fully. Faust looks forward to redeeming the time, spending the rest of his life in active usefulness for the general good. It is the Arian view of the world's redemption.

SO

Whilst these are the main lines of the two poems where they run parallel or diverge from each other, there are minor coincidences or contrasts which may be fitly mentioned here, before we proceed to examine more minutely the manner in which they each discuss the problem of life. Both are founded on a historical basis. There seems to be no doubt as to the actual existence of either Job or Faust; yet both are used as types for parabolic teaching in the philosophical dramas which bear their name. Again, the colloquies of Job may be compared with the more disquisitive portions of the second part of "Faust," both containing views on contemporary theories, on physical science and natural philosophy. As Job, "the travelled citizen" of the East in an age of general enlightenment, displays unusual acquaintance with out-of-the-way knowledge, Goethe, the man of universal attainments, alludes in the "Faust" to controversies connected with science, literature, and art during the age of the Aufklärungszeit. So wide indeed is the grasp of Goethe's mind, and so manifold his attainments, that the marvellous diverseness of his allusions might almost lead to sceptical views some centuries hence as to his being the sole author of them all. He may be then, as Grimm suggests, turned into a myth, and critics will be busily engaged in examining the varied and often ill-fitting portions of the "Faust" as to which are genuine and which spurious, just as the critics of the Book of Job now cast doubt on the genuineness and integrity of some portions, trying to re-arrange the text, to find the proper place for what are supposed to be dislocated passages, and to purify it from foreign accretions and interpolated glosses, or even to add lost bits here and there to give it greater cohesion and consistency. Another striking resemblance lies in the emphasis which both books lay on our ignorance of the ultimate reason of things, even as to those phenomena which seem subject to the cognizance

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of our natural senses, and on tluce spondency in which a large survey of human life leaves the mind. From this it has been inferred that the authors of both works were pessimistic agnostics of the deepest dye. Yet such an inference is unjustifiable. There are passages in Job and the "Faust" which point distinctly to a different conclusion. In the case of Goethe, who is so near to us in time, we know for certain that on the whole he was an optimist, especially towards the close of his life-thougn, like all of us, he had his darker moments, and the first part of the "raust" and much in the tone and texture of the second part is in the minor key of melancholy pessimism. In the case of Job we have no independent biographical materials to correct false impressions on this subject: hence the readiness of the interpreters to doubt the genuineness of those passages which are not in perfect agreement with the somewhat pessimistic view of life, which is generally presented by the book.

To add one more trait common to both works, the dark background of the picture they offer is a state of society and social morality and polity which in a great measure justifies that intellectual bewilderment and sad depression of feeling which are at the root of all the sceptical doubts they contain. In such a state of society men ask themselves whether, indeed, the world bears traces of a Divine government, and this is equally true whether it be in the age of national decadence in Judæa or Germany. The more advanced the state of intellectual culture in such an epoch of history, the more poignant will be the feeling of regret on account of the discrepancy between political and social ideals, and their realization in fact.

Now as to the contrasts. In Job we miss what is so obvious and interesting in the "Faust," the hints as to the inner history of the author's life; for, by the confession of Goethe himself, here we have an actual transcript of his own life and varied experiences, his inner strug gles, his triumphs and defeats. We have no ground for believing that author and hero in the Book of Job can be similarly identified, though there are not wanting passages, such as the touching

But a naked, eternally restless mind!

Herein consists the nodus of the tragedy. The insatiable thirst for universal knowledge unquenched, succeeded by unsatisfying draughts at the forbidden springs of sensuous delights, and the subsequent disillusion in the failure of every attempt to give reality to his Eudaimonistic dreams of life's happiness-this forms the subject of the tragedy. Faust never attains to the completion of content in the possession of perfect truth, or the common employments and enjoyments of his varied career. Such thoughts would not have occurred to the Hebrew mind when the Book of Job was written. Here we have not even a shadow of doubt in supernatural Omnipotence; natural monsters and nature myths only add to the awe with which the mind contemplates the works of God. There is not even the approach towards the modern idea of cosmic order, as in any way independent of the ruling power in the universe. Both Job and Faust are struggling for the light; the former for the dim light of faith to guide his faltering steps in the dreary darkness with which undeserved suffering envelopes his soul; the latter for the light of reason which shall clear up the mystery of the universe to his impatient mind. Both temporarily succumb and both triumph in the end; but as far as they do so, it is only by an act of grace from above; and thus their struggles and sufferings leave them stronger than they were before.

