2. Goethe's Standard of the Soul, as Illustrated in Faust

What does the School Scene in Faust really bring before the souls of those who allow it to work upon them? Nothing more nor less than the nature which Faust manifests to the students—the Mephistophelian element in him. When a man has not conquered Mephistopheles in his own nature he can be manifested as this figure of Mephistopheles who confronts the pupils. It appears to me that in this scene Goethe allowed something from an earlier composition to remain—something that he would certainly have remodelled, if as he remodelled the older portions he had been able completely to understand the spirit which the whole work now reveals. In accordance with the import of this spirit all Mephistopheles' dealings with the students must also be experienced by Faust. In the earlier composition of Faust, Goethe was not intent upon giving everything so dramatic a form that it appears in some way as an experience of Faust himself. In the final elaboration of his poem he has simply taken over a great deal that is not an integral part of the spirit of the later dramatic composition.