(b) If we transfer our attention now from the characteristic conditions of society we have hitherto mainly considered to the actual state of the world around us and its carefully articulated scheme of ethical, judicial, and political institutions, we shall not fail to observe that the material we have here offered us for figures of truly ideal type is of a very restricted character. The province here in which an entirely open field is presented for the display of independent purpose in its fullest individuality is limited both in its range and the measure of opportunity. The qualities that make a man thorough in his relations to his own family and his business, the ideals, in short, of honest citizens and excellent wives, in so far as will and activity are concentrated on the field in which it is still possible for a man to exercise his freepersonality, to carry out, in short, all that he has a mind to do, this is the prevailing feature of our modern society. Such ideals inevitably lack the depth of a fuller content, and the most significant feature of them is that of the attitude of the individual mind to their realization; for we find here the content is already presented by existing social institutions, and consequently the essential interest we take in it depends on the particular way in which that content is realized and appears in thepersonal life, its moral and inward significance. For this reason it is not possible, as in the case of former times, to create ideals from the positions of judgeship and kingship. If a man carries out his judicial functions nowadays in accordance with duty and the requirements of his office, he merely is acting within the bounds already marked out for him by legislative enactments in the social order as the sphere of his responsibilities. All that may characterize his tenure of office beyond this, as proceeding from personal qualities, such as suavity of demeanour or acuteness of judgment, is not the main point or the substantial content, but rather an aspect of it which it is possible to dispense with as something accidental. In the same way the monarchs of our own day are no longer, as was the case with the heroes of mythical times, in themselves the embodying and culminating unity of society itself, but rather a more or less unsubstantialcentrumaround which all legal and social institutions, however moulded in the course of time, group themselves in independent relations. All the most important functions of the executive have nowadays been separated from the royal prerogative. Kings do not lay down the law, control finance; the preservation of social order is not one of their most characteristic functions. Peace and war are determined through the particular circumstances of international politics, which it is not within their power exclusively either to direct or control; and, if it happens that any important decision with regard to either depends in the last resort on their judgment, such a decision is not generally so much in the nature of its substance the result of any personal preference, as it is the formal seal of monarchical authority on what is already determined on public grounds, the mere imposition of that which is strictly official rather than personal in its character. In the same way, a generalor field-marshal of our times has unquestionably great authority; objects and interests of profound importance are under his control and his circumspection; his courage, his determination, and his intelligence are involved in the weightiest decisions; nevertheless, whatever may be definitely traced to the essentially personal characteristics of the man has little opportunity for display in such a result. For, in the first place, the objects upon which his decisions turn are not of his own selection, and arise out of circumstances which lie beyond the sphere of his influence rather than are spontaneously fixed by himself; secondly, the means adopted to carry out such objects are not the sole result of his initiative. On the contrary, they are supplied him from sources which are not immediately under his authority or personal influence, but stand rather quite apart from the sphere of his individual powers as a general.
To sum up, then, though it is true that under the present condition of the civilized world a man may act independently for himself in many directions, the fact remains that in whatever direction he may turn he is still only a member of a fixed order of society and appears as such limited in his range rather than the vital representative and individual embodiment of society itself. He acts necessarily under such a condition of restriction, and our interest in such a personality, no less than in the content of his aims and activity, is entirely devoid of completeness. In the end we are invariably driven to concentrate our attention on the purely personal interest, how far, that is to say, he attained success, what was the nature of the obstacles and complications which, in either, through untoward chance or necessity, confronted or distracted his progress. And if it is, moreover, true that our modern personality is of infinite significance when we estimate the character thus manifested as a spiritual product, in its actions, sufferings, moral opinions, and conduct that is to say, it is also true that the moral content which is realized in such an individual is of a restricted character, rather than, as is the case in the heroic times, the realization of universal right, custom, and legality. The individual is no longer the exclusive vehicle and actual embodiment of these powers as in the previous times.
(c) Our interest, however, in and need to have presentedus such a completely realized individuality and living self-dependence will always persist, however strongly we may recognize the worth and reasonable nature of the more developed condition of an organized and trained civic society. It is this necessity which makes us regard with astonishment the youthful spirit of Schiller and Goethe when they sought to discover that lost self-sufficiency in the prevailing conditions of modern times. How do we find in particular this attempt is made by Schiller in his earliest works? Simply by a rebellion directed against the whole organic framework of civil society. Karl Moor, suffering injury from the existing order at the hands of those who abuse the power entrusted them, has the courage to break the bonds which bind him to law and order altogether, cuts himself adrift and creates for himself a heroic situation, in which he appears as the champion of right, and the self-constituted avenger of wrong, injustice, and oppression. None the less, how insignificant and isolated must a private revenge of this kind appear, if we estimate it from the practical point of view, according to the probability of its success; and, in fact, in one aspect of it, it already contains the germ of wrong which can only lead to the criminal act on which it will fall to pieces. No doubt, as personal to Karl Moor himself, this is a misfortune, a fatality, however, which, despite the tragical element in it, can only engraft on mere boys the blight of such a "robber-ideal." In much the same way the characters depicted in "Kabale und Liebe" suffer wrong under prevailing conditions of life, absorbed in the trivial facts and passions wholly personal to themselves. It is not until we come to the dramas of "Fiesco" and "Don Carlos" that we find characters of nobler significance and more substantive content, heroes, for example, resolved to liberate their country, or assert the liberty of religious conviction. With a nobility still more striking Wallenstein places himself at the head of his army that the crisis in the political situation may come to a focus. He is fully cognisant of the nature of the political forces upon which his only means of control, his army, is dependent; consequently he hesitates for long whether to follow his private inclination or his duty. He has barely arrived at a decision when he finds the instrument on which he most depended slip from his grasp; his means of actionis gone. For that which in the last instance unites the leading officers and generals is no gratitude for anything that may be due to him on the ground of past services rendered; his fame as a general has nothing to do with it, but rather the duty they owe to the universally recognized seat of government, the oath they have sworn to the head of the State, the emperor of the Austrian monarchy. He finds himself consequently in the end isolated, and is not so much fought with and overcome by an external foe as he is stripped of all means of executing his purpose. He is deserted by his army and from that moment is a lost man. The "Götz"[310]of Goethe starts from a dramatic situation of an analogous though somewhat inverse type. The times of Götz and Franz von Sickingen belong to the interesting epoch in which knight-errantry and the self-reliant individuality of the class of nobility is being superseded by the new creation of an external and legally constituted social order. To have selected precisely this critical time where we find the heroic characteristics of the Middle Ages and the legalized fabric of modern society meet and collide for the subject of his first artistic production shows much penetration on the part of Goethe. For Götz and Sickingen are still heroes in the genuine sense, who are resolved to exercise their influence over circumstances, whether immediately affecting them or of wider range, out of the resources of their own personalities, their courage, and their private sense of right. The new order of things involves Götz in acts of illegality and brings about the catastrophe of his life. It is only in the Middle Ages that knight-errantry and the relations of feudalism will supply a field entirely open to this type of self-reliant manhood. When we find, moreover, the legalized order co-ordinated more completely in its prosaic form, the predominant authority in fact, the adventurous self-dependence of knighthood is left outside it as an unrelated excrescence; and if an attempt is made to assert it as though it were still a valid means of attacking wrong, and assisting the oppressed, it becomes simply an object of ridicule, such as Cervantes illustrates for us in his "Don Quixote."
In this allusion to the opposition which exists betweentwo differently constitutedrégimesof society and the collision which results from action in defiance of their particular character we have already indicated what we have above defined generally as the closer determination and differentiation of the universal state of the world, that is to say, thesituationas generally expressed.
2. The Situation
The ideal world-condition which it is the function of art to present in contrast to prosaic reality we may conclude from our previous discussion to be merely a general background of society of a specific kind; it is merely thepossiblecondition necessary for the particular presentation, not the presentation itself. What we have hitherto directed attention to is, in fact, the general background upon which the living figures of art may appear. It is undoubtedly fructified with individuality and is supported by its self-subsistency; but as ageneralcondition it is not yet the active movement of particular individuals in the very form of life, just as we may say that the temple which Art erects is not as yet the representation of the personal godhead, but only encloses the germ of the same. For this reason we must in the first instance regard this world-condition as a kind of medium in repose, a harmony, so to speak, of forces which are operative in it, and to this extent it possesses a substantial consistency of uniform worth, which, however, must not be accepted as identical with what has been called "the age of innocence." For it is a condition in the fulness and sovereignty of whose ethical atmosphere the terrors of division only are slumbering because, in our contemplation of it, we have before us, for the first time, the aspect of its substantial unity, and consequently are only presented with individuality in its most universal terms, a mode of viewing it which makes it fade away as though without definition or any essential disturbance of its unity, instead of giving to it the full value of definite characteristics. But such characterization is essential to individuality. And if the Ideal is to appear asdefinite formit is necessary for it to escape from such pure universality, or in other words for it to give the universal a particular expression, and by so doing impart to it bothexistence and appearance. Art consequently has in this connection not only to translate into its medium auniversalworld-condition, but must proceed beyond this quite indefinite conception to the composition of pictures ofdefinitecharacter and action.
Regarded from the aspect under which it affectsindividualcharacter this general condition is the environment of circumstance which, according to its specifically detached form, tends to excite both collisions and development, forcing thereby the individuals thus affected to express theirnatureand exhibit such expression in a definite form. From the point of view of the world-condition this self-revelation of particular individuals appears as the passing of its universality into the distinct embodiments of living individuality, an aggregate over whichuniversal forcesstill assert themastery.[311]For the eternal powers operative in the world-process constitute the substantive content of the Ideal as specifically defined in what it essentially is. The mode of existence, however, which is realized through the bare form of external condition is unworthy of this content. For in the first place such a condition is associated with habit, and the habitual is no adequate determination of those profounder interests which are active inself-conscious mind.Furthermore, as we have observed, it was thecontingencyandcapriceof individuality, by virtue of whose spontaneous activity these very interests are permitted to appear in life; but this unessential contingency and caprice is again quite as little adequate to the substantive universality, which constitutes the notion of essential actuality. On these grounds respectively we are therefore compelled to seek an art-envisagement more worthy and better defined for the concrete content[312]of the Ideal.
This new configuration the universal powers can only retain in itsdeterminate existencein virtue of the fact that they are manifested in their essential modes of difference and movement, or, to put the matter more specifically, through their assertion of the contradictions which they relatively unfold. Two aspects of the process of individualization into which the universal thus passes must be here emphasized. In the first place, there is thesubstanceas anembracing sphere of universal forces through the differentiation indicated, which is broken from its substantive unity into its component parts; secondly, there are theindividuals, which spring forth as the active completion of these forces and give to them a specific objectification.
Now what we have characterized as the difference and opposition in which the world-condition, hitherto harmonious with the individuals conditioned by it, is involved, if we consider it from the point of view of universal condition, is the manifestation of theessential contentwhich it carries in itself. On the other hand we observe that the substantive universal in that condition is articulated through particular units in such a way that this very universal procures for itself determinate existence, albeit it is thus immersed in the appearance of chance, disunion, and division, an appearance, which, however, is rendered nugatory by the fact that it is the universal which thus appears.
The separation of these forces and their objectification[313]in individuals can, however, further take place under definite conditions and circumstances, under which and as a constituent aspect of which the entire objective appearance receives a determinate form, or as the stimulative impulse of this very realization. By themselves such circumstances are without interest[314], and it is only through their relation to mankind that they receive such a significance, through whose self-consciousness the content of these spiritual forces is carried actively into objective appearance. The external circumstances are consequently only to be regarded of significance in so far as they supply an essential relation to Spirit, in so far, that is to say, as they are comprehended by those individual units and afford them a stimulus to actualize their inwardspiritualneeds, the aims, ideas, the determinate substance, in short, of all that requires an individualembodiment. Regarded as a stimulating influence of this kind particular circumstances and conditions create what we have called thesituation, which is specifically presupposed in the actual self-expansion and activity of all that still lies undeveloped in the universal world-condition; it is for this reason we have considered the previous determination of the notion of the situation as necessary to any inquiry into the true constituents ofaction.
The situation expressed in general terms is in one aspect of it the circumstanceparticularizedto the point ofdefinite character, and under this characterization it is, to put it another way, the stimulating impulse to a particular expression of content, which it is the function of artistic presentation to transmute into a specific form of existence. Looked at from this latter point of view especially the situation offers a wide field for contemplation, inasmuch as it has ever been one of the most essential objects of art to discover situations of real interest, that is to say, of such a kind as will present to us the profound and weighty interest, the truest content of spiritual life. The requirements of the several arts in this respect no doubt differ. Sculpture, for example, is pre-eminently limited in its reference to the inwardly detailed variety of situations. Painting and music are already operative in a freer and more comprehensive medium. Finally, we are least able among them all to exhaust the possibilities of poetry in this respect.
Since we have not yet arrived at that portion of our subject where we deal directly with the specific arts, it will be sufficient here to draw attention to a few of the most general aspects of that inquiry, which we may subdivide in the following manner.
First, we would observe that the situation still retains the form ofuniversalityand thereby ofindeterminacy, so long as it is undeveloped and without definite characterization; we have, consequently, at first present before us a situation which is without situation. For the form of indeterminacy is itself onlyoneform as opposed to its contradiction of determinacy, and is shown to be, by virtue of this very contrast, a one-sided aspect which as such possesses a determinate relation.
Secondly, however, the situation passes in separation awayfrom this universality, and becomes certainly determinate to that extent, but at first with a determinacy which produces no destructive consequences, that is to say, it is one which offers no stimulus toactive oppositionand its necessary resolution.
Thirdly, we find the element ofdisunionin all its vigour creating by the definition of its opposed characteristics the essence of the situation, which thereby is carried into acollision, which again proceeds to reactions, and, as such, forms the point of departure to the conception of artistic action properly so called.
We may, in fact, characterize the situation generally as theintermediate planebetween the universal world-condition still in a state of equilibrium, and the concrete action unfolded in all its tendency to movement and reaction, a position which gives to it the characteristics of both extremes, and enables us to pass over from the one to the other.
(a) The Absence of Situation[315]
We passed from the notion of the universal world-condition in presenting to ourselves the form of it as essentially individual self-subsistency. Self-subsistency, however, regarded simply in its essential form, presents to us in the first instance merely the secure repose upon its own resources in its bare tranquillity. The form as thus defined is carried into no relation with another, but remains at one with itself in inclusion with its unity both, within and without. This presents us with the situation which is without situation, an illustration of which we may take those ancient types of temple-building dating from the earliest days of art, whose character of profound immutable seriousness, of tranquil, nay even of austere and grandiose, dignity has been the object of imitation even in more recent times proceeding on lines of a similar type. The Egyptian and most ancient Greek sculptures will further illustrate for us the same kind of indeterminate situation. In the plastic art of Christianity, especially if we consider particular examples of early bust-sculpture, we shall find both God the Father and Christ are presented in a similar spirit. Indeed, such a mode of delineationis peculiarly adapted to present us with the secure substantiality of the Divine, whether such be apprehended as a definite and particular Godhead, or is grasped as essentially absolute personality; and this is so in virtue of the very defect of such a representation, that it gives us portraits of persons of middle-age which are without any trace of definite situations, in which the character of the individual as such can reveal itself, and only the attempt is made to express the entirety of determinate character in its quality of stability[316].
(b) The Situation defined in its Harmlessness[317]
The second point to emphasize is, inasmuch as the situation generally is reached in thedefinitionof form, the passage from this tranquillity and blessed repose, or from the unbroken severity and force of self-consistency, forms which subsist in unfeatured equilibrium, that is to say, immutable both within and without, have to be set in motion and surrender their undressed simplicity. This bare progression to a more specific manifestation in some particular mode of expression is what we may describe certainly as definite situation, but a situation which has not yet asserted conflicting elements in itself, and is fully ripe for collision.
This first step in the process of individualized expression is consequently of a kind that carries with it no further result; it is set in no antagonistic opposition to something else, in a relation which evokes both collision and reaction; it is already in its character of unconstrainedness finished and complete in itself. With such a type of situation we may associate those which are mainly to be regarded as a kind of play, in so far as all that proceeds or is carried out in them indicates no real seriousness of purpose. For all earnestness in any kind of activity is generally the result of oppositions and contradictions, which drive on their way to the final removal or victory of one side or the other. For this reason situations of this kind cannot themselves be identified with actions, nor are they the stimulative impulseof actions; they are indeed, in a certain aspect, of determinate character, but they are either circumstances of the most trivial significance, or a form of action which is without an essentially serious object, which either is the result of conflicts, or is able to carry the action yet further into conflicts.
(α) The first thing to arrest us in this process is the passage generally from the repose of the unfeatured situation to a condition of emotion and expression: this is asserted partly as purely mechanical motion, in part also as the first impulse and satisfaction of any internal want. The Egyptians, for example, represented the gods in their sculpture with closely locked limbs. The Greeks, on the contrary, released both arms and legs, and endowed the bodily form with all that is appropriate to the advance and general variety of movement. Permanent repose, a seated attitude, a tranquil gaze, are all of them simple conditions under which the Greeks apprehended their gods; they are modes which unquestionably gave to the self-subsistent figure of Godhead a certain characterization, but one nevertheless which is not carried forward into other relations and oppositions, but rather remains enclosed within itself, and permanently significant as such. Situations of this simple kind attach in a particular way to sculpture, and the ancients, above all others, were inexhaustible in discovering fit subjects for such a condition of unconstrained freedom. In this respect they showed an extraordinary insight; for it is precisely through contrast with the insignificance of the particular situation that the majesty and self-subsistency of the ideal types of the Greek Pantheon were made to appear so striking. It was, in fact, through the harmlessness and insignificance of what appeared to be done or left undone that the blessed peaceful tranquillity and immutability of the immortal gods was brought most clearly to consciousness. The situation merely indicates the particular character of either god or hero in quite a general way, such as brings them into no relation with other gods, or at least into no relation suggestive of hostility or division.
(β) It is a further step in the direction of more defined situation, when we find in such any particular purpose already represented in it, an activity which stands in definiterelation to something external, and the self-subsistent figure itself expressed as within the sphere of such purpose or activity. Even objectification such as these, however, which have no real disturbing influence upon the tranquillity and cheerful blessedness of the figures represented, are rather to be regarded as particular modes of presentation incidental to this very quality of cheerful contentment. The invention of the Greeks was here, too, exceptionally thoughtful and fruitful. It is essential to the unconstrainedness of such situations that the activity here presented should merely indicate an action in its initial stage in such a way that no further developments or oppositions are likely to proceed from it, but that all that appears necessary to complete it should be found enclosed in the action depicted.
As an illustration of this the situation of the Belvedere Apollo is seized at the moment when he moves forward in wrathful majesty after slaying the Python with his arrow. A situation of this kind has not the grandiose simplicity of the earlier Greek sculpture, which asserts for our intelligence the repose and open clarity of the gods by means of expressed actions of less significance. Take the case of Aphrodite peacefully gazing at herself while emerging from her bath in full possession of her charms; or of fauns and satyrs at play, play that is wholly absorbed in itself; or of that famous satyr who dandled the young Bacchus in his arms, while he looks down upon him with infinite tenderness and grace; to say nothing of the endless variety of unconstrained activities in which Eros is depicted. Such are a few examples of this type of situation. If the action is of more concrete character we are confronted with a more involved situation, which, at least for the artistic presentment of the Greek gods as self-substantive powers, is less appropriate. In a case of this kind the pure universality of the individual god is less able to transpierce the accumulated detail of the particular action which he expresses. The Mercury of Pigalli, which is a present of Louis XV to the exposition of statuary in Sanssouci, is fastening on his winged sandals. This is a perfectly harmonious action. The Mercury of Thorwaldsen, on the contrary, is depicted under a situation which is almost too complicated for sculpture. He listens attentively to the flute of Marsyas. At thesame time he is craftily spying him to see how he may slay him while his hand grasps maliciously for the dagger he has concealed. In opposition to this, if we may add one more illustration from a more modern work of art, is that representation by Rudolf Schadow, of a maiden binding her sandals in much the same simple manner as we find in the case of Mercury. In this example the naïveté of the situation does not contain the interest we experience when it is a god who exhibits such unconstrained action. When it is only a maiden who fastens her sandals or spins, there is little else to engage our attention but the simple action, which is by itself of little significance or importance.
