those higher notions which are outside the range of our more ordinary
comprehension, [Greek: ho-s philosophias ousaes megistaes monsikaes].
Both poetry and philosophy deal in abstractions, only in both the
abstractions must be true, i.e. must be true general statements of
ideas found in nature; when this is the case poetry and philosophy
are indistinguishable, except by mere external and conventional
features. Under which heading are we to class, for example, Plato's
_Republic_? Or the _Upanishads_? or the book of _Job_? They
are generally thought of as philosophy, but all who have even partially
understood them will feel their poetic spell. Or if we take our greatest
poems, to mention only some of those most familiar to us: _Paradise
Lost_, Goethe's _Faust_ or Marlowe's, Tennyson's _In Memoriam_,
Fitzgerald's _Rubaiyat_--all of these might be just as well classed under
philosophy as under poetry. Only untrue philosophy is unpoetical, that
which has grown out of the reason of man. Abstractions manufactured
by human reason are no more philosophy than an account of centaurs
and gryphons is natural history. They are not to be found in Wagner's
_Tristan_.

The particular philosophy which Wagner's _Tristan_ is supposed to
set forth is that of Schopenhauer. But Schopenhauer's doctrine of
Negation of Will or Nirvana--for it is identical with that of
Buddhism--is a negation of existence itself absolutely. The man who
puts an end to his own life does not attain Nirvana; he is not
dissatisfied with life in itself, but only with its conditions, and he
passes through the endless cycle of Samsara until the moment arrives
when, sickened with the wearisome struggle, he longs for complete
annihilation. The lovers in _Tristan_ look forward to a renewed
existence beyond the grave, in the "realm of night," where, freed from
the trammels of the senses their love will endure, purified from the