find their expression and by this means their deliverance. (_b_) _The Lyric Work of Art_ _Secondly_, in respect to the lyric poem as a poetic work of art, we are no doubt in general not able to advance much. The fortuitous character of the abundance of its many modes of expression, and the forms of its equally varied and incalculable content make this inevitable. The peculiarly personal nature of this class of work, however much the same is imperatively subject to the general principles of beauty and art, none the less brings with it the necessary result, that the range of the formal and melodious possibilities of its exposition admit of no theoretic definition. For our purpose, therefore, the only question of importance is the nature of the distinction of artistic type that obtains between the lyric and the epic product. Upon this I will briefly draw attention to the following points of importance: _First_, the unity of the lyric composition. _Secondly,_ the nature of its progressive disclosure. _Thirdly_, the external aspect of its verse-measure and general exhibition. (_α_) The importance, which the Epos possesses for art lies, as already observed, and pre-eminently so, in the case of the primitive Epopaea, in the consummate elaboration of the perfected artistic form, which as from the repository of the full embrace of the national spirit, places before our vision one and the same composition in all the wealth of a completely evolved content. (_αα_) The true lyric work of art will not undertake to present thus before us a synthesized whole of such extension. The principle of personality can no doubt proceed to a comprehension of subject-matter of universal pretensions. To be able truly to enforce itself, however, in its individual independence, it necessarily implies the collateral principle of disintegration and isolation. At the same time a variety of truth, phenomenal or ideal, derived from natural environment, the memory of one's own or another's experience, from mythical and historical events, and the like, is not therefore excluded: but such an extension of view must not be permitted, as with the Epos, on the ground that it belongs to the unified _complexus_ of a given sphere of reality, but is rather solely justifiable for the reason that it springs to renewed life in the memory of the poet, and in his impulse and gift of vivid association.