hat my readers should themselves make the
comparison and the application. Here Shakespeare stands out unique,
combining the old and the new in incomparable fashion. _Wollen_ and
_Sollen_ seek by every means, in his plays, to reach an equilibrium;
they struggle violently with each other, but always in a way that leaves
the _Wollen_ at a disadvantage.

No one, perhaps, has represented more splendidly the great primal
connection between _Wollen_ and _Sollen_ in the character of the
individual. A person, from the point of view of his character, should:
he is restricted, destined to some definite course; but as a man, he
wills. He is unlimited and demands freedom of choice. At once there
arises an inner conflict, and Shakespeare puts it in the forefront. But
then an outer conflict supervenes, which often becomes acute through the
pressure of circumstances, in the face of which a deficiency of will may
rise to the rank of an inexorable fate. This idea I have pointed out
before in the case of Hamlet; but it occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare;
for as Hamlet is driven by the ghost into straits which he cannot pass
through, so is Macbeth by witches, by Hecate, and by the arch-witch, his
wife; Brutus by his friends; nay, even _in Coriolanus_, we find a
similar thing--in short, the conception of a will transcending the
capacity of the individual is modern. But as Shakespeare represents this
trouble of the will as arising not from within but through outside
circumstances, it becomes a sort of Fate and approaches the antique. For
all the heroes of poetic antiquity strive only for what lies within
man's power, and thence arises that fine balance between will, Fate, and
performance; yet their Fate appears always as too forbidding, even where
we admire it, to possess the power of attraction. A necessity which,
more or less, or completely, precludes all freedom, does not comport
with the ideas of our time; but Shakespeare approaches these in his own
way; for, in making necessity ethical, he links, to our gratified
astonishment, the ancient with the modern. If anything can be learned
from him, it is this point that we should study in his school. Instead
of exalting our romanticism--which may not deserve censure or
contempt--unduly and exclusively, and clinging to it in a partisan
spirit, whereby its strong, solid, efficient side is misjudged and
impaired, we should strive to unite within ourselves those great and
apparently irreconcilable o