the Middle Ages; otherwise, on account of the evident Protestant tendency of Faust, it would be difficult to find a necessary connection with the other parts of the poem. As regards the history of Faust in itself, dramatically considered, the first four acts could perhaps be entirely omitted. The fifth, as it shows us that all striving, if its content is not religion, (the freedom of the Spirit,) can give no internal satisfaction, as it shows us that in the earnest striving after freedom, however much we may err, still the path to Heaven is open, and is only closed to him who does not strive, would have sufficiently exhibited the reconciliation. But Goethe wants to show not only this conclusion, which was all the legend demanded of him, but also the becoming of this result. Faust was for him and through him for the nation, and indeed for Europe, the representative of the world-comprehending, self-conscious internality of Spirit, and therefore he caused all the elements of the World to crystallize around this centre. Thus the acts of the Second Part are pictures, which, like frescoes, are painted beside one another upon the same wall, and Faust has actually become what was so often before said of him, a perfect manifestation of the Universe. If we now cast a glance back to what we said in the beginning, of the opposition between the characters of Wilhelm Meister and Faust, that the former was _the determined from without_, the latter _the self-determining from within_, we can also seize this opposition so that Meister is always in pursuit of Culture, Faust of Freedom. Meister is therefore always desirous of new impressions, in order to have them work upon himself, extend his knowledge, complete his character. His capacity and zeal for Culture, the variety of the former, the diligence of the latter, forced him to a certain tameness and complaisance in relation to others. Faust on the contrary will himself work. He will possess only what he himself creates. Just for this reason he binds himself to the Devil, because the latter has the greatest worldly power, which Faust applies unsparingly for his own purposes, so that the Devil in reality finds in him a hard, whimsical, insatiate master. To Wilhelm the acquaintance of the Devil would indeed have been very interesting from a moral, psychological and æsthetic point of view, but he never would have formed a fraternity with him. This _autonomia_ and _autarkia_ of Faust have given a powerful impulse to the German people, and German literature. But if, in the continuation of Faust, there was an expectation of the same Titanic nature, it was disappointed. The monstrosity of the tendencies however, does not cease; a man must be blind not to see them. But in the place of pleasure, after the catastrophe with Margaret, an active participation in the world enters; a feature which Klinger and others have retained. But Labor in itself can still give no satisfaction, but its content, too, must be considered.