merely parallel to those of type already illustrated. Plot may be simple
or complex; it may be more or less involved in physical conditions in
proportion as it lays stress on its machinery or its psychology; it must
be important, as the type must be high, but important by virtue of its
essential human meaning and not of its accidents; it is a fragment of
destiny only, but in this falls in with the way life in others is known
to us; if it passes into the superhuman world, it must retain human
significance and be brought back to man's life by devices similar to
those used in the type for the same purpose; it rises in value in
proportion to the universality it contains, and gains depth and
permanence as it is interpretative of common human fate at all times and
among all men; it may be purely imaginary or founded on actual
incidents; and its exemplary interpretation of man's life is its
substance, and constitutes its ideality.
In the discussion of type and plot, the concrete nature of the world of
art, which was originally stated to be the characteristic work of the
creative reason, or imagination acting in conformity with truth, has
been assumed; but no reason has been given for it, because it seemed
best to develop first with some fulness the nature of that inward order
which is thus projected in the forms of art. It belongs to the frailty
of man that he seizes with difficulty and holds with feebleness the pure
ideas of the intellect, the more in proportion as they are removed from
sense; and he seeks to support himself against this weakness by framing
sensible representations of the abstract in which the mind can rest.
Thus in all lands and among savage tribes, as well as in the most
civilized nations, symbols have been used immemorially. The flag of a
nation has all its meaning because it is taken as a physical token of
national honour, almost of national life itself. The Moslem crescent,
the Christian cross, have only a similar significance, a bringing near
to the eye of what exists in reality only for the mind and heart. A
symbol, however, is an arbitrary fiction, and stands to the idea as a
metaphor does to the thing itself. In literature the parable of the
mustard seed to which the kingdom of heaven was likened, exemplifies
symbolical or metaphorical method; but the tale of the court of Arthur's
knights, ideal method; between them, and sharing something of both, lies
allegorical method. Idolatry is the religion of symbolism, for the image
is not the god; Christianity is the religion of idealism, for Christ is
God incarnate. Idealism presents the reality itself, the universal truth
made manifest in the concrete type, and there present and embodied in
its characteristics as they are, not merely arbitrarily by a fiction of
thought, symbolically or allegorically.
The way in which type concretes truth is sufficiently plain; but it may
be useful, with respect to plot, to draw out more in detail the analogy
which has been said to exist between it and an illustrative scientific
experiment. If scientific law is declared experimentally, the course of
nature is modified by intent; certain conditions are secured, certain
others eliminated; a selected train of phenomena is then set in motion
to the end that the law may be illustrated, and nothing else. In a
perfect experiment the law is in full operation. In plot there is a like
selection of persons, situations, and incidents so arranged as to
disclose the working of that order which obtains in man's life. The law
may be simple and shown by means of few persons and incidents in a brief
way, as in ancient drama, or complex and exhibited with many characters
in an abundance of action over a wide scene as in Shakspere; in either
case equally there is a selection from the whole mass of man's life of
what shall illustrate the causal union in its order and show it in
action. The process in the epic or prose narrative is the same. The
common method of all is to present the universal law in a particular
instance made for the purpose.
In thus clothing itself in concrete form, truth suffers no
transformation; it remains what it was, general truth, the very essence
of type and plot being, as has been said, to preserve this universality
in the particular instance. There is a sense in which this general truth
is more real, as Plato thought, than particulars; a sense in which the
phenomenal world is less real than the system of nature, for phenomena
come and go, but the law remains; a sense in which the order in man's
breast is more real than he is, in whom it is manifest, for the form of
ideas, the mould of law, are permanent, but their expression in us
transitory. It is this higher realism, as it was anciently called, that
the mind strives for in idealism,--this organic form of life, the object
of all rational knowledge. Types, under their concrete disguise, are
thus only a part of the general notions of the mind found in every
branch of knowledge and necessary to thought; plots, similarly, are only
a part of the general laws of the ordered world; literature in using
them, and specializing them in concrete form by which alone they differ
in appearance from like notions and laws elsewhere, merely avails itself
of that condensing faculty of the mind which most economizes mental
effort and loads conceptions with knowledge. In the type it is not
personal, but human character that interests the mind; in plot, it is
not personal, but human fate.
