That what you once to do had thought
Like eating and drinking, extempore,
Requires the rule of one, two, three.
It is, to be sure, with the fabric of thought,
As with the _chef d'œuvre_ by weavers wrought,
Where a thousand threads one treadle plies,
Backward and forward the shuttles keep going,
Invisibly the threads keep flowing,
One stroke a thousand fastenings ties:
Comes the philosopher and cries:
I'll show you, it could not be otherwise:
The first being so, the second so,
The third and fourth must of course be so;
And were not the first and second, you see,
The third and fourth could never be.
The scholars everywhere call this clever,
But none have yet become weavers ever.
Whoever will know a live thing and expound it,
First kills out the spirit it had when he found it,
And then the parts are all in his hand,
Minus only the spiritual band!
Encheiresin naturæ's[19] the chemical name,
By which dunces themselves unwittingly shame.

_Scholar_. Cannot entirely comprehend you.

_Mephistopheles_. Better success will shortly attend you,
When you learn to analyze all creation
And give it a proper classification.