MEPHISTOPHELES. Make good use of your time! It hurries past,
But order and method make time last,
So, friend, take my advice to heart:
Hear lectures on logic for a start.
Logic will train your mind all right;
Like inquisitor's boots it will squeeze you tight,,
Your thoughts will learn to creep and crawl
And never lose their way at all,
Not get criss-crossed as now, or go
Will-o'-the-wisping to and fro!
We'll teach you that your process of thinking
Instead of being like eating and drinking,
Spontaneous, instantaneous, free,
Must proceed by one and two and three.
Our thought-machine, as I assume,
Is in fact like a master-weavers loom:
One ****** of his foot, and a thousand threads
Invisibly shift, and hither and thither
The shuttles dart - just one he treads
And a thousand strands all twine together.
In comes your philosopher and proves
It must happen by distinct logical moves:
The first is this, the second is that,
And the third and fourth then follow pat;
If you leave out one or leave out two,
Then neither three nor four can be true.
The students applaud, they all say 'just so!'-
But how to weavers they still don't know.
When scholars study a thing, they strive
To **** it first, if it's alive;
Then they have the parts and they've lost the whole,
For the link that's missing was the living soul.
Encheiresis naturae, says Chemistry now -
Moccking itself without knowing how.