substance as pain and everything else that is essentially negative.
(_c_) _Thirdly_, however, within this very condition of spiritual nakedness, and, in despite of it, man secures a freer and more independent position. On the one hand out of the fundamental repose and constancy of God viewed in reference to His Will and the commands which that Will imposes upon humanity, arises the _Law_; while under another point of view the wholly unambiguous distinction between that which is human and that which is Divine, between the finite and the Absolute, is implied in this type of human exaltation. Therewith the judgment upon good and evil, and the onus of decision in respect to either the one or the other is transferred to the individual soul itself. This relation to the Absolute, and the question it involves as to the fittingness or unfittingness of man over against the same presents, therefore, also an aspect, which applies to the individual himself, his own behaviour and action. In other words we may trace in man's rightful acts and his following of the Law a relation to God which is, side by side with the former one, an affirmative relation, a relation which has to bring generally the external condition of his existence, whether it be positive or negative, weal, enjoyment and satisfaction, or pain, unhappiness and oppression into union with the obedience of his heart or his stubbornness of spirit against the Law, and accept the same in the one case as favour and reward, in the other as trial and punishment.
content of all that is implied in actuality cognized as an object in itself.]
[Footnote 68: According to Hegel the conception of Kant is right in that (_a_) He makes the Sublime to consist in a relation between the phenomenal fact and something which it is not; and (_b_) that he lays it down that no mere representation by means of phenomenal form can adequately express it. He is wrong, however, in that he refers the Sublime for its source wholly to the subjective content, _i.e._, that Nature which is peculiar to ourselves (_in uns._)] [Footnote 69: "Critique of the Judgment," 3rd ed., p. 77.]
[Footnote 70: Parrhesia, _i.e._, πἀρρἥσια,--speaking freely or beyond ordinary bound.]
lines below _der Kerze_ should be _die Kerze._ I omit the _Schenken_ altogether. Of course it is possible _der Kerze_ is Genitive, "in the woe of the taper," and the verb intransitive; but this is very harsh.]
[Footnote 72: This appears to be the meaning of _Garechtigkeit._] [Footnote 73: _Sondern so darüber hinausgeht, dass eben nichts als dieses Hinauseyn und Hinausgehen zur Darstellung kommen kann._ That is, the art of the Sublime is based essentially on a contradiction, for while it assumes the One substance to be the significance of the external world, it is the truth of that significance that it points to that which transcends externality.]
[Footnote 74: The thought here is not strictly logical. What is associated by symbolism with Unity is the external Other, what is divided by Hebraic conception is the entire content of the Real both in its spiritual and external aspect. But the general sense is sufficiently clear.]
[Footnote 75: This I take to be the point of the contrast between the words _scheinen_ and _erscheinen_.]
CHAPTER III THE CONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM OF THE COMPARATIVE TYPE OF ART The result we have now arrived at in the above consideration of the Sublime, and in contradistinction to the strictly unpremeditated type of symbolization, consists partly in the _separation_ of its own independent Inwardness, consciously apprehended in its quality of significance, from the concrete appearance that is thereby distinguished from it, partly also in the direct or indirect affirmation of the _incompatibility_ of the two above mentioned aspects to one another, by which it appears that the significance as the universal passes beyond the particular fact and its singularity.
But in the imagination of pantheism, no less than in the type of the Sublime, the real content, that is the One universal substance of all concrete existence, was unable to be presented to imaginative vision or sense-perception without some relation to created existence, albeit created under a mode inadequate to express the essence of that Unity.
This relation, however, was attached to the substance itself, which, in the negativity of its accidents, supplied the proof of its Wisdom, Goodness, Power, and Justice[76]. For this reason the relation between significance and content is also in the case of the Sublime, at least in a general way, of a kind that is both _essential_ and _necessary_, and the two sides thus linked with each other are not yet, in the strict sense of the term, external to each other. It is, however, inevitable, for the reason that it is implicitly present in symbolism, that this externality should come to be directly posited and appear in the forms we have now to consider in this concluding chapter on the art of symbolism. We may summarily describe them as _conscious_[77] symbolism, or, in a still more direct way, the _comparative_ type of art.
In other words, what we understand by conscious symbolism is this, that the significance is not merely independently cognized, but is _expressly_ set forth as distinct from the external mode, in which it is represented. The significance then appears, as in the case of the Sublime, to receive an independent expression which is not essentially in the actual embodiment given to it under the mode employed[78].
