1 but a powerful and passionate force in the poet and the orator4 ,it is the voice of his love or hate1 of his hope or sorrow1 idealizing1 challenging1 or condemning the world4 ,it is here that the feverish sensibility of the young ,dante stood him in good stead2 it gave an unprecedented vigour and clearness to his moral vision2 it made him the classic poet of hell and of heaven4 ,at the same time1 it helped to make him an upright judge1 a terrible accuser1 of the earth4 ,everything and everybody in his day and generation became to him1 on account of his intense loyalty to his inward vision1 an instance of divine graciousness or of devilish perversity4 ,doubtless this keenness of soul was not wholly due to the gift of loving1 or to the discipline of love2 it was due in part also to pride1 to resentment1 to theoretical prejudices4 ,but figures like that of ,francesca di ,rimini and ,manfred1 and the light and rapture vibrating through the whole ,paradiso1 could hardly have been evoked by a merely irritated genius4 ,the background and the starting-point of everything in ,dante is the intelletto d'amore1 the genius of love4 ,everybody has heard that ,god is love and that love makes the world go round2 and those who have traced this latter notion back to its source in ,aristotle may have some notion of what it means4 ,it means1 as we saw in the beginning1 that we should not try to explain motion and life by their natural antecedents1 for these run back in infinitum4 ,we should explain motion and life rather by their purpose or end1 by that unrealized ideal which moving and living things seem to aspire to1 and may be said to love4 ,what justifies itself is not any fact or law2 for why should these not have been different8 ,what justifies itself is what is good1 what is as it ought to be4 ,but things in motion1 ,aristotle conceived1 declare1 as it were1 that they are not satisfied1 and ought to be in some different condition4 ,they look to a fulfilment which is as yet ideal4 ,this fulfilment1 if it included motion and life1 could include them inwardly only2 it would consist in a sustained activity1 never lapsing nor suffering change4 ,such an activity is the unchanging goal towards which life advances and by which its different stages are measured3 ,but since the purpose of things1 and not their natural causes1 is that which explains them1 we may call this eventual activity their reason for being4 ,it will be their unmoved mover4 ,but how1 we may ask1--how can the unchanging1 the ideal1 the eventual1 initiate anything or determine the disposition and tendency of what actually lives and moves8 ,the answer1 or rather the impossibility of giving an answer1 may be expressed in a single word3 magic4 ,it is magic when a good or interesting result1 because it would prove good or interesting1 is credited with marshalling the conditions and evoking the beings that are to realize it4 ,it is natural that ,i should be hungry1 and natural that there should be things suitable for me to eat--for otherwise ,i should not be hungry long2 but if my hunger1 in case it is sharp enough1 should be able of itself to produce the food it calls for1 that would be magic4 ,nature would be evoked by the incantations of the will4 ,i do not forget that ,aristotle1 with ,dante after him1 asserts that the goal of life is a separate being already existing1 namely1 the mind of ,god1 eternally realizing what the world aspires to4 ,the influence of this mind1 however1 upon the world is no less magical than would be that of a non-existent ideal4 ,for its operation is admittedly not transitive or physical4 ,it itself does not change in working4 ,no virtue leaves it2 it does not1 according to ,aristotle and ,plotinus1 even know that it works4 ,indeed1 it works only because other things are disposed to pursue it as their ideal2 let things keep this disposition1 and they will pursue and frame their ideal no less if it nowhere has an actual existence1 than if by chance it exists elsewhere in its own person4 ,it works only in its capacity of ideal2 therefore1 even if it exists1 it works only by magic4 ,the matter beneath feels the spell of its presence1 and catches something of its image1 as the waves of the sea might receive and reflect tremblingly the light shed by the moon4 ,the world accordingly is moved and vivified in every fibre by magic1 by the magic of the goal to which it aspires4 ,but this magic1 on earth1 bore the name of love4 ,the life of the world was a love1 produced by the magic attraction of a good it has never possessed and1 so long as it remains a world1 is incapable of possessing4 ,actual things were only suggestions of what the elements in that ulterior existence ought to be3 they were mere symbols4 ,the acorn was a mere prophecy--an existing symbol--for the ideal oak2 because when the acorn falls into good ground it will be corrupted1 but the idea of the oak will arise and be manifested in its place4 ,the acorn was a sort of reliquary in which the miraculous power of the idea was somehow enshrined4 ,in the vulgar attribution of causes we1 like ,anaxagoras1 resemble a superstitious relic-worshipper who should forget that the intercession and merits of the saint really work the miracle1 and should attribute it instead to the saint's bones and garments in their material capacity4 ,similarly1 we should attribute the power which things exerted over us1 not to the rarer or denser substance1 but to the eternal ideas that they existed by expressing1 and existed to express4 ,things merely localized--like the saint's relics--the influences which flowed to us from above4 ,in the world of values they were mere symbols1 accidental channels for divine energy2 and since divine energy1 by its magic assimilation of matter1 had created these things1 in order to express itself1 they were symbols altogether not merely in their use1 but in their origin and nature4 ,a mind persuaded that it lives among things that1 like words1 are essentially significant1 and that what they signify is the magic attraction1 called love1 which draws all things after it1 is a mind poetic in its intuition1 even if its language be prose4 ,the science and philosophy of ,dante did not have to be put into verse in order to become poetry3 they were poetry fundamentally and in their essence4 ,when ,plato and ,aristotle1 following the momentous precept of ,socrates1 decreed that observation of nature should stop and a moral interpretation of nature should begin1 they launched into the world a new mythology1 to take the place of the ,homeric one which was losing its authority4 ,the power the poets had lost of producing illusion was possessed by these philosophers in a high degree2 and no one was ever more thoroughly under their spell than ,dante4 ,he became to ,platonism and ,christianity what ,homer had been to ,paganism2 and if ,platonism and ,christianity1 like ,paganism1 should ever cease to be defended scientifically1 ,dante will keep the poetry and wisdom of them alive2 and it is safe to say that later generations will envy more than they will despise his philosophy4 ,when the absurd controversies and factious passions that in some measure obscure the nature of this system have completely passed away1 no one will think of reproaching ,dante with his bad science1 and bad history1 and minute theology4 ,these will not seem blemishes in his poetry1 but integral parts of it4 ,a thousand years after ,homer1 ,alexandrian critics were expounding his charming myths as if they were a revealed treatise of physics and morals4 ,a thousand years after ,dante we may hope that his conscientious vision of the universe1 where all is love1 magic1 and symbolism1 may charm mankind exclusively as poetry4 ,so conceived1 the ,divine ,comedy marks high noon in that long day-dream of which ,plato's dialogues mark the beginning3 a pause of two thousand years in the work of political reason1 during which the moral imagination spun out of itself an allegorical philosophy1 as a boy1 kept at home during a rainy day with books too hard and literal for his years1 might spin his own romance out of his father's histories1 and might define1 with infantile precision1 his ideal lady-love1 battles1 and kingdoms4 ,the middle age saw the good in a vision4 ,it is for the new age to translate those delightful symbols into the purposes of manhood4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in a letter which tradition assigns to ,dante1 addressed to his protector1 ,cangrande della ,scala1 lord of ,verona and ,vicenza1 are these words about the ,divine ,comedy3 8,the subject of the whole work1 taken merely in its literal sense1 is the state of souls after death1 considered simply as a fact4 ,but if the work is understood in its allegorical intention1 the subject of it is man1 according as1 by his deserts and demerits in the use of his free-will1 he is justly open to rewards and punishments40 ,this by no means exhausts1 however1 the significations which we may look for in a work of ,dante's4 ,how many these may be is pointed out to us in the same letter1 and illustrated by the beginning of the one hundred and fourteenth ,psalm3 8,when ,israel went out of ,egypt1 the house of ,jacob from a people of strange language2 ,judah was his sanctuary1 and ,israel his dominion40 ,here1 ,dante tells us1 8if we look to the letter only1 what is conveyed to us is the deliverance of the children of ,israel out of ,egypt in the time of ,moses2 if we look to the allegory of it1 what is signified is our redemption accomplished through ,christ2 if we consider the moral sense1 what is signified is the conversion of the soul from her present grief and wretchedness to a state of grace2 and if we consider the anagogical sense that is1 the revelation contained concerning our highest destiny1 what is signified is the passing of the sanctified soul from the bondage of earthly corruption to the freedom of everlasting glory40 ,when people brooded so much over a simple text as to find all these meanings in it1 we may expect that their own works1 when meant to be profound1 should have stage above stage of allegorical application4 ,so in the first canto of the ,inferno we find a lion that keeps ,dante from approaching a delectable mountain2 and this lion1 besides what he is in the landscape of the poem1 is a symbol for pride or power in general1 for the king of ,france in particular1 and for whatever political ambitions in ,dante's personal life may have robbed him of happiness or distracted him from faith and from piety4 ,thus1 throughout the ,divine ,comedy1 meaning and meaning lurk beneath the luminous pictures2 and the poem1 besides being a description of the other world1 and of the rewards and punishment meted out to souls1 is a dramatic view of human passions in this life2 a history of ,italy and of the world2 a theory of ,church and ,state2 the autobiography of an exile2 and the confessions of a ,christian1 and of a lover1 conscious of his sins and of the miracle of divine grace that intervenes to save him4 ,the subject-matter of the ,divine ,comedy is accordingly the moral universe in all its levels1--romantic1 political1 religious4 ,to present these moral facts in a graphic way1 the poet performed a double work of imagination4 ,first he chose some historical personage that might plausibly illustrate each condition of the soul4 ,then he pictured this person in some characteristic and symbolic attitude of mind and of body1 and in an appropriate1 symbolic environment4 ,to give material embodiment to moral ideas by such a method would nowadays be very artificial1 and perhaps impossible2 but in ,dante's time everything was favourable to the attempt4 ,we are accustomed to think of goods and evils as functions of a natural life1 sparks struck out in the chance shock of men with things or with one another4 ,for ,dante1 it was a matter of course that moral distinctions might be discerned1 not merely as they arise incidentally in human experience1 but also1 and more genuinely1 as they are displayed in the order of creation4 ,the ,creator himself was a poet producing allegories4 ,the material world was a parable which he had built out in space1 and ordered to be enacted4 ,history was a great charade4 ,the symbols of earthly poets are words or images2 the symbols of the divine poet were natural things and the fortunes of men4 ,they had been devised for a purpose2 and this purpose1 as the ,koran1 too1 declares1 had been precisely to show forth the great difference there is in ,god's sight between good and evil4 ,in ,platonic cosmology1 the concentric spheres were bodies formed and animated by intelligences of various orders4 ,the nobler an intelligence1 the more swift and outward1 or higher1 was the sphere it moved2 whence the identification of 8higher0 with better1 which survives1 absurdly1 to this day4 ,and while ,dante could not attribute literal truth to his fancies about hell1 purgatory1 and heaven1 he believed that an actual heaven1 purgatory1 and hell had been fashioned by ,god on purpose to receive souls of varying deserts and complexion2 so that while the poet's imagination1 unless it reechoed divine revelation1 was only human and not prophetic1 yet it was a genuine and plausible imagination1 moving on the lines of nature1 and anticipating such things as experience might very well realize4 ,dante's objectification of morality1 his art of giving visible forms and local habitations to ideal virtues and vices1 was for him a thoroughly serious and philosophical exercise4 ,god had created nature and life on that very principle4 ,the poet's method repeated the magic of ,genesis4 ,his symbolical imagination mirrored this symbolical world2 it was a sincere anticipation of fact1 no mere laboured and wilful allegory4 ,this situation has a curious consequence4 ,probably for the first and last time in the history of the world a classification worked out by a systematic moralist guided the vision of a great poet4 ,aristotle had distinguished1 named1 and classified the various virtues1 with their opposites4 ,but observe3 if the other world was made on purpose--as it was--to express and render palpable those moral distinctions which were eternal1 and to express and render them palpable in great detail1 with all their possible tints and varieties2 and if ,aristotle had correctly classified moral qualities1 as he had--then it follows that ,aristotle 7without knowing it7 must have supplied the ground-plan1 as it were1 of hell and of heaven4 ,such was ,dante's thought4 ,with ,aristotle's ,ethics open before him1 with a supplementary hint1 here and there1 drawn from the catechism1 and with an ingrained preference 7pious and almost philosophic7 for the number three and its multiples1 he needed not to voyage without a chart4 ,the most visionary of subjects1 life after death1 could be treated with scientific soberness and deep sincerity4 ,this vision was to be no wanton dream4 ,it was to be a sober meditation1 a philosophical prophecy1 a probable drama1--the most poignant1 terrible1 and consoling of all possible truths4 ,the good--this was the fundamental thought of ,aristotle and of all ,greek ethics1--the good is the end at which nature aims4 ,the demands of life cannot be radically perverse1 since they are the judges of every excellence4 ,no man1 as ,dante says1 could hate his own soul2 he could not at once be1 and contradict1 the voice of his instincts and emotions4 ,nor could a man hate ,god2 for if that man knew himself1 he would see that ,god was1 by definition1 his natural good1 the ultimate goal of his actual aspirations4#aj ,since it was impossible1 according to his insight1 that our faculties should be intrinsically evil1 all evil had to arise from the disorder into which these faculties fall1 their too great weakness or strength in relation to one another4 ,if the animal part of man was too strong for his reason1 he fell into incontinence1--that is1 into lust1 gluttony1 avarice1 wrath1 or pride4 ,incontinence came from an excessive or ill-timed pursuit of something good1 of a part of what nature aims at2 for food1 children1 property1 and character are natural goods4 ,these sins are accordingly the most excusable and the least odious4 ,dante puts those who have sinned through love in the first circle of hell1 nearest to the sunlight1 or in the topmost round of purgatory1 nearest to the earthly paradise4 ,below the lovers1 in each case1 are the gluttons1--where a northern poet would have been obliged to place his drunkards4 ,beneath these again are the misers1--worse because less open to the excuse of a merely childish lack of self-control4 ,the disorder of the faculties may arise1 however1 in another way4 ,the combative or spirited element1 rather than the senses1 may get out of hand1 and lead to crimes of violence4 ,violence1 like incontinence1 is spontaneous enough in its personal origin1 and would not be odious if it did not inflict1 and intend to inflict1 harm on others2 so that besides incontinence1 there is malice in it4 ,ill-will to others may arise from pride1 because one loves to be superior to them1 or from envy1 because one abhors that they should seem superior to oneself2 or through desire for vengeance1 because one smarts under some injury4 ,sins of these kinds are more serious than those of foolish incontinence2 they complicate the moral world more2 they introduce endless opposition of interests1 and perpetual1 self-propagating crimes4 ,they are hateful4 ,dante feels less pity for those who suffer by them3 he remembers the sufferings these malefactors have themselves caused1 and he feels a sort of joy in joining the divine justice1 and would gladly lash them himself4 ,worse still than violence1 however1 is guile3 the sin of those who in the service of their intemperance or their malice have abused the gift of reason4 ,corruptio optimi pessima2 and to turn reason1 the faculty that establishes order1 into a means of organizing disorder1 is a perversity truly satanic3 it turns evil into an art4 ,but even this perversity has stages2 and ,dante distinguishes ten sorts of dishonesty or simple fraud1 as well as three sorts of treachery4 ,besides these positive transgressions there is a possibility of general moral sluggishness and indifference4 ,this ,dante1 with his fervid nature1 particularly hates4 ,he puts the ,laodiceans in the fringe of his hell2 within the gate1 that they may be without hope1 but outside of limbo1 that they may have torments to endure1 and be stung by wasps and hornets into a belated activity4#aa ,to these vices1 known to ,aristotle1 the ,catholic moralist was obliged to add two others3 original sin1 of which spontaneous disbelief is one consequence1 and heresy1 or misbelief1 after a revelation has been given and accepted4 ,original sin1 and the paganism that goes with it1 if they lead to nothing worse1 are a mere privation of excellence and involve1 in eternity merely a privation of joy3 they are punished in limbo4 ,there sighs are heard1 but no lamentation1 and the only sorrow is to live in desire without hope4 ,this fate is most appropriately imputed to the noble and clear-sighted in the hereafter1 since it is so often their experience here4 ,dante was never juster than in this stroke4#ab ,heresy1 on the other hand1 is a kind of passion when honest1 or a kind of fraud when politic2 and it is punished as pride in fiery tombs1#ac or as faction by perpetual gaping wounds and horrible mutilations4#ad ,so far1 with these slight additions1 ,dante is following ,aristotle2 but here a great divergence sets in4 ,if a pagan poet had conceived the idea of illustrating the catalogue of vices and virtues in poetic scenes1 he would have chosen suitable episodes in human life1 and painted the typical characters that figured in them in their earthly environment2 for pagan morality