Without even knowing the language, one could hardly hear the original read
as Mephistopheles's without seeing in it shamelessness, impudence,
volubility, cleverness, a sneering, sarcastic disposition, want of heart,
want of sentiment, want of earnestness, want of purpose, complete,
confirmed, irrecoverable devilishness. And, besides, Mephistopheles
candidly describes himself in it. When, in sly and sarcastic allusion to
the song of the Archangels, he tells that _he_ has not the gift of talking
fine, he announces in effect that he is not going to be Miltonic. _He_ is
not going to speak of suns and universes, he says. Raphael, Gabriel, and
Michael, are at home in that sort of thing; but _he_ is not. Leaving them,
therefore, to tell how the universe is flourishing on the grand scale, and
how the suns and the planets are going on as beautifully as ever, he will
just say a word or two as to how human nature is getting on down yonder;
and, to be sure, if comparison be the order of the day, the little godkin,
Man, is quite as odd as on the day he was made. And at once, with
astounding impudence, he launches into a train of remark the purport of
which is that everything down below is at sixes and sevens, and that in
his opinion human nature has turned out a failure. And, heedless of the
disgust of his audience, he would go on talking for ever, were he not
interrupted.
And is this the Satan of the _Paradise Lost_? Is this the Archangel
ruined? Is this the being who warred against the Almighty, who lay
floating many a rood, who shot upwards like a pyramid of fire, who
navigated space wherever he chose, speeding on his errands from star to
star, and who finally conceived the gigantic scheme of assaulting the
universe where it was weakest, and impregnating the new creation with the
venom of his spirit? Yes, it is he; but oh, how changed! For six thousand
years he has been pursuing the walk he struck out at the beginning, plying
his self-selected function, dabbling devilishly in human nature, and
abjuring all interest in the grander physics; and the consequence is, as
he himself anticipated, that his nature, once great and magnificent, has
become small, virulent, and shrunken,
"Subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand."
As if he had been journeying through a wilderness of scorching sand, all
that was left of the Archangel has long since evaporated. He is now a dry,
shrivelled up, scoffing spirit. When, at the moment of scheming out his
future existence and determining to become a Devil, he anticipated the
ruin of his nature, he could not help thinking with what a strange feeling
he should then appear before his old co-equals, Raphael, Gabriel, and
Michael. But now he stands before them disgustingly unabashed, almost
ostentatious of not being any longer an Archangel. Even in the days of his
glory he was different from them. They luxuriated in contemplation; he in
the feeling of innate all-sufficient vigour. And lo, now! They are
unchanged, the servants of the Lord, revering the day's gentle going. He,
the scheming, enthusiastic Archangel, has been soured and civilized into
the clever cold-hearted Mephistopheles.
Mephistopheles is the Spirit of Evil in modern society. Goethe's _Faust_
is an illustration of this spirit's working in the history of an
individual. The case selected is a noble one. Faust, a man of grand and
restless nature, is aspiring after universality of feeling. Utterly
dissatisfied and disgusted with all human method and all human
acquisition, nay, fretting at the constitution of human nature itself, he
longs to spill out his soul, so that, mingling with the winds, it may
become a part of the ever-thrilling spirit of the universe and know the
essence of everything. He has been contemplating suicide. To this great
nature struggling with itself Mephistopheles is linked. It is to be noted
that throughout the whole drama there is no evidence that it was an object
of very earnest solicitude with Mephistopheles to gain possession of the
soul of Faust. Of course, he desired this, and had it in view. Thus, he
exacted a bond from Faust; and we find him also now and then chuckling
when alone in anticipation of Faust's ultimate ruin. But on the whole he
is constant to no earnest plan for effecting it. In fact, he is constant
to no single purpose whatever. The desire of doing devilry is his motive
all through. Going about with Faust was but being in the way of business
and having a companion at the same time. He studies his own gratification,
not Faust's, in all that he does. Faust never gets what he had a right to
expect from him. He is dragged hither and thither through scenes he has no
anxiety to be in, merely that Mephistopheles may enjoy some new and
_piquant_ piece of devilry. The moment he and Faust enter any place, he
quits Faust's side and mixes with the persons present, to do some mischief
or other; and, when it is done, he comes back to Faust, who has been
standing, with his arms folded, gloomily looking on, and asks him if he
could desire any better amusement than this. Now this is not the conduct
of a devil intent upon nothing so much as gaining possession of the soul
of his victim. A Miltonic devil would have pressed on to the mark more. He
would have been more self-denying, and would have kept his victim in
better humour. But Mephistopheles is a devil to the very core. He is a
devil in his conduct to Faust. What he studies is not to gratify Faust,
but to find plenty of congenial occupation for himself, to perpetrate as
great a quantity of evil as possible in as short a time as possible. It
seems capable of being inferred from this peculiarity in the character of
Mephistopheles that Goethe had in his mind all through the poem a certain
under-current of allegoric meaning. One sees that Mephistopheles, though
acting as a dramatic personage, represents an abstract something or other.