The relation, however, of both to one another no longer continues to be, as in the type last examined, a mode of relation which is fundamentally due to the significance itself, but is a more or less haphazard association, which may generally be expressed as the product of the _subjectivity_ of the poet, the absorption of his spirit in an external object, the result of his wit or invention; a mode, in short, which enables the poet at one time rather to make a beginning directly from a sensible phenomenon, and to imagine for it from his own mind a spiritual significance cognate with it, and at another to select in preference as his point of departure the real or only relatively personal idea, with a view to embodying the same, or even to do nothing more than relate one image with another, which presents characteristic features of resemblance.
This kind of linking together must consequently be distinguished from that still naïve and _unconscious_ symbolism in virtue of the fact that now the individual recognizes the inward essence of the significances he adopts for the content of his creation no less than, the positive nature of the external objects, which he employs as means of comparison for the more direct presentment of the same, placing both in this juxtaposition with clear intention owing to the similarity he has discovered between them. The distinction, on the other hand, between the present type and that of the Sublime is rather to be traced to the fact that though under one aspect it may be true that the separation and juxtaposition of the significances with their concrete shaping in the work of art is itself set forth in express relief to a less or higher degree, yet, on the other hand, for the reason that it is no longer the Absolute itself that is accepted as content, but any defined and restricted significance whatever, the typical relation of the Sublime falls away, and in its place a relation is set up within the act of severance thus intentionally made between the real significance and its embodiment, a relation which in effect produces the very result in the sphere of premeditated comparison that we found unconscious symbolism in its own way proposed as an object.
In one word, so far as _content_ is here concerned, the Absolute itself, _the Lord of creation_, can no longer be conceived as the significance which Art seeks after. That this is so is rendered inevitable by the already obvious fact that on account of the severation of more concrete existence from the notion, and further, if only under the mode of comparison, the juxtaposition of both sides thus separated, the category of_finitude_ is there and then accepted by the artistic consciousness, in so far as it conceives this form as the real and ultimate one; and for this reason, moreover, the imagined significances, being selected wholly from the sphere of the finite, have no further association whatever with the Absolute as the fundamental significance of all created things. Sacred poetry stands out in entire contrast to this, for in this God is the exclusive significance of all things; as set over against Him, they have no stability at all, but vanish or are nothing. If, however, the significance is able to discover its image and parallel of resemblance in that which is itself essentially _restricted_ and finite, it follows that it must itself to that extent be limited in its range, as, in fact, it is in the type of symbolic conception which now occupies our attention, where that which is found is nothing more than an image, necessarily external to the content, selected purely at random by the poet for the sake of the _similarity_ it presents to the content, and as such regarded as relatively adequate thereto. For this reason there is but one trait left us in the comparative type of art, which is also shared by that of the Sublime, and it is this that every image, instead of embodying the fact and significance directly under a mode adequate to their full reality, is only taken to present an image and similitude of either.
For these reasons this kind of symbolization is, if we conceive it apart as an independent whole, a generic class of subordinate rank.
The form which it supplies is merely the descriptive selection of a portion of sensuous existence immediately perceived, or of a prosaic idea of the mind[79], in other words, the significance is expressly to be distinguished from it. And, further, in a measure such an employment of comparison in works of art, which are shaped out of homogeneous material, and in their specific form constitute an indivisible whole, can only assert itself as relatively valid, that is, as mere ornament and accessory, such as we find it, in fact, in the genuine products of classic and romantic art.
It is a further consequence that if we regard the entire sphere of this type as the union of the two stages which preceded it on the ground that it not merely comprehends within itself the _separation_ of significance from external reality, which is the fundamental _causa rationis_ of the Sublime, but also includes the _reference_ of a concrete phenomenon to a universal import cognate with it, as we have seen was asserted in the real type of symbolism, such a union is notwithstanding in no way a higher type of art; it is, in truth, despite its very clearness, a superficial way of apprehending things, limited in its content and formally more or less prosaic, which falls away into the consciousness of commonsense as fully remote from the secretly fermenting depth of genuine symbolism as it is from the height of the Sublime.