While it is true that the object of ideal method is to reach universals,
and reembody them in particular instances, this reasoning action is
often obscurely felt by the imagination in its creative process. The
very fact that its operation is through the concrete complicates the
process. The mind of genius working out its will does not usually start
with a logical attempt consciously; it does not arrive at truth in the
abstract and then reduce it to concrete illustration in any systemic
way; it does not select the law and then shape the plot. The poet is
rather directly interested in certain characters and events that appeal
to him; his sympathies are aroused, and he proceeds to show forth, to
interpret, to create; and in proportion as the characters he sets in
motion and the circumstances in which they are placed have moulding
force, they will develop traits and express themselves in influences
that he did not foresee. This is a matter of familiar knowledge to
authors, who frequently discover in the trend of the imaginary tale a
will of its own, which has its unforeseen way. The drama or story, once
set in motion, tends to tell itself, just as life tends to develop in
the world. The vitality of the clay it works in, is one of the curious
experiences of genius, and occasions that mood of mystery in relation to
their creatures frequently observed in great writers. In fact, this mode
of working in the concrete, which is characteristic of the creative
imagination, gives to its activity an inductive and experimental
character, not to be confounded with the demonstrative act of the
intellect which states truth after knowing it, and not in the moment of
its discovery. In literature this moment of discovery is what makes that
flash which is sometimes called intuition, and is one of the great
charms of genius.
The concrete nature of ideal art, to touch conveniently here upon a
related though minor topic, is also the reason that it expresses more
than its creator is aware of. In imaging life he includes more reality
than he attends to; but if his representation has been made with truth,
others may perceive phases of reality that he neglected. It is the mark
of genius, as has hitherto appeared, to grasp life, not fragmentarily,
but in the whole. So, in a scientific experiment, intended to illustrate
one particular form of energy, a spectator versed in another science may
detect some truth belonging in his own field. This richer significance
of great works is especially found where the union of the general and
the particular is strong; where the fusion is complete, as in Hamlet. In
a sense he is more real than living men, and we can analyze his nature,
have doubts about his motives, judge differently of his character, and
value his temperament more or less as one might with a friend. The more
imaginative a character is, in the sense that his personality and
experience are given in the whole so that one feels the bottom of
reality there, the more significance it has. Thus in the world of art
discoveries beyond the intention of the writer may be made as in the
actual world; so much of reality does it contain.
Will it be said that, in making primary the universal contents and
spiritual significance of type and plot, I have made literature
didactic, as if the word should stop my mouth? If it is meant by this
that I maintain that literature conveys truth, it may readily be
admitted, since only thus can it interest the mind which has its whole
life in the pursuit and its whole joy in the possession of truth. But if
it be meant that abstract or moral instruction has been made the
business of literature, the charge may be met with a disclaimer, as
should be evident, first, from the emphasis placed on its concrete
dealing with persons and actions. On the contrary, literature fails in
art precisely in proportion as it becomes expressly such a teacher.
Secondly, the life which literature organizes, the whole of human nature
in its relation to the world, is many-sided; and imaginative genius, the
creative reason, grasps it in its totality. The moral aspect is but one
among many that life wears. If ethics are implicit in the mass of life,
so also are beauty and passion, pathos, humour, and terror; and in
literature any one of these may be the prominent phase at the moment,
for literature gives out not only practical moral wisdom, but all the
reality of life. Literature is didactic in the reproachful sense of the
word only in proportion as type and plot are distinctly separated from
the truth they embody, and ceases to be so in proportion as these are
blended and unified. The fable is one of the most ancient forms of such
didactic literature; in it a story is told to enforce a lesson, and
animals are made the characters, in consequence of which it has the
touch of humour inseparable from the spectacle of beasts playing at
being men; but the very fact that the moral is of men and the tale is of
beasts involves a separation of the truth from its concrete embodiment,
and besides the moral is stated by itself. In the Oriental apologue an
advance is made. The parables of our Lord, in particular, are admirable
examples of its method. The characters are few, the situations common,
the action simple, and the moral truth or lesson enforced is so
completely clothed in the tale that it needs no explanation; at the same
time, the mind is aware of the teacher. In the higher forms of
literature, however, the fusion of ethics with life may be complete.
