Shakspeare and His Times

by François Guizot

Nothing is, in fact, more common than thus to misapprehend the design and nature of certain things.

When the Organon of the Stagyrite philosopher was rediscovered in the Middle Ages, those who first studied it thought they had met with a kind of enchantment, and certainly they had good reason for so thinking; for this Organon, this admirable logical system, is one of the most wonderful monuments of the greatness and power of the human mind that exists. But immediately they started to the conclusion that the aim of logic was to teach men reasoning, and that reasoning was, if not the only, yet certainly the principal means of attaining truth—that whosoever should thoroughly master the syllogism could never again be deceived in any thing, and would have reached the utmost boundaries of human knowledge. This was a great mistake; no one can estimate the follies and sophistries, the strifes and subtleties, which this has cost us. Logic teaches man nothing which he could not already do alone, and without its assistance; the syllogistic procedure is the natural and spontaneous method; it need not be formally learned in order to its being employed. There are, besides, other conditions for good reasoning—a clear vision and an adequate conception of the subject, a just regard to all the conditions implied in the problem to be solved, and the faculty of retaining them firmly during the whole course of the deduction. And these things are all given by nature; logic can not impart the secret of acquiring them. Must we, then, on the other hand, conclude, as some philosophers have concluded, that logic is good for nothing? By no means; this would be to rush blindly to the opposite extreme. The design of logic is not to teach men to reason, but to teach them how they actually do reason; it is a branch of mental philosophy; it discloses to us the nature of one of our most remarkable mental processes; it explains to us its laws, its action, its mechanism; it reveals the human mind to itself. He who studies it properly will always study it advantageously; he will rise from this study with a more enlightened and practiced, a stronger and more dexterous mental organ—more fitted, in one word, for all things, not even excepting reasoning itself; for never is it in any respect fruitless to develop human intelligence, and to enlarge and purify the judgment.

The same must be said of criticism. It also is a branch of mental philosophy. It also enlightens the mind with regard to its own operations, and shows it in reflection the method of its own activity; but it neither confines it within the limits of the schools, nor subjects it to a dwarfing and lasting pupillage.

The beautiful exists; it exists in the external world and in the soul of man, in the phenomena of nature and in the events in which humanity displays itself. Sometimes it is manifested entirely in these regions; but oftener it gives only a glimpse and a hint of its presence. Genius seizes it and makes it its own possession; it receives the impression, and then gives it out in a purer and more vivid state than that in which it first appeared; it is surprised by the vision, and it surprises in its turn by the presentation of it. Thus genius acts under the influence of an inspiration; unconsciously, yet most spontaneously, it avails itself of the processes of art. The eagle flies because it is an eagle; the stag bounds because it is a stag.

What, then, is the province of criticism? Its position is that of a mediator between the master-pieces of art and the minds which are desirous of appreciating them; between the man of talent and the readers whom he addresses; sometimes between him and the man of genius. Whether we be small or great, gifted with insight or not, it initiates us into the secret of these marvelous beauties; it displays before us their delicate processes, their hidden relations, their mystic laws. This is its work; neither more nor less.

But now is the time for the approach of ratiocinative mediocrity; it advances with lofty assumption, bearing the staff of office, availing itself of these expositions in order to erect, by means of them, a clumsy structure of exact formulas—burlesquing these delicate and cautious explanations by resolving them into pedantic precepts, and appealing to lesser spirits to experiment upon their select list of instructions, practical precepts, and petty routines. At its bidding, the laborers set to work. Equipped with their rule and compass, they draw the lines and measure out the compartments, they dissect most methodically the mighty productions of men of genius, plundering on the right hand and on the left, pillaging from one a posture, from another a stroke of sentiment, from a third an idea, from a fourth a poetic touch, and, readjusting all these bits according to the best of their ability, they at length produce a sorry, complicated piece of mosaic, dressed in truly harlequin gear. Hence arises, in all languages which have received a small amount of culture, a deluge of bastard productions, which are neither good nor bad, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither interesting nor ridiculous, and which have no other fault than the irremediable one of corresponding to nothing whatever that exists either in Man or nature, neither in the mind of the would-be poet nor in that of his unfortunate reader. Hence, for example, the amusement which so many poets of the last century gave themselves, of composing tens of thousands of pastoral verses, which gave no indication that during the whole period of their existence they had so much as cast a glance upon any tree in the Tuileries, or watched the course of any river in the Gobelins. Hence arose, in a word, all that rendered literature dull and poetry fantastic.

Criticism that is worthy of the name—true criticism, indeed—has nothing to do with this foolish attempt to construct the agreeable and the beautiful into a fabric. Its aim is not to teach how beautiful things may be made, but to exhibit before all eyes, and help all minds to understand the lustre of those things which are beautiful. Its aim is to increase the number of lofty and refined spirits—minds of liberality and sagacity, of delicacy and enlightenment; it is to prepare for men of genius and of talent, whenever nature may please to inspire such, a public worthy of receiving them, whose admiration may animate them, and whose severe taste may calm and moderate their too exuberant activity.

This being granted, may we say that the new criticism, that criticism to which has been imputed, whether advisedly or not—or, rather, we would question whether or not it is fitting to impute to this criticism alone and entirely—the revolution which has been declared in our theatre, may we say that this criticism has entirely failed in its object? If it has not, by one stroke of any magic wand, transformed men of moderate talent into great poets, may it not have smoothed the way before great poets who may yet arise? If it has not caused beautiful works of art to spring forth from the bosom of the earth, may it not have opened many eyes, and unstopped many deafened ears? May it not, to a certain extent, have so prepared the way for great works, if ever Heaven shall grant them to us, that they may, on their arrival, find an audience disposed to appreciate them and qualified to estimate them?