is a plant of earth4 ,not so with ,dante4 ,his poem describes this world merely in retrospect2 the foreground is occupied by the eternal consequences of what time had brought forth4 ,these consequences are new facts1 not merely1 as for the rationalist1 the old facts conceived in their truth2 they often reverse1 in their emotional quality1 the events they represent4 ,such a reversal is made possible by the theory that justice is partly retributive2 that virtue is not its own sufficient reward1 nor vice its own sufficient punishment4 ,according to this theory1 this life contains a part of our experience only1 yet determines the rest4 ,the other life is a second experience1 yet it does not contain any novel adventures4 ,it is determined altogether by what we have done on earth2 as the tree falleth so it lieth1 and souls after death have no further initiative4 ,the theory ,dante adopts mediates between two earlier views2 in so far as it is ,greek1 it conceives immortality ideally1 as something timeless2 but in so far as it is ,hebraic1 it conceives of a new existence and a second1 different taste of life4 ,dante thinks of a second experience1 but of one that is wholly retrospective and changeless4 ,it is an epilogue which sums up the play1 and is the last episode in it4 ,the purpose of this epilogue is not to carry on the play indefinitely3 such a romantic notion of immortality never entered ,dante's mind4 ,the purpose of the epilogue is merely to vindicate 7in a more unmistakable fashion than the play1 being ill acted1 itself could do7 the excellence of goodness and the misery of vice4 ,were this life all1 he thinks the wicked might laugh4 ,if not wholly happy1 at least they might boast that their lot was no worse than that of many good men4 ,nothing would make an overwhelming difference4 ,moral distinctions would be largely impertinent and remarkably jumbled4 ,if ,i am a simple lover of goodness1 ,i may perhaps put up with this situation4 ,i may say of the excellences ,i prize what ,wordsworth says of his ,lucy3 there may be none to praise and few to love them1 but they make all the difference to me4 ,dante1 however1 was not merely a simple lover of excellence3 he was also a keen hater of wickedness1 one that took the moral world tragically and wished to heighten the distinctions he felt into something absolute and infinite4 ,now any man who is enrag in his preferences will probably say1 with ,mohammed1 ,tertullian1 and ,calvin1 that good is dishonoured if those who contemn it can go scot-free1 and never repent of their negligence2 that the more horrible the consequences of evil-doing1 the more tolerable the presence of evil-doing is in the world2 and that the everlasting shrieks and contortions of the damned alone will make it possible for the saints to sit quiet1 and be convinced that there is perfect harmony in the universe4 ,on this principle1 in the famous inscription which ,dante places over the gate of hell1 we read that primal love1 as well as justice and power1 established that torture-house2 primal love1 that is1 of that good which1 by the extreme punishment of those who scorn it1 is honoured1 vindicated1 and made to shine like the sun4 ,the damned are damned for the glory of ,god4 ,this doctrine1 ,i cannot help thinking1 is a great disgrace to human nature4 ,it shows how desperate1 at heart1 is the folly of an egotistic or anthropocentric philosophy4 ,this philosophy begins by assuring us that everything is obviously created to serve our needs2 it then maintains that everything serves our ideals2 and in the end1 it reveals that everything serves our blind hatreds and superstitious qualms4 ,because my instinct taboos something1 the whole universe1 with insane intensity1 shall taboo it for ever4 ,this infatuation was inherited by ,dante1 and it was not uncongenial to his bitter and intemperate spleen4 ,nevertheless1 he saw beyond it at times4 ,like many other ,christian seers1 he betrays here and there an esoteric view of rewards and punishments1 which makes them simply symbols for the intrinsic quality of good and evil ways4 ,the punishment1 he then seems to say1 is nothing added2 it is what the passion itself pursues2 it is a fulfilment1 horrifying the soul that desired it4 ,for instance1 spirits newly arrived in hell require no devil with his prong to drive them to their punishment4 ,they flit towards it eagerly1 of their own accord4#ae ,similarly1 the souls in purgatory are kept by their own will at the penance they are doing4 ,no external force retains them1 but until they are quite purged they are not able1 because they are not willing1 to absolve themselves4#af ,the whole mountain1 we are told1 trembles and bursts into psalmody when any one frees himself and reaches heaven4 ,is it too much of a gloss to say that these souls change their prison when they change their ideal1 and that an inferior state of soul is its own purgatory1 and determines its own duration8 ,in one place1 at any rate1 ,dante proclaims the intrinsic nature of punishment in express terms4 ,among the blasphemers is a certain king of ,thebes1 who defied the thunderbolts of ,jupiter4 ,he shows himself indifferent to his punishment and says3 8,such as ,i was alive1 such ,i am dead40 ,whereupon ,virgil exclaims1 with a force ,dante had never found in his voice before3 8,in that thy pride is not mortified1 thou art punished the more4 ,no torture1 other than thy own rage1 would be woe enough to match thy fury40#ag ,and indeed1 ,dante's imagination cannot outdo1 it cannot even equal1 the horrors which men have brought upon themselves in this world4 ,if we were to choose the most fearful of the scenes in the ,inferno1 we should have to choose the story of ,ugolino1 but this is only a pale recital of what ,pisa had actually witnessed4 ,a more subtle and interesting instance1 if a less obvious one1 may be found in the punishment of ,paolo and ,francesca di ,rimini4 ,what makes these lovers so wretched in the ,inferno8 ,they are still together4 ,can an eternity of floating on the wind1 in each other's arms1 be a punishment for lovers8 ,that is just what their passion1 if left to speak for itself1 would have chosen4 ,it is what passion stops at1 and would gladly prolong for ever4 ,divine judgement has only taken it at its word4 ,this fate is precisely what ,aucassin1 in the well-known tale1 wishes for himself and his sweetheart ,nicolette1--not a heaven to be won by renunciation1 but the possession1 even if it be in hell1 of what he loves and fancies4 ,and a great romantic poet1 ,alfred de ,musset1 actually upbraids ,dante for not seeing that such an eternal destiny as he has assigned to ,paolo and ,francesca would be not the ruin of their love1#ah but the perfect fulfilment of it4 ,this last seems to be very true2 but did ,dante overlook the truth of it8 ,if so1 what instinct guided him to choose just the fate for these lovers that they would have chosen for themselves8 ,there is a great difference between the apprentices in life1 and the masters1--,aucassin and ,alfred de ,musset were among the apprentices2 ,dante was one of the masters4 ,he could feel the fresh promptings of life as keenly as any youngster1 or any romanticist2 but he had lived these things through1 he knew the possible and the impossible issue of them2 he saw their relation to the rest of human nature1 and to the ideal of an ultimate happiness and peace4 ,he had discovered the necessity of saying continually to oneself3 ,thou shalt renounce4 ,and for this reason he needed no other furniture for hell than the literal ideals and fulfilments of our absolute little passions4 ,the soul that is possessed by any one of these passions nevertheless has other hopes in abeyance4 ,love itself dreams of more than mere possession2 to conceive happiness1 it must conceive a life to be shared in a varied world1 full of events and activities1 which shall be new and ideal bonds between the lovers4 ,but unlawful love cannot pass out into this public fulfilment4 ,it is condemned to be mere possession--possession in the dark1 without an environment1 without a future4 ,it is love among the ruins4 ,and it is precisely this that is the torment of ,paolo and ,francesca--love among the ruins of themselves and of all else they might have had to give to one another4 ,abandon yourself1 ,dante would say to us1--abandon yourself altogether to a love that is nothing but love1 and you are in hell already4 ,only an inspired poet could be so subtle a moralist4 ,only a sound moralist could be so tragic a poet4 ,the same tact and fine feeling that appear in these little moral dramas appear also in the sympathetic landscape in which each episode is set4 ,the poet actually accomplishes the feat which he attributes to the ,creator2 he evokes a material world to be the fit theatre for moral attitudes4 ,popular imagination and the precedents of ,homer and ,virgil had indeed carried him halfway in this symbolic labour1 as tradition almost always carries a poet who is successful4 ,mankind1 from remotest antiquity1 had conceived a dark subterranean hell1 inhabited by unhappy ghosts4 ,in ,christian times1 these shades had become lost souls1 tormented by hideous demons4 ,but ,dante1 with the ,aristotelian chart of the vices before him1 turned those vague windy caverns into a symmetrical labyrinth4 ,seven concentric terraces descended1 step by step1 towards the waters of the ,styx1 which in turn encircled the brazen walls of the ,city of ,dis1 or ,pluto4 ,within these walls1 two more terraces led down to the edge of a prodigious precipice--perhaps a thousand miles deep--which formed the pit of hell4 ,at the bottom of this1 still sinking gently towards the centre1 were ten concentric furrows or ditches1 to hold ten sorts of rogues2 and finally a last sheer precipice fell to the frozen lake of ,cocytus1 at the very centre of the earth1 in the midst of which ,lucifer was congealed amongst lesser traitors4 ,precision and horror1 graphic and moral truth1 were never so wonderfully combined as in the description of this hell4 ,yet the conception of purgatory is more original1 and perhaps more poetical4 ,the very approach to the place is enchanting4 ,we hear of it first in the fatal adventure ascribed to ,ulysses by ,dante4 ,restless at ,ithaca after his return from ,troy1 the hero had summoned his surviving companions for a last voyage of discovery4 ,he had sailed with them past the ,pillars of ,hercules1 skirting the ,african shore2 until after three months of open sea1 he saw a colossal mountain1 a great truncated cone1 looming before him4 ,this was the island and hill of purgatory1 at the very antipodes of ,jerusalem4 ,yet before ,ulysses could land there1 a squall overtook him2 and his galley sank1 prow foremost1 in that untraversed sea1 within sight of a new world4 ,so must the heathen fail of salvation1 though some oracular impulse bring them near the goal4 ,how easy is success1 on the other hand1 to the ministers of grace6 ,from the mouth of the ,tiber1 where the souls of ,christians congregate after death1 a light skiff1 piloted by an angel1 and propelled only by his white wings1 skims the sea swiftly towards the mountain of purgatory1 there deposits the spirits it carries1 and is back at the mouth of the ,tiber again on the same day4 ,so much for the approach to purgatory4 ,when a spirit lands it finds the skirts of the mountain broad and spreading1 but the slope soon becomes hard and precipitous4 ,when he has passed the narrow gate of repentance1 he must stay upon each of the ledges that encircle the mountain at various heights1 until one of his sins is purged1 and then upon the next ledge above1 if he has been guilty also of the sin that is atoned for there4 ,the mountain is so high as to lift its head into the sphere of the moon1 above the reach of terrestrial tempests4 ,the top1 which is a broad circular plain1 contains the ,garden of ,eden1 watered by the rivers ,lethe and ,eunoe1 one to heal all painful memories1 and the other to bring all good thoughts to clearness4 ,from this place1 which literally touches the lowest heaven1 the upward flight is easy from sphere to sphere4 ,the astronomy of ,dante's day fell in beautifully with his poetic task4 ,it described and measured a firmament that would still be identified with the posthumous heaven of the saints4 ,the whirling invisible spheres of that astronomy had the earth for their centre4 ,the sublime complexities of this ,ptolemaic system were day and night before ,dante's mind4 ,he loves to tell us in what constellation the sun is rising or setting1 and what portion of the sky is then over the antipodes2 he carries in his mind an orrery that shows him1 at any given moment1 the position of every star4 ,such a constant dragging in of astronomical lore may seem to us puerile or pedantic2 but for ,dante the astronomical situation had the charm of a landscape1 literally full of the most wonderful lights and shadows2 and it also had the charm of a hard-won discovery that unveiled the secrets of nature4 ,to think straight1 to see things as they are1 or as they might naturally be1 interested him more than to fancy things impossible2 and in this he shows1 not want of imagination1 but true imaginative power and imaginative maturity4 ,it is those of us who are too feeble to conceive and master the real world1 or too cowardly to face it1 that run away from it to those cheap fictions that alone seem to us fine enough for poetry or for religion4 ,in ,dante the fancy is not empty or arbitrary2 it is serious1 fed on the study of real things4 ,it adopts their tendency and divines their true destiny4 ,his art is1 in the original ,greek sense1 an imitation or rehearsal of nature1 an anticipation of fate4 ,for this reason curious details of science or theology enter as a matter of course into his verse4 ,with the straightforward faith and simplicity of his age he devours these interesting images1 which help him to clarify the mysteries of this world4 ,there is a kind of sensualism or aestheticism that has decreed in our day that theory is not poetical2 as if all the images and emotions that enter a cultivated mind were not saturated with theory4 ,the prevalence of such a sensualism or aestheticism would alone suffice to explain the impotence of the arts4 ,the life of theory is not less human or less emotional than the life of sense2 it is more typically human and more keenly emotional4 ,philosophy is a more intense sort of experience than common life is1 just as pure and subtle music1 heard in retirement1 is something keener and more intense than the howling of storms or the rumble of cities4 ,for this reason philosophy1 when a poet is not mindless1 enters inevitably into his poetry1 since it has entered into his life2 or rather1 the detail of things and the detail of ideas pass equally into his verse1 when both alike lie in the path that has led him to his ideal4 ,to object to theory in poetry would be like objecting to words there2 for words1 too1 are symbols without the sensuous character of the things they stand for2 and yet it is only by the net of new connections which words throw over things1 in recalling them1 that poetry arises at all4 ,poetry is an attenuation1 a rehandling1 an echo of crude experience2 it is itself a theoretic vision of things at arm's length4 ,never before or since has a poet lived in so large a landscape as ,dante2 for our infinite times and distances are of little poetic value while we have no graphic image of what may fill them4 ,dante's spaces were filled2 they enlarged to the limits of human imagination1 the habitations and destinies of mankind4 ,although the saints did not literally inhabit the spheres1 but the empyrean beyond1 yet each spirit could be manifested in that sphere the genius of which was most akin to his own4 ,in ,dante's vision spirits appear as points of light1 from which voices also flow sometimes1 as well as radiance4 ,further than reporting their words 7which are usually about the things of earth7 ,dante tells us little about them4 ,he has indeed1 at the end1 a vision of a celestial rose2 tier upon tier of saints are seated as in an amphitheatre1 and the ,deity overarches them in the form of a triple rainbow1 with a semblance of man in the midst4 ,but this is avowedly a mere symbol1 a somewhat conventional picture to which ,dante has recourse unwillingly1 for want of a better image to render his mystical intention4 ,what may perhaps help us to divine this intention is the fact1 just mentioned1 that according to him the celestial spheres are not the real seat of any human soul2 that the pure rise through them with increasing ease and velocity1 the nearer they come to ,god2 and that the eyes of ,beatrice--the revelation of ,god to man--are only mirrors1 shedding merely reflected beauty and light4 ,these hints suggest the doctrine that the goal of life is the very bosom of ,god2 not any finite form of existence1 however excellent1 but a complete absorption and disappearance in the ,godhead4 ,so the ,neoplatonists had thought1 from whom all this heavenly landscape is borrowed2 and the reservations that ,christian orthodoxy requires have not always remained present to the minds of ,christian mystics and poets4 ,dante broaches this very point in the memorable interview he has with the spirit of ,piccarda1 in the third canto of the ,paradiso4 ,she is in the lowest sphere of heaven1 that of the inconstant moon1 because after she had been stolen from her convent and forcibly married1 she felt no prompting to renew her earlier vows4 ,dante asks her if she never longs for a higher station in paradise1 one nearer to ,god1 the natural goal of all aspiration4 ,she answers that to share the will of ,god1 who has established many different mansions in his house1 is to be truly one with him4 ,the wish to be nearer ,god would actually carry the soul farther away1 since it would oppose the order he has established4#ai ,even in heaven1 therefore1 the ,christian saint was to keep his essential fidelity1 separation1 and lowliness4 ,he was to feel still helpless and lost in himself1 like ,tobias1 and happy only in that the angel of the ,lord was holding him by the hand4 ,for ,piccarda to say that she accepts the will of ,god means not that she shares it1 but that she submits to it4 ,she would fain go higher1 for her moral nature demands it1 as ,dante--incorrigible ,platonist--perfectly perceived2 but she dare not mention it1 for she knows that ,god1 whose thoughts are not her thoughts1 has forbidden it4 ,the inconstant sphere of the moon does not afford her a perfect happiness2 but1 chastened as she is1 she says it brings her happiness enough2 all that a broken and a contrite heart has the courage to hope for4 ,such are the conflicting inspirations beneath the lovely harmonies of the ,paradiso4 ,it was not the poet's soul that was in conflict here2 it was only his traditions4 ,the conflicts of his own spirit had been left behind in other regions2 on that threshing-floor of earth which1 from the height of heaven1 he looked back upon with wonder1#bj surprised that men should take so passionately this trouble of ants1 which he judges best1 says ,dante1 who thinks least of it4 ,in this saying the poet is perhaps conscious of a personal fault2 for ,dante was far from perfect1 even as a poet4 ,he was too much a man of his own time1 and often wrote with a passion not clarified into judgement4 ,so much does the purely personal and dramatic interest dominate us as we read of a ,boniface or an ,ugolino that we forget that these historical figures are supposed to have been transmuted into the eternal1 and to have become bits in the mosaic of ,platonic essences4 ,dante himself almost forgets it4 ,the modern reader1 accustomed to insignificant1 wayward fictions1 and expecting to be entertained by images without thoughts1 may not notice this lack of perspective1 or may rejoice in it4 ,but1 if he is judicious1 he will not rejoice in it long4 ,the ,bonifaces and the ,ugolinos are not the truly deep1 the truly lovely figures of the ,divine ,comedy4 ,they are1 in a relative sense1 the vulgarities in it4 ,we feel too much1 in these cases1 the heat of the poet's prejudice or indignation4 ,he is not just1 as he usually is2 he does not stop to think1 as he almost always does4 ,he forgets that he is in the eternal world1 and dips for the moment into a brawl in some ,italian market-place1 or into the council-chamber of some factious condottiere4 ,the passages--such as those about ,boniface and ,ugolino--which ,dante writes in this mood are powerful and vehement1 but they are not beautiful4 ,they brand the object of their invective more than they reveal it2 they shock more than they move the reader4 ,this lower kind of success--for it is still a success in rhetoric--falls to the poet because he has abandoned the ,platonic half of his inspiration and has become for the moment wholly historical1 wholly ,hebraic or ,roman4 ,he would have been a far inferior mind if he had always moved on this level4 ,with the ,platonic spheres and the ,aristotelian ethics taken out1 his ,comedy would not have been divine4 ,persons and incidents1 to be truly memorable1 have to be rendered significant2 they have to be seen in their place in the moral world2 they have to be judged1 and judged rightly1 in their dignity and value4 ,a casual personal sentiment towards them1 however passionate1 cannot take the place of the sympathetic insight that comprehends and the wide experience that judges4 ,again 7what is fundamental with ,dante7 love1 as he feels and renders it1 is not normal or healthy love4 ,it was doubtless real enough1 but too much restrained and expressed too much in fancy2 so that when it is extended ,platonically and identified so easily with the grace of ,god and with revealed wisdom1 we feel the suspicion that if the love in question had been natural and manly1 it would have offered more resistance to so mystical a transformation4 ,the poet who wishes to pass convincingly from love to philosophy 7and that seems a natural progress for a poet7 should accordingly be a hearty and complete lover--a lover like ,goethe and his ,faust--rather than like ,plato and ,dante4 ,faust1 too1 passes from ,gretchen to ,helen1 and partly back again2 and ,goethe made even more passages4 ,had any of them led to something which not only was loved1 but deserved to be loved1 which not only could inspire a whole life1 but which ought to inspire it--then we should have had a genuine progress4 ,in the next place1 ,dante talks too much about himself4 ,there is a sense in which this egotism is a merit1 or at least a ground of interest for us moderns2 for egotism is the distinctive attitude of modern philosophy and of romantic sentiment4 ,in being egotistical ,dante was ahead of his time4 ,his philosophy would have lost an element of depth1 and his poetry an element of pathos1 had he not placed himself in the centre of the stage1 and described everything as his experience1 or as a revelation made to himself and made for the sake of his personal salvation4 ,but ,dante's egotism goes rather further than was requisite1 so that the transcendental insight might not fail in his philosophy4 ,it extended so far that he cast the shadow of his person not only over the terraces of purgatory 7as he is careful to tell us repeatedly71 but over the whole of ,italy and of ,europe1 which he saw and judged under the evident influence of private passions and resentments4 ,moreover1 the personality thrust forward so obtrusively is not in every respect worthy of contemplation4 ,dante is very proud and very bitter2 at the same time1 he is curiously timid2 and one may tire sometimes of his perpetual tremblings and tears1 of his fainting fits and his intricate doubts4 ,a man who knows he is under the special protection of ,god1 and of three celestial ladies1 and who has such a sage and magician as ,virgil for a guide1 might have looked even upon hell with a little more confidence4 ,how far is this shivering and swooning philosopher from the laughing courage of ,faust1 who sees his poodle swell into a monster1 then into a cloud1 and finally change into ,mephistopheles1 and says at once3 ,das also war des ,pudels ,kern6 ,doubtless ,dante was mediaeval1 and contrition1 humility1 and fear of the devil were great virtues in those days2 but the conclusion we must come to is precisely that the virtues of those days were not the best virtues1 and that a poet who represents that time cannot be a fair nor an ultimate spokesman for humanity4 ,perhaps we have now reviewed the chief objects that peopled ,dante's imagination1 the chief objects into the midst of which his poetry transports us2 and if a poet's genius avails to transport us into his enchanted world1 the character of that world will determine the quality and dignity of his poetry4 ,dante transports us1 with unmistakable power1 first into the atmosphere of a visionary love2 then into the history of his conversion1 affected by this love1 or by the divine grace identified with it4 ,the supreme ideal to which his conversion brought him back is expressed for him by universal nature1 and is embodied among men in the double institution of a revealed religion and a providential empire4 ,to trace the fortunes of these institutions1 we are transported next into the panorama of history1 in its great crises and its great men2 and particularly into the panorama of ,italy in the poet's time1 where we survey the crimes1 the virtues1 and the sorrows of those prominent in furthering or thwarting the ideal of ,christendom4 ,these numerous persons are set before us with the sympathy and brevity of a dramatist2 yet it is no mere carnival1 no danse macabre3 for throughout1 above the confused strife of parties and passions1 we hear the steady voice1 the implacable sentence1 of the prophet that judges them4 ,thus ,dante1 gifted with the tenderest sense of colour1 and the firmest art of design1 has put his whole world into his canvas4 ,seen there1 that world becomes complete1 clear1 beautiful1 and tragic4 ,it is vivid and truthful in its detail1 sublime in its march and in its harmony4 ,this is not poetry where the parts are better than the whole4 ,here1 as in some great symphony1 everything is cumulative3 the movements conspire1 the tension grows1 the volume redoubles1 the keen melody soars higher and higher2 and it all ends1 not with a bang1 not with some casual incident1 but in sustained reflection1 in the sense that it has not ended1 but remains by us in its totality1 a revelation and a resource for ever4 ,it has taught us to love and to renounce1 to judge and to worship4 ,what more could a poet do8 ,dante poetized all life and nature as he found them4 ,his imagination dominated and focused the whole world4 ,he thereby touched the ultimate goal to which a poet can aspire2 he set the standard for all possible performance1 and became the type of a supreme poet4 ,this is not to say that he is the 8greatest0 of poets4 ,the relative merit of poets is a barren thing to wrangle about4 ,the question can always be opened anew1 when a critic appears with a fresh temperament or a new criterion4 ,even less need we say that no greater poet can ever arise2 we may be confident of the opposite4 ,but ,dante gives a successful example of the highest species of poetry4 ,his poetry covers the whole field from which poetry may be fetched1 and to which poetry may be applied1 from the inmost recesses of the heart to the uttermost bounds of nature and of destiny4 ,if to give imaginative value to something is the minimum task of a poet1 to give imaginative value to all things1 and to the system which things compose1 is evidently his greatest task4 ,dante fulfilled this task1 of course under special conditions and limitations1 personal and social2 but he fulfilled it1 and he thereby fulfilled the conditions of supreme poetry4 ,even ,homer1 as we are beginning to perceive nowadays1 suffered from a certain conventionality and one-sidedness4 ,there was much in the life and religion of his time that his art ignored4 ,it was a flattering1 a euphemistic art2 it had a sort of pervasive blandness1 like that which we now associate with a fashionable sermon4 ,it was poetry addressed to the ruling caste in the state1 to the conquerors2 and it spread an intentional glamour over their past brutalities and present self-deceptions4 ,no such partiality in ,dante2 he paints what he hates as frankly as what he loves1 and in all things he is complete and sincere4 ,if any similar adequacy is attained again by any poet1 it will not be1 presumably1 by a poet of the supernatural4 ,henceforth1 for any wide and honest imagination1 the supernatural must figure as an idea in the human mind1--a part of the natural4 ,to conceive it otherwise would be to fall short of the insight of this age1 not to express or to complete it4 ,dante1 however1 for this very reason1 may be expected to remain the supreme poet of the supernatural1 the unrivalled exponent1 after ,plato1 of that phase of thought and feeling in which the supernatural seems to be the key to nature and to happiness4 ,this is the hypothesis on which1 as yet1 moral unity has been best attained in this world4 ,here1 then1 we have the most complete idealization and comprehension of things achieved by mankind hitherto4 ,dante is the type of a consummate poet4 99 99 99 99 99 #a ,plato1 ,phaedo1#ig;,b-#ii;,c1 ,jowett's translation4 ,i have changed the rendering of from 8mind0 to 8reason40 #b 8,est pro fundamento tenenda veritas historiae et desuper spirituales expositiones fabricandae40 ,thomas ,aquinas1 ,summa ,theologiae1 i4 quaest4 #ajb1 conclusio4 #c ,paradiso1 xv4 #ig1 #ii3 ,fiorenza dentro dalla cerchia antica444 ,si stava in pace1 sobria e pudica4 #d ,ibid41 #ajj-bf3 ,non avea catenella1 non corona1 ,non donne contigiate1 non cintura ,che fosse a veder pin che la persona4 ,non faceva nascendo ancor paura ,la figlia al padre1 ch il tempo e la dote ,non fuggan quinci e quindi la misura4 ,non avea case di famiglia vote2 ,non v'era giunto ancor ,sardanapalo ,a mostrar ci che in camera si puote4444 ,o fortunate6 ,ciascuna era certa ,delia sua sepoltura1 ed ancor nulla ,era per ,francia nel letto deserta4 ,l' una vegghiava a studio della culla1 ,e consolando usava l' idioma ,che prima i padri e le madri trastulla2 ,l' altra traendo alia rocca la chioma1 ,favoleggiava con la sua famiglia ,de' ,troiani1 di ,fiesole1 e di ,roma4 #e ,paradiso1 xxxiii4 #adc-de3 ,volgeva il mio disiro e il velle1 ,si come rota ch' egualmente mossa1 ,l' amor che move il sole e l' altre stelle4 #f ,vita ,nuova1 #bb3 ,secondo l' usanza della sopradetta cittade1 donne con donne1 e uomini con uomini si adunino a cotale tristizia2 molte donne s' adunaro col1 ove questa ,beatrice piangea pietosamente1 c4 ,also1 ,purgatorio1 xxxi4 #ej1 #ea3 ,le belle membra in ch' io ,rinchiusa fui1 e sono in terra sparte4 #g ,vita ,nuova1 v4 #h ,schermo della veritade1--natural philosophy4 #i ,convito1 ,,ii4 cap4 #af3 ,faccia che gli occhi d' esta ,donna miri2 gli occhi di questa ,donna sono le sue dimostrazioni1 le quali dritte negli occhi dello intelletto inhamorano l' anima1 libera nelle condizioni4 ,oh dolcissimi ed ineffabili sembianti1 e rubatori subitani della mente umana1 che nelle dimostrazioni negli occhi della ,filosofia apparite1 quando essa alli suoi drudi ragiona6 ,veramente in voi la salute1 per la quale si fa beato chi vi guarda1 e salvo dalla morte della ignoranza e delli vizi4444 ,e cosi1 in fine di questo secondo ,trattato1 dico e affermo che la ,donna1 di cui io innamorai appresso lo primo amore1 fu la bellissima e onestissima figlia dello ,imperadore dell' universo1 alla quale ,pittagora pose nome ,filosofia4 #aj ,purgatorio1 xvii4 #ajf-aa3 ,or perch mai non pu dalla salute ,amor del suo suggetto volger viso1 ,dall' odio proprio son le cose tute3 ,e perch intender non si pu diviso1 ,e per s stante1 alcuno esser dal primo1 ,da quello odiare ogni affetto deciso4 #aa ,inferno1 iii4 #fd-ff3 ,questi sciaurati1 che mai non fur vivi1 ,erano ignudi e stimolati molto ,da mosconi e da vespe ch' erano ivi4 #ab ,ibid41 iv4 #da1 #db3 ,semo perduti1 e sol di tanto offesi ,che senza speme vivemo in disio4 ,cf4 ,purgatorio1 iii4 #cg-de1 where ,virgil says3 8,state contenti1 umana gente1 al quia2 ,ch se potuto aveste veder tutto1 ,mestier non era partorir ,maria2 ,e disiar vedeste senza frutto ,tai1 che sarebbe lor disio quetato1 ,ch'eternalmente dato lor per lutto4 ,io dico d',aristotele e di ,plato1 ,e di molti altri40 ,e qui chin la fronte2 ,e pi non disse1 e rimase turbato4 #ac ,inferno1 ix4 #ajf-cc1 and x4 #ad ,ibid41 xxviii4 #ae ,inferno1 iii4 #abd-bf3 ,e pronti sono a trapassar lo rio1 ,ch la divina giustizia gli sprona ,si che la tema si volge in disio4 #af ,purgatorio1 xxi4 #fa-fi3 ,della mondizia sol voler fa prova1 ,che1 tutta libera a mutar convento1 ,l'alma sorprende1 e di voler le giova4444 ,ed io che son giaciuto a questa doglia ,cinquecento anni e pi1 pur mo sentii ,libera volont di miglior soglia4 #ag ,inferno1 xiv4 #fc-ff3 8,o ,capaneo1 in ci che non s'ammorza ,la tua superbia1 se' tu pi punito3 ,nullo martirio1 fuor che la tua rabbia1 ,sarebbe al tuo furor dolor compito40 #ah ,alfred de ,musset1 ,posies ,nouvelles1 ,souvenir3 ,dante1 pourquoi dis-tu qu'il n'est pire misre ,qu'un souvenir heureux dans les jours de douleur8 ,quel chagrin t'a dict cette parole amre1 ,cette offense au malheur8 444 ,ce blasphme vant ne vient pas de ton cur4 ,un souvenir heureux est peut-tre sur terre ,plus vrai que le bonheur4444 ,et c'est ta ,franoise1 ton ange de gloire1 ,que tu pouvais donner ces mots prononcer1 ,elle qui s'interrompt1 pour conter son histoire1 ,d'un ternel baiser6 #ai ,paradiso1 iii4 #gc-ij3 8,se disiassimo esser pi superne1 ,foran discordi li nostri disiri ,dal voler di colui che qui ne cerne1444 ,e la sua volontate nostra pace2 ,ella quel mare al qual tutto si move ,ci ch'ella crea1 e che natura face40 ,chiaro mi fu allor com' ogni dove ,in cielo ,paradiso1 e s la grazia ,del sommo ben d'un modo non vi piove4 #bj ,paradiso1 xxii4 #acc-ci3 ,col viso ritornai per tutte e quante ,le sette spere1 e vidi questo globo ,tal1 ch'io sorrisi del suo vil sembiante2 ,e quel consiglio per migliore approbo ,che l'ha per meno2 e chi ad altro pensa ,chiamar si puote veramente probo4 ,,iv4 ,,goethe',s ,,faust ,in approaching the third of our philosophical poets1 there is a scruple that may cross the mind4 ,lucretius was undoubtedly a philosophical poet2 his whole poem is devoted to expounding and defending a system of philosophy4 ,in ,dante the case is almost as plain4 ,the ,divine ,comedy is a moral and personal fable2 yet not only are many passages explicitly philosophical1 but the whole is inspired and controlled by the most definite of religious systems and of moral codes4 ,dante1 too1 is unmistakably a philosophical poet4 ,but was ,goethe a philosopher8 ,and is ,faust a philosophical poem8 ,if we say so1 it must be by giving a certain latitude to our terms4 ,goethe was the wisest of mankind2 too wise1 perhaps1 to be a philosopher in the technical sense1 or to try to harness this wild world in a brain-spun terminology4 ,it is true that he was all his life a follower of ,spinoza1 and that he may be termed1 without hesitation1 a naturalist in philosophy and a pantheist4 ,his adherence to the general attitude of ,spinoza1 however1 did not exclude a great plasticity and freedom in his own views1 even on the most fundamental points4 ,thus ,goethe did not admit the mechanical interpretation of nature advocated by ,spinoza4 ,he also assigned1 at least to privileged souls1 like his own1 a more personal sort of immortality than ,spinoza allowed4 ,moreover1 he harboured a generous sympathy with the dramatic explanations of nature and history current in the ,germany of his day4 ,yet such transcendental idealism1 making the world the expression of a spiritual endeavour1 was a total reversal of that conviction1 so profound in ,spinoza1 that all moral energies are resident in particular creatures1 themselves sparks in an absolutely infinite and purposeless world4 ,in a word1 ,goethe was not a systematic philosopher4 ,his feeling for the march of things and for the significance of great personages and great ideas was indeed philosophical1 although more romantic than scientific4 ,his thoughts upon life were fresh and miscellaneous4 ,they voiced the genius and learning of his age4 ,they did not express a firm personal attitude1 radical and unified1 and transmissible to other times and persons4 ,for philosophers1 after all1 have this advantage over men of letters1 that their minds1 being more organic1 can more easily propagate themselves4 ,they scatter less influence1 but more seeds4 ,if from ,goethe we turn to ,faust--and it is as the author of ,faust only that we shall consider him--the situation is not less ambiguous4 ,in the play1 as the young ,goethe first wrote it1 philosophy appeared in the first line1--,hab nun ach die ,philosophey2 but it appeared there1 and throughout the piece1 merely as a human experience1 a passion or an illusion1 a fund of images or an ambitious art4 ,later1 it is true1 under the spell of fashion and of ,schiller1 ,goethe surrounded his original scenes with others1 like the prologue in heaven1 or the apotheosis of ,faust1 in which a philosophy of life was indicated2 namely1 that he who strives strays1 yet in that straying finds his salvation4 ,this idea left standing all that satirical and ,mephistophelian wisdom with which the whole poem abounds1 the later parts no less than the earlier4 ,frankly1 it was a moral that adorned the tale1 without having been the seed of it1 and without even expressing fairly the spirit which it breathes4 ,faust remained an essentially romantic poem1 written to give vent to a pregnant and vivid genius1 to touch the heart1 to bewilder the mind with a carnival of images1 to amuse1 to thrill1 to humanize2 and1 if we must speak of philosophy1 there were many express maxims in the poem1 and many insights1 half betrayed1 that exceeded in philosophic value the belated and official moral which the author affixed to it1 and which he himself warned us not to take too seriously4#a ,faust is1 then1 no philosophical poem1 after an open or deliberate fashion2 and yet it offers a solution to the moral problem of existence as truly as do the poems of ,lucretius and ,dante4 ,heard philosophies are sweet1 but those unheard may be sweeter4 ,they may be more unmixed and more profound for being adopted unconsciously1 for being lived rather than taught4 ,this is not merely to say what might be said of every work of art and of every natural object1 that it could be made the starting-point for a chain of inferences that should reveal the whole universe1 like the flower in the crannied wall4 ,it is to say1 rather1 that the vital straining towards an ideal1 definite but latent1 when it dominates a whole life1 may express that ideal more fully than could the best-chosen words4 ,now ,faust is the foam on the top of two great waves of human aspiration1 merging and heaping themselves up together1--the wave of romanticism rising from the depths of northern traditions and genius1 and the wave of a new paganism coming from ,greece over ,italy4 ,these are not philosophies to be read into ,faust by the critic2 they are passions seething in the drama4 ,it is the drama of a philosophical adventure2 a rebellion against convention2 a flight to nature1 to tenderness1 to beauty2 and then a return to convention again1 with a feeling that nature1 tenderness1 and beauty1 unless found there1 will not be found at all4 ,goethe never