A 1,133,398
ALI
OF
OF
UNIVERSI
28
KICHIGAN
THE
MICHIGAN.SI
CATESSA
LIBRARLIE
THE GAY SCIENCE.
CLASSICS IN ART
and
LITERARY CRITICISM
Editor: René Wellek
STERLING PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
YALE UNIVERSITY
The right of Translation is reserved.
THE GAY SCIENCE
BY
E. S. DALLAS
VOL 1
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY
1966.
JOHNSON REPRINT CORPORATION JOHNSON REPRINT COMPANY LTD.
111 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 Berkeley Square House, London, W1X6BA
20
114
controle
First reprinting 1969, Johnson Reprint Corporation
Printed in the United States of America
964527-116
3
PREFACE.
HESE volumes aim at completeness in
themselves, but I must ask the reader
to bear in mind that they are to be
followed by two more. They are an attempt to
settle the first principles of Criticism, and to
show how alone it can be raised to the dignity
of a science. But any one who cares for the
discussion is sure to ask at every stage of it
How do your principles bear on the practical
questions of criticism ? how are they to be
applied ? I hope to show this ere long; but
I venture also to hope that the principles
here evolved-even wbile their application is
withheld-may be worthy of attention, may
vi
Preface.
entertain the reader, and may prove to be
suggestive.
A few of the following pages have already
seen the light in various publications, although
they now stand in their places without any ac-
knowledgment of a previous appearance. They
are so few in number, and, having been re-
written, are so altered in form, that it would
have been difficult, and it seemed to be need-
less, to introduce them with the usual marks of
quotation.
a
E. 8. D.
起
​THE CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Significance of the Title.- Originally applied to Poetry.-Here to
Criticism.--The Gay Science the Scienoe of Pleasure.Objec-
tions to Pleasure as the aim of Art. ---Cursory view of Pleasure
which may soften those objections
Page 3
CHAPTER II.
THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM,
Criticism in its widest sonde docs not contain within itself the notion
of a Special Science. Criticisin, strictly so called, is not yet a
Science. What the world thinks of Critics and Criticism.-
What Critics think of each other. Summary of the forms of
Criticism.--(1) Editorial Criticism, how unsatisfactory.--An
example of it in Shakcspearian Criticism.
Its worth estimated
by Steevens. - Another example of it in Classical Criticism.
Porson's proface to the Hecuba.-Elmsley.-(2) Biographical
Criticism-tho advantages of it.-But how far from Science
And how apt to become parasitical.-(3) Historical Criticism
How far from Science, and how limited in its view. The intel-
lectual Flora not studied as a whole.-Comparative Criticism.
The problem of Criticism too rarely attempted.-(4) Systematic
or Scientifo Criticism in ancient times, as represented by
Aristotle; in modern times devoted to questions of Language.
Example of what the moderns chiefly understand by a system of
Criticism.Mr. Ruskin's summary of modern Criticism as gram-
viii
Contents.
mar.--The systematic Criticism of Germany-The defect, as in
Hegel and Schelling. Suggestion of a middle course between the
Criticism of Germany and that of the Renaissance.—Method and
value of the most recent Criticism.—The despair of system
and want of concert. - Ulrici. - French Criticism.-Glaring
example of the impotence of Criticism.---Prize designs a failure.
--- Why is the Prize System a failure in England, when we know
that in Greece it was successful ?The explanation to be found
in the weakness of Criticism. The standard of Judgment.-
Influence of School in Greece.-Influence of School in France.
-A hopeful sign of our Criticism that it has become ashamed
of itself.-Summary of the Chapter.-Why Criticism is not a
Science-Failure of method. What is involved in the new
method of Comparative Criticism--The comparison threefold.
-In what groove of Comparative Criticism the present work
will for the first part run.Nothing so much wanted as a
correct Psychology. On the dulness of Psychology-But that
dulness is not necessary. The subject really as interesting as
Romance ..
Page 9
CHAPTER III.
THE DESPAIR OF A SCIENCE
C
The despair of Critical Science not surprising. What we set before
us as the object of Science.-Antithesis between the works of
God and those of Man.-Popular Scionce in its religious
aspect.-The proper study of Mankind.-Misanthropy of the
antithesis between the works of God and those of Man.
Wordsworth to some extent auswerablo for it.—How it shows
itself in Ruskin.-Something to be said for the one-sided
devotion to Physical Science, which now prevails.--The feats
of Science And the great public works which it has pro-
duced.—The recent origin of the Sciences, and their present
development.-Different fate of the Mental Sciences.- Various
points of view from which is produced the despair of any
Science of Human Nature.-(1) Philosophical despair of Mental
Science.-What Mr. Lewes says of Philosophical Criticism.-
A Philosophical Critic-Wagner.-The jargon of Philosophy.
-Distinction between Philosophy and Science. The great
want of Criticism Psychology. Science as applied to Mind
Contents.
ix
too recent to be accused of fruitlessness.(2) The despair
of System-Expressed by Lord Lytton.-Systems soon for-
gotten. -Take Plato for an example. The forms of current
Literature very adverse to System.-Value of System.-- (3)
Despair of Mental Science that springs from Moral View..-
Expressed by Mr. Froude.—The gist of his reasoning.-All
the Sciences are not exact. The exactitude of Art-Illus-
trated in Shelley's conception of Poetry.- (1) Despair produced
by the modesty of Science.
The impotence of Science. The
more Science the greater sense of Ignorano. The impotence
of Criticism no more than the impotence of other Sciences.-
How Mr. Matthew Arnold vaunts Criticism-But his meaning
is not quite clear-As for example in what he says of M.
Sainte Beuve.--His statement that the modern spirit is essen-
tially critical.--The wrong conclusions which may be drawn
from Mr. Amold's generalization. General view of the ad-
vantage of a science of Criticism.-On the interpretation of
History through Philosophy. The interpretation of History
through Criticism.--Summary of the argument.-Aim of the
present work, not a Science, but a plea for one and a map of its
leading lines
Page 47
CHAPTER IV.
THE CORNER STONE.
Object of this chapter to prove a truism.-- Truisms sometimes
require demonstration.-A science of Criticism implies that
there is something common to the Arts. On the admitted re-
lationship of the Arts.The Arts so like that they have been
treated as identical.---Wherein consists the unity of Art;
two answers to this question usually given, and both false.
-The Aristotelian doctrine that Art has a common method,
that of imitation. This the corner stone of ancient Criti-
ciam-And how implicitly acoepted.-How it held its ground,
and how hard it died.-Falsehood of the theory-As shown
in Music.---Limits of the theory.--Scaliger's objection to it
unanswerable. Coleridge's defence of it unavailing. The
other theory which displaced the Aristotelian arose in Ger-
many that Art has a common theme.—Remarks on this
conception of Art.-That Art is the manifestation of the
:
X
Contents.
Beautiful, two facts fatal to it.--That Art is the mani-
festation of the True, open to the same objection. Also that
Art is the manifestation of Power.--The subject of Art is all
that can interest Man.—Wherein then does the unity of the
Arts reside Their common purpose. This common pur-
pose an admitted fact. Some explanation of this doctrine of
Pleasure-drawn from the antithesis between Art and Science.
-The necessary inference as to the nature of Criticism. But
how the Critics have turned aside from that inference, one
and all.-Why they thus turned aside from the straight road.
-The fact remains that the doctrine of Pleasure is not allowed
its rightful place in Criticism, and we proceed to the proof of
what that place should be
Page 76
CHAPTER V.
THE AGREEMENT OF THE CRITICS.
Survey of the schools of Criticism—their divisions.--All the schools
teach one doctrine as to the end of Art I. The Greek school of
Criticism, as represented by Plato and Aristotle, accepted the
one doctrine.-Plato's reasoning about Pleasure. The promi-
nent consideration in Groek Criticism.
Is the pleasure of Art
true ?–Treatment of the question.–Story of Solon.--The
saying of Gorgias.How the artists tried to deceive. So far
there is nothing poculiar in the working of the Greek mind.--
How the love of illusion showod itself tor example in Italian
Art.-Wilkie's story of the Geronimite. Furthor illustration
of tho love of illusion in Greek and other forms of Art.-What
is pwxculiar to the Greeks.—Plato's manner of stating critically
the doubt as to the truth of Pleasure.The doubt survives
apart from the reasoning on which it rests.--Aristotle's state
ment of the counter doctrinato be found in the ninth chapter
of his Poetics. The lesson of Greek Criticism how it has been
perverted' by Coleridge -The true doctrine.--II. The Italian
school of Criticism-as represented by Scaliger, Castelvetro,
Tasso, and others.
What is peculiar in their view of Art
That the pleasure of Art must be profitable. How Tasso
puzzled over the doctrine worthy of particular attention. How
the Italian doctrine is to be understood wherein it goes too
for-how far it is true some of the absurdities to which it
Contents.
xi
led. Pleasure an indefinite term very apt to be misunderstood.
-Ruskin's protest against Pleasure as the end of Art may be
considered here, Pleasure being regarded as immoral, and there-
fore unprofitable answered by reference to Lord Chesterfield's
saying about Wit-III. The Spanish sohool of Criticism not
very original, but still authoritative-it held to the ono dootrine
-but it had its own spesial viow—that Art is for the people.
-How this dootrine showed itself in Berooo, in Cervantes, and
in Lope de Vegan-How Cervantes discussed it in Don Quixote.
-Lope de Vegl-The name view expressed by Terence-by
Molière by Johnson. A difficult question here involved.- An
opposite doctrine supposed to have been held by Milton--and
certainly held by Wordsworth. On the it and few as judges
of Art-Does a printed, as distinguished from a written, Litera-
ture make any difference The demooratio doctrine of Art will
be displeasing to some expressed by saying that all great Art
is gregarious.- IV. The French school of Criticiam coepto the
universal dootrine.---The poouliarity of French Critician-bogan
to show itself in the early days of the Boarbona..Picture of
France on the death of Henry IV.-The utter want of refine
ment-illustrated by reference to the preceding century. At
Henry's death tho worst behaved nation in Europan-but sound
at heart, and ripe for reform.-Reform came from Italy -
Catherine de Vivonne-her education and how she became
mistress of the Hôtel Rambouillet.Origin of the Prócieuses.-
On mistakes committed about them.-Molière, and his real
objeot with regard to them.
The false Précieuses whom Molière
ridiculed. The real Précieuses made the French taste and
live to this day.—The clue to French Art and Criticism.-
French purism, its origin and singularity-Hugo's revolt
against it- La Mesnardière a great man with the Précieuses
bis criticim absurd, but not to be despised. On varioties of
taste and critical questions thence arising.--How La Mesnar-
didre urged these questions and in the present day M. Cousin.
-Tbene objootions legitimate.--Statement of the question--but
an objection to be arged to M. Cousin's form of it.-Answer to
M. Couaid-drawn from his own opinion regarding Science.
The objection, however, deserves a more direct reply. Our
sense of delight is distinct from our estimate of it.-An example
dawn from the sense of taste another from the pleasure of
sadne-Applioation of these examples to the argument.-The
-
xii
Contents,
ideal of Pleasure as distinct from the reality.-V. The German
school of Criticism—what is peculiar to its view of Art.--That
Art comes of Pleasure as well as goes to it-but German
thinkers confine the pleasure of Art to the beautiful. How
this bias was given to German philosophy by Wolf--and by his
disciple Baumgarten ; and how their conclusion remained in
force long after the premiss from which they started was
rejected.—How the Germans are bewitched with the notion of
beauty—their raptures. They are called back to reason by
Richter.-Richter's own deficiency. On the German notion of
beauty-what it is. Here again they owe their bias to Wolf.
-How succeeding thinkers rung the changes upon Wolf.-
What view came gradually into sight-Goethe's final view of
the beautiful in Art, and summary of the German doctrine of
Pleasure. The German doctrine neods to be balanced by a
counter-statement of the sorrows of Art.-The modern sense of
enjoyment as compared with the ancient--is it less enjoyment?
-The existence of delicious sorrow a great fact.-But the
suffering of the artist is not inconsistent with the fact that his
Art emerges from Pleasure. The power of expression implies
recovery. VI. The English school of Criticism beginning with
Bacon, and the Elizabethang but our best Criticism dates from
Dryden.-A now spirit breathed into Criticism at the end of
last century-but ever the same doctrine as to the end of Art
is taught--and Lord Kames even draws in a faint way the
inference that Criticism must be the Science of Pleasure.
What is pcculiar in the English view of Art ?-It dwells chiefly
on the power of the imagination in Art.- Bacon it was that
first taught us to treat of Art as the creature of imagination.-
A word of Shakespeare's assisted—and since then it has been
the favourite dogma of English Criticism.-Criticism cannot
advance a step without first understanding what Imagination is.
- The relation of Imagination to Pleasure.--Imagination to be
largely identified with the source of Pleasure-limits, however,
to that view of it.-Re-statement of the English contribution to
Criticism, and its deficiency.--Although Imagination is magni-
fied and everywhere asserted, it is nowhere explained.--Imagi-
nation an unknown quantity—but the continual recognition of
that unknown something of immense importanco.--Summary
of this chapter
Page 97
....
Contents.
xiii
CHAPTER VI.
ON IMAGINATION.
A general description of Imagination and its manifestations. Has
Imagination a character of its own ? What most strikes one
when we approach the inquiry into the nature of this power
the acknowledged potency of Imagination.-But notwithstanding
its potency, the philosophers do not tell us what it is, and indeed
assure us that it is nought. The current opinions may be sum-
marised in the Parable of Proteus.—These current opinions may
be examined under four heads. (1) Imagination is sometimes
identified with Memory.-Generally in this way it is regarded
as a loose Memory--yet from their manner of treating it, many
of those who identify Imagination with Memory show that they
really regard it as more than Memory.- (2) Imagination is some
times identified with Passion.-(3) Imagination identified with
Reason from the days of the Schoolmen downwards to Dugald
Stewart and others. Even those who treat of Imagination as a
power by itself are struck by its rationality; and at last work
up to the conclusion that there is an Imagination for every
faculty of the Mind.--All these views of Imagination are com-
patible and we arrive at the view of Imagination as the Proteus
of the Mind with which we started—but the question still recurs,
(4) Has Imagination no character of its own ?-Those who declare
that Imagination has a character of its own, either fail to explain
what it is, or, like Mr. Ruskin, they say frankly that it is in-
scrutable. Imagination therefore demands a new analysis, and
we must define it for ourselves. It is not a special faculty, but
a special function. The Hidden Soul.-Importance of the facts
which we have now to study.--Statement of the problem to be
solved ..
Page 179
CHAPTER VII.
THE HIDDEN SOUL.
The object of this obapter is to show that there is a Hidden Soul, and
what it means. The character of the facts to be studied. The
interest of the subject. The romance of the Mind.-The exist-
ence of Hidden Thought only recently acknowledged. The
xiv
Contents.
S
Cartesian Doctrine opposed to ito--Leibnitz first suggested the
Modern Doctrine, which is also allowed in our time by Hamil-
ton, Mill, and Spencer.-But in one form or another the
view has been of old standing. It is the foundation of
Mysticism, and it is often suggested by the Poets. General
description of the facts with which we have now to deal. These
facts are to be divided into three groups, and statement of the
argument to be followed.-I. On Memory and its Hidden Work,
& constant marvel.
Contradictions of Memory.—The clue to it
in the Hidden Life.-Story of the Countess of Laval and others.
--Captain Marryat.--De Quincey.-Two things to be chiefly
noticed in Memory. The first, that Understanding is not essen-
tial to itStory of the Maid of Saxony-Memory absolute as
& photograph.Other illustrations given by Abercrombie -
Conclusion, that the Memory lets nothing go by.—The second
point to be noticed, that the Memory of things not understood
may be vital within 18.-Knowledge active within us of which
we know nothing.-Examples in illustration. Showing how
what we attribute to Imagination is but a surrender of Hid-
den Memory.- Plato maintained in view of these facts the
theory of Pro-existence. The same view suggested by Words-
worth. Summary of the facts relating to Memory-II.
On the Hidden Life of Reason. The complexity of Thought.
-We do a great number of things at once, but are not con-
scious of all. Further examples, showing how the mind
parsues reveral distinct actions at once. Several of these
distinct actions become quite unconscious. The Mind in secret
broods over its work.That the mind calculates, inventa, judges,
digesta for us without our knowing it.--The story of Avicenna
-There are many things which we cannot do if we are con-
scions, but can do easily if we become unconscious ---Action of
the Mind in sleep.There is no act of waking life which we
cannot carry on in our sleep.—Similar faots perceived in
drunkennem.--Though many of these facts have a ludicrous
side, they are deserving of serious attention.-Account of some
of the actions performed in sleep. Somnambulimm and its won-
ders. The double life of the Somnambulist men in a fainter
degree in our waking statet III. The Hidden Life of Puncion
and Instinct--Pasion notoriously a blind force.The mystery
of Love And Passion because blind is not the oforo untrust-
worthy. Sympathy and its unconscious action, and how Bacon
-
-
Contents.
XV
sccounted for it.-Instinct, and Cuvier's definition of it as akin
to Somnambulism.--The immense variety of instinctive actions.
-The instinctive action of our Muscles.-Madame Mara and
her singing.What Mr. Ruskin says of the subtle Instinct of
the band. The secret power which the Brain exerts over the
whole Body. On the effect of Imagination in Pregnancy.-But
why call this particular class of Hidden Mental Actions Imagi-
nations ? On those Hidden Movements which we call Intui-
tion. What is true in Mysticism.--And how powerfully the
creed of the Mystic bears on the existence of Hidden Soul.
On the Hidden Life of the Believer. Especially recognised
by Platonist and Puritan Divines. It must be remembered that
we are speaking in metaphors chiefly when we have to describe
the Hidden Life.-Summary of the evidence of a Hidden Life or
Soul within 18~stated in the words of Prospero.---Position of
the argument..
Page 199
8
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PLAY OF THOUGHT.
That the action of Hidden Thought accounts for all the facts of
Imagination. The spontaneousness of Imagination an acknow-
ledged fact.- A compulsory Imagination a contradiction. The
errors of Imagination due to its involuntary and unconscious
character. If Imagination is nothing but the free play of
Thought, why is it called Imagination ?—The clue to the name
contained in the definition of the faculty.--
In the free play of
Thought we dwell most on images of Sight.--The definition of
Imagination as free play explains many opinions with regard to
it which are otherwise inexplicable--as the opinion of D'Alem-
bert and Hamilton-On Imagery.-Imagery not to be treated
as a mere question of Language. The absurdities of Criticism
in regard to Imagery. The most obvious fact about Imagery is
that it always contains a comparison.—But all Thought implies
comparison.-- What is the peculiarity of the comparisons attri-
buted to Imagination Row Looko's answer. But does Locke's
answer give any sanction to the notion that in the comparisons
of Imagination there is anything special ?—The peculiarity of
imaginative comparisons, as thus far stated, to be explained by
the fact of Imagination being free play.-Bat Locke's state-
xvi
Contents.
ment is only half the truth-statement of the other half.
Imaginative comparison asserts the resemblance of wholes to
wholes; but these comparisons are not incompetent to Rea-
son, and are called Imaginative because they belong chiefly to
the spontaneous exercise of Thought.
The whole truth about
Imagery; and how it is proposed to treat of it.--We shall
treat of the two halves of the doctrine separately.--Nature of
the discussion.—I. On likenesses, and how we are to examine
them.-The tendency of the Mind to similitude takes three
leading forms and first of the likenesses produced by Sym-
pathy. How prevalent this testimony is in life, and manifested
in how many ways. The tendency is essentially the same,
whether it shows itself in Speech or in Action.-On Sympathy,
and what importance was at one time given to the study of
it.-How important it is in the systems of thought of Bacon,
of Malebranche, and of Adam Smith. What is the point of
the argument about Sympathy.-It is an ultimate insoluble
fact, which is not explained in the least by the hypothesis of a
special faculty called Imagination.-The hypothesis of Imagina-
tion is no more tenable than Bacon's bypothesis as to the trans-
mission of Spirits. People are deceived by words, and the
word Imagination throws no new light on the facts that have
to be explained.-Secondly, of the likenesses produced by
Egotism-examples of it.-On the pathetic fallacy-further
examples. What is meant by attributing this egotism to Ima-
gination ?--Thirdly, of the likenesses which are purely objec-
tive: that is, in which we do not bring ourselves into the
comparison. They are sometimes very complicated and difficult
of explanation.—Examples of very complicated Imagery—The
amalgam of metaphors does not defy analysis.-Symmetry
& form of similitude, and no one attributes the love of it to
Imagination.
Our delight in reflections another form of the
tendency to similitude. These reflections are the painter's form
of metaphor.--The system of reflected colour in pictures; but
no one attributes the reflections of a picture to Imagination.---
Why should we attribute them to Imagination when they appear
in Poetry ?-II. How the Imagination see wholes invents or
discovers three sorts of wholes; but it can be shown that the
work of Imagination in creating these wholes is not peculiar
to itself-The case of Peter Bell, for an example of the first
whole.-Peter does not see that the primrose is a typo...The
Contents.
xvii
typical whole takes many forms, and involves in it the asser-
tion of a peculiar kinship between Man and Nature; but why
should we suppose a special faculty to create types ?-What is
the nature of the whole which the Mind creates in a type.
It
is the same sort of whole as Reason creates in generalization,
and the generalizations of Reason are quite as wonderful as
those of Imagination, and not less inexplicable-Summary of
the argument. We never get beyond the conception of Imagi-
nation as free play. The element of necessity which Imagina-
tion supplies. The second kind of whole which the Mind
creates.-We raise the temporary into the eternal, and cannot
compass the idea of Death.-The assertion of the continuity of
Existence makes Epical Art.-The transformations of Poetry ;
but do these transformations need, for their production, a sepa-
rate faculty 2-The third kind of whole which the Mind creates,
that of extension.On Dramatic Construction.
The Creation
of Character. On the truth of Imagination-The wholeness
of imaginative work explained on a very simple principle.-
Summary of the argument
Page 257
CHAPTER IX.
THE SECRECY OF ART.
Review of the previous argument, and its bearing on the definition
of Art.--Art is the opposite of Science; its field, therefore, is
the Unknown and the Unknowable. That statement, how-
ever, sounds too much like a paradox for ordinary use.
-People
do not understand how a secret exists which cannot be told;
yet there are current phrases which may help us to understand
the paradoxical definition of Art.-Je ne sais quoi.-If the
object of Art were to make known, it would not be Art but
Science. It is to the Hiddon Soul, the unknown part of us,
that the artist appeala.--This view of Art supported by autho-
rity. It is implied in Macaulay's criticism on Milton; only
the same criticism applies to all poetry as well as to Milton's.
It is implied in Moore's verses; Byron also refers to it. It is
implied in Wordsworth's poetry.—The meaning of some passages
unintelligible without reference to the Hidden Soul; many
such passages in Wordsworth ; example in the Ode on Im-
mortality.-What a Saturday Reviewer says of it-how far
VOL. I.
6
xviii
Contents.
he is correct in his view.Lord. Lytton gives expression to
similar thoughts his description of Helen.-Senior's criticism
on this description.-So far the definition of Art as the
Empire of the Unknown has been explained solely by refer-
ence to Poetry. See the same definition as it applies to Music.
-Music is the art which has more direct connection than any
other with the Unknown of Thought.—Beethoven and Shake-
speare compared the comparison impossible.---The definition
applied to the Arts of Painting and Sculpture.-The Arts of
Painter and Sculptor exhibit the precision of Science; and the
Painter's Art especially is very strictly tied to fact.-But
Science is not enough.—The Pictorial artist reaches to somo-
thing beyond Science.—The artists who adhere to bare facts
what are they ?-Their Art wants the essential quality of Art.
-But if the domain of Art is the Unknown, how can it ever
be the subject of Science ?-The question answered by re-
ference to Biology, which is the Science of something the
essence of which is unknown
Page 311
x?
INTRODUCTION.
VOL. I.
B
THE GAY SCIENCE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
I.
赛
​the title.
HAVE called the present work the CHAPTER
Gay Science, because that is the
shortest description I can find of its Meaning of
aim and contents. But I have ventured to
wrest the term a little from its old Provençal
meaning. The Gay Science was the name
given by the troubadours to their art of poetry.
We could scarcely now, however, call poetry, The term
or the art of poetry, a science. It is true that
Science.
the distinction between science and art has
always been very hazy. In our day it has been
as hotly disputed as among the schoolmen
whether logic be a science or an art, or both.
Even so late a writer as Hobbes classes poetry
among the sciences, for it is in his view the
B 2
4
The Gay Science.
1.
The Gay
Science, be-
science of
CHAPTER science of magnifying and vilifying. I hope
before I have finished this work to trace
See Chapter more accurately than has yet been done the
dividing line between science and art; but, in
the meantime, there is no doubt that poetry
must take rank among the arts, and that the
name of science in connection with it must be
reserved for the critical theory of its processes
and of its influence in the world. Such is the
sense in which the word is used upon the title
pages of the present volumes.
Why the Gay Science, however ? The light-
cause the hearted minstrels of Provence insisted on the
pleasure. joyfulness of their art.
.
In the dawn of modern
literature, they declared, with a straightforward-
ness which has nover been surpassed either by
poets or by critics, that the immediate aim of
art is the cultivation of pleasure. But it so
happens that no critical doctrine is in our day
more unfashionable than this—that the object
of art is pleasure. Any of us who cleave to
the old creed, which has the prescription of
about thirty centuries in its favour, are sup-
posed to be shallow and commonplace. Nearly
all thinkers now, who pretend to any height
or depth of thought, abjure the notion of plea-
sure as the object of pursuit in the noble moods
of art. But what if these high-fliers are wrong
and the thirty centuries are right ? What, if
not one of those who reject the axiom of the
thirty centuries can agree with another as to
This the
doctrine of
3000 years.
Introduction.
5
I.
the terms of a better doctrine? What if their8 CHAPTER
be the true commonplace which cannot see the
grandeur of a doctrine, because it comes to us
clothed in unclean and threadbare garments ?
There is no more commonplace thinker than
he who fails to see the virtue of the common-
place.
Pleasure, no doubt, is an ugly word, and, as re- Doubts
presenting the end of art, a feeble one; but there about plea-
is no better to be found. It suggests a great
deal for which as yet we have no adequate
language. One day it may be that we shall find
a different word to express more fully our mean-
ing ; but that day will never come until we have
first learned thoroughly to understand what is
involved in pleasure ; and to see what a hundred
generations of mankind have groped after when
they set before them pleasure as the goal of art.
It can be shown that this doctrine of pleasure
has a greatness of meaning which the high-fliers
little suspect : that it is anything but shallow ;
and that if it be commonplace, it is so only in the
sense in which sun, air, earth, water, and all the
elements of life are commonplace. We begin Palliated by
to feel this the moment we attempt to define nition of it.
pleasure. Take any allowable definition. Kant
says that it is a feeling of the furtherance of
life, as pain is a sense of its hindrance. Such
a definition at once leads us into a larger circle
of ideas than is usually supposed to be covered
by the name of pleasure. Perhaps it is not
a
6
The Gay Science.
I.
CHAPTER quite satisfactory, but we need not now be too
particular about its terms. What Kant says
is
near enough to the truth to show that on the first
blush of it we need not be repelled by the asser-
tion of pleasure being the end of art. Neither
need any one be repelled if this doctrine of
pleasure strike the key-note, and suggest the
title of the present work, in which an attempt
will be made to show that a science of criticism
is possible, and that it must of necessity be the
science of the laws of pleasure, the joy science,
the Gay Science.
THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM.
2
a
CHAPTER II.
THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM.
II.
its widest
UT is a science of criticism possible ? CHAPTER
19
That is a great question
often
asked, and usually answered in the
negative. It cannot well be answered in the
affirmative, indeed, so long as criticisin is un-
defined. Criticism is a wide word that, accord- Criticism in
ing to late usage, may comprehend almost any verse.
stir of thought. It is literally the exercise of
judgment, and logicians reduce every act of the
mind into an act of judgment. So it comes to
pass that there is a criticism of history, of philo-
sophy, of science, of politics and life, as well as of
literature and art, which is criticism proper. Sir
.
William Hamilton, who never touched criticism
proper, was known throughout Europe as the
first critic of his day; and Mr. Matthew Arnold
has lately been using the word as a synonym not Essay on
only for science, but even for poetry. Homer,
.
Joubert
10
The Gay Science.
II.
Dues not
the
science.
CHAPTER Dante and Shakespeare, are in his view critics.
Their work is at bottom a criticism of life, and
“the aim of all literature, if one considers it
attentively, is in truth nothing but that.” It
may be convenient sometimes to employ the
word thus largely; but there is a danger of
our forgetting its more strict application to
art. Certainly, in the larger, looser sense of
within itself the term, a science of criticism, if at all possible,
of a special must resolve itself into something like a science
of reason—a logic-a science of science. It
is needful, therefore, to explain at the outset
that there is a narrower sense of the word
criticism, and that there is a good reason why
it should be specially applied to the criticism
of literature and art.
The reason is, that whereas the criticism of
philosophy, truly speaking, is itself philosophy,
and that of science science, and that of history
history, the criticism of poetry and art is not
poetry and art, but is and to the end of time
will remain criticism. Kant called his leading
work a critique, and he chose that title because
his object was not to propound a philosophical
system, but to ascertain the competence of reason
to sound the depths of philosophy. This, how-
ever, as much belongs to philosophy as sounding
the ocean belongs to ocean telegraphy. Locke
had already done the same thing. He said, that
before attempting to dive into philosophy, it
would be wise to inquire whether the human mind
Criticism
strictly so
called.
The Science of Criticism.
11
II.
.
is able to dive into it, and he would therefore CHAPTER
examine into the nature and resources of the
thinking faculty. The criticism of the under-
standing which he thus undertook is Locke's
philosophy, just as Kant's critique of reason is
the most important part of Kant's philosophy.
So in other lines of thought, criticism of philo-
logy is a piece of philology, and criticism of
history is a contribution to the lore of history.
One of the most classical of all histories indeed,
that of Julius Cæsar, goes by the name of com-
mentary. But criticism of poetry, it must be is criticism
and nothing
repeated, is not poetry, and art lore is not art. more.
The attempt has, no doubt, again and again
been made, to elevate criticism into poetry.
Witness the well-known poems of Horace, Vida,
Boileau, Pope, and others. But criticism that
would be poetry is like the cat that set up for
a lady and could not forget the mice. Whatever
it
may be as criticism, it falls short of art. And
therefore it is that the name more especially
belongs to all that lore which cannot well get
beyond itself—the lore of art and literary form.
Now, it must be owned that criticism does not Criticism
yet rank as a science, and that, following the science.
wonted methods, it seems to have small chance
of becoming one. To judge by the names be-
stowed upon critics, indeed, one might infer that
it has no chance at all. Sir Henry Wotton used What the
to say, and Bacon deemed the saying valuable thinks of
enough to be entered in his book of Apophthegms, criticism.
not yet a
12
The Gay Science.
II.
CHAPTER that they are but brushers of noblemen's clothes ;
Ben Jonson spoke of them as tinkers who
make more faults than they mend; Samuel
Butler, as the fierce inquisitors of wit, and as
butchers who have no right to sit on a jury; Sir
Richard Steele, as of all mortals the silliest;
Swift, as dogs, rats, wasps, or, at best, the
drones of the learned world; Shenstone, as asses
which, by gnawing vines, first taught the ad-
vantage of pruning them; Matthew Green, as
upholsterers and appraisers; Burns, as cut-throat
bandits in the path of fame; Washington Irving,
as freebooters in the republic of letters; and Sir
Walter Scott, humorously reflecting the gene-
ral sentiment, as caterpillars. If poets and
artists may be described as pillars of the house
of fame, critics, wrote Scott, are the caterpillars.
Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved
hanging, said Ben Jonson; and criticism,
says Dryden, is mere hangman's work. It is
a malignant deity, says Swift, cradled among the
snows of Nova Zembla. Ten censure wrong, says
Pope, for one who writes amiss. The critic's
livelihood is to find fault, says Thackeray. Non
es vitiosus, Zoile, sed vitium, is the summing up
of the wittiest of Latin poets : You are not
at fault, Gaffer critic, but fault. . Thomas
Moore has a fable of which the point is that
from the moment when young Genius became
subject to criticism his glory faded. Wordsworth
describes criticism as an inglorious employ-
The pith
of it in
Moore's
fable.
The Science of Criticism.
13
II.
of each
"
ment. “I warn thee,” says Edward Irving, CHAPTER
" against criticism, which is the region of pride
and malice."
Nor is this merely the judgment of poets and what
artists
upon
their tormentors. The critics have critics think
passed sentence upon each other with equal other.
severity. One of the mildest statements which
I can call to mind is that of Payne Knight,
who opens an essay on the Greek alphabet
with the assertion that what is usually consi-
dered the higher sort of criticism has not the
slightest value. It was but the other day that a
distinguished living critic, Mr. G. H. Lewes,
found occasion to write" The good effected
by criticism is small, the evil incalculable.”
Critics have always had a strong cannibal in-
stinct. They have not only snapped at the
poets : they have devoured one another. It
seems as if
, like Diana's priest at Aricia, a critic
could not attain his high office except by slaugh-
ter of the priest already installed; or as if he
had been framed in the image of that serpent
which, the old legends tell us, cannot become
a dragon unless it swallow another serpent. It
is not easy to connect the pursuits of such men
with the notion of science. The truth, how-
ever, is that criticism, if it merit half the
reproaches which have been cast upon it, is The doom of
not fit to live. It is not merely unscientific:
it is inhuman. Hissing is the only sound
in nature that wakes no echo; and if criti-
criticism.
14
The Gay Science.
II.
Summary
of the forms
CHAPTER cism is nought but hissing, can do nought but
hiss, it is altogether a mistake.
It may be hard for the critics to be measured
of criticism. by the meanest of their tribe and by the worst
of their deeds; but if we put the meanest and
the worst out of sight altogether, and look only
to the good, we shall still find that criticism, at
its best, is a luxuriant wilderness, and yields
nowhere the sure tokens of a science. Take
it in any of its forms, editorial, biographical,
historical, or systematic, and see if this be not
the case.
