bility; the distinction between the causes of belief and the grounds for belief- all these and kindred ideas have resulted in a philosophy which has put the eighteenth century rationalism out of date; a philosophy which betakes itself together with all the historico-critical sciences, to that higher plane, whither Newman has led religious apologetics out of harm's way. Now we have philosophy and science accepting Newman's weapons and repudiating those of the scholastic school. . . . Hence the paradoxical result, that just those Catholics for whom Newman would have felt the utmost antipathy, namely, those, who in spite of the Syllabus, entertained sanguine hopes of coming to terms with the modern mind, have learnt to look to him and to his methods as the sole hope of their cause.'

Huxley maintained that no better primer of infidelity could be found than a selection from Newman's writings, but this is only partly true. The fact remains, however, that all unconsciously the study of Newman's ideas and methods is apt to lead one who does not have the fundamental faith that underlay all Newman's arguments to agnosticism. He leaves no ground for compromise between Rome and scepticism. If you accept the Bible, he declares, you must also accept ecclesiastical Christianity; and if you accept ecclesiastical Christianity, you must admit the claims of the Catholic Church. If one lack the first faith in Christianity, if one finds himself unable to accept the voice of authority, only agnosticism remains. As Bremond says, "the mere feebleness of rationalism does not advance the cause of faith one whit." Newman tried to point out that behind all material phenomena, was a Master Will, of which all things earthly were merely manifestations. He tried to apply the scientific method, a name which he would have repudiated with scorn, to the study of religion, of the world of the spirit, just as Huxley and Darwin were applying it to biology, the world of life. One result of Newman's teaching, at least in part, is the state of mind we know as agnosticism. Even the term to describe this mental con

dition has been invented since his time. To a great extent, the old blatant atheism has passed. In its place is the simple statement of the sceptic, "I do not know." This modification in the tone of the opponents of religion may well be considered, at least in part, another indication of the breadth of Newman's influence, of the extent to which he has contributed to present day notions and thought.

Of the position and influence of Newman, in the nineteenth century, there can no longer be doubt. More than ever before, is his greatness and the genuineness of his work being recognized. "It is a strange and by no means an altogether discreditable characteristic of the times in which we live," writes R. H. Hutton, "that in spite of the ardour with which the English people have devoted themselves to material progress, one man, at least, has been held to be truly great by the nation, who has crossed all its prejudices and calmly ignored all its prepossessions; who has lived more than half his life in what Protestants, at least, would call a monastery; who has loved penance, who has always held up the ascetic life to admiration; who has haunted our imagination with his mild and gentle, yet austere figure, with his strong preference for even superstition as compared with shallow optimistic sentiment, and has impressed us even more by his practice than by his preaching, that the "lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, are not of the Father of the World. ''34

The most significant period of Newman's life was the time in which he stood as the leader of the Oxford Movement. Through his part in this he has left an influence on all modern religious thought, Protestant as well as Catholic, tending to make religion more human, more vital to every individual. In this essay I have tried to make this clear, and to point out how intimately connected is his personality with all his work. Of a strange, half-mystical turn of mind, he was yet a keen logician, a masterful thinker, not afraid to face the consequences of his own 34 Hutton, "Cardinal Newman," p. 1.