So far as the _classification_ of our present subject-matter is concerned we may observe, first, that in this act of comparative differentiation, which presupposes the significance independently, and affirms either a sensuous or imaginary form in a relation of opposition to it, there is the aspect held constantly throughout that the significance is here accepted as of most importance, and the form is solely the embodiment of the same and external to it; but along with this the further difference makes its appearance, namely, that it is sometimes the one aspect of this opposition which is first pre-eminently emphasized, and made the significant point of departure, while at other times it is the other. And owing to this fact we have either the embodiment presented us as an independently external, immediate fact or phenomenon of Nature, which is then related by comparison to a significance of a more general bearing, or the significance is independently come by in another way, and only afterwards a mode of embodying it is selected from some external source, it matters not what.
Relatively to the above distinctions we may classify our material under the two first fundamental and a third and other supplementary divisions as follows: A. In the _first_ it is the _concrete phenomenon_, whether the selection be made from Nature or human events, incidents, and actions, which constitutes both the point of departure in the process of artistic conception, and the substance of essential weight in the reproduction. It is no doubt exhibited solely on account of the more general significance, which it contains and signifies, and is only so far unfolded, that it may contribute to the object of embodying this significance in a specific occurrence or condition cognate with it. The comparison, however, of the general significance and the particular case is not as yet _expressly_ set forth as _subjective_ activity, and the entire reproduction will not merely be the embellishment of a work which actually possesses a substantive position without it, but is set forth as itself claiming to give the character of an independent whole.
The types of this class are the fable, the parable, the apologue, the proverb, and the metamorphosis.
B. In the _second_ phase the _significance_ on the contrary is that which is first presented to consciousness, and the concrete embodiment is that which is merely incidental or accessory to it, possessing no independent subsistency of its own, but appearing as wholly subordinate to the significance, so that we are now also made more immediately aware of the element of personal caprice in the selection of this rather than any other image. This mode of production is unable in the great majority of cases to reach the point of a fully perfected work of art, and is consequently forced to leave the forms it supplies as appurtenant to other artistic images. The important types of this class are the riddle, the allegory, the metaphor, the image, and the simile.
C. _Thirdly_, and in conclusion, if rather by way of supplement, we have yet further to include within our list the didactic poem, and purely descriptive poetry, inasmuch as in these types of poetry we find, on the one hand, that the presentment of the general character of the objects in the clearness under which they are made intelligible to commonsense[80], no less than on the other that the exhibition of their concrete appearance receives a substantially independent form, and by doing so effects with elaborate completeness the severation of that which only in its union and really reciprocal fusion is capable of giving us a genuine work of art.
This separation of the two phases essential to the process of art-production carries with it the result that the various forms which find their place in the entire subject-matter under discussion have merely a claim to fall in as part of an inquiry into the modes of art in virtue of the fact that poetry, and only poetry, is in a position to express such a relation of self-contained independence as between significance and form. As opposed to this it is the very problem of the plastic arts to manifest such significant content in and through their external form and viewed thus externally.
A. MODES OF COMPARISON, WHICH HAVE THEIR ORIGIN UPON THE SIDE OF EXTERNALITY The attempt to arrange the several kinds of poetic production which are apportioned to this first stage of the comparative type of art carries with it no little difficulty, and is a fruitful source of embarrassment. They are, that is to say, hybrid species of a subordinate rank, which in no way whatever mark out any necessary aspect of art They stand in the domain of Aesthetic presenting features analogous to certain animal types, and other exceptional phenomena in natural science. In both spheres the difficulty consists in this that in either case it is the notion of the science itself, which is the ground of its classification and specific differences. As differentia of the notion these are also at the same time distinctions really adequate to the notional process, and intelligible as such; with these latter such transitional modes are unable fully to conform for the reason that they are merely defective types, which proceed from a previous phase that is fundamental without being able to reach the next one. This is no fault of the notion, nay, supposing that we preferred to make such ancillary types the basis of our classification, instead of pointing out their relation to the specific phases of the _notional_ process of our subject-matter, we should have presented us precisely that aspect of them which was inadequate to this process as the irreproachable mode of their development. A true principle of classification, on the contrary, is compelled to proceed from the true notion, and such _hybrid_ types as those now discussed can only be suitably placed where the genuine and independently stable ones show a tendency to dissolve and pass over into others.
