anything uncommon or surprising. And for this very reason Lessing is of the opinion that the introduction of animals is really of great use in helping us to understand and _assisting_ the poet to _abridge_ his exposition; in other words we are well acquainted with the qualities of animals, the cuteness of the fox, the magnanimity of the lion, the voracity and violence of the wolf, and are consequently able to set before our minds a concrete image in place of such abstract qualities.
An advantage of this kind, however, in no essential degree mitigates the triviality of the relation when it has become one purely of form, and generally it is even a disadvantage to place animals thus before us instead of men, for the reason that the animal form remains a mask, which, so far as intelligibility is concerned, _veils_ fully as much as it _declares_ the significance.
The most important fable of this kind should be in that case the old history of Reinecke, the fox, which is notwithstanding strictly speaking no fable at all.
(_c_) In other words we may in conclusion add a _third_ type of the fable, in which we find that there is already a tendency to pass beyond the real boundaries of the type. The ingenuity of a fable consists, as already pointed out, in the discovery of particular cases among the variety of natural phenomena, which we are able to use as evidential support of general reflections upon human action and behaviour, without essentially displacing the animal and natural world from its own native mode of existence. For the rest this general application or adaptation of the particular case to the so-called moral is an exercise of personal caprice, or shall we say native wit, and is therefore to all intents and purposes an affair of pleasantry. It is this aspect which receives the main emphasis in the type of fable now before us. The fable is in fact accepted as a witty jest. Goethe has written many a delightful and ingenious poem in this vein. The following lines occur in one of them, which is entitled "The Barking Dog": /$ Down every road afield we ride On business bent or pleasure; And ever in our wake full-cry A hound's bark beats the measure.
Loosed from our horse's stable he _Will_ always gallop beside us: And this is what his clamour proves!
We ride, are with the riders.
$/ It is equally necessary here, as in the case of Aesop's fables, that objects which are borrowed from Nature should receive their native aspect, and only bring before us in their action and habits human circumstances, passions, and traits, which have a close affinity to those of the animal world. The story of Reinecke is one of this kind, and is really more a fairy-tale than a fable in the strict sense.
We find in the content of this the reflection of an age of disorder and lawlessness, of evil generally, weakness, baseness, violence, and shamelessness, of unbelief in religion, that merely retains the appearance of a mastery, or indeed an established position in the world-drama; and the result is that craft, cunning, and selfishness have it all their own way. It is, in fact, the condition of the Middle Ages, more especially as developed in Germany. The powerful vassals pay, it is true, some appearance of respect to the king; but practically every man does as he pleases--robs, murders, oppresses the weak, betrays the king, finds a way somehow to the favours of the queen, so that if the community just holds together that is about all. Such is the human content, which by this fable is preserved, not in a mere abstract proposition but in an entire _complexus_ of conditions and characters, and by reason of its baseness fits in with the animal nature exactly, under the forms of which it is unfolded.
For this reason we find nothing embarrassing in the fact that it is without any reserves transferred to the animal realm; and for the same reason the particular form it takes does not so much appear as an exceptional case cognate with it; rather we are inclined to feel the singularity of it make way for a certain breadth of universality, a vision emphasizing the general truth: "Such is the way things happen in the world." The comical side consists in the forms under which the whole is put together, drollery and jest being freely mingled with the bitter earnestness of the situation; the general effect of which is that we not only have human meanness admirably depicted through that of animals, but we are further made a present of the most entertaining traits, and most characteristic anecdotes wholly peculiar to animal life, so that, despite all tartness to the palate, our final view is that of a comedy whose main intention is neither bad nor purely capricious, but one that has genuine earnestness to support it.
2. PARABLE, PROVERB, APOLOGUE (_a_) _The Parable_ _Parable_ has this general affinity with _fable_, that it accepts events from the circle of common life, but also makes them the depositors of a higher and more universal significance, expressly with a view that the same shall become intelligible and objective by means of that daily occurrence in its ordinary guise. A difference, however, at once asserts itself between the parable and fable, and it is this, that the former selects such occurrences in _human_ action and habits, as we have them every day before our eyes, rather than in Nature and the animal world; it then expands the particular case selected, which appears trite enough at first as such a particular, to the range of wider interest, by suggesting through it a higher kind of significance.
For this reason the range and the importance of the significances in wealth of _content_ can materially be increased and deepened[84], while, if we take the point of view of form, it is clear that the subjective process of intentional comparison and setting out of a generally instructive reflection already marks the acceptance and appearance of a more advanced type.
As a parable, still united to a wholly practical end, we may view the means of persuasion used by Cyrus to induce the Persians to rebel (Herod., I, cap. 126). His letter to the Persians advised them to betake themselves to a certain spot provided with sickles. When there he set them all on the first day to clear with hard labour a certain field overgrown with thistles. On the following day, however, after they had rested and bathed, he conducted them to a meadow and supplied them with ample cheer in the shape of food and wine.
Finally, at the close of the feast, he asked of them which of the two days had proved the most enjoyable. All voted naturally for to-day rather than yesterday; the former had brought them only good things, while the latter had been a day of weariness and toil. On this Cyrus exclaimed: "Follow me, and many will be the good days such as the present has brought you. Refuse to follow me, and countless labours are in store quite a match for those of yesterday." Of a type akin to the above, though of profoundest interest and the widest range considered relatively to their significance, are the parables we meet with in the Gospels. Take, for example, that of the sower, a narrative which as such possesses the most unimportant subject-matter, and whose significance centres throughout in the comparison it supplies to the preaching of the kingdom of heaven. The significance in these parables is wholly a religious gospel, to which the human occurrences, wherein such is imaginatively presented, stand in a relation similar to that between the animal and human world in the fables of Aesop, where the former elicits the meaning of the latter. Of a like breadth of content is the famous story of Boccaccio, which Lessing converted in his "Natham" into the parable of the three rings. The substance of the narrative is also in this case taken by itself nothing remarkable; the extraordinarily wide, reach of its content arises wholly from the way the differences between and the relative validity of the three religions, namely, the Jewish, the Mohammedan, and the Christian, are suggested by it. The same thing may be said of the latest novelties in this type of art, the parables of Goethe for example. Take that of the "cat-pasty." In this a famous _chef_, in order to prove himself hunter no less than cook, went out hunting, but shot a tom-cat instead of a hare, which he then served up to the company sauced with his most consummate art. This is no doubt a reference to the Light theory of Newton. We have here under the guise of the hare-pie which the cook tried in vain to elaborate out of a cat a reflection of that abortive type of physical science which the mathematician will assume to be something better than it is. These parables of Goethe frequently have a strong touch of drollery about them, an aspect which they share with his fables by the help of which he was wont to shed himself of life's disappointments.
(_b_) _The Proverb_ The _proverb_ forms as it were the middle point of this sphere. In the form of their execution, that is to say, proverbs lean at one time in the direction of the fable, at another to that of the apologue. They give us a particular case selected for the most part from the daily walk of mankind, which, however, is to be interpreted universally. Take the example, "One hand washes the other," or those others, "Every one wheels before his own door," "Who digs a grave for another, falls into it himself," "Bake a pudding for me and I will staunch your thirst," and others like them. To wise saws of this type belong the many apophthegems that Goethe has contributed to modern literature, often of exquisite grace and profound to a degree. These are not modes of comparison of the type that the general significance and the concrete phenomenon are opposed to one another in separation, but the former is immediately expressed with the latter.
The _apologue_ may be regarded as a parable, which not only serves in the way of _comparison_ to render visible a general significance, but rather in this its very form reproduces and expresses the general moral, the same being actually included in the particular case, which is, however, related as only a single example. Conformably to this definition we may call Goethe's "Der Gott und die Bajadere" an apologue. Here we find the Christian tale of the repentant Magdalene reclothed in accordance with Hindoo ideas. The Bajadere[85] exemplifies the same humility, a like strength of love and faith; God puts her to the proof, an ordeal she completely sustains, and her exaltation and reconciliation follows. In the apologue also narrative is so extended that the outcome of it furnishes the moral itself, bare of any parallel to support it, as may be illustrated from "The Treasure-Finder": /$ Work by day and guests at night, Weeks of moil, feasts of delight, Such the Future's spell for thee.