(γ) We shall find further, if we follow up the above train of thought, that the more closely defined situation can be treated more generally, as merely a more or less definite stimulus presenting theopportunityfor further development of expressed action of wider range related to the primary subject with varying degrees of affinity. Many lyrical poems have what we may call an occasional situation of this kind. A particular mood or a certain atmosphere of emotion is a situation which can be arrested poetically for consciousness, and, furthermore, in particular relation to external circumstances, festivals, or public victories, is able to carry us forward to this or that artistic expression, either of more comprehensive or restricted range, and in every kind of embodiment of feeling and idea. Pindar's odes of victory are supreme examples of this type of occasional poetry. Goethe, too, has selected as the subject-matter of his muse many lyrical situations of a similar character; and, in fact, if we look closely into the matter, we shall hardly be wrong in calling his "Werther" a poem of occasion. It is through the medium of "Werther" that Goethe has elaborated the convulsions and anguish of his own heart, incorporated, in short, the facts of his own experience in a work of art. This, after all, is true of every lyrical poet; he gives poetical expression to that which nearly affects him, and thereby throws the windows of his heart open to the fresh air. That which has hitherto been sealed up within is released in the external object, from which our humanity has freed itself, just as we are the lighter for the rain of tears, in which the sorrow is wept away. So Goethe, as in fact he has told ushimself, by his composition of Werther, liberated himself from the mastery and pressure of his heart troubles. At the same time we must point out that this last-mentioned situation is not really appropriate to the type with which we are now dealing; it obviously presents the profoundest contradiction in itself which calls for resolution. No doubt in the kind of lyrical situation we have identified with "the occasional" we may have declared a circumstance objectively determined, in other words, an activity in close relation to the external world; but, on the other hand, we find the poetic temperament equally able to withdraw itself within the atmosphere it creates wholly free from its external environment, and to make that inward world which is the combined product of circumstance and emotion its true point of departure.
(c) The Collision
All the situations to which we have hitherto directed attention are, as already observed, neither true actions in themselves nor indeed the stimulative source of such action. Their determination was to a greater or less degree the purely occasional circumstance or condition, or an action in itself of no significance, in which a substantive content was expressed in such a way that its specific character appeared as a mere harmless play, in which nothing of a truly serious nature was implied. The full seriousness and weighty import of a situation can only begin when we find in it the element of disruption, where the determination itself exposes an essential aspect of difference, and by its opposition to something else becomes the source of a collision.
Thecollisionarises, as we are now considering it, in an act ofviolation, which is unable to retain its character as such, but is compelled to find a new principle of unity; it is a change in the previously existent condition of harmony, a change which is still in process. The collision is, however, not anaction, and is to be taken simply as stimulus to action to all that characterizes the situation. And this is true, although the contradiction in which the collision is enclosed may be the result of previous action. As an example of this we may cite the trilogies of the ancients,which carry forward the main theme by presenting at the close of one drama the collision which forms the stimulative impulse of the next, which, in its return, renders necessary the resolution which is carried out by the third. And, moreover, for this very reason that the collision always requires some resolution attendant on this conflict of opposing elements, the more a situation is full of it the more it is peculiarly adapted to the subject-matter of dramatic art, it being the especial claim of that art to present beauty in its completest and profoundest development. Sculpture, on the contrary, is not wholly suited to give embodiment to any action, through which the great spiritual forces are manifested either in their division or reconciliation, and indeed the art of painting, despite its more extended spatial significance, is only able to objectify a single moment of action.
These situations of tragic significance introduce a peculiar difficulty in dealing with them which is inherent in their very conception. For inasmuch as they obviously arise from violations of the world-condition they offer to our consideration circumstances which are unable to continue as they are, which render necessary something of a remedial nature to reclothe them. But the beauty of the Ideal consists precisely in its undisturbed unity, repose, and consummation with itself. The collision, on the other hand, disturbs this harmony of what is truly real and ethical, and drives this unity of the Ideal into discord and opposition. Through the representation of such disruption the Ideal itself suffers violation. The function of art will undoubtedly consist partly in preventing the entire destruction of free beauty in this difference, and partly in only carrying this breach of unity and the conflict it occasions to a point in which harmony may again be recovered as the result of such a conflict and its resolution, and in this way become manifest for the first time in its essential perfection. It is, however, impossible to determine on a general principle the precise limit to which such discordance may be carried inasmuch as the several arts in this respect preserve their independent character. The medium of the subjective idea can support a far intenser disruption than that of the plastic arts[318]. Inother words, poetry is quite within its right when it breaks up the unity of the world of the imagination even to the point of the extremest form of desperation, and in its delineation of external objects to that of absolute ugliness. In the case of the plastic arts, on the contrary, in painting, that is to say, and even more so in sculpture, the external form remains in unalterable fixity; it can neither be removed nor lightly passed over in such a way that it again disappears. Under such conditions it would be a serious defect to represent once and for all an ugliness, which could not possibly be transmuted. Consequently all that would be quite compatible in dramatic poetry, which is able to represent a momentary appearance that again vanishes, is not within the province of the plastic arts.
In discussing the more obvious types of collision we can only in this portion of our inquiry indicate the most general points of view. We would particularly draw attention to three fundamental aspects under which they may be co-ordinated.
First, there are those collisions which proceed from purelynatural, that is to say, physical conditions, in so far as these are characterized with qualities which are negative or evil and consequently discordant.
Secondly, we have collisions which are of aspiritualnature, but which depend onnaturalconditions, conditions which may in themselves have a positive[319]character yet for the spirit contain within themselves the seeds of difference and contradiction.
Thirdly, there are divisions which are caused entirely by disruption in the Spirit alone; to these alone we are justified in attaching the peculiar interest of contradiction which is bound up with genuinehuman activity.
