If we apply this method to "Faust" it must become clear that something more is required for a true understanding. It will even seem to us that we have not gathered the poet's deepest meaning if we only see in it universal foregone human conclusions. What we really want to find out is how this man has redeemed himself as an individual, and when we arrive at this comprehension then we shall also understand the symbol given by Goethe. It is true we may then fall into the error that we understand Goethe himself. But let us be cautious and modest, simply saying we have thereby arrived at an understanding of ourselves. I am thinking here of Kant's thought-compelling definition of comprehension, as "the realisation of a thing to the extent which is sufficient for our purpose." This understanding is, it is true, subjective, and therefore not scientific for those to whom science and explanation by the causal principle are identical. But the validity of this identification is open to question. In the sphere of psychology I must emphasise my doubt on this point. We speak of "objective" understanding when we have given a causal explanation. But at bottom, understanding is a subjective process upon which we confer the quality "objective" really only to differentiate it from another kind of understanding which is also a psychological and subjective process, but upon which, without further ado, we bestow the quality "subjective." The attitude of to-day only grants scientific value to "objective" understanding on account of its universal validity. This standpoint is incontestably correct wherever it is not a question of the psychological process itself, and hence it is valid in all sciences apart from pure psychology. To interpret Faust objectively, _i.e._ from the causal standpoint, is as though a man were to consider a sculpture from the historical, technical and--last but not least--from the mineralogical standpoint. But where lurks the _real meaning_ of the wondrous work? Where is the answer to that most important question: what aim had the artist in mind, and how are we ourselves to understand his work subjectively? To the scientific spirit this seems an idle question which anyhow has nothing to do with science. It comes furthermore into collision with the causal principle, for it is a purely speculative constructive view. And the modern world has overthrown this spirit of scholasticism.