THE ARTIST AND HIS FOLLOWERS MUST KEEP IN STEP.--The progress from one grade of style to another must be so slow that not only the artists but also the auditors and spectators can follow it and know exactly what is going on. Otherwise there will suddenly appear that great chasm between the artist, who creates his work upon a height apart, and the public, who cannot rise up to that height and finally sinks discontentedly deeper. For when the artist no longer raises his public it rapidly sinks downwards, and its fall is the deeper and more dangerous in proportion to the height to which genius has carried it, like the eagle, out of whose talons a tortoise that has been borne up into the clouds falls to its destruction. 169. THE SOURCE OF THE COMIC ELEMENT.--If we consider that for many thousands of years man was an animal that was susceptible in the highest degree to fear, and that everything sudden and unexpected had to find him ready for battle, perhaps even ready for death; that even later, in social relations, all security was based on the expected, on custom in thought and action, we need not be surprised that at everything sudden and unexpected in word and deed, if it occurs without danger or injury, man becomes exuberant and passes over into the very opposite of fear--the terrified, trembling, crouching being shoots upward, stretches itself: man laughs. This transition from momentary fear into short-lived exhilaration is called the _Comic._ On the other hand, in the tragic phenomenon, man passes quickly from great enduring exuberance into great fear; but as amongst mortals great and lasting exuberance is much rarer than the cause for fear, there is far more comedy than tragedy in the world; we laugh much offener than we are agitated. 170. THE ARTIST'S AMBITION.--The Greek artists, the tragedians for instance, composed in order to conquer; their whole art cannot be imagined without rivalry,--the good Hesiodian Eris, Ambition, gave wings to their genius. This ambition further demanded that their work should achieve the greatest excellence _in their own eyes,_ as they understood excellence, _without any regard_ for the reigning taste and the general opinion about excellence in a work of art; and thus it was long before Æschylus and Euripides achieved any success, until at last they _educated_ judges of art, who valued their work according to the standards which they themselves appointed. Hence they strove for victory over rivals according to their own valuation, they really wished to _be_ more excellent; they demanded assent from without to this self-valuation, the confirmation of this verdict. To achieve honour means in this case "to make one's self superior to others, and to desire that this should be recognised publicly." Should the former condition be wanting, and the latter nevertheless desired, it is then called _vanity._ Should the latter be lacking and not missed, then it is named _pride_. 171.