(α) Now with reference to the first type of conflicting forces—for the reason that here it is only external Nature, through the maladies and other evils and infirmities which are incidental to her creating, conditions which destroy the pre-existent harmony of life, replacing such with a state of antagonism—such can at most merely serve as a stimulus forsomething outside them. Regarded wholly by themselves such collisions are of no interest; they are the subject-matter of art simply for the sake of the disruption which may follow as aconsequenceof some natural misfortune. The "Alcestis" of Euripides, we may add, too, that of Gluck, the subject of whose opera is practically the same, are examples of this; in both the sickness of Admetus is necessarily presupposed. That sickness merely by itself could not fitly supply a subject for artistic treatment. It only becomes, even in the handling of Euripides, associated with it by virtue of the individual characters, who, on account of such misfortune, are compelled to face a further collision. It is the word of the oracle that Admetus must die unless another will pass to the underworld for his sake. Alcestis, out of love for her husband, devotes herself to such a sacrifice, resolves to die, in order to restrain Death from touching her beloved, the father of her children, the king. In the Philoctetes of Sophocles a physical malady is also the cause of the collision. Here the Greeks during their voyage to Troy place the man who is suffering from a wounded foot, caused by the serpent's bite in Chrysas, on the island of Lemnos. In this case, too, the physical mishap is merely the extreme meeting point and incentive of a further collision. For, according to the prophecy, Troy can only fall when the arrows of Hercules are in the hands of the storming army. Philoctetes refuses to give them up because he has been compelled for nine years to suffer the martyrdom of his banishment. This refusal, no less than the fact of his unrighteous desertion from which it springs, could have been followed by every variety of result other than that which took place; the real interest accordingly does not centre in the malady and its physical necessity, but in the opposition which arises from the refusal of Philoctetes to surrender the arrows. The case of the plague in the Greek camp before Troy is very similar; although this is already represented entirely as the consequence of former transgression, as a punishment, in short, a mode of statement more adapted to epic than dramatic poetry, nevertheless it is closely associated with evils incidental to natural misfortune such as storm, shipwreck, and drought. As a rule, however, art will not represent such mischance as mere accident, but ratheras an obstruction and misfortune whose necessity simply consists in assuming precisely this particular form rather than another.
(β) But, to turn now to our second type of the collision, inasmuch as the external powers of Nature are not that which is most essential to the interests and contradictions of human life, in cases where they are found closely associated with such spiritual relations, they will present themselves merely as the ground from which the collision breaks forth in its true character. This is the point of view from which we must regard all situations, where we trace the original source of conflict in the facts of naturalbirth.We will shortly distinguish between three particular cases of this.
(αα) In the first place we have the right that is bound up with natural condition, that which constitutes relationship and inheritance for example, which for the very reason that it stands in close connection with Nature carries with it a number of relations that are bound up with her, and this though the right, the fact is one and only one. The most important example of this is the right of succession to the throne. It is important to observe that this right must not as yet, in relation to the collisions which spring from it, be absolutely fixed by rule, otherwise the resultant conflict will be of quite another character. If, that is to say, the right of succession is not as yet entirely controlled by legislation and the social order which it implies, no wrong will necessarily attach to any one of the alternatives, namely, whether it be an older or younger brother, or any other relative of the royal household who obtains the sovereignty. But inasmuch as sovereignty is a qualitative rather than a quantitative possession, which cannot like gold and other material goods be divided up according to a just principle, dispute and contention is inevitably the result of such a form of succession. When Œdipus, for example, leaves the throne of Thebes without a ruler, he leaves his two sons confronting each other with a right and claim of equal strength. The brothers arrange to occupy the throne alternately from year to year. Eteocles, however, breaks the compact and Polynices brings an army against Thebes to enforce his right. The antagonism of brothers has always been in the history of art a fruitfulsource of collision; it commences indeed with the story of Cain who slew his brother Abel. In the tale of Shah-Rameh, the earliest example we have of a Persian book of heroic legend, it is a contention of throne succession which is the source of the most varied conflicts. In this Feridu divided the Earth among his three brothers. Selm receives as his portion Rum and Chawer; Turan and Osin are given to Thur, and Fredysh becomes lord of the Earth from Iran. All three, however, claim the land which belongs to his brothers, and endless quarrels and wars are the result. In the Middle Ages we find just the same countless examples of family and dynastic broils. Such dissensions, however, appear in themselves to be due to accidental circumstance. It is not necessary that brothers should be at enmity; particular circumstances and more important causes must be attached, such as the in itself tragic birth of the sons of Œdipus, or, as we find in "the Bride of Messina," the author is at pains to shift the quarrel of the brothers on to still more fateful circumstances. In Shakespeare's "Macbeth" a similar collision is the foundation of the tragic dénouement. Duncan is king and Macbeth, as his nearest and oldest relation, is consequently heir to the throne with a right precedent even to Duncan's sons. The primary incentive of Macbeth's crime is the wrong which the king has done him in naming his own son as heir to the throne. This justification of Macbeth, which is supported by the chronicles of the time, Shakespeare has entirely passed over, because, it was solely his object to bring into startling relief the repulsive aspect of Macbeth's ambitious passion, in order thereby to make his work agreeable to King James, who would be naturally interested in finding the crime of Macbeth depicted without extenuating circumstances. As a consequence we can find no sufficient reason why, under Shakespeare's handling of the subject, Macbeth fails to murder the sons of Duncan no less than their father, lets them escape in fact; nor can we understand why they are wholly overlooked by the nobles. However, the entire collision upon which, the drama of Macbeth turns carries us beyond the particular type which we are now mainly considering.
(ββ) In thesecondof our examples in the type of collision[320]we are now discussing we find the reverse situation to that just discussed, and it consists in this that difference of birth, which carries within itself awrongsis moreover, through ethicalcustomorlaw, held within the chains of an insuperablebarrier, so that it receives at the same time the appearance of an innate wrong, and consequently is the cause of collisions. Slavery, serfdom, differences of caste, the position of Jews in many states and, with certain qualifications, even the contrast between an aristocratical and citizen class are all of them cases for consideration under this head. The conflict here consists in this, that on the one hand humanity has rights, relations, desires, aims and requirements which belong to it essentially in virtue of its fundamental idea, which nevertheless in each one of the above mentioned examples meet with dangerous restriction and obstruction owing to the compulsive necessity of natural birth. On this type of collision we have the following remarks to offer.
