FAUST. My sweet beloved child, don't misconceive
My meaning! Who dare says God's name?
Who dares to claim
That he believes in God?
And whose heart is so dead
That he has ever boldly said:
No, I do not believe?
Embracing all things,
Holding all things in being,
Does he not hold keep
You, me, even Himself?
Is not the heavens' great vault up there on high,
And here below, does not the earth stand fast?
Do everlasting stars, gleaming with love,
Not rise above us through the sky?
Are we not here and gazing eye to eye?
Oh, fill your heart right up with all of this,
And when you're brimming over the bliss
Of such a feeling, call it joy, or your heart, or love, or God!
I have no name for it. The feeling's all there is:
The name's mere noise and smoke - what does it do
But cloud the heavenly radiance?

MEPHISTOPHELES [with a solemn gesture].
False word and shape compel
Mind and space by this spell!
Be here, be there as well!
[They stop in astonishment and stare at each other.]

ALTMAYER. Where am I? What a wonderland.

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.

FAUST. I tell you, the mere pleasure's not the point!
To dizzying, painful joy I dedicate
Myself, to refreshing frustration, loving hate!
I've purged the lust for knowledge from my soul;
Now the full range of suffering it shall face,
And in my inner self I will embrace
The experience allotted to the whole
Race of mankind; my mind shall grasp the heights
And depths, my heart know all their sorrows and delights.
Thus I'll expand myself, and their self I shall be,
And perish in the end, like all humanity.

FAUST. I did not pursue you, you know;
You put your own head in the noose.
Don't catch the Devil and let go,
They say - it's harder when he's on the loose.

The little earth-god still persists in his old ways,
Ridiculous as ever, in his first days.
He'd have improved if you'd not given,
Him a mere glimmer of the light of heaven,
He calls it Reason, and it has only increased
His power to be beastlier than the beast.