If, then, Tragedy is superior to E pie poetry in all , these respects, and, moreover, fulfils its specific func-j, tion better as an art-for each art ought to produce, :\ not any chance pleasure, but the pleasure proper to I . it, as already stated-it plainly follows that Tragedy'! is the· higher art, as attaining its end more perfectly. I( Thus much may suffice concerning Tragic and,k Epic poetry in general; their several kinds and parts;;t with the number of each and their differences; th~'f causes that niake a poem good or bad; the objection~}! of the critics and the answers to these objections.

The question may be raised whether the Epic or Tragic mode .of imitation is the higher. If the more . refined art is the higher, and .the more refined in every case is that which appeals to the. better sort of audience, the art which imitates anything and everything. is manifestly most unrefined.

Nature herself, as we have said; teaches the choice of the proper measure.

Recognition, then, being be-tween persons, it may happen that one person only is recognised by the other-when the latter is already known -or it may be necessary that the.recognition should be on both sides.

Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophi-cal and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular,

if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.

The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attrac-tion of its own, but, of all the j,arts,.it is the least artis-tic and connected least with the art of poetry. For the ' power of Tragedy, we may be sure, ,is felt even apart

.fhus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they find themselves learn-ing or inferring; and· saying perhaps, 'Ah, that is he.' For if you happen not _to have seen the original, the · pleasure will be due.riot to the imitation as such, but ·to.the execution, the colouring, or some such other . cause.

The same distinction marks off Trag-edy from Comedy; for Comedy aim, at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation.