[241] concept--and its possible solutions after final, or preliminary, catastrophes. All this is dramatic^a. In the same way, the Hegelian ^binterpretation of history, where the word "dialectical"^c was first applied to history,^d was a dramatic^e one. The dramatic element in dialectical thinking is that a reality is seen in its inescapable conflicts, the conflicts are not something which come from outside. Take any drama of Shakespeare^f: it comes from the constellation of powers of being embodied in almost superhuman characters of good and evil. Take King Lear,^g or Macbeth,^h or Hamlet.ⁱ In the same way it is possible---and it was tried by Hegel ^jand later on by Marx^k---to dramatize history. In a less powerful way it has been done recently by Toynbee,^l who at least TRIES to show the inner conflicts of the human historical powers and the results which, by INNER necessity, follow from this. But of course this necessity is never a complete one. It is not physical laws which are described---it is that mixture between destiny and freedom which characterizes all being and which comes out in its full power in the human situation. Now that is the background of this. I would say we have the same thing even in the religious interpretation of history, in Parsism, Judaism, and Christianity. In all these interpretations of history, the dramatic element, as l have just defined it, is present and important, and gives the quality to these interpretations. Take the Persian. There the dramatic^m conflict is based on the revision of reality in a good and an evil principle, which are created from the very beginning, which are fighting with