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THE THREE DEVILS: LUTHER'S, MILTON'S, AND GOETHE'S.
With Other Essays.
by
DAVID MASSON, M.A., LL.D.,
Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the
University of Edinburgh.
London:
Macmillan And Co.
1874.
[The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved.]
London:
R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, Printers,
Bread Street Hill.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The first five of the following Essays are reprinted from the Author's
_Essays Biographical and Critical: chiefly on English Poets_, published in
1856. The present Volume and two similar Volumes issued separately (under
the titles "_Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays_" and
"_Chatterton: A Story of the Year 1770_") may be taken together as forming
a new and somewhat enlarged edition of the older book. The addition in the
present Volume consists of the last Essay.
EDINBURGH:
_November 1874_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. THE THREE DEVILS: LUTHER'S, MILTON'S, AND GOETHE'S 1
II. SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE 61
III. MILTON'S YOUTH 125
IV. DRYDEN AND THE LITERATURE OF THE RESTORATION 153
V. DEAN SWIFT 235
VI. HOW LITERATURE MAY ILLUSTRATE HISTORY 301
THE THREE DEVILS: LUTHER'S, MILTON'S, AND GOETHE'S.
THE THREE DEVILS: LUTHER'S, MILTON'S, AND GOETHE'S.[1]
Luther, Milton, and Goethe: these are very strange names to bring
together. It strikes us, however, that the effect may not be uninteresting
if we connect the names of those three great men, as having each
represented to us the Principle of Evil, and each represented him in a
different way. Each of the three has left on record his conception of a
great accursed being, incessantly working in human affairs, and whose
function it is to produce evil. There is nothing more striking about
Luther than the amazing sincerity of his belief in the existence of such
an evil being, the great general enemy of mankind, and whose specific
object, in Luther's time, it was to resist Luther's movement, and, if
possible, "cut his soul out of God's mercy." What was Luther's exact
conception of this being is to be gathered from his life and writings.
Again, we have Milton's Satan. Lastly, we have Goethe's Mephistopheles.
Nor is it possible to confound the three, or for a moment to mistake the
one for the other. They are as unlike as it is possible for three grand
conceptions of the same thing to be. May it not, then, be profitable to
make their peculiarities and their differences a subject of study?
Milton's Satan and Goethe's Mephistopheles have indeed been frequently
contrasted in a vague, antithetic way; for no writer could possibly give a
description of Goethe's Mephistopheles without saying something or other
about Milton's Satan. The exposition, however, of the difference between
the two has never been sufficient; and it may give the whole speculation
greater interest if, in addition to Milton's Satan and Goethe's
Mephistopheles, we include Luther's Devil. It is scarcely necessary to
premise that here there is to be no theological discussion. All that we
propose is to compare, as we find them, three very striking delineations
of the Evil Principle, one of them experimental, the other two poetical.
* * * * *
These last words indicate one respect in which, it will be perceived at
the outset, Luther's conception of the Evil Principle on the one hand and
Milton's and Goethe's on the other are fundamentally distinguishable. All
the three, of course, are founded on the Scriptural proposition of the
existence of a being whose express function it is to produce evil. Luther,
firmly believing every jot and tittle of Scripture, believed the
proposition about the Devil also; and so the whole of his experience of
evil in himself and others was cast into the shape of a verification of
that proposition. Had he started without such a preliminary conception,
his experience would have had to encounter the difficulty of expressing
itself in some other way; which, it is likely, would not have been nearly
so effective, or so Luther-like. Milton, too, borrows the elements of his
conception of Satan from Scripture. The Fallen Angel of the Bible is the
hero of _Paradise Lost_; and one of the most striking things about this
poem is that in it we see the grand imagination of the poet blazing in the
very track of the propositions of the theologian. And, though there can be
no doubt that Goethe's Mephistopheles is conceived less in the spirit of
Scripture than either Milton's Satan or Luther's Devil, still even in
Mephistopheles we discern the lineaments of the same traditional being.
All the three, then, have this in common--that they are founded on the
Scriptural proposition of the existence of an accursed being whose
function it is to produce evil, and that, more or less, they adopt the
Scriptural account of that being. Still, as we have said, Luther's
conception of this being belongs to one category; Milton's and Goethe's
to another. Luther's is a biographical phenomenon; Milton's and Goethe's
are literary performances. Luther illustrated the Evil Being of Scripture
to himself by means of his personal experience. Whatever resistance he met
with, whatever obstacle to Divine grace he found in his own heart or in
external circumstances, whatever event he saw plainly cast in the way of
the progress of the Gospel, whatever outbreak of a bad or unamiable spirit
occurred in the Church, whatever strange phenomenon of nature wore a
malevolent aspect,--out of that he obtained a clearer notion of the Devil.
