is not, in fact,
poetry at all. It is versified philosophy. Art is thus lower than
philosophy. The absolute reality, the inner essence of the world, is
thought, reason, the universal. To contemplate this reality is the
object alike of philosophy and of art. But art sees the Absolute not
in its final truth, but wrapped up in a sensuous drapery. Philosophy
sees the Absolute as it is in itself, in its own nature, in its full
truth; it sees it as what it essentially is, thought. Philosophy,
therefore, is the perfect truth. But this does not mean that art is to
be superseded and done away with. Because philosophy is higher than
art, it does not follow that a man should suppress the artist in
himself in order to rise to philosophy. For an essential thought of
the Aristotelian philosophy is that, in the scale of beings, even the
lower form is an end in itself, and has absolute rights. The higher
activities presuppose the lower, and rest upon them. The higher
includes the lower, and the lower, as an organic part of its being,
cannot be eradicated without injury to the whole. To suppress art in
favour of philosophy would be a mistake precisely parallel to the
moral error of asceticism. In treating of Aristotle's ethics we saw
that, although the activity of reason is held in highest esteem, the
attempt to uproot the passions was censured as erroneous. So here,
though philosophy is the crown of man's spiritual activity, art has
its rights, and is an absolute end in itself, a point which Plato
failed to see. In the human organism, the head is the {330} chief of
the members. But one does not cut off the hand because it is not the
head.

Coming now to Aristotle's special treatment of the art of poetry, we
may note that he concentrates his attention almost exclusively upon
the drama. It does not matter whether the plot of a drama is
historical or fictitious. For the object of art, the exhibition of the
universal, is just as well attained in an imaginary as in a real
series of events. Its aim is not correctness, but truth, not facts,
but the Idea. Drama is of two kinds, tragedy and comedy. Tragedy
exhibits the nobler specimens of humanity, comedy the worse. This
remark should be carefully understood. It does not mean that the hero
of a tragedy is necessarily a good man in the ordinary sense. He may
even be a wicked man. But the point is that, in some sense, he must be
a great personality. He cannot be an insignificant person. He canno