represents them as real and present. In common with the lyric poet he also
claims our mental participation, but not in the same calm composedness;
the feeling of joy and sorrow which the dramatist excites is more
immediate and vehement. He calls forth all the emotions which the sight of
similar deeds and fortunes of living men would elicit, and it is only by
the total sum of the impression which he produces that he ultimately
resolves these conflicting emotions into a harmonious tone of feeling. As
he stands in such close proximity to real life, and endeavours to endue
his own imaginary creations with vitality, the equanimity of the epic poet
would in him be indifference; he must decidedly take part with one or
other of the leading views of human life, and constrain his audience also
to participate in the same feeling.

To employ simpler and more intelligible language: the _tragic_ and
_comic_ bear the same relation to one another as _earnest_ and _sport_.
Every man, from his own experience, is acquainted with both these states
of mind; but to determine their essence and their source would demand deep
philosophical investigation. Both, indeed, bear the stamp of our common
nature; but earnestness belongs more to its moral, and mirth to its animal
part. The creatures destitute of reason are incapable either of earnest or
of sport. Animals seem indeed at times to labour as if they were earnestly
intent upon some aim, and as if they made the present moment subordinate
to the future; at other times they seem to sport, that is, they give
themselves up without object or purpose to the pleasure of existence: but
they do not possess consciousness, which alone can entitle these two
conditions to the names of earnest and sport. Man alone, of all the
animals with which we are acquainted, is capable of looking back towards
the past, and forward into futurity; and he has to purchase the enjoyment
of this noble privilege at a dear rate. Earnestness, in the most extensive
signification, is the direction of our mental powers to some aim. But as