that Euripides intended to work out an interesting situation of legend as a study in natural psychology and social development. The situation according to story came to a certain end; according to Euripides that was not the natural end. And he emphasizes this legendary distortion by pointing out clearly that to square nature and the story nothing less than a miracle is required. To assert that he needed the supernatural intervention to save his play is absolutely to reverse the facts. Can we doubt which of these theories is sound? Two further questions at once arise. Why did he select situations from misleading legends? And, is there then no pseudo-dramatic _deus ex machina_ at all? The first question is of vital importance. It is incorrect to say that he was bound by convention to the traditional stories; Phrynichus, Agathon, and Moschion all defied this “convention”. Euripides was a student of human thought, of the development of belief, as well as a dramatist. Convinced that his contemporaries held false beliefs about the gods and that the myths were largely responsible for this, hypnotizing thought by their beauty and paralyzing logic by their authority, he sets himself to show, not only that they are untrue, but also how, though untrue, they ever won credence. As for the _deus ex machina_ the truth is that he does not exist (save, of course, in the rôle of a non-dramatic narrator). He is, like the three unities, a figment based on uncritical and hasty reading. Outside this poet the only possible case is that of the _Philoctetes_, which has been shown no genuine instance. We may now return to the objections raised by Aristophanes and Aristotle. They are all due to the two instincts we have described—his interest in every manifestation of life, and his stern rationalism. Most of the technical flaws, for instance, alleged against him are proofs that he was attracted by the possibilities of his own art; he is constantly testing the limits to which development can go. The iambics of the _Orestes_, for example, are extraordinarily full of resolved feet; after that play he restrains himself more. In music too he appears to have been an explorer; at any rate the fault found with the words of his choruses points to a development like the modern, in which libretto was becoming subservient to music. The comic poet, again, fastens eagerly upon the prologues, and puts into the mouth of Æschylus a famous jest:—[836] _Æsch._: And now, by Jove, I’ll not smash each phrase word by word, but with heaven’s aid I’ll ruin your prologues with—a little oil-flask. _Eur._: An oil-flask? You ... my prologues? _Æsch._: Just one little flask. You write so that anything will fit into your iambics—a little fleece, a little flask, a little bag. I’ll show you on the spot. _Eur._: Oh! you will? _Æsch._: Yes. _Dion._: Now you must recite something. _Eur._: