(_αα_) Under the broadest review of this question we may say that the conflict of the _belligerent_ condition is that which supplies the Epos with its most pertinent situation. In war it is obviously the entire nation which is set in activity, and which, as a whole placed under similar conditions, is moved and stimulated in a novel way, in so far at least as it possesses any claim, as such a whole, to participate in it. We may admit that the above conclusion stands in apparent contradiction not merely with Homer's Odyssey, but also the subject-matter of many poems that are epic in an otherwise intelligible sense. It finds, however, ample corroboration in the majority of the most famous Epopees. Moreover, the collision of operations in the events of which the Odyssey informs us, derives part of its source from the Trojan war; and even under the aspect of domestic life in Ithaca, no less than that of the home-returning Odysseus, although the narrative is no actual account of conflicts between Greeks and Trojans, yet it deals with facts which are the immediate consequence of that war. Nay, it is itself war under a new aspect, for many chieftains are forced to reconquer their homes, which after their ten years' absence they find under wholly altered conditions. We have practically but one example of the religious Epos, Dante's "Divine Comedy." Even here, too, the fundamental collision is deducible from that original Fall of the evil angels from heaven, which brings in its train and within the sphere of human experience the ever active external and ideal conflict between the Divine Father and the conduct of men, whether hostile or well-pleasing to Him, a conflict eternally perpetuated in condemnation, purification, and blessedness, or in other words, hell, purgatory, and paradise. Also, too, in the Messias it is the former war against the Son of God which supplies the focal centre. At the same time the most vital and truly pertinent examples are those which actually describe the belligerent state. We have already drawn attention to such in the Ramajana, and, most instructive of all, in the Iliad; further examples are the famous poems of Ossian, Tasso, Ariosto, and Camoens. In war _courage_ is and remains the fundamental interest; and warlike courage is a state of the soul and an activity, which is neither so suitable for lyrical expression nor for dramatic action, but is pre-eminently adapted to the descriptive power of the Epos. In dramatic poetry it is rather the ideal strength or weakness of spiritual life, the ethically justified or reprehensible pathos which is the main thing: in the Epos, on the contrary, it is rather the native characteristics of a personality. For this reason, where it is national exploits which are undertaken, bravery is in its right place; it is in fact not an ethical state,[6] in which the will is determined through its own initiative as an intelligent consciousness and volition. It rather depends on