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Rh tation on the stage. The distinctions between comedy and tragedy are to be found in the beginning of dramatic art, and as they were developed the division became more marked. The reason for this lies in the things themselves. The destiny of man, like his nature, his passions and pursuits, character and occurrences, all in and around us, have serious as well as comic sides, and may be ranged as one or the other, according to our special point of view. This double-sidedness of man and the world has pointed out to dramatic poetry—naturally enough—two very different paths, but while men chose this or that as a place for rivalry or action, art never deviated from the study and representation of reality. Though Aristophanes lashes with unrestrained freedom of fancy the vices and follies of the Athenians, though Moliere censures and cuts the errors or abuses of scepticism, avarice, envy, pedantry, courtly etiquette, and of virtue itself all there is in it is that the two poets handle very different subjects, one bringing on the stage a whole life and people, the other on the contrary the incidents of private life, or the inner life of families, and what is laughable in individuals—this difference in comic material being a result of a difference in time, place, and civilisation. But to Aristophanes, as to Moliere, reality or the real world is always the