depicts1 as ,dante does1 the object his hero is pursuing2 he is satisfied with depicting the pursuit4 ,like ,lessing1 in his famous apologue1 he prefers the pursuit of the ideal to the ideal itself2 perhaps1 as in the case of ,lessing1 because the hope of realizing the ideal1 and the interest in realizing it1 were beginning to forsake him4 ,the case is somewhat as that of ,dante would have been if1 instead of recognizing and loving ,beatrice at first sight and rising into a vision of the eternal world1 ready-made and perfectly ordered1 ,dante had passed from love to love1 from donna gentile to donna gentile1 always longing for the eyes of ,beatrice without ever meeting them4 ,the ,divine ,comedy would then have been only human1 yet it might have suggested and required the very consummation that the ,divine ,comedy depicts2 and without expressing this consummation1 our human comedy might have furnished materials and momentum for it1 such that1 if ever that consummation came to be expressed1 it would be more deeply felt and more adequately understood4 ,dante gives us a philosophical goal1 and we have to recall and retrace the journey2 ,goethe gives us a philosophic journey1 and we have to divine the goal4 ,goethe is a romantic poet2 he is a novelist in verse4 ,he is a philosopher of experience as it comes to the individual2 the philosopher of life1 as action1 memory1 or soliloquy may put life before each of us in turn4 ,now the zest of romanticism consists in taking what you know is an independent and ancient world as if it were material for your private emotions4 ,the savage or the animal1 who should not be aware of nature or history at all1 could not be romantic about them1 nor about himself4 ,he would be blandly idiotic1 and take everything quite unsuspectingly for what it was in him4 ,the romanticist1 then1 should be a civilized man1 so that his primitiveness and egotism may have something paradoxical and conscious about them2 and so that his life may contain a rich experience1 and his reflection may play with all varieties of sentiment and thought4 ,at the same time1 in his inmost genius1 he should be a barbarian1 a child1 a transcendentalist1 so that his life may seem to him absolutely fresh1 self-determined1 unforeseen1 and unforeseeable4 ,it is part of his inspiration to believe that he creates a new heaven and a new earth with each revolution in his moods or in his purposes4 ,he ignores1 or seeks to ignore1 all the conditions of life1 until perhaps by living he personally discovers them4#b ,like ,faust1 he flouts science1 and is minded to make trial of magic1 which renders a man's will master of the universe in which he seems to live4 ,he disowns all authority1 save that mysteriously exercised over him by his deep faith in himself4 ,he is always honest and brave2 but he is always different1 and absolves himself from his past as soon as he has outgrown or forgotten it4 ,he is inclined to be wayward and foolhardy1 justifying himself on the ground that all experience is interesting1 that the springs of it are inexhaustible and always pure1 and that the future of his soul is infinite4 ,in the romantic hero the civilized man and the barbarian must be combined2 he should be the heir to all civilization1 and1 nevertheless1 he should take life arrogantly and egotistically1 as if it were an absolute personal experiment4 ,this singular combination was strikingly exemplified in ,doctor ,johannes ,faustus1 a figure half historical1 half legendary1 familiar to ,goethe in his boyhood in puppet-shows and chapbooks4 ,an adventurer in the romantic as well as in the vulgar sense of the word1 somewhat like ,paracelsus or ,giordano ,bruno1 ,doctor ,faustus had felt the mystery of nature1 had scorned authority1 had credited magic1 had lived by imposture1 and had fled from the police4 ,his blasphemous boasts and rascally conduct1 together with his magic arts1 had made him even in his lifetime a scandalous and interesting personage4 ,he was scarcely dead when legends gathered about his name4 ,it was published abroad that he had sold his soul to the devil1 in exchange for twenty-four years of wild pleasures upon earth4 ,this legend purported to offer a terrible and edifying example1 a warning to all ,christians to avoid the snares of science1 of pleasure1 and of ambition4 ,these things had sent ,doctor ,faustus into hell-fire2 his corpse1 found face downward1 could not be turned over upon its back4 ,nevertheless1 we may suspect that even at the beginning people recognized in ,doctor ,faustus a braver brother1 a somewhat enviable reprobate who had dared to relish the good things of this life above the sad joys vaguely promised for the other4 ,all that the ,renaissance valued was here represented as in the devil's gift2 and the man in the street might well doubt whether it was religion or worldly life that was thereby made the more unlovely4 ,doubtless the ,lutheran authors of the first chapbook felt1 and felt rightly1 that those fine things which tempted ,faustus were unevangelical1 pagan1 and popish2 yet they could not cease altogether to admire and even to covet them1 especially when the first ardours of the ,old-,christian revival had had time to cool4 ,marlowe1 who wrote only a few years later1 made a beginning in the rehabilitation of the hero4 ,his ,faustus is still damned1 but he is transformed into the sort of personage that ,aristotle approves of for the hero of tragedy1 essentially human and noble1 but led astray by some excusable vice or error4 ,marlowe's public would see in ,doctor ,faustus a man and a ,christian like themselves1 carried a bit too far by ambition and the love of pleasure4 ,he is no radical unbeliever1 no natural mate for the devil1 conscienceless and heathen1 like the typical villain of the ,renaissance4 ,on the contrary1 he has become a good ,protestant1 and holds manfully to all those parts of the creed which express his spontaneous affections4 ,a good angel is often overheard whispering in his ear2 and if the bad angel finally prevails1 it is in spite of continual remorse and hesitation on the ,doctor's part4 ,this excellent ,faustus is damned by accident or by predestination2 he is brow-beaten by the devil and forbidden to repent when he has really repented4 ,the terror of the conclusion is thereby heightened2 we see an essentially good man1 because in a moment of infatuation he had signed away his soul1 driven against his will to despair and damnation4 ,the alternative of a happy solution lies almost at hand2 and it is only a lingering taste for the lurid and the horrible1 ingrained in this sort of melodrama1 that sends him shrieking to hell4 ,what makes ,marlowe's conclusion the more violent and the more unphilosophical is the fact that1 to any one not dominated by convention1 the good angel1 in the dialogue1 seems to have so much the worse of the argument4 ,all he has to offer is sour admonition and external warnings3 ,o ,faustus1 lay that damned book aside1 ,and gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul1 ,and heap ,god's heavy wrath upon thy head4 ,read1 read1 the ,scriptures2 that is blasphemy4444 ,sweet ,faustus1 think of heaven1 and heavenly things4 ,to which the evil angel replies3 ,no1 ,faustus1 think of honour and of wealth4 ,and in another place3 ,go forward1 ,faustus1 in that famous art1 ,wherein all nature's treasure is contained4 ,be thou on earth as ,jove is in the sky1 ,lord and commander of these elements4 ,there can be no doubt that the devil here represents the natural ideal of ,faustus1 or of any child of the ,renaissance2 he appeals to the vague but healthy ambitions of a young soul1 that would make trial of the world4 ,in other words1 this devil represents the true good1 and it is no wonder if the honest ,faustus cannot resist his suggestions4 ,we like him for his love of life1 for his trust in nature1 for his enthusiasm for beauty4 ,he speaks for us all when he cries3 ,was this the face that launched a thousand ships ,and burnt the topless towers of ,ilium8 ,even his irreverent pranks1 being directed against the pope1 endear him the more to an anti-clerical public2 and he appeals to courtiers and cavaliers by his lofty poetical scorn for such crabbed professions as the law1 medicine1 or theology4 ,in a word1 ,marlowe's ,faustus is a martyr to everything that the ,renaissance prized1--power1 curious knowledge1 enterprise1 wealth1 and beauty4 ,how thoroughly ,marlowe and ,goethe are on the way towards reversing the ,christian philosophy of life may be seen if we compare ,faust for a moment 7as1 in other respects1 has often been done7 with ,the ,wonder-working ,magician of ,calderon4 ,this earlier hero1 ,st4 ,cyprian of ,antioch1 is like ,faust in being a scholar1 signing away his soul to the devil1 practising magic1 embracing the ghost of beauty1 and being ultimately saved4 ,here the analogy ends4 ,cyprian1 far from being disgusted with all theory1 and particularly with theology1 is a pagan philosopher eagerly seeking ,god1 and working his way1 with full faith in his method1 toward ,christian orthodoxy4 ,he floors the devil in scholastic argument about the unity of ,god1 his power1 wisdom1 and goodness4 ,he falls in love1 and sells his soul merely in the hope of satisfying his passion4 ,he studies magic chiefly for the same reason2 but magic cannot overrule the free-will of the ,christian lady he loves 7a modern and very ,spanish one1 though supposed to adorn ancient ,antioch74 ,the devil can supply only a false phantasm of her person1 and as ,cyprian approaches her and lifts her veil1 he finds a hideous death's-head beneath2 for ,god can work miracles to cap those of any magician1 and can beat the devil at his own game4 ,thunderstruck at this portent1 ,cyprian becomes a ,christian4 ,half-naked1 ecstatic1 taken for a madman1 he bears witness loudly and persistently to the power1 wisdom1 and goodness of the one true ,god2 and1 since the persecution of ,decius is then going on1 he is hurried away to martyrdom4 ,his lady1 sentenced also for the same cause1 encourages him by her heroic attitude and words4 ,their earthly passion is dead2 but their souls are united in death and in immortality4 ,in this drama we see magic checkmated by miracles1 doubt yielding to faith1 purity resisting temptation1 passion transformed into zeal1 and all the glories of the world collapsing before disillusion and asceticism4 ,these glories are nothing1 the poet tells us1 but dust1 ashes1 smoke1 and air4 ,the contrast with ,goethe's ,faust could not be more complete4 ,both poets take the greatest liberties with their chronology1 yet the spirit of their dramas is remarkably true to the respective ages in which they are supposed to occur4 ,calderon glorifies the movement from paganism to ,christianity4 ,the philosophy in which that movement culminated--,catholic orthodoxy--still dominates the poet's mind1 not in a perfunctory way1 but so as to kindle his imagination1 and render his personages sublime and his verses rapturous4 ,goethe's ,faust1 on the contrary1 glorifies the return from ,christianity to paganism4 ,it shows the spirit of the ,renaissance liberating the soul1 and bursting the bonds of traditional faith and traditional morals4 ,this spirit1 after manifesting itself brilliantly at the time of the historical ,faust1 had seemed to be smothered in the great world during the seventeenth century4 ,men's characters and laws had reaffirmed their old allegiance to ,christianity1 and the ,renaissance survived only abstractly1 in scholarship or the fine arts1 to which it continued to lend a certain classic or pseudo-classic elegance4 ,in ,goethe's time1 however1 a second ,renaissance was taking place in the souls of men4 ,the love of life1 primal and adventurous1 was gathering head in many an individual4 ,in the romantic movement and in the ,french ,revolution1 this love of life freed itself from the politic compromises and conventions that had been stifling it for two hundred years4 ,goethe's hero embodies this second1 romantic emancipation of the mind1 too long an unwilling pupil of ,christian tradition4 ,he cries for air1 for nature1 for all experience4 ,cyprian1 on the other hand1 an unwilling pupil of paganism1 had yearned for truth1 for solitude1 and for heaven4 ,such was the legend that1 to the great good fortune of mankind1 fascinated the young ,goethe1 and took root in his fancy4 ,around it gathered the experiences and insights of sixty well-filled years3 ,faust became the poetical autobiography and the philosophic testament of ,goethe4 ,he stuffed it with every enthusiasm that diversified his own life1 from the great alternative of romantic or classical art1 down to the controversy between ,neptunism and ,vulcanism in geology1 and to his fatherly admiration for ,lord ,byron4 ,yet in spite of the liberties he took with the legend1 and the personal turn he gave it1 nothing in its historical associations escaped him4 ,his life in ,frankfort and in ,strassburg had made the mediaeval scene familiar to his fancy2 ,herder had communicated to him an imaginative cult for all that was national and characteristic in art and manners2 the spell of ,gothic architecture had fallen on him2 and he had learned to feel in ,shakespeare the infinite strength of suggestion in details1 in multitudinous glimpses1 in lifelike medleys of sadness and mirth1 in a humble realism in externals1 amid lyric and metaphysical outpourings of the passions4 ,the sense for classic beauty which had inspired ,marlowe with immortal lines1 and was later to inspire his own ,helena1 was as yet dormant2 but instead he had caught the humanitarian craze1 then prevalent1 for defending and idealizing the victims of law and society1 among others1 the poor girl who1 to escape disgrace1 did away with her new-born child4 ,such a victim of a selfish seducer and a ,pharisaical public was to add a desirable touch of femininity and pathos to the story of ,faust3 ,gretchen was to take the place1 at least for the nonce1 of the coveted ,helen4 ,this ,gretchen was to be no common creature1 but one endowed with all the innocence1 sweetness1 intelligence1 fire1 and fortitude which ,goethe was finding1 or thought he was finding1 in his own ,gretchens1 ,ktchens1 and ,frederickes4 ,for the young ,goethe1 though very learned1 was no mere student of books2 to his human competence and power to succeed1 he joined the gusts of feeling1 the irresponsible raptures1 the sudden sorrows1 of a genuine poet4 ,he was a true lover1 and a wayward one4 ,he could delve into magic with awe1 in a ,faust-like spirit of adventure2 he could burn offerings in his attic to the rising sun2 he could plunge into ,christian mysticism2 and there could well up1 on occasion1 from the deep store of his unconscious mind1 floods of words1 of images1 and of tears4 ,he was a genius1 if ever there was one2 and this genius1 in all its freshness1 was poured into the composition of ,faust1--the most kindred of themes1 the most picturesque and magical of romances4 ,in ,goethe's first version of the poem1 before the story of ,gretchen1 we find the studious ,faust1 as in ,marlowe1 soliloquizing on the vanity of the sciences4 ,they grasp nothing of the genuine truth2 they are verbal shams4 ,they have not even brought ,faust fame or riches4 ,perhaps magic might do better4 ,the air was full of spirits2 could they be summoned to our aid1 possibly the secrets of nature might be unlocked4 ,we might reach true science1 and through it undreamt-of power over the material world4 ,for ,nature1 according to ,goethe1 really has secrets4 ,she is not all open to eventual inspection2 she is no mere mechanism of minute parts and statable laws4 ,our last view of her1 like our first glimpse1 must be interpreted2 from the sum of her manifestations we must divine her soul4 ,therefore only a poetic and rhetorical art1 like magic1 has any chance of unveiling her1 and of bringing us face to face with the truth4 ,in this invocation of spirits1 as ,goethe's ,faust makes it1 there is no question of selling1 or even of risking1 the soul4 ,this ,faust1 unlike ,marlowe's1 has no faith and no fear4 ,from the point of view of the church he is damned already as an unbeliever2 but1 as an unbeliever1 he is looking for salvation in another quarter4 ,like the bolder spirits of the ,renaissance1 he is hoping to find in universal nature1 infinite1 placid1 non-censorious1 an escape from the prison-house of ,christian doctrine and ,christian law4 ,his magic arts are the sacrament that will initiate him into his new religion1 the religion of nature4 ,he turns to nature also in another sense1 more characteristic of the age of ,goethe than of that of ,faust4 ,he longs for grandiose solitudes4 ,he feels that moonlight1 caves1 mountains1 driving clouds1 would be his best medicine and his best counsellors4 ,the souls of ,rousseau1 ,byron1 and ,shelley are pre-incarnate in this ,faust1 the epitome of all romantic rebellions4 ,they coexist there with the souls of ,paracelsus and ,giordano ,bruno4 ,the wild aspects of nature1 he thinks1 will melt and renew his heart1 while magic reveals the mysteries of cosmic law and helps him to exploit them4 ,full of these hopes1 ,faust opens his book of magic at the sign of the ,macrocosm3 it shows him the mechanism of the world1 all forces and events playing into one another and forming an infinite chain4 ,the spectacle entrances him2 he seems to have attained one of his dearest ambitions4 ,but here he comes at once upon the other half1 or1 as ,hegel would call it1 the other moment1 of the romantic life4 ,every romantic ideal1 once realized1 disenchants4 ,no matter what we attain1 our dissatisfaction must be perpetual4 ,thus the vision of the universe1 which ,faust now has before him1 is1 he remembers1 only a vision2 it is a theory or conception4#c ,it is not a rendering of the inner life of the world as ,shakespeare1 for instance1 feels and renders it4 ,experience1 as it comes to him who lives and works1 is not given by that theoretical vision2 in science experience is turned into so many reviewed events1 the passage of so much substance through so many forms4 ,but ,faust does not want an image or description of reality2 he yearns to enact and to become the reality itself4 ,in this new search1 he fixes his eye on the sign of the ,earth-,spirit1 which seems more propitious to his present wish4 ,this sign is the key to all experience4 ,all experience tempts ,faust2 he shrinks from nothing that any mortal may have endured2 he is ready to undertake everything that any mortal may have done4 ,in all men he would live2 and with the last man he will be content to die4#d ,so mighty is his yearning for experience that the ,earth-,spirit is softened and appears at his bidding4 ,in a red flame he sees its monstrous visage1 and his enthusiasm is turned to horror4 ,outspread before him is the furious1 indiscriminate cataract of life1 the merciless flux1 the infinite variety1 the absolute inconstancy of it4 ,this general life is not for any individual to rehearse2 it bursts all bounds of personality4 ,each man may assimilate that part only which falls within his understanding1 only that aspect which things wear from his particular angle1 and to his particular interests4 ,du gleichst1 the ,earth-,spirit cries to him1--du gleichst dem ,geist den du begreifst1 nicht mir4 ,this saying--that the life possible and good for man is the life of reason1 not the life of nature--is a hard one to the romantic1 unintellectual1 insatiable ,faust4 ,he thinks1 like many another philosopher of feeling1 that since his is a part of the sum of experience1 the whole of experience should be akin to his4 ,but in fact the opposite is far nearer the truth4 ,man is constituted by his limitations1 by his station contrasted with all other stations1 and his purposes chosen from