In this way it might be said that Luther was all his life gaining a deeper
insight into the Devil's character. On the other hand, Milton's Satan and
Goethe's Mephistopheles are poetical creations, the one epic, the other
dramatic. Borrowing the elements of his conception from Scripture, Milton
set himself to the task of describing the ruined Archangel as he may be
supposed to have existed at that epoch of the creation when he had hardly
decided his own function, as yet warring with the Almighty, or, in pursuit
of a gigantic scheme of revenge, travelling from star to star. Poetically
assuming the device of the same Scriptural proposition, Goethe set himself
to the task of representing the Spirit of Evil as he existed six thousand
years later, no longer gifted with the same powers of locomotion, or
struggling for admission into this part of the universe, but plying his
understood function in crowded cities and on the minds of individuals.
So far as the mere fact of Milton's having made Satan the hero of his
epic, or of Goethe's having made Mephistopheles a character in his drama,
qualifies us to speak of the theological opinions of the one or of the
other, we are not entitled to say that either Milton or Goethe believed in
a Devil at all as Luther did. Or, again, it is quite conceivable that
Milton might have believed in a Devil as sincerely as Luther did, and that
Goethe might have believed in a Devil as sincerely as Luther did also, and
yet that, in that case, the Devil which Milton believed in might not have
been the Satan of the _Paradise Lost_, and the Devil which Goethe believed
in might not have been the Mephistopheles of _Faust_. Of course, we have
other means of knowing whether Milton did actually believe in the
existence of the great accursed being whose fall he sings. It is also
plain that Goethe's Mephistopheles resembles Luther's Devil more than
Milton's Satan does in this respect--that Mephistopheles is the expression
of a great deal of Goethe's actual observation of life and experience in
human affairs. Still, neither the fact, on the one hand, that Milton did
believe in the existence of the Evil Spirit, nor the fact, on the other,
that Mephistopheles is an expression for the aggregate of much profound
thinking on the part of Goethe, is of force to obliterate the fundamental
distinction between Luther's Devil, as a biographical reality, and
Milton's Satan and Goethe's Mephistopheles, as two literary performances.
If we might risk summing up under the light of this preliminary
distinction, perhaps the following would be near the truth:--Luther had as
strong a faith as ever man had in the existence and activity of the Evil
Spirit of Scripture: he used to recognise the operation of this Spirit in
every individual instance of evil as it occurred; he used, moreover, to
conceive that this Spirit and he were personal antagonists; and so, just
as one man forms to himself a distinct idea of the character of another
man to whom he stands in an important relation, Luther came to form to
himself a distinct idea of the Devil, and what this idea was it seems
possible to find out by examining his writings. Milton, again, chose the
Scripture personage as the hero of an epic poem, and employed his grand
imagination in realizing the Scripture narrative: we have reason also to
know that he did actually believe in the Devil's existence; and it agrees
with what we know of Milton's character to suppose that the Devil thus
believed in would be pretty much the same magnificent being he has
described in his poem--though, on the whole, we should not say that Milton
was a man likely to carry about with him, in daily affairs, any constant
recognition of the Devil's presence. Lastly, Goethe, adopting, for a
different literary effect, the Scriptural and traditional account of the
same being, conceived his Mephistopheles. This Mephistopheles, there is no
doubt, had a real allegoric meaning with Goethe; he meant him to typify
the Evil Spirit in modern civilization; but whether Goethe did actually
believe in the existence of a supernatural intelligence whose function it
is to produce evil is a question which no one will feel himself called
upon to answer, although, if he did, it may be unhesitatingly asserted
that this supernatural intelligence cannot have been Mephistopheles.
From all this it appears that Luther's conception of the Evil Being
belongs to one category, Milton's and Goethe's to another. Let us
consider, _first_, Milton's Satan, _secondly_, Goethe's Mephistopheles,
and, _thirdly_, Luther's Devil.
* * * * *
The difficulties which Milton had to overcome in writing his _Paradise
Lost_ were immense. The gist of those difficulties may be defined as
consisting in this, that the poet had at once to represent a supernatural
condition of being and to construct a story. He had to describe the
ongoings of Angels, and at the same time to make one event follow another.
It is comparatively easy for Milton to sustain his conception of those
superhuman beings as mere objects or phenomena--to represent them flying
singly through space like huge black shadows, or standing opposite to
each other in hostile battalions; but to construct a story in which these
beings should be the agents, to exhibit these beings thinking, scheming,
blundering, in such a way as to produce a likely succession of events, was
enormously difficult. The difficulty was to make the course of events
correspond with the reputation of the objects. To do this perfectly was
literally impossible. It is possible for the human mind to conceive
twenty-four great supernatural beings existing together at any given
moment in space; but it is utterly impossible to conceive what would occur
among those twenty-four beings during twenty-four hours. The value of
time, the amount of history that can be transacted in a given period,
depends on the nature and prowess of the beings whose volitions make the
chain of events; and so a lower order of beings can have no idea at what
rate things happen in a higher. The mode of causation will be different
from that with which they are acquainted.
This is the difficulty with which Milton had to struggle; or, rather, this
is the difficulty with which he did not struggle. He had to construct a
narrative; and so, while he represents to us the full stature of his
superhuman beings as mere objects or phenomena, he does not attempt to
make events follow each other at a higher rate among those beings than
they do amongst ourselves, except in the single respect of their being
infinitely more powerful physical agents than we are. Whatever feeling of
inconsistency is experienced in reading the _Paradise Lost_ may be traced,
perhaps, to the fact that the necessities of the story obliged the poet
not to attempt to make the rate of causation among those beings as
extraordinary as his description of them as phenomena. Such a feeling of
inconsistency there is; and yet Milton sustains his flight as nobly as
mortal could have done. Throughout the whole poem we see him recollecting
his original conception of Satan as an object:--
"Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the waves, and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides,
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood."
And this is a great thing to have done. If the poet ever flags in his
conception of those superhuman beings as objects, it is when he finds it
necessary to describe a multitude of them assembled together in some
_place_; and his usual device then is to reduce the bulk of the greatest
number. This, too, is for the behoof of the story. If it is necessary, for
instance, to assemble the Angels to deliberate, this must be done in an
audience-hall, and the human mind refuses to go beyond certain limits in
its conception of what an audience-hall is. Again the gate of Hell is
described, although the Hell of Milton is a mere vague extent of fiery
element, which, in strict keeping, could not be described as having a
gate. The narrative, however, requires the conception. And so in other
cases. Still, consistency of description is well sustained.
Nor is it merely as objects or phenomena that Milton sustains throughout
his whole poem a consistent conception of the Angels. He is likewise
consistent in his description of them as physical agents. Lofty stature
and appearance carry with them a promise of so much physical power; and
hence, in Milton's case, the necessity of finding words and figures
capable of expressing modes and powers of mechanical action, on the part
of the Angels, as superhuman as the stature and appearance he has given to
them. This complicated his difficulties very much. It is quite conceivable
that a man should be able to describe the mere appearance of a gigantic
being standing up, as it were, with his back to a wall, and yet utterly
break down, and not be able to find words, when he tried to describe this
gigantic being stepping forth into colossal activity and doing some
characteristic thing. Milton has overcome the difficulty. His conception
of the Angels as physical agents does not fall beneath his conception of
them as mere objects. In his description, for instance, in the sixth book,
of the Angels tearing up mountains by the roots and flinging them upon
each other, we have strength suggested corresponding to the reputed
stature of the beings. In extension of the same remark, we may observe how
skilfully Milton has aggrandized and eked out his conception of the
superhuman beings he is describing by endowing them with the power of
infinitely swift motion through space. On this point we offer our readers
an observation which they may verify for themselves:--Milton, we are
persuaded, had it vaguely in his mind, throughout _Paradise Lost_, that
the bounding peculiarity between the human condition of being and the
angelic one he is describing is the law of gravitation. We, and all that
is cognisable by us, are subject to this law; but Creation may be peopled
with beings who are not subject to it, and to us these beings are as if
they were not. But, whenever one of those beings becomes cognisable by us,
he instantly becomes subject to gravitation; and he must resume his own
mode of being ere he can be free from its consequences. The Angels were
not subject to gravitation; that is to say, they had the means of moving
in any direction at will. When they rebelled, and were punished by
expulsion from Heaven, they did not _fall_ out; for, in fact, so far as
the description intimates, there existed no planet, no distinct material
element, towards which they could gravitate. They were _driven_ out by a
pursuing fire. Then, after their fall, they had the power of rising
upward, of navigating space, of quitting Hell, directing their flight to
one glittering planet, alighting on its rotund surface, and then bounding
off again, and away to another. A corollary of this fundamental difference
between the human condition of being and the angelic would be that angels
are capable of direct vertical action, whereas men are capable mainly of
horizontal. An army of men can exist only as a square, or other plane
figure, whereas an army of angels can exist as a cube or parallelopiped.
Now, in everything relating to the physical action of the Angels, even in
carrying out this notion of their mode of being, Milton is most
consistent. But it was impossible to follow out the superiority of these
beings to its whole length. The attempt to do so would have made a
narrative impossible. Exalting our conception of these beings as mere
objects, or as mere physical agents, as much as he could, it would have
been suicidal in the poet to attempt to realize history as it must be
among such beings. No human mind could do it. He had, therefore, except
where the notion of physical superiority assisted him, to make events
follow each other just as they would in a human narrative. The motives,
the reasonings, the misconceptions of those beings, all that determined
the succession of events, he had to make substantially human. The whole
narrative, for instance, proceeds on the supposition that those
supernatural beings had no higher degree of knowledge than human beings,
with equal physical advantages, would have had under similar
circumstances. Credit the spirits with a greater degree of insight--credit
them even with such a strong conviction of the Divine omnipotence as, in
their reputed condition of being, we can hardly conceive them not
attaining--and the whole of Milton's story is rendered impossible. The
crushing conviction of the Divine omnipotence would have prevented them
from rebelling with the alleged motive; or, after they had rebelled, it
would have prevented them from struggling with the alleged hope. In
_Paradise Lost_ the working notion which the devils have about God is
exactly that which human beings have when they hope to succeed in a bad
enterprise. Otherwise the poem could not have been written. Suppose the
fallen Angels to have had a working notion of the Deity as superhuman as
their reputed appearance and physical greatness: then the events of the
_Paradise Lost_ might have happened nevertheless, but the chain of
volitions would not have been the same, and it would have been impossible
for any human poet to realize the narrative.
