CHAPTER XII.

CHARACTERISTICS.

I. INTRODUCTORY.

1. THE literature of a people may be divided into three classes; the historical, that of which it is the primary purpose to record facts, and to summarise or amplify existing knowledge; the speculative, of which it is the primary purpose to discuss the truth of the various theories by which our knowledge is bound together; and the imaginative, of which it is the primary purpose to utter the emotions generated in mankind by the conditions in which they are, or believe themselves to be, placed. With the historical literaturetaking that word in the widest sense-this book has little. direct connection. The views which men take of history are indeed very significant of their speculative opinions; but I have not ventured to enlarge my plan sufficiently to include such indirect evidence. Hitherto I have dealt with the speculative literature, or rather with that part of it which deals directly with the highest problems of human thought. And here I might stop, but that it seems desirable to touch briefly upon the reflection of the prevalent theories upon the world of the imagination. The doctrines which men ostensibly hold do not become operative upon their conduct until they have generated an imaginative symbolism; the reaction of the emotions upon the intellect is again of primary importance; and too great a gap would be left in this account of English thought if I were to omit all consideration of the influences, not less effective because exerted through extra-logical channels, which were due in different directions to such men as Law, Wesley, Pope, Swift, Fielding, Johnson, Cowper, and Burns. It is desirable, however, to explain with some care the limits within which my remarks must necessarily be confined.

2. The character of an imaginative literature is a function of many forces. It depends not only upon the current philosophy, but upon the inherited peculiarities of the race, upon its history, its climate, its social and political relations, and upon individual peculiarities of mind and temperament which defy all attempt at explanation. Thus, in our English literature of the eighteenth century, we can see the reflection of the national character; its sturdy common sense; the intellectual shortsightedness which enables it to grasp details whilst rejecting general systems; the resulting tendency to compromise, which leads it to acquiesce in heterogeneous masses of opinions; its humour, its deep moral feeling, its prejudices, its strong animal propensities, and so forth. Or, again, the social development affects the literature. The whole tone of thought is evidently coloured by the sentiments of a nation definitely emerging from the older organisation to a modern order of society. We see the formation of an important middle-class, and of an audience composed, not of solitary students or magnificent nobles, but of merchants, politicians, lawyers, and doctors, eager for amusement, delighting in infinite personal gossip, and talking over its own peculiarities with ceaseless interest in coffee-houses, clubs, and theatres. Nor, again, are the political influences unimportant. The cessation of the fierce struggles of the previous century, culminating in the undisputed supremacy of a parliamentary oligarchy, led to a dying out of the vehement discussions which at other periods have occupied men's minds exclusively, and made room for that theological controversy which I have described, and which itself disappeared as the political interests revived in the last half of the century. Foreign influences, again, would have to be considered. French literature. was to Dryden and Pope what Italian had been to Spenser and Milton; the influence of Bayle may be traced in the earlier criticism, as at a later period Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire profoundly affected English thought. The attempt, then, to deduce Pope from Clarke, or to connect Swift with Butler, to the neglect of the many conflicting influences, would be necessarily illusory. It is not the less true that remarkable analogies may be traced between the speculative and the imaginative literature. The complex conditions to which I

have referred affected both modes of thought; and sometimes we may best regard the two manifestations as springing from the same root, sometimes as directly influencing each other. My attention, even in discussing the speculative literature, has been chiefly confined to what I may call the logical relations of different intellectual creeds. I have considered the successive controversies as of a continuous debate, in which each writer starts from positions determined by the previous course of discussion. I have only referred incidentally to other conditions which, so to speak, dislocated the logical series. I now propose to touch briefly upon the mode in which the logical confusions affected the imaginative embodiment of thought. From such a point of view much that would otherwise be of the highest interest must be overlooked. That which gives the special value to a work in the eyes of the literary critic is often due to some idiosyncrasy of the individual writer; whilst the historian will be interested in the light which it throws upon the social and political conditions of the time. Though I shall have to touch such topics incidentally, my primary purpose is to suggest some answer to the problem: How far, and in what way, was the imaginative literature of the time a translation of its philosophy in terms of emotion?