The character of Mephistopheles is brought out all through the drama. In
the first and second parts we have Faust and him brought into a great
variety of situations and into contact with a great variety of
individuals; and in watching how Mephistopheles conducts himself in these
we obtain more and more insight into his devilish nature. He manifests
himself in two ways--by his style of speaking, and by his style of acting.
That is to say, Mephistopheles, in the first place, has a habit of making
observations upon all subjects, and throwing out all kinds of general
propositions in the course of his conversation, and by attending to the
spirit of these one can perceive very distinctly his mode of looking at
things; and, in the second place, he acts a part in the drama, and this
part is, of course, characteristic.
The distinguishing feature in Mephistopheles's conversation is the amazing
intimacy which it displays with all the conceivable ways in which crime
can be perpetrated. There is positively not a wrong thing that people are
in the habit of doing that he does not seem to be aware of. He is profound
in his acquaintance with iniquity. If there is a joint loose anywhere in
society, he knows of it; if the affairs of the State are going into
confusion because of some blockhead's mismanagement, he knows of it. He is
versed in all the forms of professional quackery. He knows how pedants
hoodwink people, how priests act the hypocrite, how physicians act the
rake, how lawyers peculate. In all sorts of police information he is a
perfect Fouche. He has gone deep enough into one fell subject to be able
to write a book like Duchatelet's. And not only has he accumulated a mass
of observations, but he has generalized those observations, and marked
evil in its grand educational sources. If the human mind is going out into
a hopeless track of speculation, he has observed and knows it. If the
universities are frittering away the intellect of the youth of a country
in useless and barren studies, he knows it. If atheistic politicians are
vehemently defending the religious institutions of a country, he has
marked the prognostication. Whatever promises to inflict misery, to lead
people astray, to break up beneficial alliances, to make men flounder on
in error, to cause them to die blaspheming at the last, he is thoroughly
cognisant of it all. He could draw up a catalogue of social vices. He
could point out the specific existing grievances to which the
disorganization of a people is owing, and lay his finger on the exact
parent evils which the philanthropist ought to exert himself in exposing
and making away with. But here lies the diabolical peculiarity of his
knowledge. It is not in the spirit of a philanthropist that he has
accumulated his information; it is in the spirit of a devil. It is not
with the benevolent motive of a Duchatelet that he has descended into the
lurking-places of iniquity; it is because he delights in knowing the whole
extent of human misery. The doing of evil being his function, it is but
natural that he should have a taste for even the minutest details of his
own profession. Nay more, as the Spirit of all evil, who had been working
from the beginning, how could he fail to be acquainted with all the
existing varieties of criminal occupation? It is but as if he kept a
diary. Now, in this combination of the knowledge of evil with the desire
of producing it lies the very essence of his character. The combination is
horrible, unnatural, unhuman. Generally the motive to investigate deeply
into what is wrong is the desire to rectify it; and it is rarely that
profligates possess very valuable information. But in every one of
Mephistopheles's speeches there is some profound glimpse into the
rottenness of society, some masterly specification of an evil that ought
to be rooted out; and yet there is not one of those speeches in which the
language is not flippant and sarcastic, not one in which the tone is
sorrowful or philanthropic. Everything is going wrong in the world;
twaddle and quackery everywhere abounding; nothing to be seen under the
sun but hypocritical priests, sharking attorneys, unfaithful wives,
children crying for bread to eat, men and women cheating, robbing,
murdering each other: hurrah! This is exactly a burst of Mephistophelic
feeling. In fact it is an intellectual defect in Mephistopheles that his
having such an eye for evil and his taking such an interest in it prevent
him from allowing anything for good in his calculations. To Mephistopheles
the world seems going to perdition as fast as it can, while in the same
universal confusion beings like the Archangels recognise the good
struggling with the evil.
Respecting the part which Mephistopheles performs in the drama we have
already said something. Going about the world, linked to Faust, is to him
only a racy way of acting the devil. Having as his companion a man so
flighty in his notions did but increase the flavour of whatever he engaged
in. All through he is laughing in secret at Faust, and deriving a keen
enjoyment from his transcendental style of thinking. Faust's noble
qualities are all Greek and Gaelic to his cold and devilish nature. He
has a contempt for all strong feeling, all sentiment, all evangelism. He
enjoys the Miltonic vastly. Thus in the "Prologue in Heaven" he quizzes
the Archangels about the grandiloquence of their song. Not that he does
not understand that sort of thing intellectually, but that it is not in
his nature to sympathize with anything like sentiment. Hence, when he
assumes the sentimental himself and mimicks any lofty strain, although he
does it full justice in as far as giving the whole intellectual extent of
meaning is concerned, yet he always does so in words so inappropriate
emotionally that the effect is a parody. He must have found amusement
enough in Faust's company to have reconciled him in some measure to losing
him finally.