Apart from such considerations, however, the artistic types referred to belong to the _forecourt_ of artistic symbolism, inasmuch as they are generally incomplete, and to that extent _merely_ a search after art in its truth. Such a movement no doubt presents the essential ingredients of a genuine mode of configuration, but it lays hold of them in their aspect of finitude, separation, and purely relative propinquity; it fails consequently to rank on the same level. When we discuss, therefore, the fable, apologue, and the rest we must treat these forms not as though they belonged to _poetry_ in the specific sense, as it differs among other things from music no less than the plastic arts, but only with the view of pointing out the relation in which they stand to the _generic_ types of art. It is only thus their specific character can be elucidated. To such an object the notion of the genuine types of the art of poetry, whether epic, lyric, or dramatic, will not assist us.
We propose now to differentiate these forms in the following order; we shall begin with the _fable_, proceed after that to discuss the _parable_, _apologue_, and _proverb_, and conclude our inquiry with the _metamorphosis._ 1. THE FABLE Hitherto we have throughout merely dwelt upon the formal aspect of the relation of an expressed significance to its embodiment; we have now furthermore to elucidate the content, which declares its suitability for such a mode.
In our previous consideration of the various aspects of the _Sublime_ we saw that at the point where we have now arrived, it is no longer a matter of any importance to envisualize the Absolute and One in its indivisible Power by means of the nothingness and impotency of the created thing to rise up to that infinite transcendency. We are now on the plane of the finite consciousness, and have only to concern ourselves with a finite content. If we direct our attention conversely to the genuine symbolical type, to which the comparative is under a certain aspect equally related, we find that here that _inward_ aspect, which stands in opposition to the form up to this point always immediately presented, the natural shape, that is to say, is the spiritual, a truth that even in Egyptian symbolism received ample illustration. To the extent, however, that everything natural is left standing, and preconceived in its position of isolated _solidarity_, the spiritual is also something both _finite_ and _defined_, that is to say man and his finite aims and the natural maintains a certain, albeit theoretical[81], relationship to these objects, a significant suggestion and revelation of the same to the use and weal of mankind.
The phenomena of Nature, storms, flight of birds, the constitution of the intestines of animals and so forth, in the significance they possess for human interests, are now accepted in a totally different sense to that they figured in the conceptions of Parsees, Hindoos, or Egyptians, for whom the Divine is still linked to the Natural under the mode that man, as an integral part of Nature, moves to and fro in a world full of gods, and his personal action consists in the display through his activities of this very identity of Life, whereby this doing of his, in so far as it is compatible with the natural existence of the Divine, appears itself as a revelation and bringing forth of the Divine in mankind. When, however, man is withdrawn into himself, and intuitively seeks for his freedom within the closed doors of his own substance[82], he becomes intrinsically the object of his own personality; he acts, transacts his affairs, and works as he himself wills; he possesses a personal life of his own, and feels the essential character of his aims as part of himself, to which the natural is only related as something outside him. Consequently Nature becomes insulated around him, serves him under such an aspect that in his attitude to the Divine he no longer secures an envisagement of the Absolute in her, but simply regards her as a means, through which the gods enable him to discover such a knowledge of themselves as may contribute most to his advantage, unveiling their will to the human spirit through the medium of Nature and suffering the purpose thereof to declare itself through mankind. An identity of the Absolute and Nature is here presupposed, an identity in which _human aims_ are pre-eminently emphasized. A type of symbolism such as this, however, is not within the province of art, but that of religion. That is to say, the _vates_ or prophet subordinates every significant relation of natural events, pre-eminently to the service of practical ends, whether it be in the interest of the particular designs of individuals, or in that of the common action of an entire people. Poetry, on the contrary, is bound to recognize and express even the practical situations and relations in a more universal form adapted to contemplation.
What we have, however, to deal with now is a natural phenomenon, an occurrence, which, in its passage, exhibits a particular relation, which maybe accepted as symbol for a general significance in the circle of human deeds and dealings, in other words for an ethical maxim, a saw, for a significance, therefore, whose content unfolds a reflection over the nature of the course which either is taken or ought to be taken in human matters, that is, facts which are related to volition. Here it is no longer the Divine will, which is self-revealed in its essential nature to mankind through natural events, and their religious import. We have nothing more than a quite ordinary course of everyday occurrences, from the isolated reproduction of which we are able to abstract in a way commonly intelligible an ethical _dictum_, a warning, ensample, or rule of prudence, by whatever name we choose to call it, which is set before us in a form that appeals to our imagination for the sake of the reflection it carries with it. And this is just the way in which we ought to regard the fables of Aesop.
