Hamlet's irresolution, or his aversion to real action, is, according to the theory, the _direct_ result of 'an almost enormous intellectual activity' in the way of 'a calculating consideration which attempts to exhaust all the relations and possible consequences of a deed.' And this again proceeds from an original one-sidedness of nature, strengthened by habit, and, perhaps, by years of speculative inaction. The theory describes, therefore, a man in certain respects like Coleridge himself, on one side a man of genius, on the other side, the side of will, deplorably weak, always procrastinating and avoiding unpleasant duties, and often reproaching himself in vain; a man, observe, who at _any_ time and in _any_ circumstances would be unequal to the task assigned to Hamlet. And thus, I must maintain, it degrades Hamlet and travesties the play. For Hamlet, according to all the indications in the text, was not naturally or normally such a man, but rather, I venture to affirm, a man who at any _other_ time and in any _other_ circumstances than those presented would have been perfectly equal to his task; and it is, in fact, the very cruelty of his fate that the crisis of his life comes on him at the one moment when he cannot meet it, and when his highest gifts, instead of helping him, conspire to paralyse him. This aspect of the tragedy the theory quite misses; and it does so because it misconceives the cause of that irresolution which, on the whole, it truly describes. For the cause was not directly or mainly an habitual excess of reflectiveness. The direct cause was a state of mind quite abnormal and induced by special circumstances,--a state of profound melancholy. Now, Hamlet's reflectiveness doubtless played a certain part in the _production_ of that melancholy, and was thus one indirect contributory cause of his irresolution. And, again, the melancholy, once established, displayed, as one of its _symptoms_, an excessive reflection on the required deed. But excess of reflection was not, as the theory makes it, the _direct_ cause of the irresolution at all; nor was it the _only_ indirect cause; and in the Hamlet of the last four Acts it is to be considered rather a symptom of his state than a cause of it. These assertions may be too brief to be at once clear, but I hope they will presently become so. 3