3. We can conceive of a state in which all growth should be consistent with equilibrium, and involve no destruction. We may imagine a society growing in wealth, intelligence, and order, without the need of revolutionary disturbance. Its creeds, we may suppose, would be thoroughly assimilated, and therefore be in perfect harmony with each other, with the social order, and with facts. The religious impulse would receive its form from the philosophical, every moral doctrine would be the application of some admitted social law, and every poetical conception be the imaginative reflection of some scientific truth. No near approximation has hitherto been made to such a condition; fatal errors have always lurked in philosophy, and the seeds of disorder been germinating in the most stable social order. There have, however, been periods at which some common convictions and passions have so dominated mankind as to suggest an impression of the possible harmony. Those have been the

creative periods, when forces, at other times wasted in endless wrangling, have been available for a common co-operation. Philosophers can at times combine to work out new truth instead of attacking each other's principles; preachers can speak boldly and eloquently, delivered from the bondage of paralysing doubts, and animated by an uninterrupted circuit of sympathy; artists can work effectively, for the common faith generates a symbolism universally understood, and appealing to genuine beliefs; leaders of men can advance without needing at every step to entrench themselves against open enemies and insidious friends. But it is to be feared that equilibrium generally implies, not harmony, but stagnation. Improvement first shows itself by introducing discord; and periods of comparative repose are interrupted by confused epochs of jarring chaos, in which the noblest imaginative work reflects the passions of the sincerest combatant, not the combined impulse of a united people.

4. The beginning of the eighteenth century was a period of comparative quiescence. Society was not in a state of furious ebullition, and the conflict of ideas was not manifestly internecine. There existed, therefore, a kind of relative harmony. It was a harmony of compromise rather than reconciliation; a truce, not a definite peace. The deist controversy scarcely led more than two or three daring thinkers to question ultimate assumptions. And a common theological philosophy was very widely accepted by men who denounced each other heartily for comparatively trivial differences of opinion. In politics, Whiggism and Toryism were little more than names, and both parties agreed to accept, with little modification, that body of doctrine which afterwards came to be known as Revolution principles, In literature and art we shall find an analogous disposition to agree upon certain accepted canons. An academy of the reign of Queen Anne might have laid down a code upon such matters which would have been accepted with little disagreement, and which would have corresponded to what is called the classical theory. We shall have to consider some of its principles in greater detail.

5. Starting from the theological doctrine, we may say that the dominant creed was either the pure or the Christian Deism

worked out by the rationalism of the day. As we have seen, the philosophy tended to identify God with nature, though with a reserve and hesitation which stopped short of thoroughness. By nature was meant a metaphysical entity, whose existence was to be proved by mathematical reasonings; and yet not proved too clearly lest it should lapse into Pantheism or become independent of Christianity. This intellectual attitude corresponds to an imaginative difficulty. The old vivid mythology was rapidly fading. The distinct realisation of a supernatural Being constantly intervening in the actual affairs of life was no longer possible. Nor, on the other hand, could the pantheist adopt the more genial conception of a later philosophy, and frankly regard nature as animated by an allpervading force, breathing in every plant and moving the whole choir of heaven, and bringing the whole universe into a loving unity. A greater scientific development and a livelier realisation of the continuity and order of the world are required to give force to such a conception. The metaphysics of the day placed all reality in certain abstract substances and empty forces, and the whole phenomenal world was made up of independent fragments which were yet in some sense illusory. So frigid and mechanical a conception could scarcely afford a point of support for the imagination. Laboriously as philosophers might establish the divine attributes, the deity remained obstinately lifeless. He was but an idol made of heterogeneous fragments of the old traditions, and of half-hearted and chilling metaphysics. The difficulty of reconciling such a conception to admitted facts was, as we have seen, met in two ways. One set of thinkers retained theological language, but made it studiously vague. They found God in nature, but they found an impalpable essence. They clung to a vague optimism, generated by the attempt to transfer to this abstract being the creations associated with the vivid because anthropomorphic type, and talked vaguely of harmony and unity, without caring to translate phrases into facts. Their morality tended to degenerate into vague sentimentalism, or mere prudence thinly varnished over with traditional grandiloquence.

6. Others still retained the old conception, but reconciled the imaginative difficulty by remembering that God had