Editorial
criticism.
a
Editorial criticism, whether it takes the course
of revising, or of reviewing, or of expounding
the texts of individual authors, bas, even in the
hands of the ablest critics engaged upon the
works of the greatest poets, yielded no large
results. It is very much to this kind of criti-
cism, at least when it points out a beauty here
and a blemish there, that Payne Knight refer-
red, when he declared that it is of no use what-
ever. A good editor of poetry is, indeed, one of
the rarest of birds, as those who have paid any
attention to certain recent issues must pain-
fully know. Sometimes the editor is an enthu-
siastic admirer of his author: in this case he
generally praises everything he sees, and edits
in the style of a showman. Sometimes he is
wonderfully erudite : in this case he rarely gets
beyond verbal criticism, and edits on the prin-
ciple of the miser, that if you take care of the
,
The Science of Criticism.
15
II.
How un-
halfpence the pounds will take care of them- CHAPTER
selves. The appearance of one edition after
another of the same poets and the same drama-
satisfactory.
tists proves how unsatisfactory was each previous
one, and how exceedingly rare is that assem-
blage of qualities required in a poetical editor
--ample knowledge combined with depth of
thought, imagination restrained by common
sense, and the power of being far more than the
editor of other men's work, united with the will
to forget oneself and to remain entirely in the
background. Perhaps this last is the rarest
of combinations. Why should a man, who is
himself capable of producing a book, be con-
tent with the more humble labour of fur-
bishing up other men's productions ? The
result is nearly worthless, unless there is some
sort of equality, some appearance of companion-
ship and brotherhood between the poet and his
editor; but the chances are that only those will
undertake the responsibility of editing poetry
who are fit for nothing else, who could not
by accident write two passable couplets, who
could not assume to be the poet's friend, but
who, perchance, might lay claim to the dignity
of being the poet's lacquey--which Sir Henry
Wotton had in his mind when he said that
critics are but the brushers of noblemen's
clothes.
The modern author who has been most read An example
and criticised is Shakespeare. There is a well- Shake-
of it in
1
16
The Gay Science.
II.
a
spearian
criticism.
a
CHAPTER known edition of his works in which nearly
every line has a bushel of notes gathered from
the four winds—from the two and thirty
winds. All the wisdom of all the annotators is
winnowed, and garnered, and set in array.
After all, what is it? That which one critic
says, the next gainsays, and the next con-
founds. On reading a dozen such pages, we
close the volume in despair, and carry away
but one poor idea, that Shakespearian criticism
is like the occupation of the prisoner in the
Bastile, who, to keep away madness, used daily
to scatter a handful of pins about his room, that
he might find employment in picking them up
again. Strangely enough, it is not the men of
highest intellect that in this way have done the
most for Shakespeare. Pope was one of his
editors; so was Warburton; Johnson another;
Malone too, a very able man. Mr. Charles
Knight is correct in saying that the best of the
old editors of Shakespeare is Theobald—“poor
piddling Tibbald.”
Whatever be the abstract
worth of such editorial researches, their scientific
Its worth worth is fairly estimated by Steevens, one of the
most eager of his race, when he claims the merit
of being the first commentator on Shakespeare
who strove with becoming seriousness to account
for the stains of gravy, pie-crust, and coffee, that
defile nearly all the copies of the First Folio.
Nor can it be said that there is any more cer-
ample of it tain appearance of science when the ancient
estimated
by Stocvens.
Another en
The Science of Criticism.
17
II.
in classical
;
authors are subjected to the same strain of criti- CHAPTER
cism. Witness the famous critics of the Bentley
and Porson mould. Giant as he was, Porson criticism.
had but small hands, that played with words as
with marbles, and delighted in nothing so much
as in good penmanship. One is astonished in
reading through his edition of Euripides, to see
how he wrote note upon note, all about words,
and less than words—syllables, letters, accents,
punctuation. He ransacked Codex A and Co
dex B, Codex Cantabrigiensis and Codex Cot-
tonianus, to show how this noun should be in
the dative, not in the accusative; how that verb
should have the accent paroxytone, not peris-
pomenon; and how by all the rules of prosody
there should be an iambus, not a spondee, in Porson's
this place or in that. Nothing can be more the Hecuba.
masterly of its kind than the preface to the
Hecuba, and the supplement to it. The lad
who hears enough of this wonderful dissertation
from his tutors at last turns wistful eyes towards
it, expecting to find some magical criticism on
Greek tragedy. Behold it is a treatise on cer-
tain Greek metres. Its talk is of cæsural pauses,
penthemimeral and hephthemimeral, of isochro-
nous feet, of enclitics and cretic terminations; and
;
the grand doctrine it promulgates is expressed
in the canon regarding the pause which, from
the discoverer, has been named the Porsonian,
that when the iambic trimeter, after a word of
more than one syllable, has the cretic termina-
preface to
VOL. I.
с
18
The Gay Science.
II.
CHAPTER tion, included either in one word or in two, then
the fifth foot must be an iambus! The young
student throws down the book thus prefaced,
and wonders if this be all that giants of Por-
sonian height can see or care to speak about
in Greek literature. Nor was Porson alone; he
had disciples even worse. Many a youth of
wild temperament wishes for something to break
his mind on, like the study of Armenian, which
Byron found useful in that way. Let him read
Elmsley. Elmsley on the Medea. If Porson was a kind of
Baal, a lord of flies, Elmsley was a literary
dustman. The criticism of detail which both
of them studied has an invariable tendency to
stray further and further from science, and to
become Rabbinical. It ends in teaching Rabbis
to count the letters of a sacred book backwards
and forwards until they can find the middle
It ends, as in the last century, in teach-
ing critics to reject false rhymes, and to allow
false gods. The motes that people a sunbeam,
and are beautiful there, come to eclipse the stars.
In the words of Keble :
A finger-breadth at hand will mar
A world of light in heaven afar,
A mote eclipse yon glorious star,
An eyelid hide the sky.
Biographi- Balked in the search for science amid the cri-
ticism of detail, we next try critics of a higher
order, who, not content to examine literary
works in and by themselves, examine them in
connection with the lives of the authors. The
one.
cal criticism
The Science of Criticism.
19
II.
biographical critics are as yet few in number, CHAPTER
and their method is of late origin. Johnson (if
I must not say Bayle) may be taken as the father
of the tribe, though he took to the method rather
by chance than from choice, and was never fully
alive to its value. It was a great thing, how-
ever, to introduce into criticism the personality
of an author, and to study his works in the
light of his life. It immediately ensured the The advan-
sympathy of the critics, for Johnson, with all tages of it.
his drawbacks, must be accepted as essentially
kind, hearty, and just. Since his time, other
writers, in our own and other countries, have
made the most of the new method. Their works
are of great interest and of lasting value; for
;
whereas editorial criticism is mere analysis, and
so far as it is trustworthy contains nothing
which was not previously contained in the work
revised, in biographical criticism there is some-
what of synthesis; there is a new element
added; there is the image of the author's life
projected on his work. But, however enter-
taining or however valuable this may be, it is
not science.
In so far as a science of human nature is But how fast
possible, it lies not in the actions of the indi- science.
vidual, but in those of the race; not in the
developments of a lifetime, but in those of ages
and cycles. The biographical critics tell us that
Dryden, before he courted the Muse, took a dose
of salts; that Anacreon choked on a grape-
from
.
a
C2
1
20
The Gay Science.
II.
CHAPTER stone; that Æschylus had his bald head broken
by an eagle which, high in air, took it for a
stone, and dropped a tortoise on it; that Horace
was blear-eyed; that Camoens was one-eyed ; that
two other epic poets were blind of both eyes ;
that the author of The Castle of Indolence
used to saunter about his garden, and with his
hands in his pockets, bite the sunny sides of his
peaches; that John Dennis, the critic, was
expelled his college for stabbing a man in the
dark (a fact, by the way, unknown to Pope);
that Spinoza's darling amusement was to en-
tangle flies in spiders' webs, and to set spiders
fighting with each other; that Newton was
small enough, when he was born, to be put
into a quart-mug, and that if he had any
animal taste, it was for apples of the red-
streak sort; that Milton married thrice, and
each of his wives was a virgin ; that Sheffield,
duke of Buckingham, married thrice, and each
of his wives was a widow. All these de-
tails have their significance; but they must be
And how charily dealt with. Too great attention to such
matters makes the very worst soil for science,
parasitical. and is apt to reduce a critic to the condition of
a parasite. Not that parasitical criticism of this
kind is altogether worthless. The latest doctrine
of the naturalists is that pearls are the product
of a parasite. Still mankind have a wholesome
terror of parasites, and usually regard a purely
biographical criticism as tending too much to
apt to
become
The Science of Criticism.
21
II.
encourage these animals. The system of bio- CHAPTER
.
graphy on biography which now prevails, a bio-
grapher getting his life written because he has
himself written lives,* reminds one too vividly of
that world described by one of our humourists
in which
Great fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fieas have lesser fleas,
And so ad infinitum,
The historical critics take a wider field, and Historical
dash at higher game, but usually they have been
the least critical of their kind. They have too
often been chroniclers rather than historians,
bibliographers rather than critics, more bent on
recording facts than on determining their value.
Even when they reach a higher excellence, and
give us histories worthy of the name, their work,
if we are to look for science in it, shows at once
the fatal weakness of being much too narrow in
design. At best, the historian can give us only How far
patches of history; but the historians of litera-
ture give us very small patches. The stream
of political history has been traced from age
to age, and from empire to empire.
voyage back to Babylon; we can find on
the walls of Luxor and Karnac the Hebrew
criticism.
from
science,
We can
* On the principle laid down serves the record he bestows. It
by Sir James Prior, to justify forms a debt of honour, if not of
his life of Malone : “He who gratitude, which literary men
has expended learning and in- are bound to bestow upon each
dustry in making known the other. The neglect of it is in-
lives and labours of others, de- justice to their class."
22
The Gay Science.
II.
limited in
a
CHAPTER faces which we meet in the crowd to-day. But
the stream of literary history, though it is
equally continuous, has never been thus fol-
lowed. We take it in small reaches, and the
first shallow we come to stops our course.
Not
And how only is it thus limited in length of view: it is
its view. equally so in breadth. It is needless to dwell
on the fact that the history of a nation's poetry
has seldom been written with much reference
to the national life from which it springs. It
is the study of botany apart from geography.
What is more remarkable than this, however,
is that poetry has been studied and its history
written in utter forgetfulness of the kindred
arts--music, architecture, painting, sculpture.
Moore on one occasion speaks with great con-
tempt of an essay on lyrical poetry written by the
author of the Night Thoughts, in which not
one word is said about music. This is but an
exaggerated instance of the separation of the
arts, one from another, in the view of criticism.
It is precisely as if in relation to the flora of a
country, one set of men confined their attention
to the monocotyledons, making that a special
science, another to the dicotyledons, making that
a special science, and a third to the flowerless
plants, making that also a science by itself,
while none of them gave any thought to any
but their own branch of the subject. It seems
lectual flora not yet to have been fully understood that the
as a whole. intellectual flora of a country must be studied
The intel-
not studied
The Science of Criticism.
23
II.
as a whole; that the arts are one family; that CHAPTER
the Muses are sisters; that in their rise and
progress there is a concert; that to make out
the movements of any one we must watch the
movements of all the others in the intricate dance
which they lead; and, in a word, that it is only
out of comparative criticism, as out of compara-
tive anatomy, and comparative philology, and
comparative mythology, that a true science can
a
come.
tive criti-
At present, so far from there being in exist- Compara-
ence anything which can bear the name of cism.
comparative criticism, there is no attempt to pro-
duce it, and the very need of it is scarcely ac-
knowledged. The science of language is quite
a modern revelation : it was an impossibility
until we were able to compare languages to-
gether on the grand scale. In like manner
the historical criticism of works of art, with a
glimmer of science in its method, is out of the
question, until we can compare art with art, can
see how the rise of one coincides with the setting
of another, and can take note of the circum-
stances under which two or more flourish to-
gether. Whether the arts have gained or lost
by separation, so that the same man is no longer
poet, architect, painter, and sculptor, all in one,
is an open question; but for the purposes of
science, at least, it would seem that the division
of labour and separation of interest have had an
evil effect. It was a theory of Leibnitz that the
a
24
The Gay Science.
II.
The pro-
blem of cri-
ticism.
CHAPTER world is made of monads, each of which has a
defined relation to every other, and that the
problem eternally before the mind of the Deity
is, when the state of any monad is given,
to determine what must be the state--past,
present, and to come of every other in the
universe. That is, after a sort, the problem
which in the universe of art the scientific
critic may fairly be called upon to solve. We
know from Gibbon that in the darkness of the
thirteenth century the orders of a Mogul Khan
who reigned on the borders of China told on
the price of herrings in the English market.
And is it only of such remote influences as
rule the price of a herring that we can take
account ? Surely there is in modern civilization
a reason for the fact that our poets of the elder
race, as Tasso, delight in no event of nature so
much as sunrise, and are continually making
proclamation of the effulgence of its coming,
while the later ones, as those of the nineteenth
century, delight in sunsets, and are never weary
of brooding on the glories of an existence that
is loveliest at the last. Surely there are some
general laws which determine why in ancient
times the Doric branch of the great Hellenic
family should have been the chief patrons of the
lyrical art, while they produced few lyrical artists
of renown; and that, as a parallel fact in modern
times, England should be the best patron in
Europe of musical art, while notwithstanding a
The Science of Criticism.
25
II.
few brilliant exceptions, it is eclipsed by other CHAPTER
countries as a begetter of great musicians.
Surely, again, there is some general law which
necessitated, at one and the same period, in the
literatures of two such different countries as
England, the head quarters of Protestantism,
and Spain, the stronghold of Papacy, of Inqui-
sition and of Loyola, an explosion of supera-
bounding dramatic energy such as in modern
times no other literatures can boast of. Surely,
once more, there is something in history to
account for and to connect together that lust
of fame which is rampant in the literature of
the Elizabethan era — in the strains of the
greatest poets, Shakespeare and Spenser, as well
as in those of the least, Diggeş and Barnfield
--which makes itself felt with such fervour at
no other period of our literary progress, and
which, indeed, in the whole history of letters,
meets with its match but once, namely, among Too rarely
the Roman poets of the Augustan age. These are
the things which historical criticism, to be worthy
of itself, ought to set forth, which lie within its
grasp, and which it hardly ever touches.
Not only, however, do the critics--editorial, Systematic
biographical, and historical—fail us when we criticism.
go to them for science; but even those who
undertake to write of poetry and art systemati-
cally give us little or no help. There is in all
antiquity only one systematic work of criticism
which is of much worth or of any authority, to
attempted.
or scientific
26
The Gay Science.
II.
In ancient
times as re-
CHAPTER wit-Aristotle's, and that is but a fragment. It
might be urged against the scientific character of
this famous work that it was built on a too small
presented induction of facts, seeing that the philosopher
by Aristotle.
had only the literature of Greece in his mind.
Even, however, with that literature alone before
him, he ought not to have committed the mistake
which taints his whole work, and has turned what
might have been a palace into a cairn, a science
into a mere aggregate of facts. His leading prin-
ciple, which makes all poetry, all art, an imi-
tation, is demonstrably false, has rendered his
Poetic one-sided (a treatise not so much on poe-
try, as on dramatic poetry), and has transmitted
to all after criticism a sort of hereditary squint.
There is, however, in later criticism a worse fault
than the hereditary squinta fault which be-
longs to itself, and is not to be found in Aristotle.
In modern Among the systematic writers of modern times,
from Scaliger downwards, criticism is almost
of
language. wholly devoted to questions of language. It is
true that verbal questions involve much higher
ones, for language is the incarnation of thought,
and every art has its own speech, every work of
art its own voice, which belongs to it as the
voice of Esau to the hands of Esau. Epic imagery
and verse belong to epic art, the dramatic appa-
ratus of language belongs to dramatic art, and
lyrical technicalities belong to the essence of
lyrical art with such an indefeasible right of
possession as the systematic critics confining
times de-
voted to
The Science of Criticism.
27
II.
what the
chiefly un-
their attention to the language almost wholly, CHAPTER
that is, to the body without the soul, little
suspect. They have studied figures of speech
and varieties of metre, with little care for the
weightier points of action, passion, manner, cha-
racter, moral and intellectual aim. In simile
and metaphor, in rhyme and rhythm, they
have seen rules and measures, and they have
reduced all-the art of expression to a system as
easy as grammar; but they have not sought
to methodise the poet's dream, they have not
cared in their analysis to grasp his higher
thought. The scope of such criticism will best Example of
be seen in the design of a systematic work enter-moderna
tained by one of the chief critics of the last cen-derstand by
tury. Johnson projected a work to show how a system of
small a quantity of real fiction there is in the
world, and that the same images, with very
[few] variations, have served all the authors who
have ever written." It is the similarity of
imagery that he thought worthy of chief remark.
Situation, incidents, characters, and aims, these
are of small account beside similes and meta-
phors. Johnson's project was conceived entirely
in the spirit of systematic criticism, as it has been
most approved in modern times. Its analysis of
images and phrases is, if not perfect, yet very
elaborate. Its analysis of the substance which
these images and phrases clothe, is, although
not wholly neglected, yet very trivial. And the
result is, that as a mere theory of language, as a
criticism.
a
28
The Gay Science.
II.
kin's sum-
mary of
modern cri-
ticism as
CHAPTER mere pigeon-holing of words and other technical
details, such criticism is unsatisfactory and does
not reach the truth, because it has no root,
because it forgets the substance and is all for
form as form.
No one has more pungently and truthfully
described the critical science of what may be
termed the Renaissance than Mr. Ruskin. .
Mr. Rus- Nearly the whole body of criticism comes from the
leaders of the Renaissance, who " discovered sud-
denly,” says Mr. Ruskin,“ that the world for ten
grammar. centuries had been living in an ungrammatical
manner, and they made it forthwith the end of
human existence to be grammatical. And it
mattered thenceforth nothing what was said or
what was done, so only that it was said with
scholarship, and done with system.
Falsehood
in a Ciceronian dialect had no opposers; truth
in patois no listeners. A Roman phrase was
thought worth any number of Gothic facts. The
sciences ceased at once to be anything more than
different kinds of grammar-grammar of lan-
guage, grammar of logic, grammar of ethics,
grammar of art; and the tongue, wit and inven-
tion of the human race were supposed to have
found their utmost and most divine mission
in syntax and syllogism, perspective, and five
orders.” *
Sir Joshua Reynolds's re-
marks on one of the greatest
pictures of Rubens are a fair speci-
men of the best criticism of his
time. We are anxious to learn
what so fine a judge as Reynolds
The Science of Criticism.
29
II.
The sys.
.
Almost the only systematic criticism of modern CHAPTER
times which is not of the Renaissance, and not
entitled to this appraisement is that of Germany, tematic cri-
which is, if possible, infected with not a worse, but ticism of
a less manageable, disease. If the criticism of the
Renaissance is afflicted with a deficiency of
thought, the new epoch of criticism, which the
Germans attempted to inaugurate, is charged The defect.
with a superfecundity of thought tending to
overlay the facts that engage it. Mr. Arnold
complains of the want of idea in English criti-
cism. “There is no speculation in those eyes.
The same complaint certainly cannot be brought
99
has to say of the Taking Down it is most correctly drawn, and,
from the Cross. Observe how I apprehend, in an attitude of
instinctively he goes to the the utmost difficulty to execute.
grammar of Rubens's treatment. The hanging of the head on his
His first thought is for the white shoulder, and the falling of the
sheet.
body on one side, give such an ap-
“The greatest peculiarity of pearance of the heaviness of death
this composition is the contri- that nothing can exceed it...
vance of the white sheet, on The principal light is formed by
which the body of Jesus lies. the body of Christ and the white
This circumstance was probably sheet: there is no second light
what induced Rubens to adopt which bears any proportion to
the composition. He well knew the principal;... however, there
what effect white linen, opposed are many little detached lights
to flesh, must have with his distributed at some distance from
powers of colouring; a circum- the great mass, such as the head
stance which was not likely to and shoulders of the Magdalen,
enter into the mind of an Italian the heads of the two Maries, the
painter, who probably would have head of Joseph, and the back and
been afraid of the linen's hurting arm of the figure leaning over
the colouring of the flesh, and the cross; the whole surrounded
have kept it down of a low tinto.. with a dark sky, except a little
His Christ I consider as one of light in the horizon and above
the finest figures ever invented ;
a
a
the cross.
30
The Gay Science.
II.
ling.
CHAPTER against German criticism. It is all idea. It
begins with hypothesis and works by deduction
downward to the facts. The most elaborate, the
most favoured, and the most successful system in
As in Hegel. Germany is that of Hegel. To follow it, how-
ever, with understanding, you have first to accept
the Hegelian philosophy, of which it is a part.
It begins by declaring art to be the manifesta-
tion of the absolute idea, and when we ask what
is the absolute idea, we are told that it is the
abstraction of thought in which the identical is
identical with the non-identical, and in which
absolute being is resolved into absolute nothing.
And Schel- Schelling may not be so wild as this; but he, too,
sets out from an absolute idea, and works not
from facts to generalisation but from generalisa-
tion to facts. The German constructs art as he
constructs the camel out of the depths of his moral
consciousness. Out of Germany it is impossible
and useless to argue with these systems. We can
only dismiss them with the assurance that if this
be science, then
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything and everything is nought;
and that between the Renaissance, or gramma-
tical method of criticism, which busied itself too
Suggestion
of middle much with forms--the mere etiquette or ceremo-
course be nial of literature and the German, or philoso-
criticism of phical method of criticism, which wilders and
and that of flounders in the chaos of aboriginal ideas, there
must be a middle path-a method of criticism
a
tween the
Germany
the Renais-
sance.
The Science of Criticism.
31
II.
that may fairly be called scientific, and that will CHAPTER
weigh with even balance both the idea out of
which art springs and the forms in which it
grows.
value of the
criticism.
>
Recent criticism, even when it eschews philo- Method and
sophy, cuts deeper than of yore, both in Germany most recent
and out of it, and cannot be content to play with
questions of mere images and verses; but it
avoids system.
It has never been so noble in
aim, so conscientious in labour, so large in
view, and withal so modest in tone, as now.
In
point of fact, philosophy, baffled in its aims, has
passed into criticism, and minds that a century
back might have been lost in searching into the
mystery of knowledge and the roots of being,
turn their whole gaze on the products of human
thought, and the history of human endeavour.
But the philosophers turning critics are apt to
carry
into the new study somewhat of the despair The despair
learned from the old, and, I repeat it, carefully
I
avoid system.
The deeper, therefore, their
criticism delves, the more it becomes a laby-
rinth of confusion. Fertile in suggestions, and
rioting in results, it is a chaos in which the sug-
gestions, though original, do not always connect
themselves clearly with first principles, and in
which the results, though valuable, are reft of
half their importance by the lack of scientific
arrangement. Nor is this all; for we too often
see critics toiling in ignorance of each other's
of system.
a
.
32
The Gay Science.
II.
And want
.
Ulrici.
CHAPTER work, lauding in one country what is slighted in
another, and void of any general understanding
of concert. as to the division of labour, and the correlation
of isolated studies. A fair example offers itself
in the criticism of Shakespeare. In England we
are most struck with Shakespeare's knowledge
of human nature, and power of embodying it
in the characters of the drama. We rank this
above all his gifts, even above his wondrous
gift of speech. Pass over to Germany and note
how one of the latest critics there, Ulrici, like a
true German, admires Shakespeare chiefly for his
ideas. When he is pretty sure that the country-
men of the dramatist will object to some of his
criticism — to his fathering spurious plays on
Shakespeare, and to his finding in genuine ones
the most far-fetched ideas; he says that the
English critics are not to be trusted, because they
look to the truth of the characters as the chief
Shakespearian test. Instead of the truth of the
characters, what has he to show ? He shows the
doctrine of the Atonement preached in one play,
the difference between equity and law set forth in
another, and in all the plays a shower of puns that
continually remind us of the Original Sin of our
nature, the radical antithesis between thought
and action, idea and reality, produced by the Fall.
Go then to France, and see there the well-known
writer, M. Philarète Châsles. Frenchmanlike, he
regards the plot as all-important in the drama,
and says that Lear, Hamlet, and Othello are not
а.
French
criticism,
The Science of Criticism.
33
II.
a
the creations of Shakespeare, because the story CHAPTER
was borrowed.
“ The admirers of Shakespeare,"
he says, “ praise in him certain qualities which
are not his. He is, they declare, the creator of
Lear,the creator of Hamlet, the creator of Othello.
He has created none of these."
Surely the
critics of the three nations would gain not a little
if they understood each other better, and worked
more in concert. Why this conflict of opinion
where there ought to be no room for doubt ?
Why this Babel of voices where all are animated
by a common aim? And where the good of
criticism if it cannot prevent such misunder-
standings?
The backwardness and impotence of criticism Glaring ex-
show, perhaps, nowhere so glaringly as in the
failure of the most splendid offer of prizes to draw of criticism.
together for competition very high intellectual
work. We can get prize oxen and prize pigs
that come up to our expectations; but prize
essays, prize poems, prize monuments, prize de- Prize de
any kind, are notoriously poor in this failure
.
country, however high we bid. For the Duke
of Wellington's monument the offer was about
£20,000; and we all know of the disappoint-
ment which the exhibition of the designs created.
On the other hand, when prizes were offered for
the designs of a Foreign Office and an India
Office, some admirable drawings were exhibited,
but there followed this odd jarring of opinions,
that the design to which the judges allotted the
ample of the
impotence
signs of
signs
.
ܚܚܡܝܚܚܚܝܝ
VOL. I.
D
34
The Gay Science.
II.
CHAPTER first prize was not adopted by the Government
for the building; that the design which took the
second prize got really the place of honour in
being selected for execution; and that finally
Lord Palmerston threw aside all the prize
designs, and commissioned the second prize-
man to make a wholly new design. Now,
what is the meaning of this ? Why are prize
essays glittering on the surface, and worthless
below it? Why are prize poems a mass of
a
inanity, decked out in far-fetched metaphors,
and wild personifications ? Why is a prize
picture quite uninteresting — a conventional
display of balanced lights and slanting lines,
dull tints and stage simpering? Why is a prize
statue about the most unreal thing under the
Why is the sun ? Why has a prize monument never yet
tem a failure been produced that we can think of with perfect
in England, pleasure? Why is a prize play so notoriously
bad that managers have long ceased to offer
rewards for the inevitable damnation ?
The difficulty of answering such questions is
in Greece it the greater because against these disheartening
experiences we have to set the fact that under a
different system of civilization the offer of prizes
produced the most brilliant results. When a
Greek drama was acted at Athens it was a prize
drama; and we are told that Æschylus won the
honour so many times, that Sophocles in the end
beat Æschylus, and that Euripides in like manner
had his triumphs. The comic dramatist Men-
When we
know that
was success-
ful?
The Science of Criticism.
35
II.
ander, was drowned in the Piræus, and the story CHAPTER
goes (but it is only a story), that he drowned
himself in misery at seeing his rival, Philemon,
snatch from him the dramatic ivy-crown. Cor-
inna, it will be remembered, won the prize for
lyric verse from Pindar himself. Whether it be
a fact or not about the poetical contest between
Homer and Hesiod, and the prize of a tripod
won by the latter, the tradition of such a contest
is a voucher for the custom and for the honour
in which it was held. At the Pythian ganies
prizes for music and every sort of artistic work
were as common and as famous as the prizes for
horse-races and foot-races. To realize such a state
of things in our time, we must imagine poets,
painters, and musicians assembled on Epsom
Downs to contend for the honours of the games
with colts, the sons of Touchstone and Stockwell,
and fillies, the descendants of Pocahontas and
Beeswing. Why should that be possible in Greece
which is impossible now? Why do we draw the
line between jockeys who ride racehorses, and
poets who ride their Pegasus-offer prizes for
the
grosser animals and produce results that have
made English horses the first in the world, while
the most magnificent offers cannot get a fit
monument for the greatest Englishman of the
present century ?
The explanation is not far to seek : it lies in The expla-
the uncertainty of judgment, in the waywardness found in the
of taste, in the want of recognised standards, in criticism.
nation to be
weakness of
D2
36
The Gay Science.
II.
dard of
CHAPTER the contempt of criticism. Good work is not
usually forthcoming to the offer of a prize,
because when-as in the case of the Foreign and
India offices—it does come forth, there ensues a
chance medley of opinions, in which there is no
certainty that the best work will obtain the
reward. The difference in England between a
contest of racers and a contest of poets,
painters, or essayists, is to be found in this,
The stan- that the
that the pace of two horses admits of measure-
judgment. ment. There is a standard to which all give
assent; the race is won by a nose, or a head,
or a neck, or a length. There need be no
mistake in the comparison; and if the rewards
are tempting, we may be pretty sure that
the best horses will run, and that the result
may be taken as a fair test of merit. If there
were any doubtfulness about the test the owners
of the best horses would never allow their
favourites to run. But in any contest between
painters or sculptors, poets or essayists, there is
just that dubiety as to the standard of measure-
ment which would prevent the best men from
competing
Not so in Greece, and not so in France. It
has been well said, that whoever has seen but
one work of Greek art has seen none, and who-
ever has seen all has seen but one. In Greek
art, in Greek poems, in Greek prose, there is
this uniformity, a uniformity that bespeaks, if
not clear science, yet, at any rate, a system of
Influence of
school in
Greece.
The Science of Criticism.
37
recognised rules. In architecture, in statuary, CHAPTER
in pottery, the uniformity of aim is so palpable,
that students have long suspected the existence
of strictly harmonious proportions in the various
lengths, curves, and angles, which give 'life and
beauty to the pure Pentelic marble, and at length
the law which guides these proportions, the rule
for example which produces the peculiar curve
called the entasis of a Doric shaft, the rule
which provides for the height of the Venus of
Medici, or of the Apollo Belvedere, the rule
which actuates the contour of the Portland Vase,
has been detected. Not that these laws will
ever enable an inferior artist to produce another
Parthenon or another Venus to enchant the
world, but that like the laws of harmony in
music, they ought to keep the artist within the
lines of beauty. Whatever be the practical
value of the rules, we see that to every work of
Greek art they give the character of a school,
and the unity of aim and of habit produced by a
school gives us a standard of measurement about Influence of
which there need be little ambiguity. On a France.
lesser scale, something of the same sort may be
seen in France. Frenchmen are surprised at
the individuality of English art. Every artist
among us seems to be standing on his own dais,
and working out of his own head. In France
we can see more distinctly schools of art; a
genuine approximation of methods, a theoretic
sameness of ideals, and we can understand, that
II.
school in
38
The Gay Science.
II.
criticism
that it has
become
ashamed of
itself.
sick;
CHAPTER in a country where the influence of school is so
apparent, the prize system should be more suc-
cessful than among us who assert the right of
private judgment and our contempt of authority,
in no mincing terms. The nation that has three
dozen religions and only one sauce, is not likely
to have common standards in philosophy, in
literature, or in art. Wanting these standards,
what faith can we have in our judges ? And
what wonder that criticism, no matter how deep
it goes, should be a byword ?
A hopeful It is a good thing when criticism knows
sign of our
that it is a byword, and learns to be ashamed
of itself. It is not to be cured until it feels itself
and there is no more healthy sign of our
times than the popularity which has been ac-
corded to the writings of Mr. Matthew Arnold,
who has come forward to denounce our criticism
as folly, and to call upon the critics to mend
their ways. In many most important points
it is impossible to agree with this delightful
writer. Especially when he attempts to reason
and to generalize, he rouses in his readers the
instincts of war, and makes them wish to break
a lance with him. He is a suggestive writer,
but not a convincing one.
He starts many
ideas, but does not carry out his conclusions.
He has power of thought enough to win our
attention, charm of style enough to enchant us
with his strain; but we are won without con-
viction, and we are enchanted without being
The Science of Criticism.
39
II.
satisfied. The most marked peculiarity of his CHAPTER
style, when he has to deal not with facts but
with ideas, is its intense juvenility-a boy-power
to the nth. It would be unjust so to charac-
terize his robust scholarship, and his keen bio-
graphical insight. But when he comes to what
is more especially called an idea, then his merits
and his defects alike are those of youthfulness.
There is in his thinking the greenness,
the
unfitness, the impracticability of youth; there
is also in it the freshness, the buoyancy, the
indescribable gracefulness, the raging activity
of youth. We learn as we read him to have
so much sympathy with the fine purpose, the
fine taste, the fine temper of his writing, that
we forget, or we are loth to express, how much
we differ with him whenever he attempts
to generalize. In the next chapter I shall
have occasion to mention some of his errors.
Here the great point to be noticed is, that his
outcry against English criticism for its want of
science (though that is not the phrase by which
he would describe its deficiency) has been
received with the greatest favour. At the
same time, he does less than justice to English
criticism in comparing it with foreign ; for if
we have faults, so also have the Germans and
the French. All alike fall short of science.
If we fall short of it in our treatment of idea,
they fall short of it in their treatment of fact;
and Mr. Arnold would have been much nearer
40
The Gay Science.
II.
CHAPTER the truth, if he had with even-handed justice
exposed the shortcomings of all criticism, instead
of confining his censure to criticism of the
English school. Be he right or wrong how-
ever in this matter, the fact of his having
raised his voice against our criticism is in itself
important. We may take it for a sure proof
that the tide is on the turn, and that a change
is working. Mr. Arnold is too sympathetic for
a solitary thinker. We may agree with him
or differ with him; we may deem his views
h
novel or stale; clear, or the reverse ; but of one
thing we can have no doubt that what he
thinks, others think also. When such a man
complains of the lack of idea in English criti-
cism, we may be satisfied that he is giving form
to an opinion which, if it has not before been
expressed with equal force, has been widely felt,
and has often been at the point of utterance.
be satisfied also that things are mend-
ing. In this case the discovery of the disease
is half the cure; the confession of sin is a long
step to reform.
We may
Suminary
of the chap-
ter.
cism is
& ,
In the very act of showing that criticism is
not yet a science, something has also been done
Why criti- to show why it has failed of that standard,
a bience. and why it may be supposed that following
another course the dignity of science may not be
beyond its reach. Hereafter it will be necessary
to point out another great cause of failure in the
The Science of Criticism.
