The first and last aim of art is to render intuitively perceptible the process of life itself, to show how the soul of man develops in the atmosphere surrounding him, let it be suited to him or not, how good engenders evil within him, and evil in turn produces something less evil, and how this eternal growth has a limit so far as our apprehension is concerned, but none at all in reality; this is symbolization. It is an error when men say that only the fully developed is matter for the poet; on the contrary, what is in process of development, what is first begotten in conflict with the elements of creation, that is matter for him. What is finished can be only a plaything of the waves, it can only be destroyed and devoured by them; can art have anything to do with that which is most common, in other words, most universal? But what is in process of development must pass from one form into another at the hands of the poet, it must never as formless soft clay dissolve before our eyes into chaos and confusion; it must always, in a certain sense, be at the same time a finished product, just as in the universe we never encounter naked raw material. Man exists only because of his future; an inexplicable mystery, but one that may not be denied. Man, therefore, cannot be brought before us as something complete in himself; for not how he affects the world but how the world affects him arouses our interest and is of importance to us; the great forces and powers outside of him find embodiment by exerting an influence over him, and thus lose their formidableness, the riddle of the universe is solved as soon as it finds utterance, and even though at the end a question remains, we can bear this much easier than an empty nothing. Not only in art but in history as well life sometimes assumes a form, and art should not seek her subjects and her themes where this has occurred. God was a mystery to Himself before the creation; He had to create in order to understand Himself. If only some one thing had been completely explained, then everything would be explained. The motives before a deed are usually transformed during the deed, and at least seem quite different after the deed: this is an important circumstance which most dramatists overlook. Lyric poetry has something childlike about it, dramatic poetry something manly, epic poetry something senile. Two hands can indeed clasp one another but cannot grow together. This is the relation of one individuality to another. (1840) From my conception of form many consequences ensue of the most varied kind. In reference to lyric poetry: the whole emotional life is a shower, the emotion which is singled out is a drop illumined by the sun. Dramatic poetry: form is the point where divine and human strength neutralize one another. The true idyll results when a man is represented as happy and complete in himself within his own appointed sphere. So long as he remains within this sphere fate has no power over him.