Here the poet works so subtly that the mind is not aware of the
illumination of this light which comes without the violence of the
preacher, until after the fact; and, indeed, the effect is wrought more
through the sympathies than the reason. In such a case literature,
though it conveys moral with other kinds of truth, is not open to the
charge of didacticism, which is valid only when teaching is explicit and
abstract. The educative power of literature, however, is not diminished
because in its art it dispenses with the didactic method, which by its
very definiteness is inelastic and narrow; in fact, the more imaginative
a character is, the more fruitful it may be even in moral truth; it may
teach, as has been said, what the poet never dreamed his work contained.
If, then, to sum up the argument thus far, the subject-matter of
literature is life in the forms of personality and experience, and the
particular facts with respect to these are generalized by means of type
and plot in concrete form, and so are set forth as phases of an ordered
world for the intelligence, to the end that man may know himself in the
same way as he knows nature in its living system--if this be so, what
standing have those who would restrict literature to the actual in life?
who would replace ideal types of manhood by the men of the time, and
the ordered drama of the stage by the medley of life? They deny art,
which is the instrument of the creative reason, to literature; for as
soon as art, which is the process of creating a rational world, begins,
the necessity for selection arises, and with it the whole question of
values, facts being no longer equal among themselves on the score of
actuality, nor in fitness for the work in hand. The trivial, the
accidental, the unmeaning, are rejected, and there will be no stopping
short of the end; for art, being the handmaid of truth, can employ no
other than the method of all reason, wherefore idealism is to it what
abstraction is to logic and induction to natural science,--the breath of
its rational being. Those who hold to realism in its extreme form, as a
representation of the actual only, behave as if one should say to the
philosopher--leave this formulation of general notions and be content
with sensible objects; or to the scientist--experiment no more, but
observe the course of nature as it may chance to arise, and describe it
in its succession. They bid us be all eye, no mind; all sense, no
thought; all chance, all confusion, no order, no organization, no
fabric of the reason. But there are no such realists; though pure
realism has its place, as will hereafter be shown, it is usually found
mixed with ideal method; and as commonly employed the word designates
the preference merely for types and plots of much detail, of narrow
application, of little meaning, in opposition to the highly generalized
and significant types and plots usually associated with the term
idealism. In what way such realism has its place will also appear at a
later stage. Here it is necessary to say no more than that in proportion
as realism uses the ideal method only at the lowest, it narrows its
appeal, weakens its power, and takes from literature her highest
distinction by virtue of which she grasps the whole of character and
fate in her creation and informs man of the secrets of his human heart,
the course of his mortal destiny, and the end of all his spiritual
effort and aspiration.
I am aware that I have not proceeded so far without starting objections.
To meet that which is most grave, what shall I say when it is alleged
that there is no order such as I have assumed in life; or, if there be,
that it is insufficiently known, too intangible and complex, too
various in different races and ages, to be made the subject of such an
exposition as obtains of natural order? Were this assertion true, yet
there would be good reason to retain our illusion; for the mind delights
in order, and will invent it. The mind is perplexed and disturbed until
it finds this order; and in the progressive integration of its
experience into an ordered world lies its work. Art gives pleasure to
the intellect, because in its structure whatever is superfluous and
extrinsic has been eliminated, so that the mind contemplates an artistic
work as a unity of relations bound each to each which it fully
comprehends. Such works, we say, have form, which is just this
interdependence of parts wholly understood which appeals to the
intellect, and satisfies it: they would please the mind, though the
order they embody were purely imaginary, just as science would delight
it, were the order of nature itself illusory. Creative art would thus
still have a ground of being under a sceptical philosophy; man would
delight to dream his dream. But it is not necessary to take this lower
line of argument.