41
LI.
method.
volved in
method of
comparative
fact that criticism has hitherto rejected, or at CHAPTER
least kept clear of its corner stone; has never
attempted to build itself systematically on what
nevertheless it has always accepted as the one
universal and necessary law of art, the law of
pleasure. Meantime, in so far as this discussion
has proceeded it will be seen that, if criticism
has failed of science, it has been a failure of Failure of
method. It is only from comparative criticism
that we can expect science, but hitherto criticism
has been very much lost in details, and has
never attempted comparison on the large scale. What is in-
It is true that all criticism is comparative in a the new
certain sense, for without comparison there is no
thought; but it is comparative only within ariticism.
narrow limits, and we have to extend the area of
comparison before the possibility of science begins
to dawn. The comparison required is threefold ; The com-
the first, which most persons would regard as in a threefold.
peculiar sense critical, a comparison of all the arts
one with another, as they appear together and in
succession ; the next, psychological, a compari-
son of these in their different phases with the
nature of the mind, its intellectual bias and its
ethical needs as revealed in the latest analysis ;
the third, historical, a comparison of the results
thus obtained with the facts of history, the in-
fluence of race, of religion, of climate, in one
word, with the story of human development.
There is not one of these lines of comparison
which criticism can afford to neglect. It must
parison
ܕ
42
The Gay Science.
II.
In what
of
criticism
the present
first
part run.
.
much
a
correct
CHAPTER compare art with art; it must compare art
with mind; it must compare art with history;
and it must bring together again, and place
side by side, the result of these three com-
parisons.
But though there is not one of these lines of
comparative comparison which it will do to neglect, and there
is not one which can be regarded as absolutely
work will of more importance than another, nevertheless it
may be that at this or that particular time, or
for this or that particular purpose, one line of
comparison may relatively be of more value
Nothing so than another; and it would seem that at the
wanted as a stage which criticism has now reached there
is nothing so much wanting to it as a correct
psychology.
psychology. Accordingly that is the main
course of inquiry which, in the present instal-
ment of this work, an attempt will be made to
follow. We want, first of all, to know what a
watchmaker would call the movement in art-
the movement of the mind, the movement of
ideas. Why does the mind move in that way ?
whither does it move? when does it move?
what does it move? Some of these questions
are among the most abstruse in philosophy,
and so well known to be abstruse, that the mere
suggestion of them may be a terror to many
readers. I may seem to be calmly inviting
them to cross with me the arid sands of a
On the dul- Sahara, and to meet the hot blasts of a simoom.
chology. But, indeed, it is a mistake to suppose that a
ness of psy-
The Science of Criticism.
43
il:
ܪ
subject which is abstruse must be dull and CHAPTER
killing to discuss; and it is quite certain that if
this subject of the movement of the mind in art
is not made interesting the fault lies with the
writer, and not in the subject.
There is a curious picture in the Arabian
Nights of a little turbaned fellow sitting cross-
legged on the ground, with pistachio nuts and
dates in his lap. He cracks the nuts, munches
the kernels and throws the shells to the left,
while by a judicious alternation he sucks the
delicate pulp of the dates and throws the stones
to his right. The philosopher looks on with a
mild interest and speculates on the moral that
sometimes the insides of things are best and
sometimes the outsides. Now, most of the dis-
cussions on mind with which we are familiar are
like the pistachio nuts of the gentleman of Bag-
dad: the shell is uninviting, and the kernel,
which is hard to get at, and most frequently is
rotten, is the only part that is palatable. But
there is no reason why these discussions should But that
not on the outside be as palatable as the date ; not neces-
and if we cannot swallow the stones, still they sary.
are not useless, but may be turned to account
as seed. The simile is rather elaborate, yet
perhaps it is clear; and I shall be glad if in
any way it should suggest to my readers that
in here inviting them to a psychological discus-
sion I am luring them not to a study which will the subject
break their jaws with hard words and their really as in-
dulness is
44
The Gay Science.
II.
CHAPTER patience with the husks of logic, but to one
which, if not unfairly treated, ought to be as
fascinating as romance :
teresting as
romance.
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute.
Arithm
THE DESPAIR OF A SCIENCE.
SS
CHAPTER III.
THE DESPAIR OF A SCIENCE.
III.
I
of critical
T CAN scarcely be a matter of sur-CHAPTER
prise, that amid the littlenesses of
the lower criticism, the confusion
and conflicts of the higher, any attempt in
our day to work towards a science of criticism The despair
is sure to be met with a profound despair. science not
I do not merely mean that the world will surprising.
have its doubts as to this or that man's ability
to approach the science. That is quite fair
and natural. The doubt is, whether the science
be approachable by any son of man.
It is a
doubt that cleaves just now to any science
which has the mind and will of man for its
theme. Methods of criticism are nothing, it may
be said, for all methods, including the method of
comparative criticism, must fail, when the object
is to resolve human work to scientific law. I
therefore desire, in this chapter, to make a few
remarks on that despair with which nearly all
48
The Gay Science.
III.
What we
set before us
CHAPTER Englishmen just now contemplate not merely
the science of criticism, but any science of human
nature.
Despair of metaphysics has at length bred in
as the object us that state of heart which Mr. John George
of science. Phillimore exaggerates, but can scarcely be said
to misrepresent, when pointing out that what he
calls the Queen of Sciences, that is, metaphysics,
is utterly ignored among us, he asks what is the
substitute for it, and discovers that we give our-
selves up to the most intense study of entomology.
We believe in insects as fit objects of science;
but the mind of man is beyond our science, and
we give it up in despair. Mr. Kingsley, who
has written one book to show that a science of
history is impossible, has written another to
show the great and religious advantage at water-
ing-places of studying science in the works of
God—that is, in sea-jellies and cockle-shells. The
Antithesis popular science of the day makes an antithesis
between God and man. History, politics, lan-
guage, art, literature these are the works of
man. Animals, vegetables, and minerals-these
are the works of God. When the student of
natural history discovers a new species, he seems
to be rescuing, says Mr. Kingsley, “ one more
thought of the divine mind from Hela and the
realms of the unknown.” When a man goes to
the sea-side, and, taking the advice of the same
author, begins to study natural history, can tell
the number of legs on a crab, the number of
works of
God and
those of
man
The Despair of a Science.
49
III.
in its
a
joints on a lobster's tail, names one kind of shell CHAPTER
a helix, another kind of shell a pecten—that is
called studying the works of God. Or if he
goes to some quiet inland village, plucks flowers,
dries them in blotting-paper, and writes a name
of twenty syllables under each—that is studying
the works of God. Or if he analyzes a quantity
of earth, can tell what are its ingredients, whether
it is better for turnips or for wheat, and whether
it should be manured with lime or with guano-
that is studying the works of God. And espe- Popular
cially is it so if these students set upon the Deity, religiotis as-
like a tribe of Mohawks, to hunt out his trail, to pect.
pounce upon his footprints, to fathom his designs, ,
to see everywhere the hand, and to acknowledge
the finger of God. As though He, whose glory
it is to conceal a thing, left finger-marks on his
work, the exponents of popular science are always
finding the finger of God, and by so doing extol
their favourite pursuit, while they tacitly rebut
the maxim of Pope, that the proper study of the proper
mankind is man.
We who have been in the mankind.
habit of regarding man as the noblest work of
God, language as his gift, history as his provi-
dence, and genius as heaven-born, are startled to
hear the inanimate and irrational creation de
scribed as peculiarly the work and the care of
the Deity, and seem to listen to an echo of the
old heathen dogma—Deus est anima brutorum.
Amid all this cant of finding God in the mate-
rial and not in the moral world, and of thence
study of
.
VOL. I.
E
50
The Gay Science.
III.
Misan-
works
those
man.
Words
worth
CHAPTER lauding the sciences of matter to the neglect of
the science of mind, who but must remember a
sermon in which the speaker, it is true, invited
his audience to consider the lilies of the field and
to behold the fowls of the air, but only that he
might drive home the question-Are ye not
much better than they?
This antithesis between the works of God and
thropy of
the antithe the works of man, which we find in the science
sis between of our time, seems to have begun in a misanthro-
of God and pical vein of thought belonging to a considerable
portion of the poetry of the nineteenth century.
Byron, of all our recent poets,would be most easily
accused of this misanthropy; but it is not of
Byron that we have to complain : it is of Words-
some extent worth and his incessant harping on the opposition
between nature and humanity. It was from
Wordsworth's region of thought that the petty
controversy arose, many years ago, as to the
materials of poetry.
Bowles contended that
poetry is more immediately indebted for its in-
terest to the works of nature than to those of art;
that a ship of the line derives its poetry not from
anything contributed by man—the sails, masts,
and so forth; but from the wind that fills the sails,
from the sunshine that touches them with light,
from the waves on which the vessel rides in a
word, from nature. The essence of this criticism
is misanthropy; it is such misanthropy as abounds
in Wordsworth ; it is misanthropy which Byron
fought against manfully, and with which he was
answerable
for it.
The Despair of a Science.
51
III.
shows itself
in Ruskin.
was always
incapable of sympathising. We can trace this CHAPTER
misanthropy downwards to Mr. Ruskin, at least
so long as he was under the influence of Words- How it
worth. In his earlier criticism he
quoting that poet; his whole mind seemed to be
given to landscape painting, and he conceived
of art as the expression of man's delight in the
works of God. He has long outgrown the
Wordsworthian misanthropy, and has learned to
widen his definition of the theme of art; but
still in his eloquent pages, as in the strains of
Wordsworth, and as in the tendency to landscape
of much of our poetry and painting, the men of
science will find some sanction for the hollow
antithesis which sets the works of God against
those of man.
It would be unjust not to remember in behalf Something
of this one-sided devotion to physical science for the one-
a devotion to it that confines the very name of sided devo-
science almost entirely to the knowledge of sical science
matter and material laws, and denies it to the prevails.
knowledge of man and mental laws——that among
all the intellectual pursuits of the present cen-
tury, the science of things material can point to
by far the most splendid results. What more
dazzling in speculation than the discovery of the feats of
Neptune ? What more stimulating to curiosity science.
than the researches of Goethe, Cuvier, and
Owen ? What more enticing to the adventurer
than the geological prediction of the gold fields
of Australia ? In chemistry we have well-nigh
to be said
tion
,
E 2
52
The Gay Science.
III.
CHAPTER realised the dream of alchemy, and pierced the
mystery of transmutation. Photography is a
craft in which Phoebus Apollo again appears
upon the earth in the mortal guise of an artist,
and to the powers of which no limit can be set.
In meteorology, the wind has been tracked,
storms and tornados have been reduced to law.
In electricity we seem to be hovering on the
verge of some grand discovery, and already the
electric spark has been trained to feats more
marvellous than any recorded of Ariel or Puck.
Optics now enables us to discover the composition
of the sun, and to detect the presence of minerals
to the millionth part of a grain. Seven-league
boots are clumsy beside a railway; steam-ships
make a jest of the flying carpet. Think, too, of
,
e stories the immense public works which modern science
which it has has enabled England to complete. The Crystal
Palace rose like the arch of a rainbow over the
trees in Hyde Park; the tubular bridge spans
the Menai Straits, high enough for the mast of
some great ammiral” to pass beneath : innumer-
able bridges, tunnels, canals, docks, dazzle the
imagination. A thousand years hereafter poets
and historians may write of our great en-
gineers and scientific discoverers, as we now
speak of Arthur and his Paladins, Faust and
the Devil, Cortes and Pizarro. Why should not
those who figure in the fairy tales of science”
obtain the renown which is rightfully theirs ?
The results they have achieved are all the more
And the
lic
The Despair of a Science.
53
wonderful, if we take into account the compara- CHAPTER
tively recent origin of our sciences. It is little
more than two hundred years since there was The recent
only one man of scientific note in England -- sciences,
William Harvey; when Sydenham was but be-
ginning to practise ; when Barrow was studying
the Greek fathers at Constantinople; when Ray
was yet unknown; when Halley was yet unborn;
when Flamsteed was still teething; when New-
ton was a farmer-boy, munching apples as he
drove to market on Saturdays; when Hooke was
a poor student at Oxford, assisting Boyle in his
manipulations; when Boyle lived in seclusion at
the apothecary's, and was chiefly remarkable for
associating with men whose names begin with W-
Wallis, Willis, Wilkins, Ward, and Wren. None
of the founders of the Royal Society had then
emerged from obscurity, and the Royal Society
was a small club that met in secret and called
itself the Invisible College. Two centuries have
brought a marvellous change. Science came into and their
England with tea, with tea-drinking it spread, velopment.
and it is now imbibed as universally. It has so
commended itself by great achievements that at
length every one of the sciences has a society for
itself, all the great cities of the United Kingdom
have scientific societies, and there is such a rage
for science throughout the country and in every
class, that, not unlike the tailors of Laputa, who,
abjuring tape, took altitudes and longitudes with
a quadrant, the London tailors profess to cut
III.
origin of the
present de
54
The Gay Science.
III.
Different
fate of the
mental
sciences.
Various
points of
which is
CHAPTER their shirts scientifically, and in the ardour of
science baptize their masterpiece Eureka.
Meanwhile, amid this rush of the intellectual
current all in one direction, it fares ill with men-
tal science; it fares ill with all the sciences that
may more strictly be called human, including
that of criticism. As a scientific object, the
shard-borne beetle is of more account than man :
the cells of the bee and the cocoons of the silk-
worm, than all the efforts of human genius, all
the wonders of human handiwork. Philosophy,
I have said, has filled us with despair, and des-
view from pair of philosophical methods has spread to
produced despair of all that philosophy touched, and re-
the despair garded as peculiarly its own.
Nor is this the
science of only form in which despair of a human science
in general, and a critical science in particular,
shows itself. These are days in which the forms
of literature are opposed to the elaboration of
system; and as the essence of science is system,
here is another foundation for despair to build
upon. Then, again, there are moralists who are
eager to keep clear the great doctrine of the
freedom of the will; who are afraid to regard
;
human actionas in such wise governed by law,
that it is capable of scientific calculation; and
;
here is another ground of despair. Lastly, there
are persons who, unable to see the practical use
to which a science of criticism (but I ought to
speak more generally, and say a science of human
nature) may be turned, are apt to pass upon it a
human
ture.
The Despair of a Science.
55
III.
cal despair
science,
sentence of condemnation, which on the other CHAPTER
hand they do not pronounce on the merely
physical sciences, when they are unable to per-
ceive immediately the practical value of any
material discoveries; and thus again is engen-
dered another form of despair. Let me say
a few words upon each of these passages of
despair.
And first, of the philosophical despair that Philosophi-
now attaches to the scientific treatment of all of mental
those subjects which philosophy used to handle.
r. G. H. Lewes has written a very clever and
learned book on the history of philosophy, in
which he always insists that the chief problems
of metaphysics are insoluble. This work is so
brilliant that it has been much read and pilfered
from; and for practical purposes it is the best
history of philosophy that the English reader can
consult; but it is burdened with the fallacy that
because what is called metaphysics is impossible,
therefore any attempt at a science of the mind
must be vain. Does it follow that because meta-
physical methods have failed, therefore scientific
methods must fail also ? Now the despair of a
mental science which Mr. Lewes entertains he
also entertains, as it would seem, for all the What Mr.
branches of that science, criticism included. He of philoso-
says that “philosophy has distorted poetry, and phical criti-
been the curse of criticism." Most of us will
agree with him, if by philosophy he means
metaphysics. We all find the greatest difficulty
Lewes says
56
The Gay Science.
III.
CHAPTER in understanding what are called the philoso-
phical critics, and when we get at their meaning
it looks very small. They are afraid to be clear,
lest they be deemed shallow; or they love to
think themselves profound, because they are
unable to plumb their own ideas.
A philoso A fair specimen of the philosophical critic is
phical critic
Wagner Richard Wagner, who has invented the music of
the future. Whatever may be thought of his
music, he has a considerable reputation as a
musical critic. Discoursing on art, in the most
approved philosophical method, he defines poetry
in terms which it is beyond me to translate, and
so I make use of Mr. Bridgeman's translation.
“If we now consider," he says, “the activity of
the poet more closely, we perceive that the realisa-
tion of his intention consists solely in rendering
possible the representation of the strengthened
The jargon actions of his poetised forms through an exposi-
tion of their motives to the feelings, as well as
the motives themselves, also by an expression
that in so far engrosses his activity as the inven-
tion and production of this expression in truth
first render the introduction of such motives and
actions possible.” This is the jargon of philo-
sophy, and it is the curse of criticism. If this is
what Mr. Lewes condemns, who in this country
will contradict him? But sometimes it is not
Distinction clear whether, when this author speaks of philo-
philosophy sophy, he means simply philosophy as it used to
and science be understood, or also includes under that name
of philo-
sopby.
betwcen
The Despair of a Science.
