of insanity in quite exceptional cases. In conclusion we may connect with these distortions of a sane vision, which are so much opposed to all real unity and consistency of character, the principle of our latter-day irony. This false theory has betrayed the poet into grafting upon his characters qualities so essentially diverse that they are incapable of all homogeneous relation; the essential unity of every character is thus confounded. According to this theory a character is first presented as characterized in a certain way, and immediately after we have that very determination converted into its opposite, and the character itself is propounded to us as nothing more than the negation of what it was and is. Moreover this very futility is accepted by this irony as the supreme discovery of art. An audience should not, in short, be carried away by an essentially positive interest, but should be pulled up at the critical moment, much as the irony itself is no sooner launched upon anything than it is off again. They would even explain the characters of Shakespeare according to such a principle. We are informed that Lady Macbeth was an irreproachable wife of the tenderest feeling, despite the fact that she not only falls in with the suggestion of the murder, but actually eggs her husband on to its execution. But if the signet mark of Shakespeare is conspicuous on any one quality it is on the firm and decisive delineation of his characters, even when it is only the formal greatness and consistency of evil that is in question. Hamlet, it is true, is a case of mental indecision, but even he is only in doubt as to the way he shall carry out his purpose, not at all as to what has to be done. Yet nowadays they would assimilate even Shakespeare's characters to a world of ghosts, and appear to think that this futility and indecision of ups and downs, this general squeamishness[364] in short can by itself contribute to our interest. The Ideal, however, is centred in this, that Idea is made _actual_, and our humanity is associated with such actuality as subject and consequently as a unity which is essentially firm-rooted. We may here, so far at least as this portion of our inquiry is concerned, bring our observations upon the individuality which is consistent with real character to a close. That which we have mainly sought to emphasize is a pathos which is at once self-determined and essential, the possession of a rich and complete nature, the spiritual world of which such a pathos transfuses under such a form that this process of transfusion no less than the pathos itself receives its artistic presentment. At the same time this pathos must not be allowed to come into conflict with itself in the hearts of men so as to stultify its very nature and consistency as pathos. III. THE EXTERNAL DETERMINATION OF THE IDEAL