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IV.] contrasts of character, and to bring the imaginary action into relation with the habitual thoughts of the spectators. It is not meant that Euripides is immoral because Hippolytus says, "The tongue hath sworn to this, not so the mind," or Sophocles moral, because Antigone says, "Love and not hatred is the guide for me." Wholly apart from such trifling there is a true sense in which tragedy must teach a moral lesson. For otherwise it could not stir the heart or satisfy the imagination of a multitude. It presupposes both in author and spectator an intense interest in the life and destiny of man. It seeks to exhibit these in a condensed example, not partially or superficially, but as they are seriously regarded in some one of their most important aspects. This is what the Greeks meant by saying that tragedy is "serious representation,".

Mere blind, unreflecting passion can never by itself be an adequate subject for tragic treatment before rational men. The unconsciousness of tragic persons has the effect of pathos only when our imagination contemplates it by the light of reason. The poet in displaying the situation must somehow make felt what he conceives to be its true nature. This may be done either, as in the Medea and Macbeth, by exhibiting flashes of the higher spirit in the person who is enthralled to the lower, or by means of contrasts (like that between Macbeth and Banquo), or through an ideal spectator (such as Ross and Lennox), or by some other means. But it must be done. Unless the tragic poet is in earnest in his representation of life he must fail of the highest success; and if he is in earnest, he will, with more or less of consciousness, impress on his audience his own general view of life; in other words, his moral ideal. And this will not be lastingly impressive unless it is true. He will make the action appear to the spectators, as it would have appeared in reality to a considerate observer, who, while profoundly sympathising with the difficulties and weaknesses of noble human beings, could also