And now, to approach more critically the subject-matter of the two poems in its bearing on certain contemporary tendencies of thought, we may consider how far both represent the intellectual revolt of an "age of reason" against dogmas, or forms of faith supposed to be founded on revelation. That the Book of Job bears the traces of some such religious crisis, in which the convictions

of thinking men underwent a severe sifting process to distinguish truth from traditional accretions, has been already admitted. To speak of it as Freigeisterei -Freethought-as Delitzsch does, may be too strong a term to use; and the generalization of Renan, that the Book of Job breathes l'esprit frondeur du nomade, is too wide in its application, apart from the fact that nomadic tribes are rather the slaves to traditional beliefs than religious innovators. The book bears unmistakable marks of a transition period in the development of religious ethics among the Hebrews. It marks an advance from a more selfish to a more disinterested view of virtue and its reward. And this from the nature of the case. Apparently undeserved national calamities, in complete contradiction to the belief in the common retribution theory, rendered it necessary to correct the old formula by the light of this new fact. This was first pointed out most forcibly by Froude in his well-known essay, though he and others after him have gone too far in identifying Job's way of reasoning with that of the most recent opponents of the Utilitarian system of ethics; for the calculating spirit of "moral arithmetic" which reckons with the counters of pleasure and pain is different from the Hebrew method of regarding prosperity as a reward of goodness and adversity as a proof of Divine displeasure. Still, the main interest of the poem centres in the controversy between Job and his friends. They are worsted in the argument, and Satan is defeated in his contention. To the question, "Does Job serve God for nought?" the answer is given in the affirmative by the logic of facts, and the new theory of disinterested goodness has in part at least displaced the old mechanical view of Divine retribution. Thus the point on which Job turns, as Godet justly remarks, is "the conquest of the truth upon a vital point of monotheism, for we have human conscience in conflict with the justice of God." The writer's aim is to bridge over the chasm between man's destiny and his deserts by showing that such undeserved suffering serves the purpose of moral education, that it works out his deliverance from the servitude of self

ishness. In this way the book may be regarded as a poetical treatise on the "ethical significance of suffering." The revolt, therefore, against the commonly received opinion is not in the nature of a negative criticism, but the search after a higher truth, undiscovered as yet by the orthodox champions of piety and virtue. It is their view of revealed truth which Job sets himself to controvert, whilst yearning himself for a Divine revelation, which shall explain the great enigma of human suffering. The problem remains unsolved. He ends in bowing in humble submission to the Divine verdict, the denial of his request to know the hidden reason of things as above human comprehension. But a step in advance has been made in the evolution of morality, whilst the mystery of moral progress being thus conditioned remains undisclosed.

In the "Faust," the hero, as we have pointed out already, is subjected to a different trial, ease and enjoyment becoming the occasion of diverting him from the path of continuous self-development, or deviation from the line of progress stretching towards the ideal. Momentary satisfaction, in fact, with what is, instead of strenuous effort under the spur of a Divine discontent to that which "ever is to be," forms his temptation. It is the weak side of humanism or Hellenism, which, as Mephistopheles reminds us,

To cheerful things the heart of man entices.

Goethe, "the last Hellene," is the herald of the New Paganism, the modern Renaissance, the Religion of Culture. The ideal of the "Faust" is not, as in the Book of Job, perfect holiness, but the perfection of humanity, as indeed the original hero of the Faust Saga is the representative of Humanism, the intellectual rival of the Reformation. But the tendency both of the Renaissance of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is in the direction of sceptical secularism. This in the nineteenth century becomes crystallized into a belief in the saving power of culture. But the "Faust" contains, as Grimm puts it, Goethe's own credo. Like Job, it too marks a critical period in the history of

thought; it gives expression to the conflict between science and religion, faith and doubt, the thirst for universal knowledge and the weariness which comes of baffled attempts to attain it, leading to intellectual decadence and moral turpitude, and finding its way back to better things in following the call of social duty. The Faust Saga did lend itself admirably for giving poetical expression to this, and Goethe tells us how that was the reason why he was attracted by it. "I, too, had cast about for knowledge in all directions, and soon convinced myself of the futility of the search. I, too, had made experiments of life in different directions, but always came back unsatisfied and tormented." He is drawn, therefore, by intellectual affinity towards "the speculator" of the sixteenth century, who "took to himself eagle's wings to explore the finality of things in heaven and earth." But the wings do not carry Faust far enough or fast enough into the unknown regions; the sense of failure, accordingly, produces the reverse of happiness as the result of painful intellectual labor and the bitterness of the curse pronounced on all the tantalizing promises of the world, dazzling the mind with false appearances-fame, possession, noble deeds, hope itself, faith, and "above all patience." Very different this from Job's cursing the day of his birth, though in both cases existence becomes a burden and death an object of desire. When Faust declares that he is healed from the infirmity of vainly trying to find out the whole truth, and determines to seek happiness in self-indulgent delights and satisfaction in making common cause with human joy and sorrow, he expresses Goethe's own convictions. But as in the "Faust," so in the nineteenth century, scepticism hesitates before it takes a final plunge into the abyss of intellectual suicide; it seeks refuge in agnosticism; it neither ventures to affirm nor to deny that we are capable of arriving at absolute truth.

The scepticism of the "Faust," i.e., the scepticism of our century, is less aggressive than that of the eighteenth; it is more ready to recognize the value of positive religion; it is far from fervid— saving some exceptions-in its denials;