soul expression as it is of necessity in our own times. Once allow, however, that it has already in its course of development thus secured such a mastery of the intelligible purport over the sensuous or native material, and it follows that the fundamental test for the value of syllables is not to be deduced from the objective quantity itself, but rather from that whereof words are themselves indicative as means. The emotional impulse of a free intelligence refuses to allow the temporal activity of language, as such, to establish itself in the independent form of its native and objective reality. (_β_) Such a conclusion, however, does not necessarily imply that we are forced to oust altogether from our German language the rhymeless rhythmical treatment of the syllabic measure; it merely in essential respects points to this, that it is not possible, conformably with the character of the structure of our modern speech, to retain the plastic consistency of the metrical medium as it was secured by the ancient world. We must consequently seek for and elaborate some further element in poetical composition by way of compensation, which on its own independent account is of a more ideal[51] character than the stable natural quantity of syllables. Such an element is the accent of the verse, no less than the caesura, which as now constituted, instead of moving independently of the verbal accent, coalesce with the same, and thereby receive a more significant, albeit a more abstract assertion, in virtue of the fact that the variety of that previous threefold accentuation, which we discovered in the rhythmical type of classical poetry, on account of this very coalescence necessarily disappears. It, however, equally follows as a result that we only retain the power with conspicuous success to imitate the rhythmic movement of such poetry where its impression on our ear is most emphatic. We no longer possess, that is to say, the stable quantitative basis for its more subtle distinctions and manifold connections, and the more crude mode of accentuation, which we do possess in its place, to emphasize our measure, is intrinsically no sufficient substitute. (_γ_) To state, then, finally, what this actual _association_ of the rhythmical mode of verse with rhyme is, we may go so far as to affirm that it is the absorption, although to a limited extent, by the more modern form of versification of the more ancient one. (_αα_) The predominant distinction of the natural syllabic quantity by means of the verbal accent is in fact not an entirely satisfactory principle of the _mere medium._ It does not arrest the ear's attention, even on the side of sense simply, so far as to make it appear, absolutely and everywhere unnecessary, where the ideal aspect of the poetical content is paramount, to summon the complementary assistance of the sound and response of syllables and words.