itself in the form of a desire to send his enemy's soul to hell? Is not
the idea quite ludicrous? (_c_) The theory requires us to suppose that,
when the Ghost enjoins Hamlet to avenge the murder of his father, it is
laying on him a duty which _we_ are to understand to be no duty but the
very reverse. And is not that supposition wholly contrary to the natural
impression which we all receive in reading the play? Surely it is clear
that, whatever we in the twentieth century may think about Hamlet's
duty, we are meant in the play to assume that he _ought_ to have obeyed
the Ghost.

The conscience theory, then, in either of its forms we must reject. But
it may remind us of points worth noting. In the first place, it is
certainly true that Hamlet, in spite of some appearances to the
contrary, was, as Goethe said, of a most moral nature, and had a great
anxiety to do right. In this anxiety he resembles Brutus, and it is
stronger in him than in any of the later heroes. And, secondly, it is
highly probable that in his interminable broodings the kind of paralysis
with which he was stricken masked itself in the shape of conscientious
scruples as well as in many other shapes. And, finally, in his shrinking
from the deed there was probably, together with much else, something
which may be called a moral, though not a conscientious, repulsion: I
mean a repugnance to the idea of falling suddenly on a man who could not
defend himself. This, so far as we can see, was the only plan that
Hamlet ever contemplated. There is no positive evidence in the play that
he regarded it with the aversion that any brave and honourable man, one
must suppose, would feel for it; but, as Hamlet certainly was brave and
honourable, we may presume that he did so.

(3) We come next to what may be called the sentimental view of Hamlet, a
view common both among his worshippers and among his defamers. Its germ