convictions; yet realizing full well the probability of error in even his most firmly cherished intellectual conviction. In this latter trait lies the key to his religious experiences. The guiding principle of his life was his great and sincere interest in mankind; in the welfare and destiny of man, the interpretation of life. His life and work were devoted to an effort to give deeper meaning to this mortal life, to lift society by the might of deeper religious forces, and higher moral impulses, into more complete harmony with the Universe, as he understood it, and the great First Cause, which he felt to be working behind and through the human Universe. He tried to give weight to his teachings and beliefs by the symbolism of institutions, by the sanction of a great church, representing the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man. A church, apostolic and catholic, dedicated to the service of man's higher aspirations. As theologian and religious teacher he deservedly ranks high, but he was prophet as well as teacher, poet as well as theologian. His most lasting claim to remembrance lies in the nature of his message to mankind, in his humanly sympathetic vision and comprehension of the problems and the difficulties of life. It was this note of understanding and appreciation of the aspirations and disappointments, such as come to all men, that underlay and vitalized the Oxford Movement, which made it seem so satisfactory then and now, to the man seeking for deeper meaning in life and disappointed with the usual superficial explanations of the relations between the infinite and the finite. Newman's theological teachings were thus, secondary, meant only to give weight and sanction to his moral teaching. So it is that a man like Lord Coleridge, so long a member of the court of King's Bench, can say of Newman: "Raphael is said to have thanked God that he lived in the days of Michael Angelo; there are scores of men, I know, there are hundreds of thousands, I believe, who thank God that they lived in the days of John Henry Newman.''35

35 Quoted in Meynell, "Newman,'' p. 37.

A STUDY OF HUMOR IN GREEK TRAGEDY

ANNA REARDEN

Ask nine out of ten people familiar with Greek tragedy to say something of the humor to be found therein, and they will answer, "Humor?-in Tragedy? Why there isn't any!" And then they will probably explain that Greek tragedy is a uniformly serious and solemn thing. It is, according to Aristotle, "an imitation of an action, serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude." The Greeks on each day of the Dionysiac festival watched three tragic performances, each as instinct with pity and fear as might be; the day closed with a satyr play. In that satyr play and there only, it is commonly held, was there place for humor-humor boisterous, frolicsome enough to leave the audience laughing, quite restored to equilibrium as it surged out toward the city, in the cool of late afternoon.

To prevent that natural and emotional reaction, which in the presence of extremes of passion, carries the sublime irresistibly down to the ludicrous, Shakespeare uses a sandwiching of comedy or farce to set off his most highly wrought scenes. No such device was employed for the relief of an Attic audience. The double or triple threads of plot that, increasing the complexity of the whole, permit such intrusions without endangering the unity of Shakespearian tragedy, are, of course, foreign to the simpler form of drama. There three plays, each intense, forward

moving in response to an insistent fundamental motive, representing, often, three successive acts in one great dramatic expression, forty-five hundred lines of unrelieved, soul-rending tragedy, were followed, it is said, by one last touch of the comic.

This is the usual point of view with regard to Greek tragedy. Let us try, as we must ever try, if the classic drama is still to be considered universal, to put ourselves in the place of the Greek audience. Let us say to ourselves, "How would such an experience affect me?" For myself, if I thought the Dionysiac festival such a thing, so massed in tragic and comic appeal, I would be glad that it is no more to be seen. Long before the close of the Eumenides I would be sated with blood and horror and the stress of histrionic emotions. Even the final metamorphosis, despite its eponymic claim to being yevóμevov would savor too much of the unmotivated marvellous to be Tilavóv were not quiet-smiling Peithos assisting at the change.

But, on the other hand, if we deny the humorous any part in tragedy, whatever of uplifting, liberating "Katharsis," it might have affected upon my soul, would, I think, be weakened and marred by that last touch of farce, the satyr play. What is the psychological effect of farce upon profound emotion? Or were the Greeks not profoundly moved? Is it that our slower moving Northern temper is capable of a less swift recovery than the excitable southern disposition? But if by recovery, they could appreciate the comic finish, if the soul slipped so readily from under the burden of woe, why does Plato consider the "longing after tears" aroused by tragedy so insidious a craving that he would bar that form of literature from his ideal state? What becomes of the whole argument about the Aristotelian raison dêtre of tragedy, if its spell was of such a sort and so brief? Why should the Greeks, supreme lovers of art, be so fond of taking their emotions straight, while for us the flower of intellectual enjoyment, is in a delicate commingling of humor and pathos? In the whole city of Pallas