The differences which obtain between classes, such as the ruled and the rulers, are, no doubt, essential to the notion of state-life, and are founded on reason, for they are caused by the inevitable articulation of the organic community, and assert themselves as such through the specific forms of occupation, disposition, modes of life, and general levels of education in all their branches. It is another matter, however, when these differences as they affect individuals are determined absolutely by the accident of birth, so that the individual man from the very start is not on account of any quality in himself, but solely through the accident of Nature, irrevocably relegated to a particular class or caste. In such a case it is obvious these differences appear as innate and are, moreover, though purely external, girt with force in its highest and most aggressive mode. We are not bound to ask ourselves how this fixity and compulsive restraint came originally into existence. For the nation may originally have been united, and the natural distinction between freeman and serf been only evolved at a later time, or the difference between castes, classes, and privileged persons may have grown out of earlier distinctions of nations and races, as many are inclined to think is the explanation of the caste distinctions of India. All this is a matter of no moment tous here. The main point simply consists in this, that vital relations of this kind, which regulate the entire course of human existence, have their source in natural conditions. On general principles, no doubt, distinctions of class can be justified, but at the same time no individual should be wholly robbed of his right to determine as his choice may direct to which particular class he shall belong. Natural capacity, talents, adaptability, and education are the only right means to direct the way and decide in this respect. When, however, the right of choice is debarred from birth onwards and a man is made thereby dependent on Nature and its contingency, there is always the possibility of conflict within the sphere of this necessity between the states thus enforced on the individual by natural conditions and the measure of spiritual education which he may acquire and the higher demand which it may justly make. This is a pathetic and unfortunate type of collision which has its source in an essentialwrongwhich the freedom of art is quite unable to respect. In the social condition of our own days distinctions of class, with a few exceptions, are not determined by birth. The ruling dynasty and the peerage are the only exceptions, and these depend on a higher conception of the State altogether. For the rest, the mere fact of birth creates no essential distinction that can ultimately determine the class to which a man may belong if he is otherwise competent to join it. For this reason, however, we must condition the demand for entire liberty of choice with the requirement that in education, knowledge, ability, and general tastes the individual is equal to the particular society with which he may desire to associate. If, on the contrary, the fact of a man's birth presents an insuperable obstacle to such claims, which he would otherwise be quite competent to satisfy by virtue of his own vigorous activity, then such a situation must appear to us not merely a misfortune, but essentially a wrong under which he is compelled to suffer injury. He is thus separated by a purely natural partition wall which is essentially unjust, that is to say, one beyond which his talents, sentiments, and general education have already raised him, from that which he was competent to reach, and a purely natural condition whose legalized fixity has been determined wholly by capricepresumes to oppose insuperable barriers to the freedom rightly demanded by all spiritual life.
To examine more closely the nature of this type of collision we shall do well to look at it from three different points of view, each of which are of essential importance.
In thefirstplace, it is necessary that the individual should, in the strength of his own spiritual resources, already really have passed beyond the natural barriers whose opposition is to give way before his aims and desires, otherwise the demand is simply an act of folly. If, for example, a domestic servant, whose education and ability is merely that of a menial, falls in love with a princess or a lady of high society, or, inversely, either of these with him, such a love affair is both absurd and devoid of all taste, and this is so even if the artistic representation of this passion display all the depth and interest of which an ardent heart is capable. In such a case it is not so much the difference of birth which creates the obstacle; this is rather to be found in the entire content of interests, education, aims of life, requirements, and mode of sentiment which distinguish in status, material resources, and social qualifications a lady in high position from a domestic servant. If love is, as in the case assumed, the one and only bond of a union, and is associated with nothing else throughout the entire sphere of all that men and women have to live through in just accordance with that which a particular status requires from their intelligence and experience, it must necessarily remain devoid of content and is simply a union of the senses. Love, to be wholly complete, is nothing less than a real harmony of the entire conscious life, in which the full nobility of sentiment can be shared and appreciated.
Thesecondcase we wish to examine is that in which the dependence of birth surrounds an essentially free human life and the objects it may rightly set before itself with legalized fetters of obstruction. This collision also presents an element unadapted for artistic treatment, opposed, that is to say, to the notion of the Ideal, despite its love to make use of it and the facility with which it may attempt to do so. If distinctions of birth through positive laws and the powers which support them create a persistent wrong, as doubtless may be the case where a man is born an outcast or a Jew,he obviously, from one point of view, is entirely right in holding with all the strength of his inward life, which rebels before such a barrier, that the same is dissolvable, that he, in fact, recognizes his individuality as apart from it. To oppose such restraint appears to be wholly justifiable. But in so far as it becomes impossible through the force of existing circumstances to overcome such a barrier, which is consequently converted into an irrevocable necessity, a situation of this kind can only be regarded as a misfortune which itself is not without an element of falsity. For the rational man is inevitably forced, in so far as he is unable to subjugate the opposing necessity, to submit to the same: it is not in reason to continue to fight against the inevitable, but rather quietly to let it pass over him. He must, in fact, abandon the sense of interest in and need of that which is, by virtue of this barrier, swept from his reach, and suffer what he fails to overcome with the quiet courage of passive endurance. Where a struggle is of no avail it is the part of wisdom to be quit of it in order at the least to retire into theformalindependence of personal liberty. By doing so the forces of wrong have no longer power over him; if, on the contrary, he battles against them he must necessarily experience his dependence in its fullest extent. At the same time it remains unquestionable that neither this abstraction of formal independence any more than that content which can lead to no result are truly beautiful when artistically considered.
There is athirdtype of collision which, while being immediately connected with that we have just considered, is equally removed from the genuine Ideal. It is to be found affecting that class of persons who attempt to assert some privilege which the mere fact of birth concedes them and supports with the full weight of a religious title, positive enactments, and the prevailing conditions of society. In such a case, it is true, we have an independent position in harmonious relation with what is externally realized in positive institutions, but when considered as the mere consistency of that which is in itself unjust and irrational it is quite as much as in our former example a purely formal independence, and the notion of the Ideal disappears. We may, no doubt, very possibly persuade ourselves that theIdeal is retained because we have here an appearance as though the personal life is in full union with the universal and its legalized constitution, remaining consistently in such unity; but it will be observed that here the universal does not assert its dominating power in theparticular person, as we found the heroic Ideal demanded, but only in and through the public authority of positive laws and their administration; moreover, what the individual here asserts is assumed to be essentially wrong, and he loses in consequence the substantive significance which we have seen to be also essential to the Ideal. An affair in which the ideal subject of art is concerned must itself be at bottom true and justifiable. To this type belong the legalized lordship exercised over slaves or serfs, the right to rob a foreigner of his liberty, or to sacrifice the same to the gods. No doubt it is quite possible that such a right may be sustained by individuals with unquestioning belief that they are justified in so doing, as in India, for example, the higher castes make use of their privileges, or as Thoas ordered the sacrifice of Orestes, or in Russia the lords are wont to flout their serfs. In fact, those who are in authority are very likely to execute such rights as legalized rights on account of the interest they may have in preserving them. But in a case of this kind their right will be merely the unrighteous right of the barbarian, and they must themselves appear to us in the category of barbarians, at least, who resolve to carry out and perfect what is essentially injustice. The legalized form, under which the individual shelters himself, is, for the time to which it belongs, and its spirit and the educational standard adapted to it, no doubt to be respected and justified. But if we reflect upon it rationally and apart from that, it is wholly positive[321], containing no intrinsic claims or authority. Moreover, if the individual makes use of his privileges for purely personal objects, under the mastery of particular passions and the aims of mere selfishness, in addition to our barbarian we get a bad character to boot.