amongst all other purposes4 ,any great scope he can attain must be due to his powers of representation4 ,his understanding may render him universal2 his life never can4 ,faust1 as he hears this sentence from the departing ,earth-,spirit1 collapses under it4 ,he feels impotent to gainsay what the tumult of the world is thundering at him1 but he will not accept on authority so unwelcome and chastening a truth4 ,all his long experience to come will scarcely suffice to convince him of it4 ,these are the chief philosophical ideas that appear in the two earlier versions of ,goethe's ,faust1--the ,urfaust and the ,fragment4 ,what ,mephistopheles says to the young student is only a clever expansion of what ,faust had said in his first monologue about the vanity of science and of the learned professions4 ,mephistopheles1 too1 finds theory ashen1 and the tree of life green and full of golden fruit2 only1 having more experience than ,faust of the second disenchanting moment in the romantic dialectic1 he foresees that this golden fruit also will turn to ashes in the mouth1 as it did in the garden of ,eden4 ,science is folly1 but life is no better2 for after all is not science a part of life8 ,when we turn to the first part in its final shape1 or to the entire drama1 we find many changes and additions that seem to transform the romantic picture of the opening scene1 and to offer us a rounded philosophy4 ,the changes1 however1 are more in expression than in ultimate substance1 and the additions are chiefly new illustrations of the ancient theme4 ,critics who study the ,entstehungsgeschichte of works of art help us to analyze them more intelligently and reproduce more accurately what1 at various times1 may have been the intention of their authors4 ,yet these bits of information would be dearly bought if we were distracted by them from what gives poetic value and individual character to the result--its total idiosyncrasy1 its place in the moral world4 ,the place in the moral world of ,goethe's ,faust as a whole is just the place which the opening scene gave it in the beginning4 ,it fills more space1 it touches more historical and poetic matters2 but its centre is the old centre1 and its result the old result4 ,it remains romantic in its pictures and in its philosophy4 ,the first addition that promises to throw new light on the idea of the drama is the ,prologue in ,heaven4 ,in imitation of ,the ,book of ,job1 we find the morning stars--the three archangels--singing together2 and then follows a very agreeable and humorous conversation between the ,lord and ,mephistopheles4 ,the scene is in the style of mediaeval religious plays1 and this circumstance might lead us to suppose that the point at issue was the salvation of ,faust's soul4 ,but that1 in the literal sense1 is far from being the case4 ,as in ,job1 the question is what sentiments the tempted mortal will maintain during this life1 not what fate will afterwards overtake his disembodied spirit4 ,dead men1 ,mephistopheles observes1 do not interest him4 ,he is not a devil from a subterranean hell1 concerned1 out of pique or ambition1 to increase the population of tortured shades in that fabulous region4 ,he dwells in the atmosphere of earth2 he knows nothing of the suns or the worlds1 the life of man is his element4#e ,he remains--what he was in the first versions of the play--a part of the ,earth-,spirit1 one of its embodiments4 ,his particular office1 as we shall see presently1 is to precipitate that continual destruction which is involved in the continual renewal of life4 ,he finds it very foolish of ,faust to demand everything and be satisfied with nothing2 and his wager is that ,faust may be brought to demand nothing and be satisfied with what chance throws in his way1 that he shall lick the dust1 and lick it with pleasure1#f that he shall renounce the dignity of willing what is not and cannot be1 and crawl about1 like the serpent1 basking in the comforts of the moment4 ,against this1 the ,lord pronounces ,faust to be his servant1--the servant1 that is1 of an ideal1--and declares that whoever strives after an ideal must needs go astray2 yet in his necessary errors1 the good man never misses the right road4#g ,in other words1 to have an ideal to strive for1 and1 like ,faust1 never to be satisfied1 is itself the salvation of man4 ,faust does not yet know this4 ,he half believes there is some concrete and ultimate good beyond1 and so is bitter and violent in his dissatisfaction2 but in due season he will come to clearness on this subject1 and understand that only he deserves freedom and life who must daily win them afresh4#h ,mephistopheles himself1 with his mockeries and seductions1 helps to keep the world moving and men wide awake4#i ,imperfection is all that is possible in the world of action2 but the angels may gather up and fix in thought the perfect forms approached or suggested by existence4#aj ,in the two earlier versions of ,faust1 ,mephistopheles appears without introduction2 we find him amusing himself by giving ambiguous advice to an innocent scholar1 and accompanying ,faust in his wanderings4 ,his mocking tone and miraculous powers mark him at once as the devil of the legend2 but several passages prove that he is a deputy of the ,earth-,spirit evoked by ,faust in the beginning4 ,that he should be both devil and world-demon ought not to surprise the learned4#aa ,the devils of popular mediaeval religion were not cut out of whole cloth3 they were simply the ,neoplatonic demons of the air1 together with the gods of ,olympus and the more ancient chthonic deities1 blackened by sectarian zeal1 and degraded by a coarse and timid imagination4 ,many of these pagan sprites1 indeed1 had been originally impish and mischievous1 since not all the aspects of nature are lovely or propitious1 nor all the dreams of men4 ,but as a whole they were without malice in their irresponsible1 elemental life1--winged powers darting through space between the earth and the moon4 ,they were not dwellers in a subterranean hell2 they were not tormentors nor tormented4 ,often they swarmed and sang blithely1 as they do in ,faust and even in the ,wonder-working ,magician2 and if at other times they croaked or hooted1 it was like frogs and owls1 less lovely creatures than humming-birds1 but not less natural4 ,one of these less amiable spirits of the atmosphere1 especially of its ambient fire1 is the ,mephistopheles of ,goethe4 ,why he delighted in evil rather than in good he himself explains in a profound and ingenious fashion4 ,darkness or nothingness1 he says1 existed alone before the birth of light4 ,nothingness or darkness still remains the fundamental and1 to his mind1 the better part of that mixture of being and privation which we call existence4 ,nothing that exists can be preserved1 nor does it deserve to be2 therefore it would have been better if nothing had ever existed4#ab ,to deny the value of whatever is1 and to wish to destroy it1 according to him1 is the only rational ambition2 he is the spirit that denies continually1 he is the everlasting ,no4 ,this spirit--which we might compare with the ,mars of ,lucretius--has great power in the world2 every change1 in one of its aspects1 expresses it1 since in one of its aspects1 every change is the destruction of something4 ,this spirit is always willing evil1 for it wills death1 with all the folly1 crime1 and despair that minister to death4 ,but in willing evil1 it is always accomplishing good2 for these evils make for nothingness1 and nothingness is the true good4 ,the famous couplet-- ,ein ,teil von jener ,kraft ,die stets das ,bse will1 und stets das ,gute schafft-- is far from expressing the ,hegelian commonplace with which it is usually identified4 ,it does not mean that destruction serves a good purpose after all because it clears the way for 8something higher40 ,mephistopheles is not one of those philosophers who think change and evolution a good in themselves4 ,he does not admit that his activity1 while aiming at evil1 contributes unintentionally to the good4 ,it contributes to the good intentionally1 because the evil it does is1 in his opinion1 less than the evil it cures4 ,he is the cruel surgeon to the disease of life4 ,if he admitted the other interpretation1 he would be ipso facto converted to the view of the ,lord in the ,prologue4 ,his naughtiness would become1 in his own eyes1 a needful service in the cause of life1--a condition of life being really vital and worth living4 ,he might then continue his sly operations and biting witticisms1 without one drop more of kindness1 and yet be sanctioned in everything by the ,absolute1 and adopt the smile and halo of the optimist4 ,he would have perceived that he was the spice of life1 the yeast and red pepper of the world1 necessary to the perfect savour of the providential concoction4 ,as it is1 ,mephistopheles is far more modest4 ,he says that he wills evil1 because what he wills is contrary to what his victims will2 he is the great contradictor1 the blaster of young hopes4 ,yet he does good1 because these young hopes1 if let alone1 would lead to misery and absurdity4 ,his contradiction nips the folly of living in the bud4 ,to be sure1 as he goes on to acknowledge1 the destructive power never wins a decisive victory4 ,while everything falls successively beneath his sickle1 the seeds of life are being scattered perpetually behind his back4 ,the ,lucretian ,venus has her innings1 as well as the ,lucretian ,mars4 ,the eternal see-saw1 the ancient flux1 continues without end and without abatement4 ,thus ,mephistopheles has a philosophy1 and is justified and consistent in his own eyes2 yet in the course of the drama he wears various masks and has various moods4 ,all he says and does cannot be made altogether compatible with the essence of his mind1 as ,goethe finally conceived it4 ,the dramatic figure of ,mephistopheles had been fixed long before in its graphic characteristics4 ,mephistopheles1 for instance1 is extremely old2 he feels older than the universe4 ,there is nothing new for him2 he has no illusions4 ,his feeling for anyone he sees is choked1 as happens to old people1 by his feelings for the infinite number of persons he remembers4 ,he is heartless1 because he is impersonal and universal4 ,he is altogether inhuman2 he has not the shames nor the tastes of man4 ,he often assumes the form of a dog1--it is his favourite mask in this earthly carnival4 ,he is not averse to the witches' kitchen1 with its senseless din and obscenity4 ,he puts up good-naturedly with the grotesque etiquette of the spirit-world1 observes all the rules about signing contracts in blood1 knocking thrice1 and respecting pentagrams4 ,why should he not8 ,dogs and demons of the air are forms of the ,earth-,spirit as much as man2 man has no special dignity that ,mephistopheles should respect4 ,man's morality is one of the moralities1 his conventions are not less absurd than the conventions of other monkeys4 ,mephistopheles has no prejudice against the snake2 he understands and he despises his cousin1 the snake1 also4 ,he understands and he despises himself2 he has had time to know himself thoroughly4 ,his understanding1 however1 is not impartial1 because he is the advocate of death2 he cannot sympathize with the other half of the ,earth-,spirit1 which he does not represent1--the creative1 propulsive1 enamoured side1 the side that worships the ideal1 the love that makes the world go round4 ,what enchants an ingenuous soul can only amuse ,mephistopheles2 what torments it gives him a sardonic satisfaction4 ,thus he comes to be in fact a sour and mocking devil4 ,at other times1 when he opposes the silliness and romanticism of ,faust1 he seems to be the spokesman of all experience and reason2 as when he warns ,faust that to be at all you must be something in particular4 ,yet even this he says by way of checking and denying ,faust's passion for the infinite4 ,the soberest truth1 when unwelcome1 may seem to the sentimental as diabolical as the most cynical lie2 so that in spite of the very unequal justness of his various sentiments1 ,mephistopheles retains his dramatic unity4 ,we recognize his tone and1 under whatever mask1 we think him a villain and find him delightful4 ,such is the spirit1 and such are the conditions1 in which ,faust undertakes his adventures4 ,he thirsts for all experience1 including all experience of evil2 he fears no hell2 and he hopes for no happiness4 ,he trusts in magic2 that is1 he believes1 or is willing to make believe1 that apart from any settled conditions laid down by nature or ,god1 personal will can evoke the experience it covets by its sheer force and assurance4 ,his bond with ,mephistopheles is an expression of this romantic faith4 ,it is no bargain to buy pleasures on earth at the cost of torments hereafter2 for neither ,goethe1 nor ,faust1 nor ,mephistopheles believes that such pleasures are worth having1 or such torments possible4 ,the first taste ,faust gets of the world is in ,auerbach's cellar1 and he finds it at once unpalatable4 ,his mature and disdainful mind cannot be amused by the sodden merriment he sees there4 ,he is without that simplicity and heartiness which might find even drunken gaiety attractive2 to put up with such follies1 one must know nothing1 like ,brander1 or everything1 like ,mephistopheles4 ,faust still feels the 8pathos of distance20 he is acutely conscious of something incomparably noble just out of reach4 ,in the witches' kitchen1 which he next visits1 pleasure is still more ugly and shallow2 here the din is even more nonsensical1 and the fancy more obscene4 ,yet ,faust comes forth with two points gained in his romantic rehabilitation2 he has taken the elixir of youth and he has seen the image of ,helen in a mirror4 ,he is henceforth in love with ideal beauty1 and being young again1 he is able to find ideal beauty in the first woman he sees4 ,the great episode of ,gretchen follows2 and when he leaves her 7after the duel with her brother7 to view the wild revels of the ,walpurgisnacht1 his youth for a moment catches the contagion of that orgy4 ,his love of ideal beauty1 which remains unsatisfied1 saves him1 however1 from any lasting illusion4 ,he sees a little red mouse running out of the mouth of a nymph he is pursuing1 and his momentary inclination turns to aversion4 ,when he goes back to ,gretchen in her prison1 it is too late for him to do more than recognize the ruin he has brought about1--,gretchen dishonoured1 her mother poisoned1 her brother killed1 her child drowned by her in a pond1 and she herself about to be executed4 ,gretchen1 who is the only true ,christian in this poem1 refuses to be rescued1 because she wishes to offer her voluntary death in propitiation for her grave1 though almost involuntary1 offences4 ,this is the end of ,faust's career through the world of private interests1--the little world1--and we may well ask what has been the fruit of his experiments so far4 ,what strength or experience has he amassed for his further adventures8 ,the answer is to be found in the first scene of the second part1 where ,goethe reaches his highest potency as a poet and as a philosopher4 ,we are transported to a remote1 magnificent1 virgin country4 ,it is evening1 and ,faust is lying1 weary but restless1 on a flowering hillside4 ,kindly spirits of nature are hovering above his head4 ,ariel1 their leader1 bids them bring solace to the troubled hero4 ,it is enough he was unfortunate--they make no question whether he was a saint or a sinner4#ac ,the spirits in chorus then sing four lovely stanzas1 one for each watch of the night4 ,the first invokes peace1 forgetfulness1 surrender to the healing influence of sleep4 ,pity and remorse1 they seem to say1 in the words of ,spinoza1 are evil and vain2 failure is incidental2 error is innocent4 ,nature has no memory2 forgive yourself1 and you are forgiven4 ,the song of the second watch merges the unhappy soul again in the infinite incorruptible substance of nature4 ,the stars1 great or little1 twinkling or pure1 fill the sky with their ordered peace1 and the sea with their trembling reflection4 ,in this universal circulation there is no private will1 no permanent division4 ,in the next watch we find the plastic stress of nature beginning to reassert itself2 seeds swell1 sap mounts up the thawing branches1 buds grow full2 everything recovers a fresh individuality and a tender1 untried will4 ,finally1 the song of the fourth watch bids the flowers open their petals and ,faust his eyes4 ,forces renewed in repose should tempt a new career4 ,nature is open to the brave1 to the intelligent2 all may be noble1 who dare to be so4#ad ,soothed by these ministrations1 ,faust awakes full of new strength and ambition4 ,he watches with rapture the sunlight touch the mountain-tops and creep down gradually into the valleys4 ,when it reaches him1 he turns to look directly at the sun2 but he is dazzled4 ,he seems to remember the ,earth-,spirit that had once allured and then rejected him4 ,we wish1 he says1 to kindle our torch of life1 and we produce a conflagration1 a monstrous medley of joy and sorrow1 love and hate4 ,let us turn our backs upon the sun1 upon infinite force and infinite existence4 ,fitter for our eyes the waterfall over against it1 the torrent of human affairs1 broken into a myriad rills4 ,upon the mists that rise from it the sunlight paints a rainbow1 always vanishing1 but always restored4 ,this is the true image of rational human achievement4 ,we have our life in the iridescence of the world4#ae ,or1 as ,shelley has said it for us1-- ,life1 like a dome of many-coloured glass1 ,stains the white radiance of eternity1 ,until death tramples it to fragments4 ,this death1 however1 is itself unstable4 ,the ,lucretian ,venus1 by reshaping our senses and instincts1 builds that coloured dome once more4 ,the rainbow is renewed1 as the mists rise again or the wind dies down1 and creation is glorious as on the first day4 ,this is ,goethe's theory of rejuvenation and immortality4 ,it is thoroughly naturalistic4 ,there is a life after death1 but only for such souls as have enough scope to identify themselves with those forms which nature1 in her uncertain oscillations1 always tends to reproduce4 ,a deep mind has deep roots in nature1--it will bloom many times over4 ,but what a deep mind carries over into its next incarnation--perhaps in some remote sphere--is not its conventional merits and demerits1 its load of remorse1 or its sordid memories4 ,these are washed away in its new baptism4 ,what remains is only what was deep in that deep mind1 so deep that new situations may again imply and admit it4 ,when1 after the scene with the ,earth-,spirit1 ,faust thought of suicide1 he regarded it as a means to escape from oppressive conditions and to begin a fresh life under conditions wholly different and unknown4 ,it was as if a man in middle life1 disgusted with his profession1 should abandon it to take up another4 ,such a resolution is serious4 ,it expresses a great dissatisfaction with things as they stand1 but it also expresses a great hope4 ,death1 for ,faust1 is an adventure1 like any other2 and if1 contrary to his presumption1 this adventure should prove the last1 that1 too1 is a risk he is willing to run4 ,accordingly1 as he lifted the poison to his lips1 he drank to the dawn1 to a new springtime of existence4 ,it was by no means the saddest nor the weakest moment of his life4#af ,although the sound of an ,easter hymn checked him1 bringing sentimental memories of a religion in which he no longer believed1 the transformation scene he looked for was only postponed4 ,there is not much difference between dying as he had thought to die and living as he was about to live4 ,venomous essences1 artificially brewed1 were hardly necessary to bring him to a new life2 the adventures