57
III.
want of cri-
genuine science, because it is the science of mind CHAPTER
as distinct from body. The name of philosophy
has been especially allotted in this country to
mental science-to psychology; and it seems a
hard thing to say that in this sense philosophy
has been the curse of criticism. In point of
fact, the great fault of criticism is its ignorance The great
—at least its disregard of psychology. It is ticism
true that mental science has not yet done much paychology.
for us in any department of study; but it must
not be forgotten that the application of scien-
tific methods to the mind and action of man
has been even more recent and more tardy
than their application to the processes of nature, Science as
applied to
and that the time has not yet come to look for mind too
ripe fruit, and to curse the tree on which it is recent to be
not found. Any science of a true sort, mathe-fruit.com
,
matics apart - any science that is more than
guessing, or more than a confused pudding-stone
of facts-is now but two centuries old. The most
advanced of the sciences that relate specially to
human conduct is the science of wealth, and
political economy is but a century old. The
other sciences that take account of human action
are still in their infancy; and to despair of them
is but to despair of childhood.
Sir Edward Lytton expresses despair of a The despair
different kind. He sees the futility of system;
of system.
he knows that from time to time the most perfect
systems have to be remodelled, and give way to
new schemes. Hence, in one of his most lively
accused of
ܪ
a
58
The Gay Science.
III.
by Sir
Systems
soon forgot-
ten.
for an ex-
ample.
a
CHAPTER essays, he bepraises the essay, and seems to con-
demn system as pedantic. Sir Edward Lytton
Expressed has always shown such a faculty for construc-
ward Lyt- tion, that in his heart of hearts he can scarcely
despise system; but as some of his remarks may
lead a hurried reader to take an opposite view,
a word or two of explanation may be necessary.
It is true, that systems are soon forgotten and
pass out of sight. What survives of Plato, for
example, in modern thought? A few fragments
that have not always even a relation to his sys-
Take Plato tem. Take one of Plato's favourite ideas that
poets should be excluded from the model republic
because they dispense falsehood, and because they
are seekers of pleasure. Here is a view of poetry
that survives, and that derives importance from
the great name of Plato. The world remembers
the conclusion at which he arrived; it has for-
gotten the process by which he arrived at it.
He condemns art as false, because when a painter
paints a flower he takes a copy not of the thing
itself. The flower is not the thing itself, but the
earthly copy of the thing which, according to
his system, exists as an idea in the Divine mind.
The picture of the flower, therefore, is the copy
of a copy, and must be untrue. Nobody would
now accept this reasoning, but people accept the
conclusion. So, again, art is bad because pleasure
is its chief end, and, as the gods feel neither
pleasure nor pain, the end of art is not godlike.
Here, again, nobody would accept the reasoning,
a
The Despair of a Science.
59
IH
ance.
of current
very adverse
but the conclusion would be accepted by a CHAPTER
Puritan, who would rely on Plato's authority.
And thus it is—the system falls to pieces, while
fragments of it stand fast for ever quite inde-
pendent of the system. Contemplating such a
result, the essayist is inclined to ask what is the
good of system, and suggests that it may be
enough to put forth oracles in disjointed utter-
It is good not to overrate system; it is
good to see that its use is but temporary. Still
in our time, in which, through the extension of The forme
periodical literature, detached essays have as- literature
sumed unwonted importance, there is a tendency to system.
to fly system altogether and so to underrate it.
System is science. Science is impossible without
the order and method of system. It is not merely Value of
knowledge: it is knowledge methodised. It may
be true that over the vast ocean of time which
separates us from Plato nothing has come to us
from that mighty mind to be incorporated in
modern thought but a few fragments of wreck.
Yet these fragments would never have reached
us if they had not at one time been built into a
ship. When the voyager goes across the Atlan-
tic he may be wrecked; he may get on shore
only with a plank. But he will never cross the
Atlantic at all if he starts on a plank, or on a
few planks tied together as a raft. “Our little
“
systems have their day," says the poet, and it is
most true, but in their day they have their uses.
There is a momentum in a system which does
system,
>
60
The Gay Science.
III,
mental
views
CHAPTER not belong to its individual timbers, and if we
admire the essay, it is not necessary to under-
value more elaborate structures.
Despair of Despair of yet another kind is expressed by
science that those who, from a moral point of view, do not
from moral like to think of human conduct as obedient to
scientific rule. Such men as Mr. Froude have
so strong a sense of the freedom of the will, and
of the incalculable waywardness with which it
crosses and mars the best laid plans and the most
symmetrical theories, that they will not hear of
such a thing as a science of history. Mr. Froude's
lecture on that subject is not published, and ap-
Expressed pears only in the records of the Royal Institution ;
by Mr.
but it is perhaps the most eloquent of all his com-
positions, and it is full of wise suggestions. Its
general conclusion, however, must be firmly re-
sisted by those who, admitting the freedom of the
Froude.
*
Mr. Grote has lately been satisfied with it. Philosophy,
quoting a passage from Professor in its ideal perfection, is a body
Ferrier on this point, as to the of reasoned truth. A system is
valuc of system, which is ex- of the highest value only when
ceedingly well put. I quote the it embraces both these requisi-
same passage, but with some tions, that is, when it is both
slight differences of omission and true and reasoned. But & sys-
admission : “A system of philo- tem which is reasoned without
sophy"-or what is, in Ferrier's being true, is always of higher
meaning, the same thing, a sys- value than a system which is
tem of science“ is bound by true without being reasoned.
two main requisitions—it ought | The latter kind of system has
to be true and it ought to be no scientific worth. An unres-
reasoned. If a system is not soned philosophy, even though
true, it will scarcely be con- true, carries no guarantee of its
vincing; and if it is not rea- truth. It may be true, but it
soned, a man will be little cannot be certain."
The Despair of a Science.
61
III.
his reason-
ing.
will, still hold to the possibility of reducing human CHAPTER
conduct on the large scale to fixed law. Mr.
Froude argues that because we are not able to
predict the changes of history, therefore history
cannot fairly be regarded as a science; and his
argument, though levelled against a science of
history, goes to deny the possibility of any
science of human nature. In point of fact,
however, we can predict a good deal in human
history, as, for example, by the aid of political
economy, a science which is barely a century
old; and Mr. Froude's reasoning, if it were The gist of
sound, would oust geology from the list of the
sciences, because it does not enable us to predict
what changes in the earth's surface are certain
to take place in the next thousand years.
It is only in the exact sciences that knowledge All the
reaches the prophetic strain, and all the sciences not exact.
are not exact. Mr. John Stuart Mill points out
that though the science of human nature falls far
short of the exactness of astronomy as now
understood, yet there is no reason why it should
not be as much a science as astronomy was,
when its methods had mastered only the main
phenomena, but not the perturbations. This is
precisely the view to be taken of that part of
the science of human nature which, for the
purposes of the present inquiry, may be called
the Gay Science—the science of the Fine Arts, The exacti-
including poetry—only it might be expressed
more strongly. The most certain thing in
.
tude of art.
62
The Gay Science.
III.
CHAPTER human life is its uncertainty. We are most
struck with its endless changes, and cannot be
over-confident that we shall ever reduce these
to the unity of science. But art is crystalline in
its forms, and the first, the deepest, the most
constant impression which we derive from it is
that of its oneness. I have already quoted the
saying, that he who sees only one work of Greek
art has seen none, and that he who sees all has
seen but one. This is most true; and the Greek
gave expression to the same thought in the
legend of the brothers Telecles and Theodorus
of Samos. Far apart from each other, the one
at Delos, the other at Ephesus, carved half of a
wooden statue of the Pythian Apollo, and when
the two were brought together, they tallied as if
they had been wrought in one piece by one
Illustrated hand. Shelley has even gone further, and has
in Shelley's
conception spoken of single poems, an Iliad or a Lear, as
of poetry.
parts of one vast poem-episodes " in that great
poem which all poets, like the co-operating
thoughts of one great mind, have built
up
since
the beginning of the world.” If this be the
character and position of art, it cannot be
unreasonable to suppose that a science of it is
within our reach, and that of all the sciences
which have to do with human nature, it ought
to be the most exact.
Despair Lastly, there is a despair engendered by the
produced by
the modesty very modesty of science. A science of criticism, if
it be worthy of the name, cannot pretend either to
of science.
The Despair of a Science.
63
III.
tence of
.
make art an easy acquisition, or to do away with CHAPTER
all diversity of taste and opinion. The Miltons
will evermore think that Dryden is but a rhymer;
Dryden will still foretell that cousin Swift will
never be a poet; Handel will always jeer at the
counterpoint of young Glück, and Schumann
make light of the music of Meyerbeer.* What
then is the use of criticism ? The fact, however,
is, that no science in the world can insure its fol- The impo-
lowers from error, or make its students perfect science.
artists. Chemistry, with all its exactitude, does
not save its professors from making a wrong
analysis. The votaries of geology are still wrang-
ling about some of its main principles; and were
they agreed, it does not follow that they would
be able to apply those principles rightly to the
various regions of the earth. Political economy,
the most advanced of the sciences that have
man for their subject, is not all clear and stead-
fast, and daily the nations bid defiance to its
clearest and most abiding truths. Why then
.
should a critical science, if there is ever to be
one, do more than all other sciences in leading its
* Mr. Paley, in his late edition inveniant." I am not, he says,
of Euripides, the best that has of those who see in Euripides nom
yet been produced, calls atten- thing fine, nothing great, nothing
tion to a delicious remark of that belongs to high art. If it be
Professor Scholefield's : “ Quod remembered that Euripides was
ad ipsum attinet Euripidem, non Milton's favourite poet, the in-
sum ego ex illorum numero, qui nocence of Scholefield's remark
nihil in eo pulchrum, nihil will appear all the more inimit-
grande, nihil cothurno dignum | able.
64
The Gay Science.
a
III.
The more
science the
greater
tence of
more than
the impo-
tence of
other
sciences.
CHAPTER disciples into a land free from doubt? It is the
law of all human knowledge, that the more the
rays of the light within us multiply and spread,
the increasing circle of light implies an increas-
ing circumference of darkness to hem it round.
Increase the bounds of knowledge, and you
ignorance. inevitably increase the sense of ignorance; at
.
all the more points in a belt of surrounding
darkness do you encounter doubt and difficulty.
It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that any
science can abolish all doubts and prevent all
impo- mistakes. Moreover, as a science of criticism
criticism no cannot make perfect judges, so neither can it
make faultless poets. The theory of music has
never made men musical, and all the discoveries
of the critic cannot make men poetical. Few
sayings about art are more memorable than that
of Mozart, who declared that he composed as he
did because he could not help it, and who added,
“ You will never do anything if you have to
think how you are to do it.” Art comes of in-
spiration--comes by second nature. Neverthe-
less, it comes according to laws which it is
possible to note and which imperatively demand
our study. It is not long since people regarded
the weather as beyond the province of science,
and treated the labours of Fitzroy either as
useless, because they did not enable him to
foretell but only to forecast, or as impious,
because it was argued that if we can forecast
the weather, it must be idle to pray for rain.
The Despair of a Science.
65
III.
It is curious to see how exacting we are in CHAPTER
our demands for knowledge, and how we learn
to underrate it altogether if in any respect it
disappoints our expectations. Criticism is
nought, people think, because it does not make
poets perfect, and judges infallible. So it has
happened that chemistry was despised when it
failed to turn lead into gold, that astronomy
was neglected when it failed to prognosticate,
that the Bible is said to be in danger because
we do not find in it the last new theory of
science.
Hang up philosophy:
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
It helps not, it prevails not : talk no more.
On this point as to the modesty of science, it How
is necessary to be very explicit, because he who thew Arnold
is in our day the inost hearty in denouncing the
weakness of our criticism, Mr. Matthew Arnold,
is also the most imperious in vaunting the
office of the critic; and there is a danger lest
from his unguarded expressions it should be
supposed that criticism promises more than it
can perform. Mr. Arnold, for example, tells
us that the main intellectual effort of Europe
has for many years past been a critical one; and
that what Europe now desires most is criticism.
What he means by this it is not easy to make
out. For on the one hand, he assures us that But his
Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, are to be
meaning is
regarded as critics, and that everything done clear.
vaunts
criticista,
a
a
not quite
VOL. I.
F
66
The Gay Science.
III.
what he
says of M.
Sainte
Beuve.
CHAPTER in literature is at root criticism; from which
it would appear that there can be nothing
specially critical in the intellectual movement
As for ex- which is now in progress. On the other hand,
in
we stumble once and again upon the statement
that the first of living critics is M. Sainte Beuve.
Now, we know M. Sainte Beuve as an indefa-
tigable, a clever, and well-informed writer-a
man of good judgment, and in France of great
literary influence. But when we are told in
succession that the great intellectual movement
of our age is critical, and that the first of living
critics--therefore, the leader of this intellectual
movement, is M. Sainte Beuve, who is not greatly
puzzled to know what so dainty a writer as Mr.
Arnold can possibly mean? Is it a proof of our
English want of insight that with all the vivacity
of his Monday chats, we on this side of the water
fail to see in M. Sainte Beuve the prophet of
the age--a great leader of thinking—the en-
lightener of Europe ? He is a brilliant essayist,
a man of great knowledge ; his taste is unim-
peachable; and he dashes off historic sketches
with wonderful neatness. But for criticism in
the highest sense of the word—for criticism in
the sense in which Mr. Arnold seems to under-
stand it—for criticism as the mastery of domi-
nant ideas and the key to modern thought-as
that one thing which Europe most desires—we
should scarcely go to the feuilletons of M. Sainte
Beuve.
The Despair of a Science.
67
ment that
critical
Once more we return to another form of the CHAPTER
III.
statement that the intellectual movement of our
His state
time is critical. Mr. Arnold identifies criticism
the modern
with the modern spirit; and then he tells us
spirit is
that the modern spirit arises in a sense of con-essentially
trast between the dictates of reason and of custom,
the world of idea and the world of fact. We
live amid prescriptions and customs that have
been crusted upon us from ages.
When we
become alive to the fact that the forms and
institutions of our daily life—the life individual
and the life national, are prescribed to us not
by reason but only by custom, that, says Mr.
Arnold, is the awakening of the modern spirit.
The truth is, however, that what he describes as
the peculiar spirit of modern thought—that is,
-
nineteenth-century thought — is the spirit of
every reforming age. It was, for example, the
spirit of Christianity as it showed itself at first
in the midst of surrounding Judaism. It was
the spirit that actuated the protest against
the mummeries of Romanism in the sixteenth
century.
From these and other illustrations of what he The wrong
understands by criticism, it would seem that which may
Mr. Arnold has allowed himself, in the graceful from Mr.
eagerness of a poetical nature, to be carried Arnold's
generaliza-
headlong into generalizations that are illusive. tions.
But the general effect of his expressions is to
spread abroad an inflated idea of criticism
what it is, what it can do, what is its position
conclusions
F 2
68
The Gay Science.
III.
CHAPTER in the world. People will not stay to examine
patiently whether Mr. Arnold makes out his
case or not. They will but carry away the
general impression, that here is a man of genius
and of strong conviction, who speaks of criti-
cism as just now the greatest power upon
earth. They will, therefore, expect from it the
mightiest effects; and grievous will be their
disappointment at the modesty of its actual
exploits.
General
a
of criticism,
Though a science of criticism may not accom-
advantage plish all that people expect of it, is it necessary
of a science to show that it is to be coveted for its own sake ?
If men will criticise, it is desirable that their
judgments should be based on scientific grounds.
This is so obvious, that instead of dwelling on
the worth of critical science in and for itself, I
would here rather insist on its value from another
On the in- point of view-as a historical instrument. Some
of history late philosophers, Cousin in particular, have
philosophy. sought for a clue to the world's history in the
.
progress of metaphysical ideas. They believe
that the history of philosophy yields the phi-
losophy of history. They may be right, though
it is awkward for the facts, or at least for our
power of dealing with them, that the philosopher
is ever represented as before his age. While he
lives his thought is peculiar to himself, and his
kingdom is not of this world : it is not till long
years after his decease that his thought moves
The Despair of a Science.
69
III.
pretation of
mankind and his worldly reign begins. It CHAPTER
would seem, however, that if it were possible to
establish a critical science, the method which the The inter-
French and Germans have adopted, of inter- history
preting history through the history of philosophy, criticism.
might with advantage be varied by the inter-
pretation of history through the history of art.
There is this wide difference between philosophy
and art, that whereas the former is the result of
conscious effort, the latter comes unconsciously,
and is the spontaneous growth of the time.
Now, supposing we had a critical science, and
knew somewhat of the orbits and order of the
arts, their times and seasons, we should have a
guide to history so much safer than that fur-
nished by the course of philosophy, as a spon-
taneous growth is less likely to deviate from
nature than any conscious effort.
conscious effort. It is said that
philosophers have in their hands the making of
the next age; but at least poets and other
artists belong to the age they live in. In their
shady retreats they reflect upon the world the
light from on high, as I have seen an eclipse of
the sun exquisitely pictured on the ground,
while the crowds in Hyde Park were painfully
looking for it in the heavens with darkened
glasses. Through the leaves of the trees the
sun shot down his image in myriads of balls of
light that danced on the path below; and as his
form was altered in the sky, the globes of light
underfoot changed also their aspect, waning
70
The Gay Science.
III.
CHAPTER into crescents, and the crescents into sickles, and
the sickles into nothingness, until once again as
he recovered his beams the sickles reappeared,
and grew on the gravel walk into crescents, and
the crescents into perfect orbs.
There were
myriads of eclipses on the ground for the one
that was passing in the sky.
