_Faust_ does not claim to be a universal Gospel, nor to offer a final solution of the riddle of existence. It makes no attempt to pile up Pelions on Ossas--to scale heaven with the Babel-towers of the human reason. It merely holds up a mirror in which we see reflected certain views of truth, such as presented themselves to Goethe from some of his intellectual heights. To regard it and judge it otherwise--to analyse its Idea--to insist on discovering its Moral--to compare it with some little self-contained system of theory or dogma which we ourselves may have finally accepted--and to condemn Goethe as a prophet of lies because, viewing truth from such diverse standpoints (many of them perhaps quite inaccessible for us) he may seem at times to ignore some of our pet formulæ--this, I think, would convict us of a lamentable lack of wisdom and humility. And if at times we feel pained by what may seem irreverent, let us remember that Goethe wrote also these words: 'With many people who have God constantly on their tongues He becomes a phrase, a mere name uttered without any accompanying idea. If they were penetrated by God's greatness, they would rather be dumb and for very reverence not dare to name Him.' Goethe accepted not without a certain amount of pride the title given him by some of his contemporaries--that of 'the last of the Heathen.' But which of us will doubt the sincerity or fail to be touched by the humility of his words: 'And yet perhaps I am such a Christian as Christ Himself would wish me to be.' There are doubtless but very few (and I confess that I am not one of these select few) who can accept Goethe in all his many-sidedness. We ordinary mortals are incapable of such Protean versatility and are sure to find points, often many and important points, where we are strongly repelled by his teachings and his personality. The idealist is scandalized by his vigorous realism, the realist and materialist by his idealism, the dogmatist by his free thought, the free-thinker by his reverence towards religion, while the scientific expert is apt to regard him as a mere poet, oblivious or ignorant of the fact that, although without scientific training, besides propounding theories on Colour which were for a time accepted by leading authorities on that subject and besides making a discovery which had escaped the investigations of professional Anatomists (that of the intermaxillary bone), Goethe was the discoverer of a law, that of the metamorphosis of leaves and flowers, which may be said to have almost revolutionised the science of Botany. Let us now turn to our subject and attempt to trace to its first sources this strange and suggestive legend of Faust, the great Magician. And first, we shall see our way more clearly if we consider what is really the nature of that magic, or black art, which played such an important part in the medieval imagination.