To the left of the spectator are souls ascending to be judged, some floating through vague ether, enwrapped with grave-clothes, others assisted by descending saints and angels, who reach a hand, a rosary, to help the still gross spirit in its flight.

To the right are the condemned, sinking downwards to their place of torment, spurned by seraphs, cuffed by angelic grooms, dragged by demons, hurling, howling, huddled in a mass of horror.

It is just here, and still yet farther down, that Michelangelo put forth all his power as a master of expression.

While the blessed display nothing which is truly proper to their state of holiness and everlasting peace, the damned appear in every realistic aspect of most stringent agony and terror.

The colossal forms of flesh with which the multitudes of saved and damned are equally endowed, befit that extremity of physical and mental anguish more than they suit the serenity of bliss eternal.