The second act brings us away from our well-known German home to the bottom of the sea and its mysterious secrets. Faust is in search of Helen; where else can he find her, perfect Beauty, than in Greece? But first he seeks her, and meets therefore mere shapes, which unfold themselves from natural existence, which are not yet actual humanity. Indeed, since he seeks natural Beauty—for spiritual Beauty he has already enjoyed in the heavenly disposition of Margaret—the whole realm of Nature opens upon us; all the elements appear in succession; the rocks upon which the earnest Sphinxes rest, in which the Ants, Dactyls, Gnomes work, give the surrounding ground; the moist waters contain in their bosom the seeds of all things. The holy fire infolds it with eager flame: according to the old legend, Venus sprang from the foam of the sea.—Next we find ourselves at Wittenberg, in the ancient dwelling, where it is easy to see by the cob-webs, dried-up ink, tarnished paper, and dust, that many years have passed since Faust went out into the world. Mephistopheles, from the old coat in which he once instructed the knowledge-seeking pupil, shakes out the lice and crickets which swarm around the old master with a joyful greeting, as also Parseeism makes Ahriman the father of all vermin. Faust lies on his bed, sleeps and dreams the lustful story of Leda, which, in the end, is nothing more than the most decent and hence producible representation of generation. While Mephistopheles in a humorous, and as well as the Devil can, even in an idyllic manner, amuses himself, while he inquires sympathetically after Wagner of the present Famulus, a pupil who, in the meanwhile, has become a Baccalaureate, comes storming in, in order to see what the master is doing who formerly inculcated such wise doctrines, and in order to show what a prodigiously reasonable man he has himself become. A persiflage of many expressions of the modern German Natural Philosophy seems recognizable in this talk. Despising age, praising himself as the dawn of a new life, he spouts his Idealism, by means of which he creates everything, Sun, Moon and Stars, purely by the absoluteness of subjective Thought. Mephistopheles, though the pupil assails him bitterly, listens to his wise speeches with lamb-like patience, and after this refreshing scene, goes into Wagner’s laboratory. The good man has stayed at home, and has applied himself to Chemistry, to create, through its processes, men. To his tender, humane, respectable, intelligent mind, the common way of begetting children is too vulgar and unworthy of spirit. Science must create man; a real materialism will produce him. Mephistopheles comes along just at this time, to whom Wagner beckons silence, and whispers anxiously to him his undertaking, as in the glass retort the hermaphroditic boy, the Homunculus, begins to stir. But alas! the Artificial requires enclosed space. The poor fellow