Content—themes: mythology, battle. Form—rhythm is regular. Method of appeal—concrete, rugged. PERUVIAN—TWO PIECES Content—theme: mythological, love. Form—rhyme irregular, rhythm. Method of appeal—somewhat concrete. SPANISH—THIRTY-FOUR PIECES Content—themes: love, war, religion, court and city life. Form—rhyme and rhythm quite regular. Method of appeal—moralizing and abstract thinking. Few concrete pictures. This investigation of these poems leads to the following: Each group of poems embodies an expression of personality, individuality which grows out of peculiar environment; not merely physical environment, but also social, political, and religious environment. Each, either in content, form, or in its method of appeal, sometimes in all three, bears traces of the milieu out of which it sprung. The notes of waning glory and ancestral lament of Ossian gain their character from a different period in the life of the nation from that recorded in the Moorish battle songs in the Spanish collection. The ruggedness of the Skaldic poetry bespeaks a roughness in climate and scenery not to be found in the French poems. The mythology of the Scotch Highlanders and of the Norsemen, depicted in their poetry, is different indeed from the Mohammedanism of which the Spanish pieces speak. The English and German songs which are characterized by Christian customs are colored neither by Mohammedanism, Gallic, nor Classic mythology. The deep reflective moods of the Shakespeare specimens grew out of a social and intellectual environment entirely the opposite of that in which the concrete and vivid pictures of many of Percy’s Reliques had their birth. In all this difference, the common feature is that individuality is expressed. Individual traits appear within each group. Racial consciousness distinguishes one group from the other. Now personality and individuality are corner stones in Herder’s system of thought. His discussion of Lessing’s “Laokoon” sets forth the principle that true art will be characterized by these.[9] Herder’s philosophy is also emphatic in showing that all art is shaped by the environment out of which it grew. The essays “Shakespeare,” “Homer und Ossian,” and “Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie” are replete with such thought. The art of every nation then will bear national imprint. The national stamp, this expression of personality and individuality, both products of various kinds of environment, belongs to Herder’s conception of _Volk_ wherever the idea is identical with that of nation or race. Now the preceding chapter has shown that however often Herder uses the term as synonymous with nation or race, he has also a distinctive and a sort of esoteric use.