lane successfully, but the law of spiritual growth, the divine force
upheaving and uplifting his soul against the barriers of his
sub-conscious mentality and his environment, finally ended in the sad
tragedy. Yet in the defeat was a victory, for it was merely the turn of
the spiral downward for a higher rise in evolution.

Prospero is first revealed to us at about the age of Hamlet when the
curtain falls and hides him from our tear-dimmed eyes. Shakspere loved
Hamlet. He was dearest to his heart of all his children, and he felt
that he must not die, but must come into the full fruition of the
immortals. The soul so nobly struggling from its swaddling clothes
_must_ become a freed spirit of godlike power. Therefore he presents to
us an ideal world where Hamlet sits upon the throne as Prospero,
"transported and rapt in secret studies," "neglecting worldly ends, all
dedicated to closeness and the bettering of his mind with that which
o'erprized all popular rate." Prospero was born a higher type, therefore
the divine in him had freer action. His soul opened to the over-soul
like a flower to the sunlight.

The divine force in man is his will--his true will--and this force in
its perfect exercise has no human limitation. It is only the _seeming_
will that is limited. This power, _manifested in thought_, is
represented by Ariel.

The statement of Prospero that his studies bettered his mind to such
high degree is proof that they were those not of the magician, but of
the philosopher and true psychologist, for the study of magic darkens
the soul and degrades the intellect. Prospero's power was not magical,
and Shakspere used the word magician only to bring the drama within
touch of his audience, knowing full well that the wise would understand,
for "wisdom is justified of her children."

In the manifestation of soul-power we first perceive the true greatness
of Prospero and the heights to which Shakspere's own soul had risen, for
"the stream cannot rise higher than its source." The greatness of Julius
Caesar is "weighed in the balance and found wanting," for every truly
great nature must be the rounded out and harmonious development of the
intellectual, moral, and spiritual. This is the measure of Prospero, and
in his unfolding, unseen realms and previously unknown powers had
opened, according to eternal law, to his demanding soul.

"The Tempest" is philosophical, psychological, and occult--philosophical
because thought is