y external
element but by an internal principle of our reason: it is the palladium
of our liberty.

This moral propriety is never more vividly recognized than when it is
found in conflict with another propriety, and still keeps the upper hand;
then only the moral law awakens in full power, when we find it struggling
against all the other forces of nature, and when all those forces lose in
its presence their empire over a human soul. By these words, "the other
forces of nature," we must understand all that is not moral force, all
that is not subject to the supreme legislation of reason: that is to say,
feelings, affections, instincts, passions, as well as physical necessity
and destiny. The more redoubtable the adversary, the more glorious the
victory; resistance alone brings out the strength of the force and
renders it visible. It follows that the highest degree of moral
consciousness can only exist in strife, and the highest moral pleasure is
always accompanied by pain.

Consequently, the kind of poetry which secures us a high degree of moral
pleasure, must employ mixed feelings, and please us through pain or
distress,--this is what tragedy does specially; and her realm embraces
all that sacrifices a physical propriety to a moral one; or one moral
propriety to a higher one. It might be possible, perhaps, to form a
measure of moral pleasure, from the lowest to the highest degree, and to
determine by this principle of propriety the degree of pain or pleasure
experienced. Different orders of tragedy might be classified on the same
principle, so as to form a complete exhaustive tabulation of them. Thus,
a tragedy being given, its place could be fixed, and its genus
determined. Of this subject more will be said separately in its proper
place.

A few examples will show how far moral propriety commands physical
propriety in our souls.

Theron and Amanda are both tied to the stake as martyrs, and free to
choose life or death by the terrible ordeal of fire--they select the
latter. What is it which gives such pleasure to us in this scene? Their
position so conflicting with the smiling destiny they reject, the reward
of misery given to virtue--all here awakens in us the feeling of
impropriety: it ought to fill us with great distress. What is nature,
and what are her ends and laws, if all this impropriety shows us moral
propriety in its full light. We here see the triumph of the moral law,
so sublime an experience for us that