If the reader enters into the emotions of others, the emotion of pity or sympathy has strengthened and it will not be easy to restrain when we are suffering ourselves. The same with comedy. We may enjoy buffoonery on the stage but will be ashamed to indulge in it, to play the comic, in real life. Poetry waters the passions, sets them up in control, when goodness and the happiness of our lives depends upon their being held in subjection. But it would be a sin to betray what we believe to be the truth.
Poetry has no serious claim to be valued as an apprehension of truth.
Much is at stake. The choice is between being a good man or a bad, and poetry, no more than wealth, or poetry, or honours, should tempt us to be careless of justice and virtue.