$/ The _third_ mode we have to discuss in its contrast to the fable, parable, proverb, and apologue, is the _metamorphosis._ This is no doubt of a kind which is both symbolical and mythological; it sets forth, however, expressly furthermore the natural in its opposition to the spiritual. That is to say, it confers on an object immediately present to sense such as a rock, animal, flower, or spring the peculiar significance of being a _delapsus_ and a _punishment_ of spiritual existences. Such are the examples of Philomela, the Pieredes, Narcissus, and Arethusa, all of whom, through some false step, passion, transgression or the like, became subject to irreparable guilt or pain, and for this reason were deprived of the freedom of spiritual life, and united to the substance of physical nature. From one point of view Nature is not regarded merely under its external and prosaic aspect, simply, that is, as mountain, river-source, tree and so forth, but it further receives a content which is bound up with some action or event of spiritual life. The rock is not simply stone, but Niobe herself, who weeps for her children. From the other point of view this human action implies guilt of some kind, and this metamorphosis into the physical phenomenon is accepted as a degradation of Spirit.
It is therefore necessary to distinguish these metamorphoses of human individuals or gods very sharply from the genuine type of _unconscious symbolism._ To return to Egypt, for example, the Divine is here in part immediately envisaged in the mysterious and secluded intension of animal life, partly, too, the real symbol is here a natural form which is immediately associated with a wider significance cognate to it, despite the fact that this form is unable to supply the determinate existence fully commensurate with it; and this is so for the reason that neither in respect to its form or its content has unconscious symbolism arrived at the free outlook of Spirit. Metamorphosis, on the contrary, emphasizes the essential distinction between Nature and Spirit, and by doing so marks the _passage_ from that which is both symbolical and mythological to that which is in the _strict sense_ mythological, under, that is to say, a conception of the latter, which, albeit that it proceeds in its myths from a concrete fact of Nature such as sun, sea, rivers, trees, earth, and the like, nevertheless, further and expressly sets this purely natural aspect on one side and apart, divesting such natural phenomena of their inner content and individualizing the same as a spiritual Power in the adequate artistic form of gods clothed in the lineaments of humanity, whether we regard them as external shape or spiritual activity. In this sense Homer and Hesiod have given to the Greeks their mythology, a mythology which by no means merely consists in the revelation of the significance of such gods, by no means is merely an exposition of moral, physical, theological, or speculative doctrine, but one that is a mythology in the strict sense, that is the origin of a spiritual religion under the genuine guise of our humanity.
In the Metamorphoses of Ovid the most heterogeneous material is brought together quite apart from the entirely modern spirit in which myth is treated. Beside the mere aspect of metamorphosis, which could here in general terms only be conceived as a kind of mythical representation, we have the specific character[87] of this type raised in an exceptional way in these narrations, in which embodiments of this sort, which are commonly accepted as symbolical, or are already received in their entirely mythical character, appear to have been converted into metamorphoses, and that which is elsewhere united is so presented as to assert an opposition between its significance and form, and the passage of the one into the other. In this way, for instance, the Phrygian or Egyptian symbol, the wolf, is so separated from its intrinsic significance, that the same is converted into a previous existence if not actually into the kingship of the Sun, and the existence of the wolf is conceived as resulting from an act of that human existence. In the same way in the song of the Pierides the Egyptian gods, the ram, the cat, and so forth are imaged as such animal forms, in which the mythical gods of Greece, Jupiter, Venus, and the rest have concealed themselves from sheer fright. The Pierides themselves, however, by way of punishment, in that they dared to rival the Muses with their singing, are changed into woodpeckers.
Looked at from another side it is equally necessary, with a view to securing the more accurate definition, which the content wherein the significance consists essentially carries, that we distinguish the metamorphosis from the fable. That is to say in the fable the binding together of the moral with the natural fact is an association that is _harmless_; for in this the thing of Nature, regarded under the mode in which it differs in its natural aspect from Spirit, does not affect the significance, although there are certainly single examples of the fables of Aesop, which, with but slight alteration, would be instances of metamorphosis. As such may be cited the forty-second fable of the bat, the thorn-bush, and the diver, whose instincts are explained as due to the ill-luck of former experiences.
And here we must end our passage through this the first circle of the comparative type of art. It started from that which was immediately present to sense, that is, the concrete phenomenon. We proceed now from the point we have arrived at to examine a further kind of significance which the type unfolds.
B. COMPARISONS, WHICH IN THEIR IMAGINATIVE PRESENTMENT HAVE THEIR ORIGIN IN THE SIGNIFICANCE.
Forasmuch as the severation of significance from embodiment is the hypostasized form for consciousness, within which the relation of both originates independently, it is both possible and inevitable that in the articulation of the self-subsistency of one side no less than the other a start should be made not only from external existence, but conversely and as emphatically from that which is _immediately present_ to the conscious subject, in other words general conceptions, reflections, emotions, and principles of thought. For this inward aspect is equally with the images of external objects a subject-matter present to consciousness and in its independence of that which is external proceeds on its way from its own resources. In the case, then, where we find the significance is the point of departure, the expression, that is, the reality, appears as the _modus formulandi_, which is abstracted from the concrete world in order to give a visible and sensuously defined shape to the significance regarded as abstract content.
Owing, however, to the reciprocally indifferent relation under which both sides confront each other, this association which binds the two sides together is, as we have already seen, no essentially explicit and necessary union; consequently the relation, such as it is, that is no actual reflection of objective fact, is rather a _product_ of _active mind_, which no longer even disguises this its fundamental character, but rather deliberately exposes it in the form of its representation.
The very embodiment possesses this binding together of form and content, soul and body, under the guise of concrete _animation_[88], as essentially and explicitly the substantial union of both sides in the soul as in the body, in the content as in the form. In the case before us, however, what is presupposed by consciousness is the dislocation of the two sides, and consequently their association is the vivification of the significance simply for consciousness by means of a shape external to it, and an indication of a real existence, equally subjective in its character through the relation of the same to the general conceptions, emotions, and thoughts common to humanity. For this reason what is mainly emphasized in these forms of comparative art is the subjective art of _the poet_ in his creative capacity, and in complete works of art we have mainly in our attitude to this particular aspect of them to separate that which strictly is appurtenant to their subject-matter and its necessary embodiment from that which is attached to them by the poet as mere ornament and embellishment. Such accessory detail, which we cannot fail to distinguish, that is, consisting mainly of images, similes, allegories, and metaphor, is precisely that part of his work in virtue of which he earns his title to fame with most people, a tendency which is all the more common because it indirectly bears witness to the insight and subtlety which enables such critics to discover our poet and draw attention to that aspect of his invention which is so entirely his own. But for all that, as we have already observed, in genuine works of art such forms as those we are discussing can only be regarded as accessory, although we doubtless do find in previous works on _Poetics_ such incidental features treated as precisely those which go to make the poet.
Furthermore however, though unquestionably in the first instance the two sides which have to be associated stand in a relation of indifference to one another, yet in order to justify the subjective relation and comparison, the embodiments must also in the character of its content itself include the same relations and qualities under a cognate mode to that which the significance intrinsically possesses; the grasp of this similarity is, in fact, the one sure ground upon which the setting forth of the significance in union with this specific form rather than any other, and the envisagement of such import by its means is based. Lastly, inasmuch as we begin here, not from the concrete phenomenon, by the abstraction of a general characteristic from that, but conversely from this universal itself, which the intention is to have reflected in an image, the significance secures the position which makes it stand out actually as the real object, and as such is predominant over the sensuous picture which is the _modus_ of its envisagement.
The series in which we propose now to examine the particular types we have mentioned as belonging to this phase of comparative art may be indicated as follows: _First_ in order, as most cognate to the previous stage, the _riddle_ will enlist our attention.
_Secondly_, we have to examine the _allegory_, in which as the main feature we shall find the abstract significance assert a mastery over the external form.
_Thirdly_, we have the class of the comparison in its strict sense; 1. THE RIDDLE The true symbol is essentially enigmatical in so far as the externality, by means of which a general significance is made apparent, still differs from the import it is intended to express: in other words it thereby raises the doubt as to what is the exact signification applicable to the form. The riddle, however, appertains to conscious symbolism, and an obvious distinction between it and the genuine symbol is to be found in the fact that in the former case the meaning is clearly and fully _recognized_ by the propounder of it, and the form which veils that which is to be interpreted by it is therefore _intentionally_ selected for this very purpose. The genuine symbol is both before and after the act of selection an unsolved problem, the riddle, on the contrary, is essentially a problem that is solved. It is therefore with very good reason that Sancho Panza exclaims: "I should much prefer to hear the solution first and the riddle afterwards."
(_a_) _First_, then, in the invention of the riddle, the point from which the process starts, is the apprehended meaning, the signification of it.
