(_ββ_) For such reasons we may affirm that neither in comedy nor in tragedy ought pathos to be that which is only folly or personal idiosyncracy. Shakespeare's Timon, for example, is on purely material grounds a misanthrope; his friends have eaten him up, consumed his substance, and when he himself requires their gold desert him. He consequently becomes a passionate enemy of mankind. The situation is both conceivable and consistent with nature, but it contains no pathos that can be justified on principle. Even to a more striking extent is the hate we find in "The Misanthrope," that play of Schiller's apprenticeship, purely a vagary of modern ideas. For in this latter case the misanthrope is in addition a thoughtful, perspicacious, and entirely noble man, great-hearted towards his peasants, whom he has freed from their villeinage, and devoted to his daughter, who is, apart from her beauty, in all respects worthy of his love. In much the same way, in that novel of August Lafontaine, Quintius Heimeran von Flaming is worried with the follies of mankind. It is, however, our most latter-day poetry which, above all, loves to wind itself into every conceivable knot of fantastical falsehood[352], attempting thereby to secure an effect through mere oddity, but failing to find the slightest response in any sane person for the reason that every vestige of what is really present in human life has vanished from such refinements of mental athletics. In another direction we may remark that everything which depends solely, that is to say, in so far as scientific apprehension is the main requirement, upon instruction, testimony to the truth, and insight of what is offered as such, is no fit subject-matter for the representation of a genuine pathos. The facts of _scientific knowledge_ are a part of this material. And the reason of this is that science demands a particular form of education, an effort towards and a knowledge of the specific forms of science and their relative importance of exceptional variety and extension; an interest in this type of study is by no means a universally moving influence in the hearts of men, but is limited and must ever remain limited to a narrow circle of votaries. The treatment of purely _religious_ instruction presents similar difficulty, if we mean by that the development of the same in its profoundest import. No doubt the universal content of religion, such as the belief in God and similar theses, is of the deepest interest to anyone worthy of it. Art is, however, not directly concerned either in the exposition of religious dogmas, nor, indeed, in any exceptional insight into their truth; it is consequently of importance that she should be held aloof front such disquisitions. It is all the more necessary that we should through art entrust every type of pathos to the human heart, every motive of ethical significance, which are of practical and vital interest. The influence of religious