consistency in empty space, but they fixed the statue of humanity on the
eternal and immovable basis of moral liberty; and that it might stand
there unshaken, formed it of stone or brass, or some more massive
substance than the bodies of living men, making an impression by its very
weight, and from its very elevation and magnificence only the more
completely subject to the laws of gravity.

Inward liberty and external necessity are the two poles of the tragic
world. It is only by contrast with its opposite that each of these ideas
is brought into full manifestation. As the feeling of an internal power of
self-determination elevates the man above the unlimited dominion of
impulse and the instincts of nature; in a word, absolves him from nature's
guardianship, so the necessity, which alongside of her he must recognize,
is no mere natural necessity, but one lying beyond the world of sense in
the abyss of infinitude; consequently it exhibits itself as the
unfathomable power of Destiny. Hence this power extends also to the world
of gods: for the Grecian gods are mere powers of nature; and although
immeasurably higher than mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they
are on an equal footing with himself. In Homer and in the tragedians, the
gods are introduced in a manner altogether different. In the former their
appearance is arbitrary and accidental, and communicate to the epic poem
no higher interest than the charm of the wonderful. But in Tragedy the
gods either come forward as the servants of destiny, and mediate executors
of its decrees; or else approve themselves godlike only by asserting their
liberty of action, and entering upon the same struggles with fate which
man himself has to encounter.

This is the essence of the tragical in the sense of the ancients. We are
accustomed to give to all terrible or sorrowful events the appellation of
tragic, and it is certain that such events are selected in preference by