(_b_) The _second_ step consists in the intentional selection of traits of character and other qualities from the common experience of the external world, which--such is always the aspect of Nature and external objects of every kind--are placed relatively to one another in piecemeal fashion, and in thus setting them forth in disparate contiguity, which makes their singularity the more striking. And inasmuch as they are so placed they are without the enfolding unity of mind, and their array and association intentionally distract has so far no intrinsic significance whatever. And yet for all that, and this is the other aspect of the riddle, they do expressly point to a unity in relation to which even traits to all appearance most heterogeneous contain, notwithstanding, both a real sense and significance.
(_c_) This unity, which may be styled the subject of these distract predicates, is just the simple preconception, the word that solves our riddle, to discover or divine which from the apparently confused medley of the mode under which it is propounded is the riddle's problem. Thus interpreted we may call the riddle the facetiousness of symbolism, aware that it is such which puts to the proof acuteness of insight and aptness at putting things together, and finally, by stimulating the zest of solution, breaks into and destroys the very mode of presentation it has itself set up. In the main we shall find this, form, therefore, most employed in human speech, though we may find exceptional examples of it also in the plastic arts[89], architecture, horticulture, and painting. With regard to its historical appearance the East is first and foremost responsible, and we may date its advent in that intermediate and transitional period out of the more obtuse type of symbolism into one of more intelligent knowledge and comprehension. Entire peoples and historical epochs have taken delight in the solution of such problems. It also plays an important part in the Middle Ages among the Arabs and the Scandinavians, and as a particular example it is much in evidence in the minstrel tourneys on the Wartburg. In modern times it is mainly under the more modest guise of recreation and purely social pleasantry that we cross it.
In the riddle we have opened a practically limitless field for witty and striking conceits, which in their reference to any given circumstance, occurrence, or object take the form of a play upon words or an epigrammatical sentence. On the one hand we have presented an object trite to a degree, on the other some conceit of the mind which emphasizes unexpectedly with conspicuous force some aspect or relation, which we failed to perceive in that object on first confronting it, and which now attaches to it the light of a new significance.
2. THE ALLEGORY The counterpart to the riddle in this sphere of comparative art, where the point of departure is from the generality of the significance, is the _allegory._ From a certain point of view this form, no less than the former, endeavours to make more visible to us the definite qualities of a general conception through qualities in materially concrete objects which are cognate therewith; but in contrast to that form this is not done in the interest of a partial concealment and a mysterious problem; rather it is now quite the other way with the express object of absolute revealment; to an extent, in fact, that all which is external, and is as such utilized by it, must become through and through transpicuous with the significance which has to make its appearance therein.
(_a_) It is therefore in the first place concerned to personify abstract conditions of a general character or similar qualities both from the human and the natural world, such as religion, love, justice, strife, fame, war, peace, the seasons, death, and the like, and conceive them under the mode of _personality._ This subjective aspect, however, is neither in respect to its content nor its external form in itself either a real subject or individual, but persists as the abstraction of a general conception, whose content is merely the _barren_ form of subjectivity which may be called as truly a grammatical subject[90]. In other words an allegorical being, despite every attempt to clothe it in the lineaments of humanity, entirely falls short of concrete individuality, whether it be a Greek god, a saint, or any other genuine example. It is, in fact, so forced to pare away[91] from the substance of subjectivity, in order to make it conform with the abstract character of its significance, that all the true definition of individuality disappears. It is therefore only a just criticism of allegory to say that it is frosty and cold, and, having regard to the abstract quality of its significances, even in the point of invention, that it is rather the result of the matter-of-fact understanding than that of the complete vision and emotional depth of genuine imagination. Poets, such as Virgil, for example, are particularly ready to give us examples of allegorical individualization simply because they are unable to create gods of the Homeric type of personality.
(_b_) _Secondly_, however, the significant character of allegorical material is at once _defined_ in its abstraction, and only by means of such definition is it intelligible; the expression of such particular aspects, for the reason that it is not immediately unfolded in that which is in the first instance a purely _generalized_ conception of personality, is consequently forced to appear alongside of the subject, simply as the predicates which elucidate the same. This separation of subject from predicate, generality from particularity, is the second feature of the frostlike appearance of the allegory. The envisagement of the determinate and specific qualities is borrowed from the modes of expression, activity, and resultant effects which make their appearance in virtue of the significance, when that secures its realized form in concrete existence, or from the various means which subserve it in its true realization. For example, war is delineated through weapons, cannons, drums, and standards, etc.; the yearly seasons, by an enumeration of the flowers and fruits, which pre-eminently spring up under the favouring influence of the particular seasons. Objects of this kind may further receive purely symbolical relations, as, for instance, Justice may be brought home to our minds by means of the scales and fillet, Death by that of the hour-glass and scythe. For the reason, however, that the significance in allegory is the dominant factor, and the more specialized presentment is subordinate to it under an equally abstract form, for it is, after all, itself merely an abstraction, the embodiment of such definable characteristics only secures the validity of an _attribute_ pure and simple.
