le
composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts,
but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude
and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot be beautiful;
for the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost
imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be
beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and
sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there
were one a thousand miles long. As, therefore, in the case of animate
bodies and organisms a certain magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude
which may be easily embraced in one view; so in the plot, a certain
length is necessary, and a length which can be easily embraced by the
memory. The limit of length in relation to dramatic competition and
sensuous presentment, is no part of artistic theory. For had it been the
rule for a hundred tragedies to compete together, the performance would
have been regulated by the water-clock,--as indeed we are told was
formerly done. But the limit as fixed by the nature of the drama itself
is this: the greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be
by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous. And
to define the matter roughly, we may say that the proper magnitude is
comprised within such limits, that the sequence of events, according
to the law of probability or necessity, will admit of a change from bad
fortune to good, or from good fortune to bad.

VIII

Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in the Unity of
the hero. For infinitely various are the incidents in one man's life
which cannot be reduced to unity; and so, too, there are many actions of
one man out of which we cannot make one action. Hence, the error, as it
appears, of all poets who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other
poems of the kind. They imagine that as Heracles was one man, the story
of Heracles must also be a unity. But Homer, as in all else he is of
surpassing merit, here too--whether from art or natural genius--seems
to have happily discerned the truth. In composing the Odyssey he did not
include all the adventures of Odysseus--such as his wound on Parnassus,
or his feigned madness at the mustering of the host--incidents between
which there was no necessary or probable connection: but he made the
Odyssey, and likewise the Iliad, to centre round an action that in our
sense of