the current of time and imagines a special instance, an instance which presents the problem in dual form—for example the human tangle of the Atridean house and the superhuman conflict between Zeus and the powers of earth. It is assumed that there has been no earlier, less decisive, jar. In the future, there will be no more. The great question is raised once for all in its completest, most difficult form. The gradual processes of time are abolished. Thus Atlas[292] is punished by condemnation to the task of upholding heaven for ever; how it was sustained before his offence is a question we must not raise. Hypermnestra[293] is put on trial for disobeying her father that her husband may live. She is saved by Aphrodite; and the innumerable cases of conflicts of duty which have broken hearts in days past are summed up (rather than disregarded) by this ultimate example. In the _Oresteia_ a man is hunted well-nigh to death by fiends because he has obeyed the will of God. Why? It can only be said that until the judgment in the _Eumenides_ all is nebulous, the world is being governed desperately as by some committee of public safety; morals, justice, and equity are still upon the anvil. After this one case no man will ever again be tortured like Orestes; nor indeed, we may conjecture, will the oracles of Zeus issue behests so merciless as that which he received. Finally, something should be said about Æschylus’ views on religion. Other subjects had an interest for him, geography, history, and politics,[294] but his never-failing and profound interest in religion overshadows these. Not only was he interested in the local cults of Athens, as were his great successors; he is at home in the deepest regions of theology. Even more than this, he brings back strange messages from the eternal world, he seeks to purify the beliefs of his fellows by his deep sense of spiritual fact; he writes the chronicles of Heaven and bears witness to the conquests of the Most High. Among Greek writers he is the most religious, and, with Plato and Euripides, most alive to the importance of belief to the national health. He is not ashamed of the traditional gospel when he thinks it true: “the act comes back upon him that did it; so runs the thrice-old saw”.[295] Still less is he ashamed to denounce false maxims: “From of old hath this hoary tale been spread abroad among men, that when prosperity hath grown to its full stature it brings forth offspring and dies not childless; yea, that from good hap a man’s posterity shall reap unendingly a harvest of woe. But I stand apart from others, nor is my mind like theirs.”[296] This originality and sincere mood is shown everywhere. Already we have noted how earnestly just he is towards the claims of the Furies. The case was no foregone conclusion for him. To realize how terrible the quarrel was in his eyes we have only to imagine our feelings had Apollo been defeated. And defeated he nearly is; the human judges vote equally.