These remarks are necessary to prepare us for conceiving the Satan of
Milton. Except, as we have said, for an occasional feeling during a
perusal of the poem that the style of thinking and speculating about the
issue of their enterprise is too meagre and human for a race of beings
physically so superhuman, one's astonishment at the consistency of the
poet's conceptions is unmitigated throughout. Such keeping is there
between one conception and another, such a distinct material grasp had the
poet of his whole subject, so little is there of the mystic or the hazy in
his descriptions from beginning to end, that it would be quite possible to
prefix to the _Paradise Lost_ an illustrative diagram exhibiting the
universal space in which Milton conceived his beings moving to and fro,
divided, as he conceived it, at first into two or three, and afterwards
into four tropics or regions. Then his narrative is so clear that a brief
prose version of it would be a history of Satan in the interval between
his own fall and the fall of Man.
It is to be noted that Milton as a poet proceeds on the Homeric method,
and not on the Shakespearian, devoting the whole strength of his genius to
the object, not of being discursive and original, not of making profound
remarks on everything as he goes along, but of carrying on a sublime and
stately narrative. We should hardly be led to assert, however, that the
difference between the epic and the drama lies in this, that the latter
may be discursive and reflective while the former cannot. We can conceive
an epic written after the Shakespearian method; that is, one which, while
strictly sustaining a narrative, should be profoundly expository in its
spirit. Certain it is, however, that Milton wrote after the Homeric
method, and did not exert himself chiefly in strewing his text with
luminous propositions. One consequence of this is that the way to obtain
an idea of Milton's Satan is not to lay hold of specific sayings that fall
from his mouth, but to go through his history. Goethe's Mephistopheles, we
shall find, on the other hand, reveals himself in the characteristic
propositions which he utters. Satan is to be studied by following his
progress; Mephistopheles by attending to his remarks.
In the history of Milton's Satan it is important to begin at the time of
his being an Archangel. Before the creation of our World, there existed,
according to Milton, a grand race of beings altogether different from what
we are. Those beings were Spirits. They did not lead a planetary
existence; they tenanted space in some strange, and, to us, inconceivable
way. Or, rather, they did not tenant all space, but only that upper and
illuminated part of infinity called Heaven. For Heaven, in Milton, is not
to be considered as a locality, but as a region stretching infinitely out
on all sides--an immense extent of continent and kingdom. The infinite
darkness, howling and blustering underneath Heaven, was Chaos or Night.
What was the exact mode of being of the Spirits who lived in dispersion
through Heaven is unknown to us; but it was social. Moreover, there
subsisted between the multitudinous far-extending population of Spirits
and the Almighty Creator a relation closer, or at least more sensible and
immediate, than that which exists between human beings and Him. The best
way of expressing this relation in human language is by the idea of
physical nearness. They were God's Angels. Pursuing, each individual among
them, a life of his own, agreeable to his wishes and his character, yet
they all recognised themselves as the Almighty's ministering spirits. At
times they were summoned, from following their different occupations in
all the ends of Heaven, to assemble near the Divine presence. Among these
Angels there were degrees and differences. Some were, in their very
essence and constitution, grander and more sublime intelligences than the
rest; others, in the course of their long existence, had become noted for
their zeal and assiduity. Thus, although really a race of beings living on
their own account as men do, they constituted a hierarchy, and were called
Angels.
Among all the vast angelic population three or four individuals stood
pre-eminent and unapproachable. These were the Archangels. Satan was one
of these: if not the highest Archangel in Heaven, he was one of the four
highest. After God, he could feel conscious of being the greatest being in
the Universe. But, although the relation between the Deity and the
angelic population was so close that we can only express it by having
recourse to the conception of physical nearness, yet even to the Angels
the Deity was so shrouded in clouds and mystery that the highest Archangel
might proceed on a wrong notion of his character, and, just as human
beings do, might believe the Divine omnipotence as a theological
proposition, and yet, in going about his enterprises, might not carry a
working consciousness of it along with him. There is something in the
exercise of power, in the mere feeling of existence, in the stretching out
of a limb, in the resisting of an obstacle, in being active in any way,
which generates a conviction that our powers are self-contained, hostile
to the recollection of inferiority or accountability. A messenger,
employed in his master's business, becomes, in the very act of serving
him, forgetful of him. As the feeling of enjoyment in action grows strong,
the feeling of a dependent state of being, the feeling of being a
messenger, grows weak. Repose and physical weakness are favourable to the
recognition of a derived existence: hence the beauty of the feebleness of
old age preceding the approach of death. The feebleness of the body
weakens the self-sufficient feeling, and disposes to piety. The young man,
rejoicing in his strength, cannot believe that his breath is in his
nostrils. In some such way the Archangel fell. Rejoicing in his strength,
walking colossal through Heaven, gigantic in his conceptions, incessant in
his working, ever scheming, ever imagining new enterprises, Satan was in
his very nature the most active of God's Archangels. He was ever doing
some great thing, and ever thirsting for some greater thing to do. And,
alas! his very wisdom became his folly. His notion of the Deity was higher
and grander than that of any other Angel: but, then, he was not a
contemplative spirit; and his feeling of derived existence grew weak in
the glow and excitement of constant occupation. As the feeling of
enjoyment in action grew strong, the feeling of being an Angel grew weak.
