problem proposed to the poet, if we contrast him with artists in other arts, is at once more _facile_ and more _difficult_ It is more easy, because, although the poet, in the poetical elaboration of speech, must possess a trained talent, he is spared the relatively more manifold task of triumph over technical difficulties necessary in the other arts. It is more difficult because, just in proportion as poetry is less able to complete the objective envisagement, it is compelled to seek some compensation for this loss on the side of sense in the genuine core of Art's own ideality, in the depth of imagination and a really artistic mode of conception. (_b_) For this reason the poet is, in the _second_ place, constrained to penetrate into all the wealth of the spiritual content, and to lay bare to the vision of mind what is concealed in its depths. For however much in the other arts, too, the ideal must shine forth through its corporeal manifestation, and does so in life itself shine forth, yet the medium of speech remains that most open to intelligence, and the means most adequate to its revelation. It is the one medium able to grasp and declare everything whatever that flows through or is present in consciousness, whether regarded in its ascent or profundity. In consequence of this the poet finds himself confronted with difficulties which the other arts are not called upon to overcome or satisfy to the like degree. In other words, for the very reason that poetry is actually operative in the world of idea or imagination itself, and is not concerned with fashioning for its images an objective existence independent of such ideality, it is placed in an element or sphere in which the religious, scientific and everyday consciousness are active; it must therefore take care to make no excursion into the domain or mode of conception proper to any of these, or to get mixed up with them. No doubt in the case of every art we find points of contact with other arts. Artistic creation of every kind proceeds from _one_ mind or spirit, which comprehends in itself all spheres of self-conscious life. But with the other arts the distinction of conception in each case is in its mode complete, for the reason that this, in its ideal creation, persists throughout in permanent relation to the execution of its images in a definite sensuous material, and consequently is absolutely distinct, no less from the forms of the religious consciousness, than it is from the thinking of science and the intelligence of ordinary life. Poetry, on the contrary, avails itself, in its manner of objective communication, of the very means adopted in these spheres of mental activity, that is to say, human speech; it finds itself, consequently, otherwise placed than are the plastic arts and music, which occupy a different field of conception and expression.