But to go on. Mephistopheles acts the devil all through. In the first
place he acts the devil to Faust himself, for he is continually taking his
own way and starting difficulties whenever Faust proposes anything. Then
again in his conduct towards the other principal personages of the drama
it is the same. In the murder of poor Margaret, her mother, her child, and
her brother, we have as fiendish a series of acts as devil could be
supposed capable of perpetrating. And, lastly, in the mere filling up and
side play, it is the same. He is constantly doing unnecessary mischief. If
he enters Auerbach's wine-cellar and introduces himself to the four
drinking companions, it is to set the poor brutes fighting and make them
cut off each other's noses. If he spends a few minutes in talk with
Martha, it is to make the silly old woman expose her foibles. The Second
Part of Faust is devilry all through, a tissue of bewilderments and
devilries. And while doing all this Mephistopheles is still the same cold,
self-possessed, sarcastic being. If he exhibits any emotion at all, it is
a kind of devilish anger. Perhaps, too, once or twice we recognise
something like terror or flurry. But on the whole he is a spirit bereft of
feeling. What could indicate the heart of a devil more than his words to
Faust in the harrowing prison scene?
"Komm, komm, ich lasse dich mit ihr im Stich."
* * * * *
And now for a word or two describing Milton's Satan and Goethe's
Mephistopheles by each other:--Satan is a colossal figure; Mephistopheles
an elaborated portrait. Satan is a fallen Archangel scheming his future
existence; Mephistopheles is the modern Spirit of Evil. Mephistopheles has
a distinctly marked physiognomy; Satan has not. Satan has a sympathetic
knowledge of good; Mephistopheles knows good only as a phenomenon. Much of
what Satan says might be spoken by Raphael; a devilish spirit runs through
all that Mephistopheles says. Satan's bad actions are preceded by noble
reasonings; Mephistopheles does not reason. Satan's bad actions are
followed by compunctious visitings; Mephistopheles never repents. Satan is
often "inly racked;" Mephistopheles can feel nothing more noble than
disappointment. Satan conducts an enterprise; Mephistopheles enjoys an
occupation. Satan has strength of purpose; Mephistopheles is volatile.
Satan feels anxiety; Mephistopheles lets things happen. Satan's greatness
lies in the vastness of his motives; Mephistopheles's in his intimate
acquaintance with everything. Satan has a few sublime conceptions;
Mephistopheles has accumulated a mass of observations. Satan declaims;
Mephistopheles puts in remarks. Satan is conversant with the moral aspects
of things and uses adjectives; Mephistopheles has a preference for nouns,
and uses adjectives only to convey significations which he _knows_ to
exist. Satan may end in being a devil; Mephistopheles is a devil
irrecoverably.
* * * * *
Milton's Satan and Goethe's Mephistopheles are literary performances; and,
for what they prove, neither Milton nor Goethe need have believed in a
Devil at all. Luther's Devil, on the other hand, was a being recognised by
him as actually existing--as existing, one might say, with a vengeance.
The strong conviction which Luther had on this point is a feature in his
character. The narrative of his life abounds in anecdotes showing that the
Devil with him was no chimera, no mere orthodoxy, no fiction. In every
page of his writings we have the word _Teufel_, _Teufel_, repeated again
and again. Occasionally there occurs an express dissertation upon the
nature and functions of the Evil Spirit; and one of the longest chapters
in his _Table Talk_ is that entitled "The Devil and his Works"--indicating
that his conversation with his friends often turned on the subject of
Satanic agency. _Teufel_ was actually the strongest signification he had;
and, whenever he was excited to his highest emotional pitch, it came in to
assist his utterance at the climax, and give him a correspondingly
powerful expression. "This thing I will do," it was common for him to say,
"in spite of all who may oppose me, be it duke, emperor, priest, bishop,
cardinal, pope, or Devil." Man's heart, he says, is a "Stock, Stein,
Eisen, Teufel, hart Herz," ("a stock, stone, iron, Devil, hard heart").
