traces of it still linger, where Faust renounces theology; but even
there it is not theology alone that he renounces, but philosophy,
medicine, and jurisprudence as well, so that his renunciation is
entirely different from that of Marlowe's Faustus. In Goethe it is no
longer one doctrine or one point of view against another doctrine or
another point of view. It is life, vitality in all its forms, against
all mere doctrine whatsoever.

"Grey, dearest friend, is every theory,
But golden-green is the tree of life."

Thus the times had passed into a sense of the limits of theology such as
has been well expressed in Rossetti's lines--

"Let lore of all theology
Be to thee all it can be,
But know,--the power that fashions man
Measured not out thy little span
For thee to take the meting-rod
In turn and so approve on God."

So in Goethe we have the unsatisfied human spirit with its infinite
cravings and longings for something more than earth can give--something,
however, which is not separated from the earth, and which is entirely
different from theological dogma or anything of that sort. In this,
Goethe is expressing a constant yearning of his own, which illuminated
all his writings like a gentle hidden fire within them, hardly seen in
many passages and yet always somehow felt. It is _through_ the flesh
that he will find the spirit, _through_ this world that he will find the
next. The quest is ultimately the same as that of Marlowe, but the form