Poets have frequently sought to arouse our pity, and it may be our fear as well, through the presentation of conflicts of this kind, following the rule of Aristotle, who lays itdown that fear and compassion are objects of tragedy. Strictly speaking we experience neither fear nor reverence when confronted with rights which only exist among barbarians and are the misfortune of uncivilized times. Any compassion which such situations are likely to arouse is almost immediately converted into a spirit of indignant hostility. The only true artisticdénouementof such a conflict is one where we find such illegitimate rights are not carried into execution, as, for example, neither Iphigenia nor Orestes are respectively sacrificed in Aulis and Tauris.
(γγ) Thethirdand last class of that type of collision which is based on purely natural condition is that which is duetto personal passion caused by natural peculiarities of temperament and character. The jealousy of Othello is a supreme example of this. Ambition, avarice, nay, even love itself in certain aspects, will furnish other illustrations. Collision of this kind is only properly referred to such passions in so far as individuals, seized and dominated exclusively by the power of such emotions, are thereby forced into antagonism with the truly ethical constitution and inherently justifiable course of human existence, and consequently are plunged into a still more serious conflict.
This carries our inquiry into the consideration of that third subdivision of our original classification of general types of collision, the type of which is based exclusively upon the conflict of spiritual forces, in so far as such opposition is the result of human activity.
(γ) We have already observed when dealing with purely natural collisions that they only form the starting-point as it were for further states of contradiction. And the same is more or less true of the second type of conflict already adverted to. All these, in artistic compositions of really profound significance, are unable to remain in such forms of opposition as we have hitherto discussed. Such disturbances and conflicting elements merely substantiate the opportune moment, out of which the true and essential forces of spiritual life will clash together in opposition and contend for the mastery. That which is spiritual can only be set in activity by virtue of spirit. Consequently the oppositions of Spirit can only win reality in actual human deed, can only thus manifest themselves in their true character.
The position we have arrived at, then, is this. We have on one hand a difficulty, an obstacle, a violation effected through something human life has carried out in action. We have on the other a violation of interests and forces intrinsically just and right. By treating these two forms of determination in close juxtaposition we, for the first time, are able to gauge the full depth of this last type of collision.
We may distinguish between the prominent examples which fall within the consideration of this class of cases as follows:
(αα) In passing from the sphere of that type of conflict which we have pointed out rests for its primary basis on what is entirely due to Nature we observe that the first class of cases which confronts us on crossing the boundary to the consideration of a new type is closely related to that we have just left behind us. If, then, human action is assumed to be responsible for the collision, it will follow that what is carried out as natural through human action, that is to say, in so far as humanity is not entirelyspiritual, will consist in this that a particular action is performedunconsciouslyand without purpose, which will be found afterwards to be a positive infraction of the forces of self-respecting and civilized society. The consciousness which any man latterly acquires of the injurious nature of an action, of which he was previously unaware, will drive him who still accepts the responsibility of such an action into division and conflict. The ground of such a conflict, in fact, consists in the opposition with which the mind is confronted between that which was actually before itwhen the action took place, and the subsequent discovery of all that was reallyimpliedin the act itself. The cases of Œdipus and Ajax will at once suggest themselves as examples. The action of Œdipus, if viewed simply with reference to his will and knowledge, amounted merely to the fact that he killed a perfect stranger in a quarrel. The unconscious act was the reality in its full significance, that is to say, the murder of his own father. Ajax, in a fit of frenzy, slaughtered the cattle of the Greeks believing them to be the Greek chieftains. On regaining his senses and discovering what he really did he is seized with a sense of shame which drives him into collision with himself. We must, however, observe that what has beenunconsciously violated by a man in the type of collision we are now examining ought to be something which he himself, when fully in a position to judge, would both honour and revere. If such a reverential attitude has its roots merely in personal idiosyncrasy or superstition, such a collision can arouse, to say the least, no really profound interest.
(ββ) Further, inasmuch as in the cases we are now discussing the conflict arises from aspiritualviolation of spiritual forces through human action, the collision more generally appropriate to the type will consist in a violation which is perpetrated with full consciousnessproceeding out of suchand the intention it implies. The point of departure here may centre again in passion, violence, folly, and other similar qualities. The Trojan war, for example, originates in the rape of Helen. Agamemnon afterwards sacrifices Iphigenia, and so violates the feelings of her mother, slaying thus the darling of her womb. Clytemnestra, in consequence, murders her spouse. Orestes avenges the murder of his father and king by assassinating his mother. In a similar way in "Hamlet" the father is sent to his grave by a stratagem, and the mother of Hamlet insults themanesof the dead man by a precipitate marriage with his murderer.
In the case of these collisions as in those already considered, the main point is this, that humanity is engaged in a self-imposed conflict with what is intrinsically moral, true, and worthy of reverence. If this is not so, then, for all who are really conscious of what is moral and right, such a conflict can only appear without worth or material significance, as is the case, for example, in the famous episode of the Mahâ-Bhârata, with reference to Nalas and Damayanti. King Nalas marries the princess Damayanti, who is allowed the privilege of making a free choice among her sisters. All the other suitors are genii floating in the air; Nalas stands on the Earth alone as a man, and she has the good sense to select him. The genii are consequently much enraged, and watch for the moment when they may find King Nalas tripping. For many years they can bring to his charge no offence, as he is capable of none. At last, however, they obtain power over him, for he commits a great crime; the crime is this, namely, that after making water, he treads with hisfoot upon the earth thus watered. According to Indian ideas this is a severe offence which cannot escape punishment. From that moment the genii have him in their power; one renders all his amatory desires abortive, another excites his brother against him, and finally poor Nalas, after forfeiting his throne and being reduced to beggary, is driven forth a wanderer in wretchedness with Damayanti. At length he is even compelled to part with her, until, as the tale will have it, after many adventures, he is once more set on the throne of his original happiness. The real conflict upon which for the Indians of old days the whole of this story was supported was an essential desecration of a sacred thing: according to our notions the tale is absurd from beginning to end.
