If we could have that, we should ask no more, for we believe in the nation. I heard a doctor say, the other day, that a man's chief lesson was to pull his brain down into his spinal cord; that is to say, to make his activities not so much the result of conscious thought and volition, as of unconscious, reflex action; to stop thinking and willing, and simply do what one has to do. May there not be a hint here of the ultimate relation of the individual to the social organism; the relation of our literature to our national character? There is a period, no doubt, when the individual must painfully question himself, test his powers, and acquire the sense of his own place in the world. But there also comes a more mature period when he takes that place unconsciously, does his work almost without thinking about it, as if it were not his work at all. The brain has gone down into the spinal cord; the man is functioning as apart of the organism of society; he has ceased to question, to plan, to decide; it is instinct that does his work for him.
Literature and art, at their noblest, function in that instinctive way. They become the unconscious expression of a civilization. A nation passes out of its adolescent preoccupation with plans and with materials. It learns to do its work, precisely as Goethe bade the artist do his task, without talking about it. We, too, shall outgrow in time our questioning, our self-analysis, our futile comparison of ourselves with other nations, our self-conscious study of our own national character. We shall not forget the distinction between "each" and "all," but "all" will increasingly be placed at the service of "each." With fellowship based upon individualism, and with individualism ever leading to fellowship, America will perform its vital tasks, and its literature will be the unconscious and beautiful utterance of its inner life.
THE END.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
U. S. A.
Transcriber's Notes
Page [67]: Changed compaign to campaign:
(Their compaign of "exposure," during the last decade,)
Pages [158], [165]: Retained spaced 'T is and 't is to match original text:
("'T is best to remain aloof from people,)
("If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.")
Page [222]: Changed conciousness to consciousness:
(the preoccupied colonial conciousness.)
Page [223]: Changed explans to explains:
(It explans the still lingering popular suspicion)
Page [232]: Changed sojurns to sojourns:
(Fenimore Cooper came home from long sojurns in Europe.)