Surely
It is a sleepy language!
Critical works where inductive retain their force, where judicial have become obsolete.
The critics may themselves be called as chief witnesses against themselves. Those parts of their works in which they apply themselves to analysing and interpreting their authors survive in their full force: where they judge, find fault, and attempt to regulate, they inevitably become obsolete. Aristotle, the founder of all criticism, is for the most part inductive in his method, describing poetry as it existed in his day, distinguishing its different classes and elements, and tabulating its usages: accordingly Aristotle's treatise, though more than two thousand years old, remains the text-book of the Greek Drama. In some places, however, he diverges from his main purpose, as in the final chapter, in which he raises the question whether Epic or Tragic is more excellent, or where he promises a special treatise to discuss whether Tragedy is yet perfect: here he has for modern readers only the interest of curiosity. Dr. Johnson's analysis of 'metaphysical poetry,' Addison's development of the leading effects in Paradise Lost, remain as true and forcible to-day as when they were written: Addison constructing an order of merit for English poets with Cowley and Sprat at the head, Dr. Johnson lecturing Shakespeare and Milton as to how they ought to have written—these are to us only odd anachronisms. It is like a contest with atomic force, this attempt at using ideas drawn from the past to mould and limit productive power in the present and future. The critic peers into the dimness of history, and is found to have been blind to what was by his side: Boileau strives to erect a throne of Comedy for Terence, and never suspects that a truer king was at hand in his own personal friend Molière. It is in vain for critics to denounce, their denunciation recoils on themselves: the sentence of Rymer that the soul of modern Drama was a brutish and not a reasonable soul, or of Voltaire, that Shakespeare's Tragedy would not be tolerated by the lowest French mob, can harm none but Rymer and Voltaire. If the critics venture to prophesy, the sequel is the only refutation of them needed; if they give reasons, the reasons survive only to explain how the critics were led astray; if they lay down laws, literary greatness in the next generation is found to vary directly with the boldness with which authors violate the laws. If they assume a judicial attitude, the judgment-seat becomes converted into a pillory for the judge, and a comic side to literary history is furnished by the mockery with which time preserves the proportions of things, as seen by past criticism, to be laid side by side with the true perspective revealed by actual history. In such wise it has preserved to us the list of 'poets laureate' who preceded Southey: Shadwell, Tate, Rowe, Eusden, Cibber, Whitehead, Warton, Pye. It reveals Dryden sighing that Spenser could only have read the rules of Bossu, or smitten with a doubt whether he might not after all excuse Milton's use of blank verse 'by the example of Hannibal Caro'; Rymer preferring Ben Jonson's Catiline to all the tragedies of the Elizabethan age, and declaring Waller's Poem on the Navy Royal beyond all modern poetry in any language; Voltaire wondering that the extravagances of Shakespeare could be tolerated by a nation that had seen Addison's Cato; Pope assigning three-score years and ten as the limit of posthumous life to 'moderns' in poetry, and celebrating the trio who had rescued from the 'uncivilised' Elizabethan poetry the 'fundamental laws of wit.' These three are Buckingham, Roscommon, and Walsh: as to the last of whom if we search amongst contemporary authorities to discover who he was, we at last come upon his works described in the Rambler as 'pages of inanity.'
In actual practice criticism is found to have gradually approached induction.
But in the conflict between judicial criticism and science the most important point is to note how the critics' own ideas of criticism are found to be gradually slipping away from them. Between the Renaissance and the present day criticism, as judged by the methods actually followed by critics, has slowly changed from the form of laying down laws to authors into the form of receiving laws from authors. Five stages. 1. Idea of judging solely by classical standards.The process of change falls into five stages. In its first stage the conception of criticism was bounded by the notion of comparing whatever was produced with the masterpieces and trying it by the ideas of Greek and Roman literature. Boileau objected to Corneille's tragedies, not because they did not excite admiration, but because admiration was not one of the tragical passions as laid down by Aristotle. To Rymer's mind it was clearly a case of classical standards or no standards, and he describes his opponents as 'a kind of stage-quacks and empirics in poetry who have got a receipt to please.' And there is a degree of naïveté in the way in which Bossu betrays his utter unconsciousness of the possibility that there should be more than one kind of excellence, where, in a passage in which he is admitting that the moderns have as much spirit and as lucky fancies as the ancients, he nevertheless calls it 'a piece of injustice to pretend that our new rules destroy the fancies of the old masters, and that they must condemn all their works who could not foresee all our humours.' Criticism in this spirit is notably illustrated by the Corneille incident in the history of the French Academy. The fashionable literary world, led by a Scudéry, solemnly impeach Corneille of originality, and Richelieu insists on the Academy pronouncing judgment; which they at last do, unwillingly enough, since, as Boileau admitted, all France was against them. The only one that in the whole incident retained his sense of humour was the victim himself; who, early in the struggle, being confronted by critics recognising no merit but that of obedience to rules, set himself to write his Clitandre as a play which should obey all the rules of Drama and yet have nothing in it: 'in which,' he said, 'I have absolutely succeeded.'2. Recognition of modern as illegitimate merit.—But this reign of simple faith began to be disturbed by sceptical doubts: it became impossible entirely to ignore merit outside the pale of classical conformity. Thus we get a Dennis unable to conceal his admiration for the daring of Milton, as a man who knew the rules of Aristotle, 'no man better,' and yet violated them. Literature of the modern type gets discussed as it were under protest. Dr. Johnson, when he praises Addison's Cato for adhering to Aristotle's principles 'with a scrupulousness almost unexampled on the English stage,' is reflecting the constant assumption throughout this transitional stage, that departure from classical models is the result of carelessness, and that beauties in such offending writers are lucky hits. The spirit of this period is distinctly brought out by Dr. Johnson where he 'readily allows' that the union in one composition of serious and ludicrous is 'contrary to the rules of criticism,' but, he adds, 'there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature.'3. Modern standards of judging side by side with ancient.