(γγ) Thirdly, it is not necessary that the disruption should be direct, or, in other words, that the action taken solely by itself should be an act of collision; the fact of collision may well appear out of relations and circumstances of opposition and antagonism which are forced upon the mind during the process of that action's execution. Juliet and Romeo are in love with one another. In the mere fact of their love there is nothing to suggest disunion. But they are aware that their families are living in mutual hate and hostility, that their parents will never consent to the marriage, and they are carried into collision by virtue of this preassumed situation of antagonistic forces.
We must content ourselves here with these very general remarks upon the relation which the determinate situation occupies in its opposition to the universal world-condition. Were we to extend our inquiry into all the divergent aspects, modifications, and nuances of the subject, attempting thereby to express an opinion upon every possible form of situation, this chapter would alone present us with sufficient matter for discussions of endless prolixity and diffuseness. The discovery of different situations implies a content of exhaustless possibilities; and in every particular example the essential question involved is how such may be adapted to the treatment of any specific art, in true subordination to the principles and character of such an art. To the fairy story much is permitted which is forbidden to a more stringent mode of artistic representation. And we may say that generally thediscovery[322]of the situation is a critical point in the process of art-production which often presents great difficulty to artists. In our own days the difficulty of obtaining a suitable subject-matter as a source for the circumstances and situations which the artist requires is a common complaint. At first sight it may appear to us more in keeping with our notion of poet if he borrow from his own resources, and invent situations himself; but such independence does little to increase his claims as a creative artist. For the situation does not directly constitute the spirituality of his work nor indeed give us its true artistic form: all that it does is to supply the external material in which as its appropriate medium a character or temperament is unfolded before us. It is only after working into this external material in which actions and characters find their starting-point that the true genius of the artist is actively displayed. The poet consequently has little or no claim to our thanks for merely having himself invented this least of all poetical aspects of his production. He is, in fact, fully entitled to draw as much and as frequently as he pleases from anything that comes to his hand, whether it be history, saga, mythos, or chronicle, nay, even from material and situations which have already been artistically treated. Just as we find in the art of painting the external matter of the situation is borrowed from legends of saints, and the process has been repeated on similar lines over and over again. To discover the real artistic significance of such artistic work we must penetrate far beyond the mere invention of particular situations. The same remarks will apply in full force to the entire wealth of the circumstances and developments artistically handled. In reference to this it is frequently claimed as a virtue of modern art in contrast with that of the ancients that we find in it an infinitely more exuberant imagination. As a matter of fact, we do find in the artistic creations of the Middle Ages and our modern world the most extraordinary variety and interfusion of situations, events, and occurrences, whether tragic or otherwise. This fulness of detail, however, does not take us far. In spite of it all we have very few dramas or epics of the first excellence. For the main point is notthe external course and interchange of a variety of events, when we find such events and histories merely complete the entire content of our work of art; rather it is the ethical and spiritual form which embodies them, and the masterful movements of temperament and character which are exposed and unveiled during the entire process of this artistic embodiment.
Glancing now at the main position we have arrived at, and from which our inquiry will proceed, we have found that circumstances, conditions, and relations, whether determined with a reference to the external world or the subjective consciousness, only create the situation by virtue of thetemperamentor passion which experiences them and derives its nutriment through them. We have further seen that the situation breaks up this determinate form in opposition, obstruction, development, and disruption, so that theemotionallife feels itself compelled by the force of the affecting circumstances toreact with energy againstthis disturbing and restraining influence, which stands in the way of its objects and passions. It is here, in truth, that the action, strictly speaking, commences, when, that is to say, the contradiction has fully asserted itself, which was already implied in the fully defined situation. Inasmuch as, however, the action which is based on this collision disturbs the unity of that which is opposed to it, it calls into being by its antagonism the opposing force of that which it confronts, and consequently theactionis immediately associated with thereaction.With this analysis of the forces rendered necessary by dramatic action, we have at length arrived at the notion of the Ideal as a fully defined process. For we are here presented with two distinct spheres of interest, both of which have been rent, as it were, from the harmony they originally possessed, and confront each other in conflict. Such, by the contradiction which is involved in them, make aresolutionof the discord necessary. This movement, regarded as a homogeneous whole, belongs no more to the province of the mere situation and its conflicts; we are carried now into that portion of our inquiry to which we have already given the name of the genuine action.
3. The Action
In the development of the subject under consideration, theactionimmediately follows after the universalworld-conditionand the particularsituation.In considering the action in its external relation to that portion of our inquiry we have just concluded it will be well to bear in mind the result we arrived at, that it presupposes circumstances which necessitate collisions, action, and reaction. It is impossible to determine at what point in the circumstances thus presupposed the action willbegin.For that which in one aspect will appear as commencement will very possibly present itself in another as the result of earlier developments, and to that extent will postpone the real starting-point. And in like manner this, too, we may regard as a fact resulting from former collisions. To take an example; in the house of Agamemnon Iphigenia in Tauris expiates the guilt and misfortune of her family. The commencement here of this deliverance on the part of Iphigenia is the fact that Diana carries her to Tauris. This circumstance is, however, merely the result of earlier stages of the story, such as the sacrifice in Aulis, which is again conditioned by the injury done to Menelaus in the rape of Helen by Paris, and so on, ever backward, until we come to the famous egg of Leda. In the same way the events which are the subject-matter of the Iphigenia in Tauris presuppose the murder of Agamemnon, and all the crimes associated with the house of Tantalus. An analysis of much the same character might be applied to the Theban circle of mythos. If an action is to be represented with all the facts that condition it, poetry is the only real art that can attempt this. Such a complete exposition of historical fact has already become, as a certain proverb reminds us, rather a wearisome business; it is, in fact, more within the province of simple prose, and, in contrast with such completeness, poetry will rather consider its true function to be that of taking its audience at once into the heart of the matter. There is a further important reason why it should not be to the interest of art to make its commencement from that point where we find the action under consideration is in the first instance externally conditioned, and it is this: such a point of departure is,after all, only related to the process regarded as natural or historical fact[323]. The association of the action with this commencement merely concerns the empirical unity of its appearance; it may, however, in itself be of no significance at all to the real content of the action. This external unity of historical sequence remains just as it was, however it may chance that one particular person is affected by the involved threads of a varying series of fact. No doubt the entirety of the facts of life, its actions and fatalities, tends to make the individual what he is; but for all that his true nature, the real core of his thoughts and capacities, is manifested inonegreat situation and action independently of them. It is the progress of these which reveals to us really what a character is made of, a character which previously to their occurrence had been known merely in a nominal way, that is the name of one more fact among the external facts of experience.