Here Wagner follows the story as told by Chrétien des Troyes, and not the version of Wolfram von Eschenbach. Chrétien made the spear that with which Longinus pierced the side of the Saviour. Wolfram made it simply a poisoned lance. Wagner accepted the sacred spear, because he was always an eager searcher after ethical significance, even when there was less virtue in it than there is in this one. The wound of the sacred lance is more than physical; it is a mortal hurt of the soul. Wagner tells us that for such a wound there can be but one cure, a touch of the selfsame lance in the hands of one who has successfully withstood the temptation to which the sufferer fell a victim. Very well. There is absolutely no authority for such a conclusion. It is a bit of mediæval religious mysticism, an adaptation of the fabulous miracles. Wagner, however, has a right to manufacture miracles for a fabulous story. He has as much right to do it in the tale of the Holy Grail as he had in the matter of Hagen's wonder-working beverages in "Götterdämmerung." But when he tells us that the reason for Parsifal's action is enlightenment by pity, he goes still farther away from the dogmas and doctrines of Christianity and moves through the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer toward the religion of the Buddha. It is a grave error to relegate to a secondary place the influence of Schopenhauer on Wagner and to credit the poet-composer with a direct entry into the teachings of the Gautama. We must bear in mind continually that Wagner got from Schopenhauer two great doctrines, one artistic, and the other ethical. Schopenhauer propounded as the basis of his æsthetic system the theorem that it is the business of art to represent to us the eternal essence of things by means of prototypes. The conditions of time and place, cause and tendency, must be cleared away, and the naked Eternal Idea underneath disclosed. The discernment and revelation of this Idea are the duty and privilege of art. Wagner, then, sought to set forth his personages and their actions as symbolical. They were to be visual embodiments of Eternal Ideas. Amfortas is the sinner in the agony of his punishment. Parsifal is the savior, the pure one who can redeem; Klingsor is the evil one, and Kundry the unwilling slave of his power. If here we find ourselves involved in some contradictions, let us be patient. Wagner's logic is that of a poet and a musician. It will not stand the test of the metaphysician. But to resume. The ethical doctrine which the composer obtained from Schopenhauer was more significant in its results. Schopenhauer's philosophic system need not be set forth here. Suffice it to say that ethically its only possible outcome was negative. The world is so bad that the chief end of man should be to get out of it.