On the right
Every man lauds his own pursuit. He who
of praising
the moral is deep in helminthology, or the science of
worms, will tell us that it is the most interest-
ing and useful of studies. But I can scarcely
imagine that when putting in a word for a
science of human nature, and for criticism as
part of it, and when claiming for that science the
place of honour, I am fairly open to the charge
of yielding to private partiality. At all events, in
mitigation of such a charge, let it be remem-
bered that man too has the credit of being a
worm, and that he may be entitled to some of
the regard of science, were it only as belonging
to the subject of helminthology. We may give
up any claims which the science of human nature
has to precedence over all the other knowledges,
if we can get it recognised in popular opinion
as a science at all, were it but as a science of
And for criticism, as a part of the
science of human nature, it may be remembered
that Sir Walter Scott was pleased to describe the
critics as caterpillars, and that, therefore, they
Summary may have a special claim to be regarded in this
marvellously popular science of worms. Or if
worms.
of the argu-
ment.
The Despair of a Science.
71
III.
this way of putting the case may seem to be CHAPTER
wanting in seriousness, then in all seriousness,
let me insist that the despair of the moral
sciences which now prevails, is founded on mis-
take; that the neglect of them gives a hollowness
to our literature, and that all criticism which
does not either achieve science, or definitely
reach towards it, is mere mirage. As the apostle
declared of himself, that though he could speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, and
had not charity, he was become as sounding
brass, or a tinkling cymbal; so we may say
of
the critic, that though he have all faith, so that
he can remove mountains, and have not science,
he is nothing. There are men like Iago, who
think that they are nothing if not critical, but
the critic is nothing if not scientific.
Of the following attempt I am not able to aim of the
think so bravely as to challenge for it the work.
honours of a science. Any one, indeed, who will
read this volume through, will see that it is a
fight for the first principles and grounds of the Not a
science. I put my work forward, not as a a plea for
.
science, but as a plea for one, and as a rude map map of its
of what its leading lines should be. Even if it
should fail here, however, it may be at least as
useful as the unlucky ship that grounded at the
battle of Aboukir, and did for a waymark to
them that followed. I have the greater confi-
dence, however, in laying the present theory
before the reader, inasmuch as glimpses and
present
a
science, but
leading
lines,
72
The Gay Science.
III.
CHAPTER tokens of it are found in the pages of many of
the best writers; and I believe that it will thus
stand the test given by Leibnitz to ascertain the
soundness of any body of thought that it should
gather into one united household, not by heaping
and jumbling together, but by reconciling,
proving to be kindred, and causing to embrace
opinions the most widely sundered and appa-
rently the most hostile.
THE CORNER STONE.
X
CHAPTER IV.
THE CORNER STONE.
IV.
prove a
truism.
HOUGH foundation stones are laid CHAPTER
with silver trowels and gilded plum-
mets, amid music and banner, feast- Object of
this chapter
ing and holiday, in the present chapter, which
has to do with the basis of the Gay Science, there
will be found nothing of a gala. It embodies
the dull hard labour of laying down truisms-
heavy blocks which are not to be handled in
sport, but which it is essential that we should
in the outset fix in their places. If I seem to
labour at trifles, I must ask for some indulgence;
because, although, when fairly stated, the main
doctrine of this chapter will forthwith pass
for a
truism, in the meantime it is not acknowledged
even as a truth. What is here maintained to be
the only safe foundation of the science of criti-
cism, however obvious it may appear to be, has
never yet been fully accepted as such, and has
never yet been built upon. There are some
a
176
The Gay Science.
IV.
a
require
tion.
CHAPTER truisms which it may be necessary to hammer
out. Euclid felt the necessity of demonstrating
sometimes point by point, that two sides of a triangle are
demonstra- greater than the third, whereupon Zeno laughed
and said that every donkey knows it without
proof. The donkey will not go round two sides
of a field to get to his fodder if, peradventure,
he can go in a straight line. The object of this
chapter is to uphold the wisdom of the ass.
There is a straight line for criticism to take, and
criticism never has taken it, but always goes
round about.
A science of
criticism
there is
soinething
.
We may
A science of criticism, embracing poetry and
implies that the fine arts, is possible only on the supposition
that these arts all stand on common ground;
common to and that, however varied may be the methods
employed in them, their inner meaning and pur-
pose is the same. No critical canon has a wider
and more undoubting acceptance than that which
assumes the sisterhood of the arts.
ignore it in practice, or we may be at a loss to
explain the precise meaning of it; but the close
relationship of the muses is one of the oldest
traditions of literature, and one of the most
On the al- familiar lessons of our school-days. The family
tionship of likeness of the arts is so marked, that language
cannot choose but describe one in terms of
another. Terence, in one of his prologues (Phor-
mio), refers to the poets as musicians. “ Music,
says Dryden, “ is inarticulate poetry.” Thomas
Initted rela-
the arts,
The Corner Stone.
77
IV.
like that
been
as
Fuller has at least twice in his works, once (on CHAPTER
the Holy and Profane State) when speaking of
artists generally, and again in his Worthies),
when writing of Dr. Christopher Tye, defined
poetry as music in words, and music as poetry in
sounds. Other writers dwell on the similarity of
the poet and the limner. Simonides, among the
Greeks, is the author of the famous saying which
comes down to us through Plutarch, that poetry
is a speaking picture, and painting a mute poetry.
Horace, among the Latins, puts the same idea
into three words—ut pictura poesis. Whether The arts so
as expressed by the Greek or by the Latin poet, they have
the sense of the connection between poetry and be identiated
painting came to be so strong and over-mastering
in modern criticism, that at length men like
Darwin in England, and Marmontel in France,
learned to see in the similarity of the two arts, the
elements of a perfect definition of either; and
Gotthold Lessing, the first great critic of Ger-
many, had to write a work in which, taking the
representations of Laocoon in poetry and in
sculpture for an example, he proved elaborately
that after all there is a difference between the
arts, and that each has its proper limits. The
underlying unity of the arts is one of the com-
mon-places of criticism, which D'Alembert con-
centrated in one drop of ink, when, in the
preface to the French Encyclopædia, he com-
prised under the name of poesy all the fine arts,
adding, at the same time, that they might also
78
The Gay Science.
CHAPTER be included under the general name of painting.
IV.
Goethe has strikingly conveyed a like thought
in one of his verses which has been translated
by Carlyle-
As all nature's thousand changes
But one changeless God proclaim,
So in art's wide kingdom ranges
One sole meaning still the same.
Wherein
consists the
Two
answers to
this ques.
What is this one meaning, still the same, of
unity of art, which we hear so much and know so liitle ?
What is the bond of unity which knits poetry
and the fine arts together? What is the com-
mon ground upon which they rest ? What are
we to understand by the sisterhood of the muses ?
Whenever the philosopher has encountered these
questions, as the first step to a science of criti-
cism, he has come forward with one of two
answers. All attempts to rear such a science
tion usually
given, are based on the supposition either that poetry
and the fine arts have a common method, or
that they have a common theme. Either with
Aristotle it is supposed that they follow the one
method of imitation; or with men whose minds
are more Platonic, though Plato is not one of
them, it is supposed that they are the manifesta-
ន
tions of one great idea, which is usually said to
be the idea of the beautiful. All the accredited
systems of criticism therefore take their rise
either in theories of imitation or theories of the
And both beautiful. It is not difficult, however, to show
that both of the suppositions on which these
false,
The Corner Stone.
79
IV.
telian doc
art has a
, common
method,
systems rest are delusive, and that neither is CHAPTER
calculated to sustain the weight of a science.
Before we can arrive at the true foundation of
the science, it is necessary to clear the ground
from the silt and ruins of false systems which
encumber it.
We begin with the Aristotelian system, which The Aristo-
has obtained the widest acceptance, and which is trine that
the only one of great repute that now exists,
though it exists only in name. Aristotle attempted that of imi-
to build a science of criticism on the doctrine that tation.
poetry and the fine arts have a common method.
Poetry is an imitation, said the philosopher. Not
only are the drama, painting, and sculpture
imitative, but so is a poetical narration; so, too,
is music, and so is the dance. Imitation is the
grand achievement which gives to the arts their
form and prescribes their law. It is the mani-
fold ways and means of imitation that we are
to study, if we are to elevate criticism into a
science.
Although this theory is so narrow that the This the
science established on it took the form very of ancient
much of an inverted pyramid, it ruled the world
of letters till within a late period. It is the
corner stone of ancient criticism: it is the corner
stone of all modern criticism that takes its in-
spiration from the Renaissance. It was accepted
in the last century with undoubting faith as
axiom, and the most astonishing conclusions
were built upon it, as some divines draw the
corner stone
criticism.
80
The Gay Science.
IV.
CHAPTER most dreadful inferences from dogmas to which
they have learned to attach a disproportionate
And how value. Thus a troop of French critics worked
implicitly
accepted their way to the principle of la difficulté surmontée.
The chief excellence of imitation was said to
consist in its difficulty, and the more difficult it
became the greater was its merit. Hence the
pleasure of verse, because it throws difficulties in
the way of imitating speech. The English
critics, not to be behindhand, started off on like
vagaries. One of them showed conclusively
that since the pleasure of poetry is derived from
imitation, the pleasure is double when one poet
imitates another; that if that other has borrowed
;
from a third, then the pleasure becomes three-
fold; and that if it be the imitation of a simile,
which in itself includes a double imitation, then
again the pleasure is multiplied. Milton is, in
this respect, greater than Virgil, says the sapient
critic, for whereas the Roman poet imitated
Homer directly, the English one has the glory
not only of imitating him directly, but also of
imitating him at second or even at third hand,
through Virgil and others.
I do not give these illustrations of the theory
of imitation as proofs of its fallacy. It would
fare ill with most doctrines if they were to be
judged by the manner in which the unwary
have applied them. The illustrations I have
given are proofs only of the simplicity of faith
with which the theory of imitation came to be
a
a
The Corner Stone.
81
IV.
held its
it
>
accepted in the last century as if it were one of the CHAPTER
prime truths of religion, or one of the axioms of
reason, worthy of universal empire at all times,
in all places, under all circumstances. It was a
good thing of which the critics could not have How it
too much ; it was wisdom on which it was im- ground, and
possible to lay too great a stress. Gradually the how bard
theory wore itself out, and has fallen out of ac-
count. But it died hard, and held its ground so
lustily, that, even in our own time, critics whom
we should not reckon as belonging to the school
of the Renaissance, but to the more original
schools of Germany, have given their adhesion
to it. Jean Paul Richter adopted it vaguely as
the first principle of his introduction to Æsthetic,
while Coleridge says distinctly that imitation is
the universal principle of the fine arts, and that
it would be easy to apply it not merely to paint-
ing, but even to music.
The theory is as false as any can be which Falsehood of
the theory.
puts the part for the whole, and a small part
for a very large whole. Music, for example,
is not imitative. When Haydn stole the melody
to which he set the eighth commandment, the
force of musical imitation could no further go. If As shown
the same composer, in his finest oratorio, attempts
to reflect in sound the creation of light, and to
indicate by cadence the movements of the flexible
tiger; if Handel in descanting on the plagues of
Egypt gives us the buzz of insect life, and indi-
cates by the depths of his notes the depths of
in music
VOL. I.
G
82
The Gay Science.
IV.
CHAPTER the sea in which the hosts of Pharaoh were
drowned; or if Beethoven, in the most popular
of his symphonies, tries to give us the song of the
cuckoo, the lowing of herds, and the roar of the
storm, these imitations are over and above the
art, and are confessedly foreign to it. As music
is not imitative, so neither is narration. Words
represent or stand for, but cannot be said to
Limits of imitate ideas. Plays, pictures, and statues—in
the theory.
one word, the dramatic arts, are imitative; but to
say
that imitation is the universal principle of
the fine arts, is simply to reduce all art to the
canon of the drama.
Scaliger's It is impossible to get over the objection to the
objection to
theory of the Stagyrite, urged centuries ago by
the elder Scaliger. If poetry, he said, be imita-
tive in any sense which applies to every species
of it, then in the same sense also is prose imita-
tive; if the fine arts are imitative in any sense
which applies to all alike, in the very same sense
also are the useful arts imitative.* In point of
fact, Plato declared in so many words, by the
it unan-
swerable.
* I remember in my college
formation that the book I was
days hunting through half a dozen hunting for could have nothing
libraries for a mediæval book, to do with the fine arts, though
the title of which - Ars Simia it might have much to do with
Naturce - excited my curiosity. the black. I mention this as one
I expected to tind in it a middle more illustration of the fact that
age anticipation of Schelling's | if the fine arts are imitative,
Philosophy. My friend, Prow they are not peculiarly so. The
fessor Baynes, had been already same thing has been said of the
on this track, and with some useful arts; the same also of the
laughter exploded on me the in- black.
The Corner Stone.
83
IV.
mouth of the prophetess Diotima (in the Banquet), CHAPTER
that the exercise of every inventive art is poetry,
and that any inventor is a poet or maker; from
which it might appear that Bechamel and Farina,
as the creators of sauces and perfumes, or Bramah
and Arnott, as the inventors of locks and smoke-
less grates, take rank beside the bard who sang
the wrath of Achilles, and the sculptor who
chiselled that grandest statue of a woman, the
Venus of Milo. Thus the foundation of critical
science is laid in a definition which is not the
id
peculiar property of art. Coleridge himself, Coleridge's
without foreseeing the consequences of his ad- defence of it
unavailing
mission, and without drawing Scaliger's con-
clusion, went much further than Scaliger in the
view which he took of the nature of imitation as
applied to the fine arts. He declared that the
principle of imitation' lies at the root not
merely of the fine arts, but also of thought
itself. The power of comparison is essential to
consciousness--the very condition of its exist-
ence; we know nothing except through the
perception of contrariety and identity; we
cannot think without comparing; and so the
imitations of art, he said, are but the sublime
developments of an-aot--which is essential...to
the dimmest dawn of mind. It would be a
pity to ruffle the feathers of this wonderful
sug-
gestion, which took Coleridge's fancy because
it looked big ; but it may be enough to point out
that it yields with a charming simplicity all we
ܪ
a
G 2
84
The Gay Science.
IV.
CHAPTER need contend for. It allows that in the sense in
which imitation may be described as the universal
law of art, it may also be described as the uni-
versal law of thought itself, and therefore of
science, which is, in Coleridge's own language,
the opposite of art. In a word, it is not peculiar
to art, and is incapable of supplying the defini-
tion of it. Certainly it has never yet, in the
science of criticism, yielded a result of the slightest
value. For in truth, although imitation bulks so
large in Aristotle's definition of poetry, it sinks
into insignificance, and even passes out of sight,
in the body of his work. He makes nothing of
it; his followers less than nothing. Notwith-
standing Richter’s, notwithstanding Coleridge's
adhesion to it, the theory of imitation is now
utterly exploded.
The Aristotelian theory ruled absolute in
literature for two millenniums. No other
theory was put forward to take its place, as
The other the foundation of critical science, till within
which dis. the last hundred years or so. It satisfied the
placed the
critics of the Renaissance that is, the old
order of critics who based their thinking on
the settled ideas and methods.of classical
literature, and revelled in systems that were
little beyond grammar. There came a time, how-
ever, when the need of a deeper criticism began
to be felt. The old criticism that through the
Renaissance traced a descent from Aristotle, dealt
chiefly with the forms of art. A new criticism
Aristo-
telian.
جمعه
1.
.
The Corner Stone.
85
IV.
has a coin-
mon theme.
was demanded that should search into its sub-CHAPTER
stance. It arose in Germany. Not satisfied with
the old grammatical doctrine that the arts have Arose in
Germany.
a common form or method, the philosophical
critics of Germany tried to make out that they That art
have a common theme—a common substance,
and chiefly that this theme, this essence, is the
idea of the beautiful. It is always an idea. They
are not agreed as to what the idea is; but they
are nearly all agreed that it is the manifestation
of some one idea. I repeat from Goethe:
As all nature's thousand changes
But one changeless God proclaim,
So in art's wide kingdom ranges
One sole meaning still the same.
Much of what might be said on this subject Remarks on
must be reserved for the next chapter, in that part tion of art.
of it which has to do with the German school of
critics and their chief contribution to criticism.
In the meantime it may be enough to point out
that whereas innumerable attempts have been
made to analyze the grand idea of art which
is generally supposed to be the idea of the
beautiful, and out of this analysis to trace the
laws and the development of art, it cannot be
said that in following such a line of research
any real progress has been made. We cannot
point to a single work of authority on the subject.
In countless works that represent the thought That art is
of the last hundred years, we shall find refer- festation
ences to the one grand idea of art, the beautiful; beautiful.
of the
86
The Gay Science.
Iy.
a
CHAPTER but when we come to inquire what is the nature of
the beautiful, we can get no satisfactory answer,
and can hear only a clatter of tongues. It is for
this very reason that the theory of the beautiful,
as the common theme of art, subsists. If it
were less vague, it would be more opposed.