And it was not a mere vague conception he had of this being, such as
theology might oblige. On the contrary, he had observed him as a man would
his personal enemy, and in so doing had formed a great many conclusions
respecting his powers and his character. In general, Luther's Devil may be
defined as a personification, in the spirit of Scripture, of the resisting
medium which Luther had to toil his way through--spiritual fears,
passionate uprisings, fainting resolutions within himself; error,
weakness, envy, in those around him; and, without, a whole world howling
for his destruction. It is in effect as if Luther had said, "Scripture
reveals to me the existence of a great accursed Being, whose function it
is to produce evil. It is for me to ascertain the character of this Being,
whom I, of all men, have to deal with. And how am I to do so except by
observing him working? God knows I have not far to go in search of his
manifestations." And thus Luther went on filling up the Scriptural
proposition with his daily experience. He was constantly gaining a clearer
conception of his great personal antagonist, constantly stumbling upon
some more concealed trait in the Spirit's character. The Being himself was
invisible; but men were walking in the midst of his manifestations. It was
as if there were some Being whom we could not see, nor directly in the
ordinary way have any intercourse with, but who every morning, before it
was light, came and left at our doors some exquisite specimen of his
workmanship. It would, of course, be difficult under such disadvantages to
become acquainted with the character of our invisible correspondent and
nightly visitant; still we could arrive at a few conclusions respecting
him, and the more of his workmanship we saw the more insight we should
come to have. Or again, in striving to realize to himself the Scriptural
proposition about the Devil, Luther, to speak in the language of the
"Positive Philosophy," was but striving to ascertain the laws according to
which evil happens. Only the Positive Philosophy would lay a veto on any
such speculation, and pronounce it fundamentally vicious in this
respect--that there are not two courses of events, separable from each
other, in history, the one good and the other evil, but that evil comes of
good and good of evil; so that, if we are to have a science of history at
all, the most we can have is a science of the laws according to which, not
evil follows evil, but events follow each other. But History to Luther was
not a physical course of events. It was God acting, and the Devil
opposing.
So far Luther did not differ from his age. Belief in Satanic agency was
universal at that period. We have no idea now how powerful this belief
was. We realize something of the truth when we read the depositions in an
old book of trials for witchcraft. But it is sufficient to glance over any
writings of the period to see what a real meaning was then attached to the
words "Hell" and "Devil." The spirit of these words has become obsolete,
chased away by the spirit of exposition. That was what M. Comte calls the
Theological period, when all the phenomena of mind and matter were
referred to the agency of Spirits. The going out of the belief in Satanic
agency (for even those who retain it in profession allow it no force in
practice) M. Comte would attribute to the progress of the spirit of that
philosophy of which he is the apostle. We do not think, however, that the
mere progress of the scientific spirit--that is, the mere disposition of
men to pursue one mode of thinking with respect to all classes of
phenomena--could have been sufficient of itself to work such an alteration
in the general mind. We are fond of accounting for it, in part at least,
by the going out, in the progress of civilization, of those sensations
which seem naturally fitted to nourish the belief in supernatural beings.
The tendency of civilization has been to diminish our opportunities of
feeling terror, of feeling strongly at all. The horrific plays a much less
important part in human experience than it once did. To mention but a
single instance: we are exempted now, by mechanical contrivances for
locomotion, &c., from the necessity of being much in darkness or wild
physical solitude. This is especially the case with those who dwell in
cities, and therefore exert most conspicuously an intellectual influence.
The moaning of the wind at night in winter is about their highest
experience of the kind; and is it not a corroboration of the view now
suggested that the belief in the supernatural is always strongest at the
moment of this experience? Scenes and situations our ancestors were in
every day are strange to us. We have not now to travel through forests at
the dead of night, nor to pass a lonely spot on a moor where a murderer's
body is swinging from a gibbet. Tam o' Shanter, even before he came to
Allowa' Kirk, saw more than many of us see in a life-time.
"By this time he was 'cross the ford
Whaur in the snaw the chapman smoored,
And past the birks and muckle stane
Whaur drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane,
And through the whins and by the cairn
Whaur hunters fand the murdered bairn,
And near the thorn aboon the well
Whaur Mungo's mither hanged hersel'."
This effect of civilization in reducing all our sensations to those of
comfort is a somewhat alarming circumstance in the point of view we are
now taking. It is necessary, for many a reason, to resist the universal
application of the "Positive Philosophy," even if we adopt and adore it as
an instrument of explication. The "Positive Philosophy" commands us to
forbear all speculation into the inexplicable. For the sake of many things
this order must be disregarded. Speculation into the metaphysical is the
invariable accompaniment of strong feeling; and the moral nature of man
would starve upon such chopped straw as the mere intellectual relations of
similitude and succession. Nor does it meet the demands of the case to say
that the "Positive Philosophy" would be always far in arrear of the known
phenomena, and that here would be mystery enough. No! the "Positive
Philosophy" would require to strike a chasm in itself under the title of
the Liberty of Hypothesis. We do not mean the liberty of hypothesis merely
as a means of anticipating theory, but for spiritual and imaginative
purposes. It is in this light that one would welcome Animal Magnetism, or
any thing else whatever that would but knock a hole through the paper wall
that incloses our mode of being, snub the self-conceit of our present
knowledge, and give us other and more difficult phenomena to explain.