Thus the mere duration of his existence had undermined his strength and
prepared him for sin. Although the greatest Angel in Heaven--nay, just
because he was such--he was the readiest to fall.
At last an occasion came. When the intimation was made by the Almighty in
the Congregation of the Angels that he had anointed his only-begotten Son
King on the holy hill of Zion, the Archangel frowned and became a rebel:
not because he had weighed the enterprise to which he was committing
himself, but because he was hurried on by the impetus of an over-wrought
nature. Even had he weighed the enterprise, and found it wanting, he would
have been a rebel nevertheless; he would have rushed into ruin on the
wheels of his old impulses. He could not have said to himself "It is
useless to rebel, and I will not;" and, if he could, what a hypocrite to
have remained in Heaven! His revolt was the natural issue of the thoughts
to which he had accustomed himself; and his crime lay in having acquired a
rebellious constitution, in having pursued action too much, and spurned
worship and contemplation. Herein lay the difference between him and the
other Archangels, Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael.
Satan in his revolt carried a third part of the Angels with him. He had
accustomed many of the Angels to his mode of thinking. One of the ways in
which he gratified his desire for activity had been that of exerting a
moral and intellectual influence over the inferior Angels. A few of these
he had liked to associate with, discoursing with them, and observing how
they imbibed his ideas. His chief associate, almost his bosom-companion,
had been Beelzebub, a princely Angel. Moloch, Belial, and Mammon, had
likewise been admitted to his confidence. These five had constituted a
kind of clique in Heaven, giving the word to a whole multitude of inferior
Angels, all of them resembling their leader in being fonder of action than
of contemplation. Thus, in addition to the mere hankering after action,
there had grown up in Satan's mind a love of power. This feeling that it
was a glorious thing to be a leader seems to have had much to do with his
voluntary sacrifice of happiness. We may conceive it to have been
voluntary. Foreseeing never so much misery would not have prevented such a
spirit from rebelling. Having a third of the Angels away with him in some
dark, howling region, where he might rule over them alone, would have
seemed, even if he had foreseen it, infinitely preferable to the puny
sovereignty of an Archangel in that world of gold and emerald: "better to
reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Thus we conceive him to have faced
the anticipation of the future. It required little persuasion to gain over
the kindred spirit of Beelzebub. These two appear to have conceived the
enterprise from the beginning in a different light from that in which they
represented it to their followers. Happiness with the inferior Spirits was
a more important consideration than with such Spirits as Satan and
Beelzebub; and to have hinted the possibility of losing happiness in the
enterprise would have been to terrify them away. Satan and Beelzebub were
losing happiness to gain something which they thought better; to the
inferior Angels nothing could be mentioned that would appear better.
Again, the inferior Angels, judging from narrower premises, might indulge
in enthusiastic expectations which the greater knowledge of the leaders
would prevent them from entertaining. At all events, the effect of the
intercourse with the Angels was that a third of their number joined the
standard of Satan. Then began the wars in Heaven, related in the poem.
It may be remarked that the carrying on those wars by Satan with the hope
of victory is not inconsistent with what has been said as to the
possibility of his not having proceeded on a false calculation. We are apt
to imagine those wars as wars between the rebel Angels and the armies of
God. Now this is true; but it is scarcely the proper idea in the
circumstances. How could Satan have hoped for victory in that case? You
can only suppose that he did so by lessening his intellect, by making him
a mere blundering Fury, and not a keen, far-seeing Intelligence. But in
warring with Michael and his followers he was, until the contrary should
be proved, warring merely against his fellow-beings of the same Heaven,
whose strength he knew and feared not. The idea of physical nearness
between the Almighty and the Angels confuses us here. Satan had heard the
threat which had accompanied the proclamation of the Messiah's
sovereignty; but it may have been problematical in his mind whether the
way in which God would fulfil the threat would be to make Michael conquer
him. So he made war against Michael and his Angels. At last, when all
Heaven was in confusion, the Divine omnipotence interfered. On the third
day the Messiah rode forth in his strength, to end the wars and expel the
rebel host from Heaven. They fled, driven before his thunder. The crystal
wall of Heaven opened wide, and the two lips, rolling inward, disclosed a
spacious gap yawning into the wasteful Deep. The reeling Angels saw down,
and hung back affrighted; but the terror of the Lord was behind them:
headlong they threw themselves from the verge of Heaven into the
fathomless abyss, eternal wrath burning after them down through the
blackness like a hissing fiery funnel.