(_c_) In this way the allegory is under both these aspects without vital warmth. Its general personification is empty, the definite mode of its externalization is only a sign, which taken independently has no longer any meaning, and the _centrum_, which is thus constrained to gather up the variety of the attributes into a focus does not possess the potency of a truly subjective unity which is itself self-embodied in its real and determinate existence inter-related throughout, but is rather a purely abstract form, for which the substantial filling-up with particular traits, which, as we have seen, never succeed in rising above the rank of the formal attribute, remains as something external.
Consequently we may say that in so far as the allegory sets up any claim to real self-consistency, in which it personifies its abstraction and their delineation, it is not to be taken seriously. In other words, that which is both implicitly and explicitly self-substantive is unable really to conform with an allegorical being. The _Dikê_ of the ancients, for instance, is not on all fours with allegorical individualization. She is universal Necessity personified, eternal Justice, the universally potent subject, the absolute substantivity of the relations which co-ordinate Nature and spiritual Life, that is, she is the absolute Self-subsistent itself, in the train of whom all other individuals are bound, whether gods or men. Herr Frederick von Schlegel has, it is true--we have already referred to the fact--ventured the opinion that every work of art must of necessity be an allegory. Such an expression of opinion is only true if limited to the sense that every work of art must contain a general idea and a significance which is itself essentially true. What we have above, on the contrary, included under the term allegory is a mode of presentation which only conforms to the notion of art incompletely, being itself no less in content than in form subordinate to it. Every human event and development, every relation in which life is concerned, possesses no doubt intrinsically an aspect of universality, which may be emphasized as such, but abstractions of this kind are already to be found in the general contents of consciousness, and merely to assert them in their prosaic aspect of generality and external delineation, which is the point where the allegory halts, is still to fall short of the true sphere of art.
Winckelmann has also written an immature work on allegory, in which he has ranged together a large number of examples, but failed for the most part to distinguish those which exemplify the symbol and allegory respectively.
Among the particular arts within which we find examples of the allegory, poetry is really acting contrary to its laws when it takes refuge in such a mode of presentment; sculpture on the contrary is in most directions barely complete without it, more especially modern sculputure, which freely admits of that which is native to portraiture, and so must avail itself of allegorical figures in order to delineate more closely the relative aspects under which the individual presentment is posed. On Blucher's monument, for example, which has been raised to him here in Berlin, we find both the genius of Fame and Victory, although, having regard to the general treatment of the war of liberation, this allegorical aspect is once more set aside by means of a series of particular scenes such as the departure of the army, its march, and victorious return. Generally speaking, however, where the subject of sculpture is portraiture the sculptor will avail himself gladly of allegorical representation as offering to the simplicity of his central figure the contrast of environment and variety. The ancients on the other hand, on their sarcophagi for example, more frequently made use of general mythological representations of such figures as Sleep, Death, and the like.
Allegory generally is far less common in the antique than it is in the romantic art of the Middle Ages, although it must be added that such romance as it possesses is not really referable to allegory. The frequent appearance of allegorical conception at this particular epoch of human history is to be thus explained. From a certain point of view we find that the content of the Middle Ages is preoccupied with particular types of individuality and the personal aims, generally focussed in love and honour, and resulting in vows, wanderings, and adventures, which are common to them. Individuals of this type and the events of such lives invariably offer the imagination a wide scope for the inventive faculties, and the composition of accidental and capriciously imagined collisions and their resolution. On the other hand, in direct contrast to this motley show of worldly adventure we have the universal, taking it here as the stability of the ordinary relations and conditions of life, a universal which is not, as was the case in the ancient world, individualized in the figures of self-subsistent gods; consequently we find it freely and naturally emphasized in independent isolation as such universality alongside of these particular types of personality and their specific modes of appearance and activity. If the artist therefore happens to have before his mind the general conditions of life we have adverted to, and assuming that he is desirous of giving artistic embodiment to them in some form other than the accidental mode common to his age, that he wishes, in short, to emphasize their universality, he has no other