It remains to notice one further point which is suggested by Mr. Herbert Spencer's account of the origin of æsthetic sentiments. The demand for the limitation of the hours of labour, and for the provision of extended opportunities for mental culture, which together form one of the foremost of the ideals of modern democracy, receives a new significance when we recognize the biological basis for the connection between art and leisure. For scientific analysis makes it plain that æsthetic enjoyment, whether in the individual or in the community, is only possible when there is 'an organization so superior that the energies have not to be wholly expended in the fulfilment of material requirements from hour to hour.'1 Esthetic activity, therefore, depends directly upon the economic management of the physical and mental faculties and since political, social, and biological development alike tend to produce this result, it is clear that, with the progress of humanity, art and literature will occupy an increasingly important place in the life of man. Democracy, therefore, instead of destroying, must tend to foster art.

1 Ib. p. 647.

CHAPTER I

PLATO CONSIDERS LITERATURE AS A VEHICLE

OF KNOWLEDGE

If we cast about for a convenient starting point from which to approach an inquiry into the nature and methods of literature, we could scarcely do better than select the famous saying of Descartes, Cogito ergo sum. But whereas originally man derived the sensations which constitute his being exclusively from the direct action of material existences, he now derives them in part from the previous sensations of other men preserved and embodied in custom, literature and art. From this point of view that is to say, if we regard man primarily as a sentient being-literature is an element in human life which is of ever-increasing importance.

But literature had existed for a long time, and had attained a high state of development, before it won any permanent recognition as chief among our secondary sources of sensation. The first conscious acknowledgment in literature of its own existence, as a serious contributor to the sum total of human life, marks the commencement of criticism; and this

acknowledgment naturally grew out of the reflective philosophy of Plato. In the search for truth, which he conducted through the powerful instrument of dialectic, Plato found that men derive their opinions and their rules of conduct from a knowledge of literature as well as from a knowledge of life. He recognized especially that literature is the medium by which the young are introduced to the world, and inferior minds are enabled to share the wisdom of their superiors; and he was, therefore, compelled, in constructing a system of morals, to take account both of the subject-matter and of the forms of this source of knowledge.

It is not surprising that a criticism conceived on such a basis should be inadequate.

What Jowett has written of his work in general is true of his work in the special field of criticism. 'He is no dreamer, but a great philosophical genius struggling with the unequal conditions of light and knowledge under which he is living.' And so in Plato we find a remarkable, almost instinctive, comprehension of the true principles which underlie the development of art and literature, joined to a fatal misconception of the character and limitations of artistic representation, and, we must add, of the work of the Greek poets.

The contrast between Plato and Aristotle in their respective researches in the department of criticism is very significant. Plato is an idealist, and hi 1 Dialogues. Pref. p. ix.

criticism is an examination of literature and art in the light of principles deduced from the study of the life of man. Aristotle is a realist, and his criticism is based upon a consideration of the actual literary material which lay before him. Plato appears to have regarded the productions of art and literature for critical purposes solely as a vehicle for conveying philosophic truth; and criticism meant for him an endeavour to ascertain how far the message of poetry and the arts agreed with the message of philosophy. The desire to reach the truth directed and controlled the whole of his vast intellectual activity, and when he applies himself to art and literature this motive is so predominant that it obscures his appreciation of the lesser elements of beauty and pleasure, and prevents him from realizing the difference between truth in art and truth in nature. Art was a vehicle by which men could be taught the truths of philosophy, and the only object of criticism, as he conceived it, was to find out to what extent it fulfilled this purpose.

Aristotle's criticism, on the other hand, was independent of any ethical motive; under his scheme it formed a separate and distinct department of inquiry. An art, he says in the Ethics,' is the product of 'a union of a creative faculty and reason.' In the Poetics he finds that the source of the creative faculty is the primitive impulse of imitation; and he points out that art as thus analyzed must produce

1 1140.

results which can be distinguished from the results of any mere effort of the understanding.

As a contribution to a specific department of human knowledge, Aristotle's account of the origin and methods of art in the Poetics shows an infinite

advance upon Plato's exposure of its defects in the Republic. But Plato's method, being in fact the method of art itself, by employing the powerful assistance of the imagination, enabled him to pierce more deeply into the heart of things, and to reveal truths of higher import and wider application than the truths disclosed by the more exact but more restricted investigations of Aristotle. And so it has come about that while the rules of Aristotle, based upon a limited area of observation, have been gradually superseded, the principles of Plato are seen to be in harmony with the modern conception of the functions of art and literature. For the time has come when art and literature are no longer the property of the few, but when in fact they are as intimately a part of the life of civilized peoples, as they were of Hellenic life in the age of Pericles; and, therefore, the identity of their spirit with the spirit of the truest thought and the highest conduct -which Plato asserted to be the true relation between them and the life of man-seems no longer impossible of realization, but has, on the contrary, come to be regarded as the natural goal of their development.

Of Plato's general criticism it is sufficient to note