And now the Almighty determined to create a new kind of World, and to
people it with a race of beings different from that already existing,
inferior in the meantime to the Angels, but with the power of working
themselves up into the Angelic mode of being. The Messiah, girt with
omnipotence, rode out on this creating errand. Heaven opened her
everlasting gates, moving on their golden hinges, and the King of Glory,
uplifted on the wings of Cherubim, rode on and on into Chaos. At last he
stayed his fervid wheels and took the golden compasses in his hand.
Centering one point where he stood, he turned the other silently and
slowly round through the profound obscurity. Thus were the limits of _our_
Universe marked out--that azure region in which the stars were to shine,
and the planets were to wheel. On the huge fragment of Chaos thus marked
out the Creating Spirit brooded, and the light gushed down. In six days
the work of creation was completed. In the centre of the new Universe hung
a silvery star. That was the Earth. Thereon, in a paradise of trees and
flowers, walked Adam and Eve, the last and the fairest of all God's
creatures.
Meanwhile the rebel host lay rolling in the fiery gulf underneath Chaos.
The bottom of Chaos was Hell. Above it was Chaos proper, a thick, black,
sweltering confusion. Above it again was the new experimental World, cut
out of it like a mine, and brilliant with stars and galaxies. And high
over all, behind the stars and galaxies, was Heaven itself. Satan and his
crew lay rolling in Hell, the fiery element underneath Chaos. Chaos lay
between them and the new World. Satan was the first to awake out of stupor
and realize the whole state of the case--what had occurred, what was to be
their future condition of being, and what remained to be attempted. In the
first dialogue between him and Beelzebub we see that, even thus early, he
had ascertained what his function was to be for the future, and decided in
what precise mode of being he could make his existence most pungent and
perceptible.
"Of this be sure,
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do evil our sole delight,
As being the contrary to His high will
Whom we resist."
Here the ruined Archangel first strikes out the idea of existing for ever
after as the Devil. It is important to observe that his becoming a Devil
was not the mere inevitable consequence of his being a ruined Archangel.
Beelzebub, for instance, could see in the future nothing but a prospect of
continued suffering, until Satan communicated to him his conception of a
way of enjoying action in the midst of suffering. Again, some of the
Angels appear to have been ruminating the possibility of retrieving their
former condition by patient enduring. The gigantic scheme of becoming a
Devil was Satan's. At first it existed in his mind only as a vague
perception that the way in which he would be most likely to get the full
worth of his existence was to employ himself thenceforward in doing evil.
The idea afterwards became more definite. After glancing round their new
domain, Beelzebub and he aroused their abject followers. In the speech
which Satan addresses to them after they had all mustered in order we find
him hint an opening into a new career, as if the idea had just occurred to
him:--
"Space may produce new worlds; whereof so rife
There went a fame in Heaven that He ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant
A generation whom His choice regard
Should favour equal to the sons of Heaven:
Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps
Our first eruption."
Here is an advance in definiteness upon the first proposal--that, namely,
of determining to spend the rest of existence in doing evil. Casting
about in his mind for some specific opening, Satan had recollected the
talk they used to have in Heaven about the new World that was to be cut
out of Chaos, and the new race of beings that was to be created to inhabit
it; and it instantly struck his scheming fancy that _this_ would be the
weak point of the Universe. If he could but insert the wedge here! He did
not, however, announce the scheme fully at the moment, but went on
thinking. In the council of gods which was summoned some advised one
thing, some another. Moloch was for open war; Belial had great faith in
the force of circumstances; and Mammon was for organizing their new
kingdom so as to make it as comfortable as possible. No one, however,
could say the exact thing that was wanted. At last Beelzebub, prompted by
Satan, rose and detailed the project of their great leader:--
"There is a place
(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven
Err not), another world, the happy seat
Of some new race called Man, about this time
To be created, like to us, though less
In power and excellence, but favoured more
Of Him who rules above. So was His will
Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath
That shook Heaven's whole circumference confirmed.
Thither let us bend all our thoughts, and learn
What creatures there inhabit, of what mould
Or substance, how endued, and what their power
And where their weakness: how attempted best;
By force or subtlety."
This was Satan's scheme. The more he had thought on it the more did it
recommend itself to him. It was more feasible than any other. It held out
an indefinite prospect of action. Success in it would be the addition of
another fragment of the Universe to Satan's kingdom, mingling and
confounding the new World with Hell, and dragging down the new race of
beings to share the perdition of the old. The scheme was universally
applauded by the Angels; who seem to have differed from their leaders in
this, that they were sanguine of being able to better their condition,
whereas their leaders sought only the gratification of their desire of
action.
