words, we are unable to predict decisively and _a priori_ the degree in which the objective occasion with its given content, or the purely personal factor of poet, shall be predominant, or whether both aspects shall on equal terms coalesce. (_γγ_) Furthermore, it is not the incentive and its positive reality, but the ideal movement and conception of the individual soul which supplies the _focus of unity._ The particular mood or general review, which is aroused poetically by the occasion, these constitute the centre, radiating from which not merely the colour of the whole, but also the embrace of the particular features unfolded, the very mode of the execution and construction, and therewith the build and coalescence of the poem as a work of art are determined. In this way, to return to our previous example, Pindar possesses in the life-conditions of his victors a genuine core of reality for differentiation or amplification. In the particular poems, however, which he has written it is invariably other points of view, another mood altogether, whether it be of warning, comfort, or exaltation, which he makes most pervasive, and which, although such exclusively belong to the poet in his creative capacity, do none the less give him precisely that grasp of all he wishes to touch upon, execute, and hand to posterity in those historical facts, while unfolding therewith the illuminating and constructive power of genius, without which he would fail to secure the lyric effect intended. (_γ_) But, _thirdly_, it is not absolutely necessary for the genuine lyrical poet to start from the external occurrence, which he recounts in a medium rich with emotion, or, indeed, from any such objectively real stimulus of his efforts. He is, let us repeat, a truly exclusive world _in himself._ He may find there both the original incentive and content, and consequently go no further than this ideal world of condition, event, and passion discovered in his own heart and soul. This is that domain in which man becomes, in virtue of his private inner life, himself the work of art; while the epic poet avails himself exclusively of the hero and his exploits and experiences for this purpose. (_αα_) And yet in this field, too, an element of narrative may enter, where, as in the case of the songs of Anacreon, bright little pictures of adventure with Eros and the like receive the finish of delightful miniatures. Such an event, however, must obviously rather resemble the unveiling of a condition of personal soul-life. In a somewhat different mode of the same thing Horace, in his _Integer vitæ_ makes use of the fact of his meeting a wolf, not to the extent that we can, therefore, call his poem the verse _d'occasion_, but rather regarding this fact as the prompting force of his first sentence and the serenity of the feelings of affection with which he concludes.