(_a_) In other words, the fables of Aesop in their original form are just such a mode of conceiving a natural relation or event between single natural objects generally, mainly between animals, whose intercourse with one another is based on the same practical necessities of life that are the motive force in that of humanity. This relation or occurrence, as viewed in its more general characters, is consequently of a kind that may happen in the sphere of human life, and as such carries with it a significance for man.
As thus explained the genuine fable of Aesop is therefore the reproduction of a condition of animate or inanimate life, of some occurrence in the animal world for example, which is not by any means composed at haphazard, but is put together in conformity with natural fact and genuine observation, and so reproduced in the form of narrative that, in its relation to human existence, and particularly the practical aspect of the same, a general maxim may be deduced from it. The requirement of _primary_ importance that it implies, therefore, is that the particular case in question, which is to supply the so-called moral, must not be purely _imaginary_, that is to say, first and foremost the substance of the composition must not present facts which run _counter_ to the mode of their appearance in real life. The narrative may be further and yet more clearly characterized in this that it does not record the particular case itself in its universality, but rather the mode under which this, taken in its concrete singularity and as a real fact, is in such external reality the type for all action based upon analogous circumstances.
This original form of the fable leaves upon it, and this is the _third_ point to which we direct attention, the impress of most _naïveté_, because in it the didactic aim and the deduction of general significances of utilitarian colour do not appear to be that which was the original intention of the narrator, but rather something which turned up afterwards. For this reason the most attractive among the so-called fables of Aesop will be those which correspond most emphatically with this naïve tone and narrate actions, if such an expression may here be used, or at least relations and events, which in part are founded upon animal instinct, partly are the expression of some other natural relation and partly are generally put together for their own sake rather than exclusively composed as the fancy of the moment happened to dictate. For this reason it is further sufficiently obvious that the motto _fabula docet_, which has attached itself to these fables as we now have them presented us, either takes the true spirit out of them, or frequently is something like a fist in our eyes[83], so that quite as often as not we are inclined to deduce the intended maxim's opposite, or one or two as good if not better.
In further elucidation of this conception of these Greek fables we propose now to offer a few illustrations. The oak and the reed stand in the teeth of the storm-wind. The slender reed merely bows before it, the stubborn oak snaps. This is a frequent enough occurrence in a great storm. In its ethical suggestion what we have here is some man of high position and inflexible temper as opposed to one of more modest station who, through his natural pliancy, is able in misfortune to keep himself secure on such ordinary levels, while the great man goes to ground through his pride and obstinacy. An analogous case is the fable of the swallows which we find in the Phaedrus. The swallows and other birds with them see a rustic sowing the flax seed, from the growth of which the bird-snare is to be made. The provident swallows fly away, the other birds think nothing of the morrow; they abide at home and are caught. A real phenomenon of Nature is also at the bottom of this fable. It is a notorious fact that in autumn swallows are off to southerly climes, and consequently are absent when birds are snared. The same thing may be said of the fable about the bat, which is despised by day and night, because it belongs to neither the one nor the other. A more general human significance is attributed to real prosaic incidents of this class, much as pious people are only too ready nowadays to interpret everything that occurs in a sense that is edifying or useful. It is, however, not essential to such a purpose that in every case the true fact of Nature should appear at once as obvious. In the fable, for instance, of the fox and the raven we are unable at first blush to recognize the natural fact, although it is not wholly absent. It is, in truth, a genuine characteristic both of ravens and crows that they set about cawing when they happen to catch sight of strange objects, whatever they may be, whether man or beast, in sudden motion. Natural relations of a similar kind lie at the root of the fable of the thorn-bush, which plucks the wool off the passer-by, or wounds the fox that seeks refuge there, or that of the countryman who warms a snake in his bosom. Others set forth occurrences which may naturally form part of animal experience; take, for instance, the first example of the fables of Aesop where the eagle devours the cubs of the fox and carries off a hot coal attached to the sacrificial flesh which sets his nest on fire. And, in conclusion, we find that others contain traits of old myths, such as the fable of the dung-beetle, eagle, and Jupiter, where the circumstance borrowed from natural history--we will pass it by for what it is worth--appears to be referable to the different seasons of the year when the eagle and dung-beetle respectively lay their eggs; at the same time we may observe a clear intimation here of the traditional importance of the scarab, which, however, even in our present example, is already treated with an inclination toward comedy, an inclination still more pronounced in Aristophanes. As an excuse for not entering more fully here into the question how many of these fables can actually be traced to Aesop we mention the already well-established fact that only of quite a small minority--the last-cited one of dung-beetle and the eagle is among them--can it be shown that they date from Aesop's time, or that in general terms there is any flavour of antiquity about them to support the view that Aesop is in fact their author.
