Such, but more truly diabolical, is the irony with which in Faust the Spirit of Evil accompanies his victim on his fatal career, and with which, by way of interlude, he receives the visit of the young scholar.
But there is also a practical irony which is not inconsistent with the highest degree of wisdom and benevolence. A man of superior understanding may often find himself compelled to assent to propositions which he knows, though true in themselves, will lead to very erroneous inferences in the mind of the speaker, because either circumstances prevent him from subjoining the proper limitations, or the person he is addressing is incapable of comprehending them. So again a friend may comply with the wishes of one who is dear to him, though he foresees that they will probably end in disappointment and vexation, either because he conceives that he has no right to decide for another, or because he thinks it probable that the disappointment itself will prove more salutary than the privation. Such is the conduct of the affectionate father in the parable, which is a type of universal application: for in every transgression there is a concurrence of a depraved will, which is the vice of the agent, with certain outward conditions, which may be considered as a boon graciously bestowed, but capable of being perverted into an instrument of evil, and a cause of misery. It must have occurred to most men, more especially to those of sanguine temperament, and whose lives have been chequered with many vicissitudes, now and then to reflect how little the good and ill of their lot has corresponded with their hopes and fears. All who have lived long enough in the world must be able to remember objects coveted with impatient eagerness, and pursued with long and unremitting toil, which in possession have proved tasteless and worthless: hours embittered with anxiety and dread by the prospect of changes which brought with them the fulfilment of the most ardent wishes: events anticipated with trembling expectation which arrived, past, and left no sensible trace behind them: while things of which they scarcely heeded the existence, persons whom they met with indifference, exerted the most important influence on their character and fortunes. When,