he was entering upon were suicidal enough1 for he was to strive without hope of attainment1 and to proceed by passionate wilfulness or magic1 without accepting the discipline of art or reason4 ,now1 at the close of the first part1 he has drained this poisoned life to the dregs1 and the fever into which he falls carries him of itself into a new existence4 ,he is not grown better or more reasonable2 he is simply starting afresh1 like a new day or a new person4 ,it contains1 however1 the fundamental part of his character2 his will remains wayward1 but indomitable1 and his achievements remain fruitless4 ,only he will henceforth be romantic on a broader stage1 that of history and civilization2 and his magic will summon before him illusions somewhat more intellectual1 counterfeits of beauty and of power4 ,his old loves have blown over1 like the storms of a bygone year2 and with only a dreamlike memory of his past errors1 he goes forth to meet a new day4 99 99 99 99 99 ,among the allurements which1 in the old legend1 prompted ,faust to sell his soul to the devil1 one was the beauty of woman4 ,the poor recluse1 grown gray among his parchments1 had never noticed real women1 or had not found them beautiful4 ,pedantic child that he was1 when he thought of the beauty of woman1 he thought only of ,helen of ,troy4 ,and ,helen1 to the ,faust of the legend1 was simply what ,venus might be to ,tannhuser1--a woman more ravishing than other ravishing women4 ,she was the supreme instance of a vulgar thing4 ,the young ,goethe1 however1 who was a poet and a true ,german1 and loved with his soul1 was not attracted by this ideal4 ,he gave his ,faust a tenderer love1--a love of the heart as well as of the senses4 ,later1 also1 when ,goethe took up the old legend again in a more antiquarian spirit1 and restored ,helen to her place in it1 he transformed her from a symbol of feminine beauty alone into a symbol for all beauty1 and especially for the highest beauty1 that of ,hellas4 ,the second love of ,faust is the passion for classicism4 ,this passion in a romantic age is not so paradoxical as it may sound4 ,winckelmann and the philologians were restoring something ancient4 ,it was the romantic passion for all experience--for the faded experience of the ancients also--that made1 for them1 the poetry and the charm of antiquity4 ,how dignified everything was in those heroic days6 ,how noble1 serene1 and abstracted6 ,how pure the blind eyes of statues1 how chaste the white folds of the marble drapery6 ,greece was a remote1 fascinating vision1 the most romantic thing in the history of mankind4 ,the sad1 delicious emotion one felt before a ruined temple was as sentimental as anything one could feel before a ruined castle1 but more elegant and more choice4 ,it was sentimentality in marble4 ,the heroes of the ,iliad were idealized in the same way as the savages of ,rousseau were idealized1 or as the robbers of ,schiller4 ,the romantic classicism of the ,napoleonic era lies between the polite classicism of the ,french seventeenth century and the archaeological classicism of our present ,grecians4 ,french classicism had been quite indifferent to the picturesque aspects of ancient life2 it could tolerate on the stage an ,achilles in a periwig and laces4 ,what the ,french tragedians had adopted from the ancients was something inward1 a standard of character and motive1 or a criterion of taste4 ,they studied harmony and restraint1 not because these had been ,greek qualities1 but because they were qualities essentially reasonable and beautiful1 naturally belonging1 even in modern times1 to a cultivated society and a cultivated poet4 ,again1 the admiration for ,greece which is common in our time among people of judgement differs from that of ,goethe and his age2 for if we admire the artistic expression of ancient life in poetry or sculpture1 we know that these manifestations were made possible by a long political and moral discipline1 and that1 in spite of that discipline1 ancient art remained very mixed1 and often grotesque and impure4 ,for ,goethe1 however1 as for ,byron1 ,greece was less a past civilization1 to be studied scientifically1 than a living idea1 a summons to new forms of art and of sentiment4 ,goethe was never so romantic as when he was classical4 ,his distichs are like theatrical gestures2 he feels the sweep of his toga as he rounds them off4 ,his ,iphigenia is a sentimental dream--verflucht human1 as he himself came to feel2 and his ,helena is an evocation of magic1 magical not merely by accident and in the story1 but essentially so1 in her ghostly semi-consciousness and glassy beauty4 ,the apparent incongruities of the scenes in which she appears1 surrounded by ,german knights in the court of a feudal castle1 are not real incongruities4 ,for this ,helen is not a thing of the past2 she is the present dream and affectation of things classical in a romantic era4 ,faust and his vassals offer ,helen the most chivalrous and exaggerated homage2 they introduce her1 as a play queen1 into their society4 ,faust retires with her to ,arcadia1--the land of intentional and mid-summer idleness4 ,here a son1 ,euphorion1 is born to them1 a young genius1 classic in aspect1 but wildly romantic and ungovernable in temper4 ,he scales the highest peaks1 pursues by preference the nymphs that flee from him1 loves violence and unreason1 and finally1 thinking to fly1 falls headlong1 like ,icarus1 and perishes4 ,his last words call his mother after him1 and she follows1 leaving her veil and mantle behind1 as ,euphorion had left his lyre4 ,on the mantle of ,helen1 which swells into a cloud1 ,faust is borne back again to his native ,germany2 its virtue1 as he learns1 is to lift him above all commonness4 ,this long allegory is charming enough1 as a series of pictures and melodies1 to leave the reader content not to interpret it2 yet the intention of the poet is clear1 if we care to disentangle it4 ,by going down into the bowels of nature1 where the earth goddesses dwell1 who are the first mothers of all life and of all civilizations alike1 we may gather intelligence to comprehend even the most alien existence4 ,greece1 after such a reversion to the elemental1 will appear to us in her unmatched simplicity and beauty4 ,the vision will be granted us1 although the object we see belongs to a distant past2 and if our enthusiasm1 like that of ,faust1 is passionate and indomitable1 we may actually persuade the ,queen of the ,dead to yield up ,helen that we may wed her4 ,our scholarship and philosophy1 our faithful imitation of ,greek art and literature1 may actually render the ,greek scene familiar to us4 ,yet the setting of this recovered genius will still be modern2 it will become half modern itself2 we shall have to teach ,helen to rhyme4 ,the product of this hybrid inspiration will be a romantic soul in the garb of classicism1 a lovely wild thing1 fated to die young4 ,when this enthusiasm has dashed itself against the hard conditions of life1 the beauty of ,greece1 that was its mother1 will also pale before our eyes4 ,we shall be1 perforce1 content to let it return to the realm of irrevocable past things4 ,only its garment1 the monuments of its art and thought1 will remain to raise us1 if we have loved them1 above all vulgarity in taste and in moral allegiance4 ,it is an evidence of ,goethe's great wisdom that he felt that romantic classicism must be subordinated or abandoned2 that ,helen must evaporate1 while ,faust returned to ,germany and to the feeling that after all ,gretchen was his true love4#ag ,at the same time the issue of this wonderful episode is a little disappointing4 ,at the beginning1 the vision of ,helen in a mirror had inspired ,faust with renewed enthusiasm4 ,the sight of her again1 in the magic play1 had altogether enraptured and overwhelmed him2 and this inspiration had come just when1 after the death of ,gretchen1 he had resolved to pursue not all experience1 as at first1 but rather the best1 experience1#ah--;a hint that the transformations of ,faust's will were expected somehow to constitute a real progress4 ,there was1 indeed1 among mortals such an infinite need of this incomparable and symbolic ,helen1 that it could move the very guardians of the dead to mercy and to tears4 ,when we remember all this1 we have some reason to expect that a great and permanent improvement in the life and heart of our hero should follow on his obtaining so rare a boon4 ,but to live within ,arcadia ,helen was not needed2 any ,phyllis would have served4 ,helen1 to be sure1 leaves some relics behind1 by which we may understand that the influence of ,greek history1 literature1 and sculpture may still avail to cultivate the mind and give it an air of distinction4 ,perhaps in the commonwealth he is about to found1 ,faust would wish to establish not only dykes and freedom1 but also professorships of ,greek and archaeological museums4 ,and the lyre of ,euphorion1 which is also left us1 may signify that poems like ,byron's ,isles of ,greece1 ,keats's ,grecian ,urn1 ,die ,gtter ,griechenlands of ,schiller1 and ,goethe's own classical pieces will continue to enrich ,european literature4 ,this is something1 but not enough to lift ,faust's immense enthusiasm for ,helen above a crass illusion4 ,that dream of a perfect beauty to be achieved1 of a perfect life to be lived according to nature and reason1 would have ended in a little scholarship and a little pedantry4 ,faust would have won ,helen in order to hand her over to ,wagner4 ,helen was queen of ,sparta2 and although of course the ,doric ,sparta of ,lycurgus was something much later1 and had nothing to do with the ,sparta of ,homer1 yet taken symbolically it is the happiest accident that ,helen1 the type of ,greek perfection in beauty1 should have been queen of ,sparta1 the type of ,greek perfection in discipline4 ,a ,faust that had truly deserved and understood ,helen would have built her an ,hellenic city2 he would have become himself an 1 a master of men1 one of those poets in things1 those shapers of well-bred generations and wise laws1 of which ,plato speaks1 contrasting them with ,homer and other poets in words only4 ,for the beauty of mind and body that fascinates the romantic classicist1 and which inspired the ancient poets themselves1 was not a product of idleness and sentimentality1 nor of material and forced activity2 it was a product of orderly war1 religion1 gymnastics1 and deliberate self-government4 ,the next turn in ,faust's fortunes actually finds him a trader1 a statesman1 an empire-builder2 and if such a rolling stone could gather any moss1 we should expect to see here1 if anywhere1 the fruits of that 8aesthetic education of mankind0 which ,helen represented4 ,we should expect ,faust1 who had lain in the lap of absolute beauty1 to understand its nature4 ,we should expect him1 in eager search after perfection1 to establish his state on the distinction between the better and the worse1--a distinction never to be abolished or obscured for one who has loved beauty4 ,in other words1 he might have established a moral society founding it on great renunciations and on enlightened heroisms1 so that the highest beauty might really come down and dwell within that city4 ,but we find nothing of the sort4 ,faust founds his kingdom because he must do something2 and his only ideal of what he hopes to secure for his subjects is that they shall always have something to do4 ,thus the will to live1 in ,faust1 is not in the least educated by his experience4 ,it changes its objects because it must2 the passions of youth yield to those of age2 and among all the illusions of his life the most fatuous is the illusion of progress4 ,it is characteristic of the absolute romantic spirit that when it has finished with something it must invent a new interest4 ,it beats the bush for fresh game2 it is always on the verge of being utterly bored4 ,so now that ,helen is flown1 ,mephistopheles must come to the rescue1 like an amiable nurse1 and propose all sorts of pastimes4 ,frankfort1 ,leipzig1 ,paris1 ,versailles1 are described1 with the entertainments that life there might afford2 but ,faust1 who was always difficile1 has been rendered more so by his recent splendid adventures4 ,however1 a new impulse suddenly arises in his breast4 ,from the mountain-top to which ,helen's mantle has borne him1 he can see the ,german ,ocean1 with its tides daily covering great stretches of the flat shore1 and rendering them brackish and uninhabitable4 ,it would be a fine thing to reclaim those wastes1 to plant there a prosperous population4 ,after ,greece1 ,faust has a vision of ,holland4 ,this last ambition of ,faust's is as romantic as the others4 ,he feels the prompting towards political art1 as he had felt the prompting towards love or beauty4#ai ,the notion of transforming things by his will1 of leaving for ages his mark upon nature and upon human society1 fascinates him2#bj but this passion for activity and power1 which some simple-minded commentators dignify with the name of altruism and of living for others1 has no steady purpose or standard about it4#ba ,goethe is especially lavish in details to prove this point4 ,magic1 the exercise of an unteachable will1 is still ,faust's instrument4 ,mephistopheles1 by various arts of illusion1 secures the triumph of the emperor in a desperate war which he is carrying on against a justifiable insurrection4 ,as a reward for the aid rendered1 ,faust receives the shore marches in fief4 ,the necessary dykes and canals are built by magic2 the spirits that ,mephistopheles commands dig and build them with strange incantations4 ,the commerce that springs up is also illegitimate3 piracy is involved in it4 ,nor is this all4 ,on some sand-dunes that diversified the original beach1 an old man and his wife1 ,philemon and ,baucis1 lived before the advent of ,faust and his improvements4 ,on the hillock1 besides their cottage1 there stood a small chapel1 with a bell which disturbed ,faust in his newly built palace1 partly by its importunate sound1 partly by its ,christian suggestions1 and partly by reminding him that he was not master of the country altogether1 and that something existed in it not the product of his magical will4 ,the old people would not sell out2 and in a fit of impatience ,faust orders that they should be evicted by force1 and transferred to a better dwelling elsewhere4 ,mephistopheles and his minions execute these orders somewhat roughly3 the cottage and chapel are set on fire1 and ,philemon and ,baucis are consumed in the flames1 or buried in the ruins4 ,faust regrets this accident2 but it is one of those inevitable developments of action which a brave man must face1 and forget as soon as possible4 ,he had regretted in the same way the unhappiness of ,gretchen1 and1 presumably1 the death of ,euphorion2 but such is romantic life4 ,his will1 though shaken1 is not extinguished by such misadventures4 ,he would continue1 if life could last1 doing things that1 in some respect1 he would be obliged to regret3 but he would banish that regret easily1 in the pursuit of some new interest1 and1 on the whole1 he would not regret having been obliged to regret them4 ,otherwise1 he would not have shared the whole experience of mankind1 but missed the important experience of self-accusation and of self-recovery4 ,it is impossible to suppose that the citizens he is establishing behind leaky dykes1 so that they may always have something to keep them busy1 would have given him unmixed satisfaction if he could really have foreseen their career in its concrete details4 ,holland is an interesting country1 but hardly a spectacle which would long entrance an idealist like ,faust1 so exacting that he has found the arts and sciences wholly vain1 domesticity impossible1 and kitchens and beer-cellars beneath consideration4 ,the career of ,faust himself had been far more free and active than that of his industrious burghers could ever hope to be4 ,his interest in establishing them is a masterful1 irresponsible interest4 ,it is one more arbitrary passion1 one more selfish illusion4 ,as he had no conscience in his love1 and sought and secured nobody's happiness1 so he has no conscience in his ambition and in his political architecture2 but if only his will is done1 he does not ask whether1 judged by its fruits1 it will be worth doing4 ,as his immense dejection at the beginning1 when he was a doctor in his laboratory1 was not founded on any real misfortune1 but on restlessness and a vague infinite ambition1 so his ultimate satisfaction in his work is not founded on any good done1 but on a passionate wilfulness4 ,he calls the thing he wants for others good1 because he now wants to bestow it on them1 not because they naturally want it for themselves4 ,incapable of sympathy1 he has a momentary pleasure in policy2 and in the last and 8highest0 expression of his will1 in his statesmanship and supposed public spirit1 he remains romantic and1 if need be1 aggressive and criminal4 ,meantime1 his end is approaching4 ,the smoke from that poor little conflagration turns into shadowy-shapes of want1 guilt1 care1 and death1 which come and hover about him4 ,want is kept off by his wealth1 and guilt is transcended by his romantic courage4 ,but care slips through the keyhole1 breathes upon him1 and blinds him2 while death1 though he does not see it1 follows close upon his heels4 ,nevertheless1 the old man--,faust is in his hundredth year--is undaunted1 and all his thoughts are intent on the future1 on the work to which he has set his hand4 ,he orders the digging to proceed on the canals he is building2 but the spirits that seem to obey him are getting out of hand1 and dig his grave instead4 ,when he feels death upon him1 ,faust has one of his most splendid moments of self-assertion4 ,he has stormed through the world1 he says1 taking with equal thanks the buffets and rewards of fortune2#bb and the last word of wisdom he has learned is that no man deserves life or freedom who does not daily win them anew4 ,he will leave the dykes he has thrown up against the sea to protect the nation he has established2 a symbol that their health and freedom must consist in perpetual striving against an indomitable foe4 ,the thought of many generations living in that wholesome danger and labour fills him with satisfaction2 he could almost say to this moment1 in which that prospect opens before his mind's eye1 8,stay1 thou art so fair40#bc ,and with these words--a last challenge and mock surrender to ,mephistopheles--he sinks into the grave open at his feet4 ,who has won the wager8 ,faust has almost1 though not quite1 pronounced the words which were to give ,mephistopheles the victory2 but the sense of them is new1 and ,mephistopheles has not succeeded in making ,faust surrender his will to will1 his indefinite idealism4 ,since what satisfies ,faust is merely the consciousness that this will to will is to be maintained1 and that neither he1 nor the colonists he has brought into being1 will ever lick the dust1 and take comfort1 without any further aspiration1 in the chance pleasures of the moment4 ,faust has maintained his enthusiasm for a stormy1 difficult1 and endless life4 ,he has been true to his romantic philosophy4 ,he is therefore saved1 in the sense in which salvation is defined in the ,prologue in ,heaven1 and presently again in the song of the angels that receive his soul when they say3 8,whosoever is unflagging in his striving for ever1 him we can redeem40#bd ,this salvation does not hang on any improvement in ,faust's character1--he was sinful to the end1 and had been ,god's unwitting servant from the very beginning1--nor does it lie in any revolution in his fortunes1 as if in heaven he were to be differently employed than on earth4 ,he is going to teach life to the souls of young boys1 who have died too