The question next was, Who would venture out of Hell to explore the way to
the new World? Satan volunteered the perilous excursion. Immediately,
putting on his swiftest wings, he directs his solitary flight towards
Hell-gate, where sat Sin and Death. When, at length, the gate was opened
to give him exit, it was like a huge furnace-mouth, vomiting forth smoke
and flames into the womb of Chaos. Issuing thence, Satan spread his
sail-broad wings for flight, and began his toilsome way upward, half on
foot, half on wing, swimming, sinking, wading, climbing, flying, through
the thick and turbid element. At last he emerged out of Chaos into the
glimmer surrounding the new Universe. Winging at leisure now through the
balmier ether, and still ascending, he could discern at last the whole
empyrean Heaven, his former home, with its opal towers and sapphire
battlements, and, depending thence by a golden chain, our little World or
Universe, like a star of smallest magnitude on the full moon's edge. At
the point of suspension of this World from Heaven was an opening, and by
that opening Satan entered.
When Satan thus arrived in the new Creation the whole phenomenon was
strange to him, and he had no idea what kind of a being Man was. He asked
Uriel, whom he found on the sun fulfilling some Divine errand, in which of
all the shining orbs round him Man had fixed his seat, or whether he had a
fixed seat at all, and was not at liberty to shift his residence, and
dwell now in one star, now in another. Uriel, deceived by the appearance
which Satan had assumed, pointed out the way to Paradise.
Alighting on the surface of the Earth, Satan walks about immersed in
thought. Heaven's gate was in view. Overhead and round him were the quiet
hills and the green fields. Oh, what an errand he had come upon! His
thoughts were sad and noble. Fallen as he was, all the Archangel stirred
within him. Oh, had he not been made so high, should he ever have fallen
so low? Is there no hope even now, no room for repentance? Such were his
first thoughts. But he roused himself and shook them off. "The past is
gone and away; it is to the future that I must look. Perish the days of my
Archangelship! perish the name of Archangel! Such is my name no longer. My
future, if less happy, shall be more glorious. Ah, and this is the World I
have singled out for my experiment! Formerly, in the days of my
Archangelship, I ranged at will through infinity, doing one thing here and
another there. Now I must contract the sphere of my activity, and labour
nowhere but here. But it is better to apply myself to the task of
thoroughly impregnating one point of space with my presence than
henceforth to beat my wings vaguely all through infinitude. Ah, but may
not my nature suffer by the change? In thus selecting a specific aim, in
thus concerning myself exclusively with one point of space, and
forswearing all interest in the innumerable glorious things that may be
happening out of it, shall I not run the risk of degenerating into a
smaller and meaner being? In the course of ages of dealing with the puny
offspring of these new beings, may I not dwindle into a mere pungent,
pettifogging Spirit? What would Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael say, were
they to see their old co-mate changed into such a being? But be it so. If
I cannot cope with the Almighty on the grand scale of infinitude, I shall
at least make my existence felt by opposing His plans respecting this new
race of beings. Besides, by beginning with this, may I not worm my way to
a more effective position even in infinitude? At all events, I shall have
a scheme on hand, and be incessantly occupied. And, as time makes the
occupation more congenial, if I do become less magnanimous, I shall, at
the same time, become happier. And, whether my fears on this point are
visionary or not, it will, at least, be a noble thing to be able to say
that I have caused a whirlpool that shall suck down generation after
generation of these new beings, before their Maker's eyes, into the same
wretched condition of being to which He has doomed us. It will be
something so to vitiate the Universe that, let Him create, create on, as
He chooses, it will be like pouring water into a broken vessel."
In the very course of this train of thinking Satan begins to degenerate
into a meaner being. He is on the very threshold of that career in which
he will cease for ever to be the Archangel and become irrevocably the
Devil. The very manner in which he tempts the first pair is devil-like. It
is in the shape of a cormorant on a tree that he sits watching his
victims. He sat at the ear of Eve "squat like a toad." It was in the shape
of a serpent that he tempted her. And, when the evil was done, he slunk
away through the brushwood. In the very act of ruining Man he committed
himself to a life of ignominious activity: he was to go on his belly and
eat dust all his days.
* * * * *
Such is the story of Milton's Satan. It will be easy to express more
precisely the idea which we have acquired of him when we come to contrast
him with Goethe's Mephistopheles. Meanwhile, we shall be much assisted in
our efforts to conceive Goethe's Mephistopheles by keeping in mind what we
have been saying about Milton's Satan.
