But Spingarn would maintain that the aesthetic value of a play is entirely independent of theatrical conditions or the conventions arising therefrom. “For aesthetic criticism the theater simply does not exist” (cf. _op. cit._, p. 89). Surely, if Sophocles were writing plays for the present-day public he would find it necessary to dispense with the choral odes which have been at once the delight and the despair of Greek students from his generation to this. Would not such an omission and the consequent readjustments affect the aesthetic value of his tragedies? Or if one of our dramatists could be set down in a Greek theater of some twenty-four hundred years ago, which was incapable of representing an interior scene and had never contained a box set, certainly his dramas would have to be turned literally inside out before they could be produced at all. Would this recasting in no wise affect their aesthetic criticism? Spingarn is anxious to protect Aristotle from the imputation of believing that plays and their theatrical representation are “mutually inclusive.” But his own position makes them mutually exclusive. Both theories are extreme and unwarranted. I have already quoted Spingarn’s conception of a play. In my opinion, Mr. Galsworthy’s putting of the matter is not only broader, but far preferable, for the reason that it duly recognizes, as Spingarn’s dictum does not, the facts of existence. He writes: “For what is Art but the perfected expression of self in contact with the world?”[8] While this definition takes full cognizance of aesthetic and spiritual values, it yet does not exclude such unmentioned but implicit factors as the medium of expression chosen by the artist, the circumstances under which his work is created and is to be exhibited, the past history and inherited conventions of the genre, etc. On the contrary, it is apparent that Galsworthy would not, after the fashion of the materialistic school, elevate these indispensable, though subordinate, matters to the exclusion of all else. It thus appears that I array myself neither with the aesthetic nor with the materialistic school of critics, but occupy middle ground. Nevertheless, my book is devoted, in the main, to a consideration of the more materialistic and external factors in the development of Greek drama. These factors are different manifestations of Environment, which is a far broader term than Aristotle’s Spectacle (ὄψις). I entertain no illusion as to the comparative importance of environment in the criticism of drama. It is distinctly of secondary importance. If it were possible to study Greek drama from but one point of view, perhaps this would not deserve to be that one. But since no such restriction obtains, it is my contention that a consideration of these factors, too, is not merely valuable, but essential to a complete survey of the field.