soon to have had in their own persons any experience of ,rathskellers1 ,gretchens1 ,helens1 and ,walpurgisnachts4#be ,teaching 7though not exactly in these subjects7 had been ,doctor ,faustus' original profession2 and the weariness of it was what had driven him to magic and almost to suicide1 until he had escaped into the great world of adventure outside4 ,certainly1 with his new pupils he will not be more content2 his romantic restlessness will not forsake him in heaven4 ,some fine day he will throw his celestial school-books out of the window1 and with his pupils after him1 go forth to taste life in some windier region of the clouds4 ,no1 ,faust is not saved in the sense of being sanctified or brought to a final1 eternal state of bliss4 ,the only improvement in his nature has been that he has passed1 at the beginning of the second part1 from private to public activities4 ,if1 at the end of this part1 he expresses a wish to abandon magic and to live like a man among men1 in the bosom of real nature1 that wish remains merely ,platonic4#bf ,it is a thought that visited ,goethe often during his long career1 that it is the part of wisdom to accept life under natural conditions rather than to pretend to evoke the conditions of life out of the will to live4 ,this thought1 were it held steadfastly1 would constitute an advance from transcendentalism to naturalism4 ,but the spirit of nature is itself romantic4 ,it lives spontaneously1 bravely1 without premeditation1 and for the sake of living rather than of enjoying or attaining anything final4 ,and under natural conditions1 the vicissitudes of an endless life would be many2 and there could be no question of an ultimate goal1 nor even of an endless progress in any particular direction4 ,the veering of life is part of its vitality1--it is essential to romantic irony and to romantic pluck4 ,the secret of what is serious in the moral of ,faust is to be looked for in ,spinoza1--the source of what is serious in the philosophy of ,goethe4 ,spinoza has an admirable doctrine1 or rather insight1 which he calls seeing things under the form of eternity4 ,this faculty is fundamental in the human mind2 ordinary perception and memory are cases of it4 ,therefore1 when we use it to deal with ultimate issues1 we are not alienated from experience1 but1 on the contrary1 endowed with experience and with its fruits4 ,a thing is seen under the form of eternity when all its parts or stages are conceived in their true relations1 and thereby conceived together4 ,the complete biography of ,caesar is ,caesar seen under the form of eternity4 ,now the complete biography of ,faust1 ,faust seen under the form of eternity1 shows forth his salvation4 ,god and ,faust himself1 in his last moment of insight1 see that to have led such a life1 in such a spirit1 was to be saved2 it was to be the sort of man a man should be4 ,the blots on that life were helpful and necessary blots2 the passions of it were necessary and creative passions4 ,to have felt such perpetual dissatisfaction is truly satisfactory2 such desire for universal experience is the right experience4 ,you are saved in that you lived well2 saved not after you have stopped living well1 but during the whole process4 ,your destiny has been to be the servant of ,god4 ,that ,god and your own conscience should pronounce this sentence is your true salvation4 ,your worthiness is thereby established under the form of eternity4 ,the play1 in its philosophic development1 ends here2 but ,goethe added several more details and scenes1 with that abundance1 that love1 of symbolic pictures and poetic epigrams which characterizes the whole second part4 ,as ,faust expires1 or rather before he does so1 ,mephistopheles posts one of his little demons at each aperture of the hero's body1 lest the soul should slip out without being caught4 ,at the same time a bevy of angels descends1 scattering the red roses of love and singing its praises4 ,these roses1 if they touch ,mephistopheles and his demons1 turn to balls of fire2 and although fire is their familiar element1 they are scorched and scared away4 ,the angels are thus enabled to catch the soul of ,faust at their leisure1 and bear it away triumphantly4 ,it goes without saying that this fight of little boys over a fluttering butterfly cannot be what really determines the issue of the wager and the salvation of ,faust2 but ,goethe1 in his conversations with ,eckermann1 justifies this intervention of a sort of mechanical accident1 by the analogy of ,christian doctrine4 ,grace is needed1 besides virtue2 and the intercession of ,gretchen and the ,virgin ,mary1 like that of the ,virgin ,mary1 ,lucia1 and ,beatrice1 in ,dante's case1 and the stratagem of the balls of fire1 all stand for this external condition of salvation4 ,this intervention of grace is1 at bottom1 only a new symbol for the essential justification1 under the form of eternity1 of what is imperfect and insufficient in time4 ,the chequered and wilful life of ,faust is not righteous in any of its parts2 yet righteousness is imputed to it as a whole2 divine love accepts it as sufficient2 speculative reason declares that to be the best possible life which1 to humdrum understanding1 seems a series of faults and of failures4 ,if the foretaste of his new ,holland fills1 from a distance1 the dying ,faust with satisfaction1 how much more must the wonderful career of ,faust himself deserve to be accepted and envied1 and proclaimed to be its own excuse for being6 ,the faults of ,faust in time are not counted against him in eternity4 ,his crimes and follies were blessings in disguise4 ,did they not render his life interesting and fit to make a poem of8 ,was it not by falling into them1 and rising out of them1 that ,faust was ,faust at all8 ,this insight is the higher reason1 the divine love1 supervening to save him4 ,what ought to be imperfect in time is1 because of its very imperfection there1 perfect when viewed under the form of eternity4 ,to live1 to live just as we do1 that--if we could only realize it--is the purpose and the crown of living4 ,we must seek improvement2 we must be dissatisfied with ourselves2 that is the appointed attitude1 the histrionic pose1 that is to keep the ball rolling4 ,but while we feel this dissatisfaction we are perfectly satisfactory1 and while we play our game and constantly lose it1 we are winning the game for ,god4 ,even this scene1 however1 did not satisfy the prolific fancy of the poet1 and he added a final one1--the apotheosis or ,himmelfahrt of ,faust4 ,in the ,campo ,santo at ,pisa ,goethe had seen a fresco representing various anchorites dwelling on the flanks of some sacred mountain1--,sinai1 ,carmel1 or ,athos1--each in his little cave or hermitage2 and above them1 in the large space of sky1 flights of angels were seen rising towards the ,madonna4 ,through such a landscape the poet now shows us the soul of ,faust carried slowly upwards4 ,this scene has been regarded as inspired by ,catholic ideas1 whereas the ,prologue in ,heaven was ,biblical and ,protestant2 and ,goethe himself says that his 8poetic intention0 could best be rendered by images borrowed from the tradition of the mediaeval church4 ,but in truth there is nothing ,catholic about the scene1 except the names or titles of the personages4 ,what they say is all sentimental landscape-painting or vague mysticism1 such as might go with any somewhat nebulous piety2 and much is actually borrowed from ,swedenborg4 ,what is ,swedenborgian1 however1--such as the notion of heavenly instruction1 passage from sphere to sphere1 and looking through other people's eyes1--is in turn a mere form of expression4 ,the 8poetic intention0 of the author is1 as we have seen1 altogether ,spinozitic4 ,undoubtedly he conceives that the soul of ,faust is to pass1 in another world1 through some new series of experiences4 ,but that destiny is not his salvation2 it is the continuance of his trial4 ,the famous chorus at the very end repeats1 with an interesting variation1 the same contrast we have seen before between the point of view of time and that of eternity4 ,everything transitory1 says the mystic chorus1#bg is only an image2 here 7that is1 under the form of eternity7 the insufficient is turned into something actual and complete2 and what seemed in experience an endless pursuit becomes to speculation a perfect fulfilment4 ,the ideal of something infinitely attractive and essentially inexhaustible--the eternal feminine1 as ,goethe calls it--draws life on from stage to stage4 ,gretchen and ,helen had been symbols of this ideal2 ,goethe's green old age had felt1 to the very last1 the charm of woman1 the sweetness and the sorrow of loving what he could not hope to possess1 and what1 in its ideal perfection1 necessarily eludes possession4 ,he had reconciled himself1 not without tears1 to this desire without hope1 and1 like ,piccarda in the ,paradiso1 he had blessed the hand that gave the passion and denied the happiness4#bh ,thus1 in dreaming of one satisfaction and renouncing it1 he had found a satisfaction of another kind4 ,faust ends on the same philosophical level on which it began1--the level of romanticism4 ,the worth of life lies in pursuit1 not in attainment2 therefore1 everything is worth pursuing1 and nothing brings satisfaction--save this endless destiny itself4 ,such is the official moral of ,faust1 and what we may call its general philosophy4 ,but1 as we saw just now1 this moral is only an afterthought1 and is far from exhausting the philosophic ideas which the poem contains4 ,here is a scheme for experience2 but experience1 in filling it out1 opens up many vistas2 and some of these reveal deeper and higher things than experience itself4 ,the path of the pilgrim and the inns he stops at are neither the whole landscape he sees as he travels1 nor the true shrine he is making for4 ,and the incidental philosophy or philosophies of ,goethe's ,faust are1 to my mind1 often better than its ultimate philosophy4 ,the first scene of the second part1 for instance1 is better1 poetically and philosophically1 than the last4 ,it shows a deeper sense for the realities of nature and of the soul1 and it is more sincere4 ,goethe there is interpreting nature with ,spinoza2 he is not dreaming with ,swedenborg1 nor talking equivocal paradoxes with ,hegel4 ,in fact1 the great merit of the romantic attitude in poetry1 and of the transcendental method in philosophy1 is that they put us back at the beginning of our experience4 ,they disintegrate convention1 which is often cumbrous and confused1 and restore us to ourselves1 to immediate perception and primordial will4 ,that1 as it would seem1 is the true and inevitable starting-point4 ,had we not been born1 had we not peeped into this world1 each out of his personal eggshell1 this world might indeed have existed without us1 as a thousand undiscoverable worlds may now exist2 but for us it would not have existed4 ,this obvious truth would not need to be insisted on but for two reasons3 one that conventional knowledge1 such as our notions of science and morality afford1 is often top-heavy2 asserts and imposes on us much more than our experience warrants1--our experience1 which is our only approach to reality4 ,the other reason is the reverse or counterpart of this2 for conventional knowledge often ignores and seems to suppress parts of experience no less actual and important for us as those parts on which the conventional knowledge itself is reared4 ,the public world is too narrow for the soul1 as well as too mythical and fabulous4 ,hence the double critical labour and reawakening which romantic reflection is good for1--to cut off the dead branches and feed the starving shoots4 ,this philosophy1 as ,kant said1 is a cathartic3 it is purgative and liberating2 it is intended to make us start afresh and start right4 ,it follows that one who has no sympathy with such a philosophy is a comparatively conventional person4 ,he has a second-hand mind4 ,faust has a first-hand mind1 a truly free1 sincere1 courageous soul4 ,it follows also1 however1 that one who has no philosophy but this has no wisdom2 he can say nothing that is worth carrying away2 everything in him is attitude and nothing is achievement4 ,faust1 and especially ,mephistopheles1 do have other philosophies on top of their transcendentalism2 for this is only a method1 to be used in reaching conclusions that shall be critically safeguarded and empirically grounded4 ,such outlooks1 such vistas into nature1 are scattered liberally through the pages of ,faust4 ,words of wisdom diversify this career of folly1 as exquisite scenes fill this tortuous and overloaded drama4 ,the mind has become free and sincere1 but it has remained bewildered4 ,the literary merits of ,goethe's ,faust correspond accurately with its philosophical excellences4 ,in the prologue in the theatre ,goethe himself has described them2 much scenery1 much wisdom1 some folly1 great wealth of incident and characterization2 and behind1 the soul of a poet singing with all sincerity and fervour the visions of his life4 ,here is profundity1 inwardness1 honesty1 waywardness2 here are the most touching accents of nature1 and the most varied assortment of curious lore and grotesque fancies4 ,this work1 says ,goethe 7in a quatrain intended as an epilogue1 but not ultimately inserted in the play71--this work is like human life3 it has a beginning1 it has an end2 but it has no totality1 it is not one whole4#bi ,how1 indeed1 should we draw the sum of an infinite experience that is without conditions to determine it1 and without goals in which it terminates8 ,evidently all a poet of pure experience can do is to represent some snatches of it1 more or less prolonged2 and the more prolonged the experience represented is the more it will be a collection of snatches1 and the less the last part of it will have to do with the beginning4 ,any character which we may attribute to the whole of what we have surveyed would fail to dominate it1 if that whole had been larger1 and if we had had memory or foresight enough to include other parts of experience differing altogether in kind from the episodes we happen to have lived through4 ,to be miscellaneous1 to be indefinite1 to be unfinished1 is essential to the romantic life4 ,may we not say that it is essential to all life1 in its immediacy2 and that only in reference to what is not life--to objects1 ideals1 and unanimities that cannot be experienced but may only be conceived--can life become rational and truly progressive8 ,herein we may see the radical and inalienable excellence of romanticism2 its sincerity1 freedom1 richness1 and infinity4 ,herein1 too1 we may see its limitations1 in that it cannot fix or trust any of its ideals1 and blindly believes the universe to be as wayward as itself1 so that nature and art are always slipping through its fingers4 ,it is obstinately empirical1 and will never learn anything from experience4 99 99 99 99 99 #a ,eckermann1 ,conversation of ,may #f1 #ahbg3 8,das ist zwar ein wirksamer1 manches erklrender1 guter ,gedanke1 aber es ist keine ,idee die dem ,ganzen 444 zugrunde liege40 #b ,faust1 ,part it-i4 ,act v4 #cge-hb3 ,ich bin nur durch die ,welt gerannt2 ,ein jed' ,gelst ergriff ich bei den ,haaren1 ,was nicht gengte1 liess ich fahren1 ,was mir entwischte1 liess ich ziehn4 ,ich habe nur begehrt und nur vollbracht ,und abermals gewnscht und so mit ,macht ,mein ,leben durchgestrmt2 erst gross und mchtig1 ,nun aber geht es weise1 geht bedchtig4 #c ,faust1 ,part i41 ,studierzimmer1 i43 ,welch ,schauspiel6 aber1 ach6 ein ,schauspiel nur6 ,wo fass' ich dich1 unendliche ,natur8 ,euch1 ,brste1 wo8 #d ,faust1 ,part i41 ,studierzimmer3 ,du1 ,geist der ,erde1 bist mir nher2 ,schon fhl' ich meine ,krfte hher1 ,schon glh' ich wie von neuem ,wein2 ,ich fhle ,mut1 mich in die ,welt zu wagen1 ,der ,erde ,weh1 der ,erde ,glck zu tragen1444 ,mit ,strmen mich herumzuschlagen ,und in des ,schiffbruchs ,knirschen nicht zu zagen4 #e ,faust1 ,prolog im ,himmel3 ,mit den ,toten ,hab' ich mich niemals gern befangen4 ,am meisten lieb' ich mir die vollen1 frischen ,wangen4 ,fr einen ,leichnam bin ich nicht zu ,haus2 ,mir geht es1 wie der ,katze mit der ,maus4444 ,von ,sonn' und ,welten weiss ich nichts zu sagen1 ,ich sehe nur1 wie sich die ,menschen plagen4 #f ,faust1 ,prolog im ,himmel3 ,staub soll er fressen1 und mit ,lust4 #g ,ibid43 ,es irrt der ,mensch1 so lang' er strebt4 ,ein guter ,mensch in seinem dunkeln ,drange ,ist sich des rechten ,weges wohl bewusst4 #h ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act v43 ,ja6 diesem ,sinne bin ich ganz ergeben4 ,das ist der ,weisheit letzter ,schluss3 ,nur der verdient sich ,freiheit wie das ,leben1 ,der tglich sie erobern muss4 #i ,ibid41 ,part i41 ,prolog im ,himmel3 ,des ,menschen ,thtigkeit kann allzu leicht erschlaffen1 ,er liebt sich bald die unbedingte ,ruh2 ,drum geb' ich gem ihm den ,gesellen zu1 ,der reizt und wirkt und muss als ,teufel schaffen4 #aj ,ibid43 ,das ,werdende1 das ewig wirkt und lebt1 ,umfass' euch mit der ,liebe holden ,schranken1 ,und was in schwankender ,erscheinung schwebt1 ,befestiget mit dauernden ,gedanken6 #aa ,faust1 ,part i41 ,wald und ,hhle3 ,erhabner ,geist1 du gabst mir1 gabst mir alles1 ,warum ich bat4 ,du hast mir nicht umsonst ,dein ,angesicht im ,feuer zugewendet4444 ,o1 dass dem ,menschen nichts ,vollkommnes wird1 ,empfind' ich nun4 ,du gabst zu dieser ,wonne1 ,die mich den ,gttern nah und nher bringt1 ,mir den ,gefhrten1 c4 ,also1 ibid41 ,trber ,tag3 ,grosser herrlicher ,geist1 der du mir zu erscheinen wrdigtest1 der du mein ,herz kennest und meine ,seele1 warum an den ,schandgesellen mich ,schmieden1 der sich am ,schaden weidet und am ,verderben sich letzt8 #ab ,faust1 ,part i41 ,studierzimmer1 ii43 ,ich bin der ,geist1 der stets verneint6 ,und das mit ,recht2 denn alles1 was entsteht1 ,ist wert1 dass es zu ,grunde geht21 ,drum besser wr's1 dass nichts entstnde4444 ,ich bin ein ,teil des ,teils1 der anfangs alles war1 ,ein ,teil der ,finsternis1 die sich das ,licht gebar4444 ,was sich dem ,nichts entgegenstellt1 ,das ,etwas1 diese plumpe ,welt1 ,so viel als ich schon unternommen1 ,ich wusste nicht ihr beizukommen4444 ,wie viele hab' ich schon begraben6 ,und immer cirkuliert ein neues1 frisches ,blut4 ,so geht es fort1 man mchte rasend werden6 #ac ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act i41 ,anmutige ,gegend3 ,kleiner ,elfen ,geistergrsse ,eilet1 we sie helfen kann2 ,ob er heilig1 ob er bse1 ,jammert sie der ,unglcksmann4 #ad ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act i41 ,anmutige ,gegend3 ,alles kann der ,edle leisten1 ,der versteht und rasch ergreift4 ,the whole scene will repay study4 #ae ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act i41 ,anmutige ,gegend3 ,des ,lebens ,fackel wollten wir entznden1 ,ein ,feuermeer umschlingt uns1 welch ein ,feuer6444 ,so bleibe denn die ,sonne mir im ,rcken6 ,der ,wassersturz1 das ,felsenriff durchbrausend1 ,ihn schau' ich an mit wachsendem ,entzcken4444 ,allein wie herrlich1 diesem ,sturm erspriessend1 ,wolbt sich des bunten ,bogens ,wechseldauer1444 ,der spiegelt ab das menschliche ,bestreben4444 ,am farbigen ,abglanz haben wir das ,leben4 #af ,faust1 ,part i41 ,studierzimmer3 ,ins hohe ,meer werd' ich hinausgewiesen1444 ,zu neuen ,sphren reiner ,thtigkeit4444 ,hier ist es ,zeit1 durch ,thaten zu beweisen1 ,dass ,manneswrde nicht der ,gtterhhe weicht1444 ,zu diesem ,schritt sich heiter zu entschliessen ,und war' es mit ,gefahr1 ins ,nichts dahin zu fliessen4 #ag ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act iv41 ,hochgebirg3 ,the first monologue4 #ah ,faust1 ,part i1 ,act ii41 ,anmutige ,gegend3 ,du1 ,erde1444 regst und rhrst ein kraftiges ,beschliessen ,zum hchsten ,dasein immerfort zu streben4 #ai ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act iv41 ,hochgebirg3 ,erstaunenswrdiges soll geraten1 ,ich fhle ,kraft zu khnem ,fleiss4 ,herrschaft gewinn' ich1 ,eigentum6 ,die ,that ist alles1 nichts der ,ruhm4 ,da wagt mein ,geist1 sich selbst zu berfliegen2 ,hier mcht' ich kmpfen1 dies mcht' ich besiegen4 #bj ,ibid41 ,act v41 ,grosser ,vorhof des ,palasts3 ,es kann die ,spur von meinen ,erdetagen ,nicht in ,aeonen untergehn4 #ba ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act iv41 ,hochgebirg3 ,wer befehlen soll ,muss im ,befehlen ,seligkeit empfinden4 ,ihm ist die ,brust von hohem ,willen voll1 ,doch was er will1 es darf's kein ,mensch ergrnden4 #bb ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act v41 ,mitternacht3 ,ich bin nur durch die ,welt gerannt3 ,ein jed' ,gelst ergriff ich bei den ,haaren1 ,was nicht gengte1 liess ich fahren1 ,was mich entwischte1 liess ich ziehn4 #bc ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act v41 ,grosser ,vorhof des ,palasts3 ,solch ein ,gewimmel mcht ich sehn1 ,auf freiem ,grund mit freiem ,volke stehn4 ,zum ,augenblicke drft' ich sagen3 ,verweile doch1 du bist so schn6 #bd ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act v41 ,himmel3 ,wer immer strebend sich bemht1 ,den konnen wir erlsen4 #be ,ibid43 ,wir wurden frh entfernt ,von ,lebechren2 ,doch dieser hat gelernt1 ,er wird uns lehren4 #bf ,faust1 ,part ii4 ,act v41 ,mitternacht3 ,noch hab' ich mich ins ,freie nicht gekmpft4 ,knnt ich ,magie von meinem ,pfad entfernen1 ,die ,zaubersprche ganz und gar verlernen1 ,stnd' ich1 ,natur1 vor dir ein ,mann allein4 ,da wr's der ,mhe wert1 ein ,mensch zu sein4 #bg ,faust1 ,part ii1 ,act v41 ,himmel3 ,alles ,vergngliche ,ist nur ein ,gleichnis2 ,das ,unzulngliche1 ,hier wird's ,ereignis2 ,das ,unbeschreibliche1 ,hier ist es gethan2 ,das ,ewig-,weibliche ,zieht uns hinan4 #bh ,cf4 ,trilogie der ,leidenschaft1 #ahbc3 ,mich treibt umher ein unbezwinglich ,sehnen2 ,da bleibt kein ,rat als grenzenlose ,thrnen4444 ,und so das ,herz erleichtert merkt behende ,dass es noch lebt und schlgt und mchte schlagen1444 ,da fhlte sich--o1 dass es ewig bliebe6-- ,das ,doppelglck der ,tne wie der ,liebe4 #bi ,aus dem ,nachlass1 ,abkndigung3 ,des ,menschen ,leben ist ein hnliches ,gedicht2 ,es hat wohl einen ,anfang1 hat ein ,ende1 ,allein ein ,ganzes ist es nicht4 ,v ,,conclusion ,it may be possible1 after studying these three philosophical poets1 to establish some comparison between them4 ,by a comparison is not meant a discussion as to which of our poets is the best4 ,each is the best in his way1 and none is the best in every way4 ,to express a preference is not so much a criticism as a personal confession4 ,if it were a question of the relative pleasure a man might get from each poet in turn1 this pleasure would differ according to the man's temperament1 his period of life1 the language he knew best1 and the doctrine that was most familiar to him4 ,by a comparison is meant a review of the analysis we have already made of the type of imagination and philosophy embodied in each of the poets1 to see what they have in common1 how they differ1 or what order they will fall into from different points of view4 ,thus we have just seen that ,goethe1 in his ,faust1 presents experience in its immediacy1 variety1 and apparent groundlessness2 and that he presents it as an episode1 before and after which other episodes1 differing from it more and more as you recede1 may be conceived to come4 ,there is no possible totality in this1 for there is no known ground4 ,turn to ,lucretius1 and the difference is striking4 ,lucretius is the poet of substance4 ,the ground is what he sees everywhere2 and by seeing the ground1 he sees also the possible products of it4 ,experience appears in ,lucretius1 not as each man comes upon it in his own person1 but as the scientific observer views it from without4 ,experience for him is a natural1 inevitable1 monotonous round of feelings1 involved in the operations of nature4 ,the ground and the limits of experience have become evident together4 ,in ,dante1 on the other hand1 we have a view of experience also in its totality1 also from above and1 in a sense1 from outside2 but the external point of reference is moral1 not physical1 and what interests the poet is what experience is best1 what processes lead to a supreme1 self-justifying1 indestructible sort of existence4 ,goethe is the poet of life2 ,lucretius the poet of nature2 ,dante the poet of salvation4 ,goethe gives us what is most fundamental1--the turbid flux of sense1 the cry of the heart1 the first tentative notions of art and science1 which magic or shrewdness might hit upon4 ,lucretius carries us one step farther4 ,our wisdom ceases to be impressionistic and casual4 ,it rests on understanding of things1 so that what happiness remains to us does not deceive us1 and we can possess it in dignity and peace4 ,knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness4 ,dante1 however1 carries us much farther than that4 ,he1 too1 has knowledge of what is possible and impossible4 ,he has collected the precepts of old philosophers and saints1 and the more recent examples patent in society around him1 and by their help has distinguished the ambitions that may be wisely indulged in this life from those which it is madness to foster1--the first being called virtue and piety and the second folly and sin4 ,what makes such knowledge precious is not only that it sketches in general the scope and issue of life1 but that it paints in the detail as well1--the detail of what is possible no less than that 7more familiar to tragic poets7 of what is impossible4 ,lucretius' notion1 for instance1 of what is positively worth while or attainable is very meagre3 freedom from superstition1 with so much natural science as may secure that freedom1 friendship1 and a few cheap and healthful animal pleasures4 ,no love1 no patriotism1 no enterprise1 no religion4 ,so1 too1 in what is forbidden us1 ,lucretius sees only generalities1--the folly of passion1 the blight of superstition4 ,dante1 on the contrary1 sees the various pitfalls of life with intense distinctness2 and seeing them clearly1 and how fatal each is1 he sees also why men fall into them1 the dream that leads men astray1 and the sweetness of those goods that are impossible4 ,feeling1 even in what we must ultimately call evil1 the soul of good that attracts us to it1 he feels1 in good all its loveliness and variety4 ,where1 except in ,dante1 can we find so many stars that differ from other stars in glory2 so many delightful habitations for excellences2 so many distinct beauties of form1 accent1 thought1 and intention2 so many delicacies and heroisms8 ,dante is the master of those who know by experience what is worth knowing by experience2 he is the master of distinction4 ,here1 then1 are our three poets and their messages3 ,goethe1 with human life in its immediacy1 treated romantically2 ,lucretius1 with a vision of nature and of the limits of human life2 ,dante1 with spiritual mastery of that life1 and a perfect knowledge of good and evil4 ,you may stop at what stage you will1 according to your sense of what is real and important2 for what one man calls higher another man calls unreal2 and what one man feels to be strength smells rank to another4 ,in the end1 we should not be satisfied with any one of our poets if we had to drop the other two4 ,it is true that taken formally1 and in respect to their type of philosophy and imagination1 ,dante is on a higher plane than ,lucretius1 and ,lucretius on a higher plane than ,goethe4 ,but the plane on which a poet dwells is not everything2 much depends on what he brings up with him to that level4 ,now there is a great deal1 a very great deal1 in ,goethe that ,lucretius does not know of4 ,not knowing of it1 ,lucretius cannot carry this fund of experience up to the intellectual and naturalistic level2 he cannot transmute this abundant substance of ,goethe's by his higher insight and clearer faith2 he has not woven so much into his poem4 ,so that while to see nature1 as ,lucretius sees it1 is a greater feat than merely to live hard in a romantic fashion1 and produces a purer and more exalted poem than ,goethe's magical medley1 yet this medley is full of images1 passions1 memories1 and introspective wisdom that ,lucretius could not have dreamed of4 ,the intellect of ,lucretius rises1 but rises comparatively empty2 his vision sees things as a whole1 and in their right places1 but sees very little of them2 he is quite deaf to their intricacy1 to their birdlike multiform little souls4 ,these ,goethe knows admirably2 with these he makes a natural concert1 all the more natural for being sometimes discordant1 sometimes overloaded and dull4 ,it is necessary to revert from ,lucretius to ,goethe to get at the volume of life4 ,so1 too1 if we rise from ,lucretius to ,dante1 there is much left behind which we cannot afford to lose4 ,dante may seem at first sight to have a view of nature not less complete and clear than that of ,lucretius2 a view even more efficacious than materialism for fixing the limits of human destiny and marking the path to happiness4 ,but there is an illusion here4 ,dante's idea of nature is not genuine2 it is not sincerely put together out of reasoned observation4 ,it is a view of nature intercepted by myths and worked out by dialectic4 ,consequently1 he has no true idea either of the path to happiness or of its real conditions4 ,his notion of nature is an inverted image of the moral world1 cast like a gigantic shadow upon the sky4 ,it is a mirage4 ,now1 while to know evil1 and especially good1 in all their forms and inward implications is a far greater thing than to know the natural conditions of good and evil1 or their real distribution in space and time1 yet the higher philosophy is not safe if the lower philosophy is wanting or is false4 ,of course it is not safe practically2 but it is not safe even poetically4 ,there is an attenuated texture and imagery in the ,divine ,comedy4 ,the voice that sings it1 from beginning to end1 is a thin boy-treble1 all wonder and navet4 ,this art does not smack of life1 but of somnambulism4 ,the reason is that the intellect has been hypnotized by a legendary and verbal philosophy4 ,it has been unmanned1 curiously enough1 by an excess of humanism2 by the fond delusion that man and his moral nature are at the centre of the universe4 ,dante is always thinking of the divine order of history and of the spheres2 he believes in controlling and chastening the individual soul2 so that he seems to be a cosmic poet1 and to have escaped the anthropocentric conceit of romanticism4 ,but he has not escaped it4 ,for1 as we have seen1 this golden cage in which his soul sings is artificial2 it is constructed on purpose to satisfy and glorify human distinctions and human preferences4 ,the bird is not in his native wilds2 man is not in the bosom of nature4 ,he is1 in a moral sense1 still at the centre of the universe2 his ideal is the cause of everything4 ,he is the appointed lord of the earth1 the darling of heaven2 and history is a brief and prearranged drama1 with ,judea and ,rome for its chief theatre4 ,some of these illusions are already abandoned2 all are undermined4 ,sometimes1 in moments when we are unnerved and uninspired1 we may regret the ease with which ,dante could reconcile himself to a world1 so imagined as to suit human fancy1 and flatter human will4 ,we may envy ,dante his ignorance of nature1 which enabled him to suppose that he dominated it1 as an infinite and exuberant nature cannot be dominated by any of its parts4 ,in the end1 however1 knowledge is good for the imagination4 ,dante himself thought so2 and his work proved that he was right1 by infinitely excelling that of all ignorant contemporary poets4 ,the illusion of knowledge is better than ignorance for a poet2 but the reality of knowledge would be better than the illusion2 it would stretch the mind over a vaster and more stimulating scene2 it would concentrate the will upon a more attainable1 distinct1 and congenial happiness4 ,the growth of what is known increases the scope of what may be imagined and hoped for4 ,throw open to the young poet the infinity of nature2 let him feel the precariousness of life1 the variety of purposes1 civilizations1 and religions even upon this little planet2 let him trace the triumphs and follies of art and philosophy1 and their perpetual resurrections--like that of the downcast ,faust4 ,if1 under the stimulus of such a scene1 he does not some day compose a natural comedy as much surpassing ,dante's divine comedy in sublimity and richness as it will surpass it in truth1 the fault will not lie with the subject1 which is inviting and magnificent1 but with the halting genius that cannot render that subject worthily4 ,undoubtedly1 the universe so displayed would not be without its dark shadows and its perpetual tragedies4 ,that is in the nature of things4 ,dante's cosmos1 for all its mythical idealism1 was not so false as not to have a hell in it4 ,those rolling spheres1 with all their lights and music1 circled for ever about hell4 ,perhaps in the real life of nature evil may not prove to be so central as that4 ,it would seem to be rather a sort of inevitable but incidental friction1 capable of being diminished indefinitely1 as the world is better known and the will is better educated4 ,in ,dante's spheres there could be no discord whatever2 but at the core of them was eternal woe4 ,in the star-dust of our physics discords are everywhere1 and harmony is only tentative and approximate1 as it is in the best earthly life2 but at the core there is nothing sinister1 only freedom1 innocence1 inexhaustible possibilities of all sorts of happiness4 ,these possibilities may tempt future poets to describe them2 but meantime1 if we wish to have a vision of nature not fundamentally false1 we must revert from ,dante to ,lucretius4 ,obviously1 what would be desirable1 what would constitute a truly philosophical or comprehensive poet1 would be the union of the insights and gifts which our three poets have possessed4 ,this union is not impossible4 ,the insights may be superposed one on the other4 ,experience in all its extent1 what ,goethe represents1 should be at the foundation4 ,but as the extent of experience is potentially infinite1 as there are all sorts of worlds possible and all sorts of senses and habits of thought1 the widest survey would still leave the poet1 where ,goethe leaves us1 with a sense of an infinity beyond4 ,he would be at liberty to summon from the limbo of potentiality any form that interested him2 poetry and art would recover their early freedom2 there would be no beauties forbidden and none prescribed4 ,for it is a very liberating and sublime thing to summon up1 like ,faust1 the image of all experience4 ,unless that has been done1 we leave the enemy in our rear2 whatever interpretations we offer for experience will become impertinent and worthless if the experience we work upon is no longer at hand4 ,nor will any construction1 however broadly based1 have an absolute authority2 the indomitable freedom of life to be more1 to be new1 to be what it has not entered into the heart of man as yet to conceive1 must always remain standing4 ,with that freedom goes the modesty of reason1 both in physics and in morals1 that can lay claim only to partial knowledge1 and to the ordering of a particular soul1 or city1 or civilization4 ,poetry and philosophy1 however1 are civilized arts2 they are proper to some particular genius1 which has succeeded in flowering at a particular time and place4 ,a poet who merely swam out into the sea of sensibility1 and tried to picture all possible things1 real or unreal1 human or inhuman1 would bring materials only to the workshop of art2 he would not be an artist4 ,to the genius of ,goethe he must add that of ,lucretius and ,dante4 ,there are two directions in which it seems fitting that rational art should proceed1 on the basis which a limited experience can give it4 ,art may come to buttress a particular form of life1 or it may come to express it4 ,all that we call industry1 science1 business1 morality1 buttresses our life2 it informs us about our conditions and adjusts us to them2 it equips us for life2 it lays out the ground for the game we are to play4 ,this preliminary labour1 however1 need not be servile4 ,to do it is also to exercise our faculties2 and in that exercise our faculties may grow free1--as the imagination of ,lucretius1 in tracing the course of the atoms1 dances and soars most congenially4 ,one extension of art1 then1 would be in the direction of doing artistically1 joyfully1 sympathetically1 whatever we have to do4 ,literature in particular 7which is involved in history1 politics1 science1 affairs7 might be throughout a work of art4 ,it would become so not by being ornate1 but by being appropriate2 and the sense of a great precision and justness would come over us as we read or wrote4 ,it would delight us2 it would make us see how beautiful1 how satisfying1 is the art of being observant1 economical1 and sincere4 ,the philosophical or comprehensive poet1 like ,homer1 like ,shakespeare1 would be a poet of business4 ,he would have a taste for the world in which he lived1 and a clean view of it4 ,there remains a second form of rational art1 that of expressing the ideal towards which we would move under these improved conditions4 ,for as we react we manifest an inward principle1 expressed in that reaction4 ,we have a nature that selects its own direction1 and the direction in which practical arts shall transform the world4 ,the outer life is for the sake of the inner2 discipline is for the sake of freedom1 and conquest for the sake of self-possession4 ,this inner life is wonderfully redundant2 there is1 namely1 very much more in it than a consciousness of those acts by which the body adjusts itself to its surroundings4 ,am farbigen ,abglanz haben wir das ,leben2 each sense has its arbitrary quality1 each language its arbitrary euphony and prosody2 every game has its creative laws1 every soul its own tender reverberations and secret dreams4 ,life has a margin of play which might grow broader1 if the sustaining nucleus were more firmly established in the world4 ,to the art of working well a civilized race would add the art of playing well4 ,to play with nature and make it decorative1 to play with the overtones of life and make them delightful1 is a sort of art4 ,it is the ultimate1 the most artistic sort of art1 but it will never be practised successfully so long as the other sort of art is in a backward state2 for if we do not know our environment1 we shall mistake our dreams for a part of it1 and so spoil our science by making it fantastic1 and our dreams by making them obligatory4 ,the art and the religion of the past1 as we see conspicuously in ,dante1 have fallen into this error4 ,to correct it would be to establish a new religion and a new art1 based on moral liberty and on moral courage4 ,who shall be the poet of this double insight8 ,he has never existed1 but he is needed nevertheless4 ,it is time some genius should appear to reconstitute the shattered picture of the world4 ,he should live in the continual presence of all experience1 and respect it2 he should at the same time understand nature1 the ground of that experience2 and he should also have a delicate sense for the ideal echoes of his own passions1 and for all the colours of his possible happiness4 ,all that can inspire a poet is contained in this task1 and nothing less than this task would exhaust a poet's inspiration4 ,we may hail this needed genius from afar4 ,like the poets in ,dante's limbo1 when ,virgil returns among them1 we may salute him1 saying3 ,onorate l'altissimo poeta4 ,honour the most high poet1 honour the highest possible poet4 ,but this supreme poet is in limbo still4