(_αα_) Lyrical poetry is, no doubt, involved in definite situations, within which the subject of the lyric is permitted to import a great variety of content into its emotion and reflection. In this type of poetry, however, it is throughout the form of conscious life itself which characterizes such content; and for this reason excludes the outlook on the objective world in all its breadth of extension. Conversely the dramatic composition presents us characters and the carrying out of the action itself with all the animated appearance of life, so that here, too, the portrayal of local accessories, the external form of the active personages and all that happens, in the nature of the case tends to disappear. As a rule, what we have to express is the soul-motive and purpose rather than its extensive relations with the surrounding world of objects, or a description of individuals in their positive appearance as part of them. In the Epos, however, quite apart from the national actuality in the widest sense, upon which the action is based, we must find room for the ideal or soul aspect no less than the external or world aspect. We have in this type, therefore, under review and in coalescence the entire totality of all that we may reckon as comprised in the poetic presentation of our human existence. In this content we must not merely include on the one side the natural environment in the sense of this or that specific locality in which the action takes place, but also the more universal objective outlook such as I have already pointed out is a feature we find illustrated in the Odyssey, enabling us to understand how the Greeks in the times of Homer regarded the shape of the Earth, the configuration of the seas, and similar geographical facts. At the same time these natural aspects are not the object of most importance in the poem; they are merely the foundation; there is, in short, the further and more essential aspect of the composition unfolded in the existence, activities, and co-operation of the entire world of divinities; and between these two extremes we have humanity simply as such in its collective relation to domestic, public, peaceful, and warlike situations, ethical habit, customs, characters and events. And, moreover, throughout we have to assume in both directions, whether that is from the point of view of the individual event, or the general condition, the all-embracing national and other actual complexus.