(_c_) _Thirdly_, we have the final demand made upon the poet for the most profound and manifold transfusion of the subject-matter of his creations with the animating soul of life, because it is his art which is capable of absorbing most profoundly the entire fulness of the spiritual content. The plastic artist, in a similar way, must apply himself to a transfusion of ideal expression in the _external form_ of architectonic, plastic and the forms peculiar to painting. The musician must likewise rivet his attention on the _inner soul_ concentrated in emotion and passion and their outpouring in melodic expression. In both cases the artist must be steeped in the most ideal intention and substance of his content. But the sphere of the poet's creative activity extends yet further, for the reason that he has not merely to elaborate an ideal world of soul-life and the self-conscious mind. He has, in addition, to discover for this ideal realm an external mode of envisagement fitted thereto, a mode by virtue of which that ideal totality shines through in more irresistible perfection than is possible in the case of other arts. It is incumbent upon him to know human existence, both as soul-life and objective life, to receive into his inmost being the full breadth of the world and its shows, and to have felt through it there, penetrated, enlarged, deepened and revealed to himself all it implies. Only after that, and in order that he may find it in his power to create, as from his own spiritual experience outwards, a free whole,--ay, even in the case where he restricts his effort to a comparatively narrow and particular range,--he must have liberated himself from all embarrassment with his subject-matter, whether of a _technical_[18] character or otherwise, able in short to survey the ideal and external aspects thereof with the same free glance. From the point of view of _instinctive_ creative vigour[19] we may in this respect pre-eminently praise the Mahomedan poets of the East. The starting-point in such compositions is a freedom which, even in the moment of passion, remains aloof from such passion, and in all the variety of its interests retains exclusively throughout the _one_ substance as its veritable core, in contrast to which everything else appears small and transitory, and nothing of finality is left either to passion or lust. This is a philosophical outlook, a relation of spirit to the facts of the world, which comes more readily to age than youth. For in old age no doubt the interests of life are still present; but they are not there with the urgency of youthful passion, but rather in the guise of shadows, and to this extent are more readily conformable to ideal relations such as Art demands. In opposition to the ordinary view that youth with its warmth and vigour is the fairest season for poetic creation, we may rather, at least from this point of view, maintain just the opposite, that the ripest season belongs to the