Even this scene, however, did not satisfy the prolific fancy of the poet, and he added a final one,--the apotheosis or _Himmelfahrt_ of Faust. In the Campo Santo at Pisa Goethe had seen a fresco representing various anchorites dwelling on the flanks of some sacred mountain,--Sinai, Carmel, or Athos,--each in his little cave or hermitage; and above them, in the large space of sky, flights of angels were seen rising towards the Madonna. Through such a landscape the poet now shows us the soul of Faust carried slowly upwards. This scene has been regarded as inspired by Catholic ideas, whereas the _Prologue in Heaven_ was Biblical and Protestant; and Goethe himself says that his “poetic intention” could best be rendered by images borrowed from the tradition of the mediaeval church. But in truth there is nothing Catholic about the scene, except the names or titles of the personages. What they say is all sentimental landscape-painting or vague mysticism, such as might go with any somewhat nebulous piety; and much is actually borrowed from Swedenborg. What is Swedenborgian, however,--such as the notion of heavenly instruction, passage from sphere to sphere, and looking through other people’s eyes,--is in turn a mere form of expression. The “poetic intention” of the author is, as we have seen, altogether Spinozitic. Undoubtedly he conceives that the soul of Faust is to pass, in another world, through some new series of experiences. But that destiny is not his salvation; it is the continuance of his trial. The famous chorus at the very end repeats, with an interesting variation, the same contrast we have seen before between the point of view of time and that of eternity. Everything transitory, says the mystic chorus,[27] is only an image; here (that is, under the form of eternity) the insufficient is turned into something actual and complete; and what seemed in experience an endless pursuit becomes to speculation a perfect fulfilment. The ideal of something infinitely attractive and essentially inexhaustible--the eternal feminine, as Goethe calls it--draws life on from stage to stage. Gretchen and Helen had been symbols of this ideal; Goethe’s green old age had felt, to the very last, the charm of woman, the sweetness and the sorrow of loving what he could not hope to possess, and what, in its ideal perfection, necessarily eludes possession. He had reconciled himself, not without tears, to this desire without hope, and, like Piccarda in the _Paradiso_, he had blessed the hand that gave the passion and denied the happiness.[28] Thus, in dreaming of one satisfaction and renouncing it, he had found a satisfaction of another kind. _Faust_ ends on the same philosophical level on which it began,--the level of romanticism. The worth of life lies in pursuit, not in attainment; therefore, everything is worth pursuing, and nothing brings satisfaction--save this endless destiny itself.