It does not appear to me to be open to question that there is in the
soul of man a nature and an order obtaining in it as permanent and
universal as in the material world. The soul of man has a common being
in all. There could be no science of logic, psychology, or metaphysics
on the hypothesis of any uncertainty as to the identity of mind in all,
nor any science of ethics on the hypothesis of any variation as to the
identity of the will in all, nor any ground of expression even, of
communication between man and man, on the hypothesis of any radical
difference in the experience and faculties to which all expression
appeals for its intelligibility; neither could there be any system of
life in social groups, or plan for education, unless such a common basis
is accepted. The postulate of a common human nature is analogous to that
of the unity of matter in science; it finds its complete expression in
the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, for if race be fundamentally
distinguished from race as was once thought, it is only as element is
distinguished from element in the old chemistry. So, too, the postulate
of an order obtaining in the soul, universal and necessary, independent
of man's volition, analogous in all respects to the order of nature, is
parallel with that of the constancy of physical law. A rational life
expects this order. The first knowledge of it comes to us, as that of
natural law, by experience; in the social world--the relations of men to
one another--and in the more important region of our own nature we learn
the issue of certain courses of action as well as in the external world;
in our own lives and in our dealings with others we come to a knowledge
of, and a conformity to, the conditions under which we live, the laws
operant in our being, as well as those of the physical world. Literature
assumes this order; in Aeschylus, Cervantes, or Shakspere, it is this
that gives their work interest. Apart from natural science, the whole
authority of the past in its entire accumulation of wisdom rests upon
the permanence of this order, and its capacity to be known by man; that
virtue makes men noble and vice renders them base, is a statement without
meaning unless this order is continuous through ages; all principles of
action, all schemes of culture, would be uncertain except on this
foundation.
So near is this order to us that it was known long before science came
to any maturity. We have added, in truth, little to our knowledge of
humanity since the Greeks; and if one wonders why ethics came before
science, let him own at least that its priority shows that it is near
and vital in life as science is not. We can do, it seems, without
Kepler's laws, but not without the Decalogue. The race acquires first
what is most needful for life; and man's heart was always with him, and
his fate near. A second reason, it may be noted, for the later
development of science is that our senses, as used by science, are more
mental now, and the object itself is observable only by the intervention
of the mind through the telescope or microscope or a hundred instruments
into which, though physical, the mind enters. Our methods, too, as well
as our instruments, are things of the mind. It behooves us to remember
in an age which science is commonly thought to have materialized, that
more and more the mind enters into all results, and fills an ever larger
place in life; and this should serve to make materialism seem more and
more what it is--a savage conception. But recognizing the great place of
mind in modern science, and its growing illumination of our earthly
system, I am not disposed to discredit its earliest results in art and
morals. I find in this penetration of the order of the world within us
our most certain truth; and as our bodies exist only by virtue of
sharing in the general order of nature, so, I believe, our souls have
being only by sharing in this order of the inward, the spiritual world.
What, then, is this order? We do not merely contemplate it: we are
immersed in it, it is vital in us, it is that wherein we live and move
and have our being, ever more and more in proportion as the soul's life
outvalues the body in our experience. It is necessary to expand our
conception of it. Hitherto it has been presented only as an order of
truth appealing to the intellect: but the intellect is only one function
of the soul, and thinkers are the merest fraction of mankind. We know
this order not only as truth, but as righteousness; we know that certain
choices end in enlarging and invigorating our faculties, and other
choices in their enfeeblement and extinction; and the race adds, acting
under the profound motive of self-preservation, that it is a duty to do
the one thing and avoid the other, and stores up this doctrine in
conscience. We know this order again under the aspect of joy, for joy
attends some choices, and sorrow others; and again under the aspect of
beauty, for certain choices result in beauty and others in deformity.
What I maintain is that this order exists under four aspects, and may be
learned in any of them--as an order of truth in the reason, as an order
of virtue in the will, as an order of joy in the emotions, as an order
of beauty in the senses. It is the same order, the same body of law,
operating in each case; it is the vital force of our fourfold life,--it
has one unity in the intellect, the will, the emotions, the senses,--is
equal to the whole nature of man, and responds to him and sustains him
on every side. A lover of beauty in whom conscience is feeble cannot
wander if he follow beauty; nor a cold thinker err, though without a
moral sense, if he accept truth; nor a just man, nor a seeker after pure
joy merely, if they act according to knowledge each in his sphere. The
course of action that increases life may be selected because it is
reasonable, or joyful, or beautiful, or right; and therefore one may say
fearlessly, choose the things that are beautiful, the things that are
joyful, the things that are reasonable, the things that are right, and
all else shall be added unto you. The binding force in this order is
what literature, ideal literature, most brings out and emphasizes in its
generalizations, that causal union which has hitherto been spoken of in
the region of plot only; but it exists in every aspect of this order,
and literature universalizes experience in all these realms, in the
provinces of beauty and passion no less than in those of virtue and
knowledge, and its method is the same in all.