We do not think it possible to sum up in a single expression all that
Goethe meant to signify by his Mephistopheles. For one thing, it is
questionable whether Goethe kept strictly working out one specific meaning
and making it clearer all through Mephistopheles's gambols and devilries,
or whether, having once for all allegorized the Spirit of Evil into a
living personage, he did not treat him just as he would have treated any
other of his characters, making him always consistent, always diabolic,
but not intent upon making his actions run parallel to any under-current
of exposition. It may be best, therefore, to take Mephistopheles as a
character in a drama which we wish to study. On the whole, perhaps, we
shall be on the right track if, in the first place, we establish a
relation between Satan and Mephistopheles by adopting the notion which we
have imagined Satan himself to have entertained when engaged in scheming
out his future life, _i.e._ if we suppose Mephistopheles to be what Satan
has become after six thousand years. Milton's Satan, then, is the ruined
Archangel deciding his future function, and forswearing all interest in
other regions of the universe, in order that he may more thoroughly
possess and impregnate this. Goethe's Mephistopheles is this same being
after the toils and vicissitudes of six thousand years in his new
vocation: smaller, meaner, ignobler, but a million times sharper and
cleverer. By way of corroboration of this view, we may refer, in passing,
to the Satan of the _Paradise Regained_; who, though still a sublime and
Miltonic being, dealing in high thoughts and high arguments, yet seems to
betray, in his demeanour, the effects of four thousand years spent in a
new walk. Is there not something Mephistopheles-like, for instance, in the
description of the Fiend's appearance when he approached Christ to begin
his temptation? Christ was walking alone and thoughtful one evening in the
thick of the forest where he had lived fasting forty days, when he heard
the dry twigs behind him snapping beneath approaching footsteps. He turned
round, and
"An aged man in rural weeds,
Following as seemed the quest of some stray ewe,
Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve
Against a winter's day when winds blow keen
To warm him, wet returned from field at eve,
He saw approach; who first with curious eye
Perused him, then with words thus uttered spake."
Observe how all the particulars of this description are drawn out of the
very thick of the civilization of the past four thousand years, and how
the whole effect of the picture is to suggest a Mephistophelic-looking
man, whom it would be disagreeable to meet alone. Indeed, if one had
space, one could make more use of the _Paradise Regained_ as exhibiting
the transition of Satan into Mephistopheles. But we must pass at once to
Goethe.
Viewing Mephistopheles in the proposed light (of course it is not
pretended that Goethe himself had any such idea about his Mephistopheles),
we obtain a good deal of insight from the "Prologue in Heaven." For here
we have Mephistopheles out of his element, and contrasted with his old
co-equals. The scene is Miltonic. The Heavenly Hosts are assembled round
the throne, and the three Archangels, Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael, come
forward to praise the Lord. The theme of their song is Creation--not, as
it would have been in Milton, as an event about to take place, and which
would vary the monotony of the universe, but as a thing existing and
grandly going on. It is to be noted too that, while Milton appeals chiefly
to the sight, and is clear and coherent in his imagery, Goethe produces a
similar effect in his own manner by appealing to sight and hearing
simultaneously, making sounds and metaphors dance and whirl through each
other, as in a wild, indistinct, but overpowering dream. Raphael describes
the Sun rolling on in thunder through the heavens, singing in chorus with
the kindred stars. Gabriel describes the Earth revolving on her axis, one
hemisphere glittering in the light, the other dipped in shadow. Michael in
continuation sings of the ensphering atmosphere and the storms that rage
in it, darting forth tongues of lightning, and howling in gusts over land
and sea. And then the three burst forth in symphony, exulting in their
nature as beings deriving strength from serene contemplation, and
proclaiming all God's works to be as bright and glorious as on the day
they were created. Suddenly, while Heaven is still thrilling to the grand
undulation, another voice breaks in:
"Da du, O Herr, dich einmal wieder nahst,
Und fragst wie alles sich bei uns befinde,
Und du mich sonst gewoehnlich gerne sahst,
So siehst du mich auch unter dem Gesinde."
Ugh! what a discord! The tone, the voice, the words, the very metre, so
horribly out of tune with what had gone before! Mephistopheles is the
speaker. He has been standing behind, looking about him and listening
with a sarcastic air to the song of the Archangels; and, when they have
done, he thinks it his turn to speak, and immediately begins. (We give the
passage in translation.)
"Since thou, O Lord, approachest us once more,
And askest how affairs with us are going,
And commonly hast seen me here before,
To this my presence 'mid the rest is owing.
Excuse my plainness; I'm no hand at chaffing;
I _can't_ talk fine, though all around should scorn;
_My_ pathos certainly would set thee laughing,
Hadst thou not laughter long ago forborne.
Of suns and worlds deuce one word can _I_ gabble;
I only know how men grow miserable.
The little god of Earth is still the same old clay,
And is as odd this hour as on Creation's day.
Better somewhat his situation
Hadst thou not given him that same light of inspiration:
Reason he calls 't, and uses 't so that he
Grows but more beastly than the beasts to be;
He seems to me, begging your Grace's pardon,
Like one of those long-legged things in a garden
That fly about and hop and spring,
And in the grass the same old chirrup sing.
Would I could say that here the story closes!
But in each filthy mess they thrust their noses."
And so shameless, and at the same time so voluble, is he that he would go
on longer in the same strain did not the Lord interrupt him.