A criticism similar to that we have directed to the representation by art of the human form and its exterior clothing might be applied to a whole multitude of things which make up the external show of life, or minister to its wants, such as eating, drinking, and sleeping--things necessary enough in themselves and useful to all men, which, however much in their manifold variety, as constituent features of the physical life of mankind, they may blend with those activities more directly related to its spirit, do not themselves form part of such activities, or stand in essential relation either to their determinations or their interests, and thereby contribute to what is the truly ideal or universal element in the content of human life. Physical aspects of life such as these may no doubt receive poetical treatment in art; and it is generally admitted that the descriptions of a poet such as Homer in this direction adhere very closely to Nature. Yet we find that even Homer, despite all his _ἐνέργεια_, all the vividness of his presentment, is forced to limit his descriptions to general observations; no one expects to find in him an entirely accurate picture of the facts in all their detail as they actually would occur in life. He may give us, no doubt, in his delineation of the bodily presence of Achilles, the lofty brow, the prominent nose, the long and stalwart legs, but he is not likely to include in the picture every detail of the veritable existence of limbs point for point, and the relation in which they stand to one another in colour, size, and so forth, in other words to offer us Nature's reality instead of an artist's portrait. And the reason is obvious inasmuch as in the art of poetry the type of expression is always the universal concept of the imagination as distinguished from the bare particularity of Nature. Instead of the fact the poet always gives us the denominant, the word, in which the particular thing is universalized; for the word is a product of mental conception, and as such already carries in itself the nature of a universal. One is entitled to say, of course, that it is _natural_ in the formation of concepts and speech to employ a nomenclature, the word, as such an infinite[288] abridgment of the existence we find in Nature; but if we do so the Nature to which we refer it would not merely be opposed to the natural existence with which we compare it, but would be just that which cancels it. We are therefore confronted with the question in what sense we use the word Nature when we contrast it with the characteristic of poetry. The mere undefined use of the word Nature by itself tells us nothing at all. What poetry should always give us is the energetic, the essential, the truly characteristic; and this fundamental expressiveness is precisely the Ideal and not the merely immediate, to enumerate all the details of which in the narration of an event or the portrayal of a