—Once admitted to examination the force of modern literature could not fail to assert its equality with the literature of the ancients, and we pass into a third stage of criticism when critics grasp the conception that there may be more than one set of rules by which authors may be judged. The new notion made its appearance early in the country which was the main stronghold of the opposite view. Perrault in 1687 instituted his 'Parallels' between the ancients and the moderns to the advantage of the latter; and the question was put in its naked simplicity by Fontenelle, the 'Nestor of literature,' when he made it depend upon another question, 'whether the trees that used to grow in our woods were larger than those which grow now.' Later, and with less distinctness, English criticism followed the lead. Pope, with his happy indifference to consistency, after illustrating the first stage where he advises to write 'as if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line,' and where he contends that if the classical authors indulge in a licence that licence becomes a law to us, elsewhere lays down that to apply ancient rules in the treatment of modern literature is to try by the laws of one country a man belonging to another. In one notable instance the genius of Dr. Johnson rises superior to the prejudices of his age, and he vindicates in his treatment of Shakespeare the conception of a school of Drama in which the unities of time and place do not apply. But he does it with trembling: 'I am almost frightened at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and the strength of those who maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to sink down in reverential silence.'4. Conception of criticism as judging begins to waver:—Criticism had set out with judging by one set of laws, it had come to judge by two: the change began to shake the notion of judging as the function of criticism, and the eyes of critics came to be turned more to the idea of literary beauty itself, as the end for which the laws of literary composition were merely means. Addison is the great name connected with this further transitional stage. We find Addison not only arguing negatively that 'there is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of art than in adhering to them,' changing to the search for beauties:but even laying down as a positive theory that the true function of a critic is 'to discover the concealed beauties of a writer'; while the practical illustration of his theory which he gave in the case of the Paradise Lost is supposed to have revolutionised the opinion of the fashionable reading-public.5. and finally to investigation of laws in literature as it stands.—Addison was removed by a very little from the final stage of criticism, the conception of which is perhaps most fully brought out by Gervinus, where he declares his purpose of treating Shakespeare as the 'revealing genius' of his department of art and of its laws. Thus slowly and by gradual stages has the conception of criticism been changing in the direction of induction: starting from judgment by the laws of the ancient classics as standards beyond which there is no appeal, passing through the transitional stage of greater and greater toleration for intrinsic worth though of a modern type, to arrive at the recognition of modern standards of judgment side by side with ancient; again passing through a further transitional stage of discrediting judgment altogether as the purpose of criticism in favour of the search for intrinsic worth in literature as it stands, till the final conception is reached of analysing literature as it stands for the purpose of discovering its laws in itself. The later stages do not universally prevail yet. But the earlier stages have at all events become obsolete; and there is no reader who will not acquiesce cheerfully in one of the details Addison gives out for his ideal theatre, by which Rymer's tragedy Edgar was to be cut up into snow to make the Storm Scene in Shakespeare's Lear.
Separateness of the two criticisms.
It may be well to recall the exact purpose to which the present argument is intended to lead. The purpose is not to attack journalism and kindred branches of criticism in the interests of inductive treatment. It would be false to the principles of induction not to recognise that the criticism of taste has long since established its position as a fertile branch of literature. Even in an inductive system journalism would still have place as a medium for fragmentary and tentative treatment. Moreover it may be admitted that induction in its formal completeness of system can never be applied in practical life; and in the intellectual pursuits of real life trained literary taste may be a valuable acquisition. What is here attacked is the mistake which has identified the criticism of taste and valuation with the conception of criticism as a whole; the intrusion of methods belonging to journalism into treatment that claims to be systematic. Criticism of taste belongs to creative literature:So far from being a standard of method in the treatment of literature, criticism of the reviewer's order is outside science altogether. It finds its proper place on the creative side of literature, as a branch in which literature itself has come to be taken as a theme for literary writing; it thus belongs to the literature treated, not to the scientific treatment of it. as the lyrics of prose.Reviews so placed may be regarded almost as the lyrics of prose: like lyric poems they have their completeness in themselves, and their interest lies, not in their being parts of some whole, but in their flashing the subjectivity of a writer on to a variety of isolated topics; they thus have value, not as fragments of literary science, but as fragments of Addison, of Jeffrey, of Macaulay. Nor is the bearing of the present argument that commentators should set themselves to eulogise the authors they treat instead of condemning them (though this would certainly be the safer of two errors). The treatment aimed at is one independent of praise or blame, one that has nothing to do with merit, relative or absolute. The contention is for a branch of criticism separate from the criticism of taste; a branch that, in harmony with the spirit of other modern sciences, reviews the phenomena of literature as they actually stand, enquiring into and endeavouring to systematise the laws and principles by which they are moulded and produce their effects. Scientific criticism and the criticism of taste have distinct spheres: and the whole of literary history shows that the failure to keep the two separate results only in mutual confusion.
Our present purpose is with inductive criticism. What, by the analogy of other sciences, is implied in the inductive treatment of literature?