Of Aesop himself we are informed that he was a deformed and humpbacked slave; and for his place of residence we are transported into Phrygia, the very land, that is, which marks the passage from the immediately symbolical and the existence still fettered on Nature, to a land in which man begins to take real hold of the spiritual and himself as the source of the same. In our present connection, no doubt, he does not behold the animal and natural world in the way the Hindoos and Egyptians beheld it, that is, as something of itself, superior and Divine. He regards it with prosaic vision as something whose relations are only of service in the presentment of a picture of human act and avoidance. His conceits are further merely the reflections of wit, without real energy of soul or depth of insight and a fundamental grasp of reality, without poetry and philosophy, in fact. His opinions and maxims are, in consequence, fairly rich in sensuous image and traits of cleverness, but we never get beyond the digging away into mere trifles, which, instead of creating free shapes from the unfettered life of spirit, is contented to discover some additional aspect that is new in material already close at hand, such as the specific instincts and habits of animals or other daily occurrences of little moment; and this is so because that which he would teach he is still afraid to express freely, and is only able to make it intelligible in a kind of riddle which is at the same time always being solved. Prose has its origin in the slave, and in the same way prose clings to the entire type of conception with which we are now concerned.
Despite this fact, however, the experience of almost all nations and times has in one form or another run through these old tales; and however much any particular people whose literature is generally well versed in fable may pride itself as possessing more than one fabulist of distinction, we shall find that their poetry is for the most part merely a reflection of these primary sallies of invention, merely translated into the vernacular of the age. All that has since been added to the general heritage of such conceits falls far behind the original legacy in real merit.
(_b_) There are, however, among these fables of Greek descent a number which betray the greatest poverty of invention and execution, being mere pegs on which to hang the instructive moral, so that the contents, whether they refer to gods or animals, have merely a formal significance. Yet even these are far enough removed from the modern tendency of doing violence to the animal world as we find it in Nature. An example of this tendency is that fable of Pfeffel about a marmot which collected provisions in autumn, an act of foresight which another marmot neglected, and so was brought to the condition of beggary and starvation. Or there is that other of the fox, the bloodhound, and the lynx, of whom it is narrated that they presented themselves before Jupiter, together with the talents which exclusively belonged to them of cunning, keen scent, and clear sight, and requested that these gifts should be equally divided between them; the fable goes on that they obtained such consent under these rather surprising terms: "The fox gets a blow on the forehead, the bloodhound is good for no more hunting, the Argus Lynx receives a cataract." That a marmot should cease to make provision for its wants, or that the three animals above mentioned should ever incidentally meet with, or be naturally capable of receiving, a proportionate division of their respective gifts is contrary to all reason and consequently meaningless. A better fable than those above cited is that of the ant and the grasshopper, or that other of the deer with the beautiful horns and the slender legs.
Conformably to the tenor of fables of this kind we have grown, as a rule, accustomed to accept the moral of the fable as that which is of first importance, and to regard the narrative as _merely_ an external form, and consequently an event entirely _composed_ with a view to expound that moral. Embodiments of this sort, however, more particularly when the occurrence described is wholly at variance with the natural character of specific animals, are in the highest degree insipid, attempts at invention which mean less than nothing. The real ingenuity of a fable consists exclusively in this that it is able to impart to that which already exists in determinate form a further and more universal significance than that which is immediately presented.
The question has further been raised, in reference to the general assumption that the essence of a fable consists in setting before us the actions and speech of animals rather than those of mankind, as to what it is precisely which attracts us in this allusion. We cannot suppose, however, that there is after all much that is attractive in such a furbishing up of our humanity in animal form, even though it should exceed or at least differ from that of a comedy of apes and dogs, where, apart from the sight of the general cleverness of the dressing up, the entire interest consists rather in the deliberate contrast between animal nature as it really is and appears, and that represented as taking part in human affairs. On grounds of this sort Breitinger finds the attraction to consist entirely in the element of the _marvellous._ In the original type of the fable, however, the appearance of animals endowed with speech is _not_ put before us as