With all it's vagueness, however, two facts may
fatal to it.
be discovered which are fatal to it as a founda-
Two facts tion for the science of criticism. The first is the
more fatal, namely, that it does not cover the
whole ground of art. The worship and manifes-
tation of the beautiful is not, for example, the
province of comedy, and comedy is as much a
part of art as tragedy. The beautiful, most
distinctly, is one of the ideas on which art loves
to dwell ; but it is not an idea which inspires
every work of art. Moreover, on the other hand
(the second fact I have referred to), is it to be
supposed that to display beauty is to produce
a work of art ? La belle chose que la philosophie !
says M. Jourdain, not untruly; but are fine
systems of philosophy to be reckoned among
the fine arts ? Horace, long ago, in a verse
which has become proverbial, expressed the
truth about the position of beauty in art. Non
satis est pulchra esse poemata, he said: dulcia sunto.
It is not enough that a work of art be beautiful;
it must have more powerful charms.
Convinced that the idea of the beautiful is
festation of inadequate to cover the whole field of art, critics
have suggested other ideas as more ample in
That art is
the mani.
the true.
The Corner Stone.
87
IV.
the
their scope. It is said, for example, by some, CHAPTER
that art is the reflex of life-of life, not in its
fleeting forms, but in its hidden soul ; of facts,
therefore, which are eternal symbols, and of
truths which are fixed as the stars. It will be
found, however, that if we thus take the idea of
the true as the theme of art, and attempt to build
upon it a science of criticism, it is open to pre- Open to
cisely the same objections as there are to the idea objection.
of the beautiful when placed in a similar light.
Music is an art, but in what sense are we to say
that its theme is eternal truth, or that Mendels-
sohn's concerto in D minor is a reflex of the ab-
solute idea ? In what sense are the arabesques of
the Alhambra eternal truths or reflections of the
eternal essence? The idea of the true is not
the theme of all art, and it is not peculiar to
works of art to take the true for a theme. Still
the same objections apply to yet another defini-
tion of the artistic theme. “ Art,” says Sir Also that
Edward Lytton finely, “is the effort of man to mani-
express the ideas which nature suggests to him festation of
of a power above nature, whether that power be
within the recesses of his own being, or in the
Great First Cause, of which nature, like himself,
is but the effect.” This is a happy generalisa-
tion which goes a great way; but it is surely
not enough to say that it is the object of art to
exhibit ideas of power. Ideas of power,
ideas
of truth, ideas of beauty—it will not do to bind
art as a whole, or poetry as a part of it, to the
a
art is the
88
The Gay Science.
IV.
CHAPTER service of any one of these groups. There is no
one word relating to things known that in its
wide embrace can take in the theme of all art,
and if it could comprise the theme of all art, it
The subject would not be the property of art alone. The
subject of art is all that can interest man; but
all that can interest man is not the monopoly
of art.
of art is all
that can
interest
man.
Wherein
then does
If the unity of the arts does not lie in the
the unity possession either of a common method which
they pursue, or of a common theme which they
set forth, wherein does it consist ? Manifestly
the character of an art is determined by its
object; and though the critics have made no use
of the fact, yet it is a fact which they admit
with very few exceptions, that poetry and the
fine arts are endowed with a common purpose.
Even if poetry and the arts could boast of a
common method and a common theme, still
every question of method and the choice of
theme must be subordinate to the end in view.
The end determines the means, and must there-
fore be the principal point of inquiry. If, then,
we inquire what is the end of poetry and the
poetical arts, we shall find among critics of all
countries and all ages a singular unanimity of
opinion-a unanimity which is all the more
remarkable, when we discover that, admitting
the fact with scarcely a dissentient voice, they
have never turned it to account—they have
of the arts
reside?
Their
common
purpose.
This com-
mon pur.
pose an
admitted
fact.
The Corner Stone.
89
IV.
ܪ
a
practically ignored it. It is admitted that the im- CHAPTER
mediate end of art is to give pleasure. Whatever
we do has happiness for its last end; but with art
it is the first as well as the last. We need not
now halt to investigate the nature of this hap-
piness which poetry aims at, whether it is refined
or the reverse, whether it is of a particular kind
or of all kinds ; it is enough to insist on the
broad fact that for more than two thousand
years
pleasure of some sort has been almost univer-
sally admitted to be the goal of art. The
dreamer and the thinker, the singer and the
sayer, at war on many another point, are here
at one. It is the pleasure of a lie, says Plato;
it is that of a truth, says Aristotle; but neither
has
any
doubt that whatever other aims art may
have in view, pleasure is the main-the imme-
diate object.
Here, however, care must be taken that the Some expla-
reader is not misled by a word.
Word and this doc-
thing, pleasure is in very bad odour ; moralists trine of
pleasure.
always take care to hold it cheap; critics are
ashamed of it; and we are all apt to misunder-
stand it, resting too easily on the surface view
of it as mere amusement. There is in pleasure
so little of conscious thought, and in pain so
much, that it is natural for all who pride them-
selves on the possession of thought to make
light of pleasure. It is possible, however, in
magnifying the worth of conscious thought, to
underrate the worth of unconscious life. Now
nation of
90
The Gay Science
IV.
Drawn
from the
between
art and
science,
CHAPTER art is a force that operates unconsciously on
life. It is not a doctrine; it is not science.
There is knowledge in it, but it reaches to
something beyond knowledge. That something
beyond science, beyond knowledge, to which
art reaches, it is difficult to express in one word.
The nearest word is that which the world for
thirty centuries past has been using, and which
sky-high thinkers now-a-days are afraid to
touch-namely, pleasure. There is no doubt
about its inadequacy, but where is there another
word that expresses half as much ? If art be
the opposite of science, the end of art must
antithesis be antithetical to the end of science. But the
end of science is knowledge. What then is
its antithesis--the end of art ? Shall we say
ignorance? We cannot say that it is ignorance,
because that is a pure negation. But there is no
objection to our saying-life ignorant of itself,
unconscious life, pleasure. I do not give this
explanation as sufficient—it is very insufficient-
-
but as indicating a point of view from which it
will be seen that the establishment of pleasure
as the end of art may involve larger issues, and
convey a larger meaning than is commonly sup-
See Chapter posed. What that larger meaning is may in due
course be shown. In the ninth chapter of this
work I attempt to state it, and stating it to give
a remodelled definition of art. In the mean-
time, one fails to see how, by any of the new-
fangled expressions of German philosophy, we
ix.
The Corner Stone.
91
IV.
sary infer-
ence as to
nature
,
can improve upon the plain-spoken wisdom of CHAPTER
the ancient maxims—that science is for know-
ledge, and that art is for pleasure.
But if this be granted, and it is all but univer-
sally granted, it entails the inevitable inference
that criticism is the science of the laws and The necesa
conditions under which pleasure is produced.
If poetry, if art, exists in and for pleasure, then the mate me
upon this rock, and upon this alone, is it pos.
sible to build a science of criticism. Criticism,
however, is built anywhere but upon the rock.
While the arts have almost invariably been
regarded as arts of pleasure, criticism has never
yet been treated as the science of pleasure.
Like the Israelites in the desert, who after con- But how
fessing the true faith went forthwith and fell the critics
down to a molten image, the critics no sooner anide from
admitted that the end of art is pleasure, than inference.
they began to treat it as nought. Instead of
taking a straight line, like the venerable ass
which was praised by the Eleatic philosopher,
they went off zigzag, to right, to left, in every one and all.
imaginable direction but that which lay before
them. Art is for pleasure said the Greeks; but Greeks.
it is the pleasure of imitation, and therefore all
that criticism has to do is to study the ways of
imitation. So they bounced off to the left.
Art is for pleasure said the Germans; but it is And Ger-
the pleasure of the beautiful, and therefore all
that criticism has to do is to comprehend the
beautiful. So they bounced off to the right. In
have turued
that
mans.
92
The Gay Science.
IV.
Why they
thus turned
the straight has been owing
road.
CHAPTER the name of common sense, let me ask, why are
we not to take the straight line? Why is it
that, having set up pleasure as the first principle
of art, we are immediately to knock it down and
go
in search of other and lesser principles ?
Why does not the critic take the one plain path
before him, proceeding instantly to inquire into
the nature of pleasure, its laws, its conditions,
its requirements, its causes, its effects, its whole
history?
This turning aside of criticism from the
aside from straight road that lay before it into by-paths
owing partly to the moral con-
tempt of pleasure, but chiefly to the intellec-
tual difficulty of any inquest into the nature
of enjoyment, a difficulty so great, that since
the time of Plato and Aristotle it has never
been seriously. faced until in our own day
Sir William Hamilton undertook to grapple
with it. Whenever I have insisted with my
friends on this point, as to the necessity of recog-
nising criticism as the science of pleasure, the
invariable rejoinder has been that there is no use
in attempting such a science, because the nature
of pleasure eludes our scrutiny, and there is no
accounting for tastes. But the rejoinder is irre-
levant. All science is difficult at first, and well-
nigh hopeless ; and if tastes differ, that is no
reason why we should refuse to regard them as
beyond the pale of law, but a very strong reason
why we should seek to ascertain the limits of
The Corner Stone.
93
IV.
9
remains
doctrine of
difference, and how far pleasure which is general CHAPTER
may be discounted by individual caprice. It is
.
not for us to parley about the difficulties of
search, or the usefulness of its results. Chemistry
was at one time a difficult study, and seemed to
be a useless one. Hard or easy, useful or use-
less that is not the question. The question is
simply this : If there is such a thing as criticism
at all, what is its object? what is its definition?
and how do you escape from the truism that if
art be the minister, criticism must be the science
of pleasure ?
Whatever be the cause of the reluctance to The fact
accept this truism, the fact remains that the that the
doctrine of pleasure has not hitherto been put pleasure is
in its right place as the corner stone of scientific not allowed
criticism, entitling it to be named the science of place in
pleasure, the Joy Science, the Gay Science; and I
set apart the next chapter to explain and to en-
force a principle which is of the last importance,
and which, but for the backwardness of criticism,
would now pass for an axiom, the most obvious
,
of old saws.
If art be the minister, criticism
must be the science of pleasure, is so obvious a
truth, that since in the history of literature and
art the inference has never been drawn (except
once in a faint way, to be mentioned by and by),
a doubt may arise in some minds as to the extent
to which the production of pleasure has been
admitted in criticism as the first principle of art.
It is worth while, therefore, to begin this dis- proceed to
criticism.
و
And we
94
The Gay Science.
IV.
of what
CHAPTER cussion by setting the authorities in array, and
showing what in every school of criticism is
the proof
regarded as the relation of art to pleasure. I
that place
should be proceed, accordingly, to take a rapid survey
the chief schools of criticism that have ruled in
the republic of letters, with express reference to
their opinion of pleasure and the end of art.
of
THE AGREEMENT OF THE CRITICS.
CHAPTER V.
THE AGREEMENT OF THE CRITICS.
V.
難
​PROPOSE in this chapter to show CHAPTER
that the end of art has in all the great
schools of criticism been regarded as Survey of
the same. Speaking roundly, there are but two of criticism.
great systems of criticism. The one may be
styled indifferently the classical system, or the
system of the Renaissance. It belongs to ancient
thought, and to the modern revival of classicism
and it chiefly concerns itself with the gram-
matical forms of art. The other is more dis-
tinctly modern; it first made way in Germany, Their
and, philosophical in tone, chiefly concerns itself
with the substantial ideas of art. But these
divided systems may be subdivided, and perhaps
the plainest method of arranging the critical
opinions of past ages is to take them by countries.
It will be convenient to glance in succession at
the critical schools of Greece, Italy, Spain, France,
Germany, and England. And from this
survey,
divisions.
VOL. I.
H
98
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER it will be seen that if criticism has never yet been
recognised as the science of pleasure, poetry and
art have always been accepted as arts of pleasure.
In our old Anglo-Saxon poetry, the harp is de-
scribed as “ the wood of pleasure,” and that is
"
the universal conception of art. There may
in
the different schools be differences in the manner
to the end of describing the end of art; but there is none
as to the essence of the thing described.
All the
schools
teach one
as
of art.
The Greek
school of
criticism,
I. Homer, Plato, and Aristotle are the leaders
of Greek thought, and their word may be taken
for what constitutes the Greek idea of the end of
poetry. The uppermost thought in Homer's
mind, when he speaks of Phemius and Demo-
docus, is that their duty is to delight, to charm, to
soothe. When the strain of the bard makes
Ulysses weep, it is hushed, because its object is
defeated, and it is desired that all should rejoice
together. Wherever the minstrel is referred to,
his chief business is described in the Greek verb
to delight. What the great poet of Greece thus
indicated, the great philosophers expressed in
As repre- logical form. That pleasure is the end of poetry,
Plato
, and is the pervading idea of Aristotle's treatise on
accepted
the subject. To Plato's view I have already more
than once referred. He excluded the poets from
his republic for this, as a chief reason, that poetry
has pleasure for its leading aim. In another
of his works he defines the pleasure, which
poetry aims at, to be that which a man of virtue
sented by
Aristotle
the one
doctrine.
а.
The Agreement of the Critics.
99
V.
reasoning
may feel; and he may therefore seem to be in- CHAPTER
consistent in his excluding the artist, who would
create such enjoyment, from his model fold. Plato Plato's
is not always consistent, and from his manner of about
dialogue it is often difficult to find out whether pleasure.
any given opinion is really his own or is only
put forward to make play; but in this case the
inconsistency may be explained by reference to
another dialogue (Philebus), in which he has an
argument to show that the gods feel neither
pleasure nor pain, and that both are unseemly.
The argument is, that because pleasure is a be-
coming--that is, a state not of being, but of
going to be it is unbecoming. He starts with
the Cyrenaic definition of pleasure as a state not
of being, but of change, and he argues that the
gods are unchangeable, therefore not capable of
pleasure. Pleasure which is a becoming, is
unbecoming to their nature; and man seeking
pleasure seeks that which is unseemly and un-
godlike. Think of this argument what we will,
the very fact of its being urged against poetry
in this way, brings into a very strong light the
conviction of Plato as to the meaning of classical
art. And what was Plato's, what was Aristotle's
view of the object of art, we find consistently
maintained in Greek literature while it pre-
served any vitality. We find it in Dionysius of
Halicarnassus; still later we find it in Plutarch.
Although every school of criticism has main-
tained substantially the same doctrine, each has
H 2
100
The Gay Science.
V.
nent consi-
criticism.
Is the
a
CHAPTER its own way of looking at it, and it is interesting
to note how from time to time the expression of
The promi- the doctrine varies. In the Greek mind the
deration in question that most frequently arose in connection
with the pleasure of art was this, Is it a true or
a false pleasure? It is the question which every
child asks when first the productions of artma
tale or a picture—come under his notice. But is
it true? And so of the childlike man; the first
movement of criticism within him concerns the
reality of the source whence his pleasure is
derived. The Greeks especially raised this
pleasure of
dit true ? question as to the truth of art. Is the pleasure
?
which it affords, the pleasure of a truth or that
of a lie ? The question naturally arose from
their critical point of view, which led them to
look for the definition of art in its form. They
defined art as an imitation, which is but a nar-
rower name for fiction. It will be found, indeed,
throughout the history of criticism, that so long
as it started from the Greek point of view,
followed the Greek method, and accepted the
Greek definition of art, that this question as to
the truth of fiction was a constant trouble. And
when the Greek raised his doubt as to the truth
of art, let it be remembered that he had in his
mind something very different from what we
should now be thinking of were we to question
the truthfulness of this or that particular work
of art. A work of art may be perfectly true in
our sense of the word, that is to say, drawn to
The Agreement of the Critics.
101
V.
the life, but it cannot escape from the Greek CHAPTER
charge that it is fiction.
The first suggestion of the Greek doubt, as to Treatment
the reality of the foundation of pleasure in art, question.
emerges in the shape of a story told about Solon, Story of
which does not consort well with dates, but which
as a story that sprung up among the Greeks,
has its meaning. It is said that when Thespis
came to Athens with his strolling stage, and drew
great crowds to his plays, Solon, then an old man,
asked him if he was not ashamed to tell so many
lies before the people, and striking his staff on
the ground, growled out that if lies are allowed
to enter into a nation's pleasures, they will,
ere long, enter into its business. Plutarch, who
relates this anecdote, gives us in another of his
works the saying of the sophist Gorgias in The saying
defence of what seemed to be the deceitfulness
of the pleasure which art aims at. Gorgias said
that tragedy is a cheat, in which he who does the
cheat is more honest than he who does it not,
and he who accepts the cheat is wiser than be
who refuses it. Many of the Greeks accepted
the cheat so simply that, for example, they
accused Euripides of impiety for putting impiety
into the mouth of one of his dramatic personages.
And not a few of their painters undertook to How the
cheat with the utmost frankness. Apelles had to deceive.
the glory of painting a horse so that another
horse neighed to the picture. Zeuxis suffered a
grievous disappointment when, having painted
of the
Solon,
of Gorgias.
artists tried
102
The Gay Science.
V.
So far there
mind.
CHAPTER a boy carrying grapes, the birds came to peck at
the fruit but were not alarmed at the apparition
of the boy. There are other stories of the same
kind, as that of the painted curtain, and yet
again that of the sculptor Pygmalion, who
became enamoured of the feminine statue
chiselled by himself.
Let it be observed that in the working of the
is nothing
peculiar in Greek mind so far there is no marked pecu-
of the Greek liarity. In all young art there is the tendency
to realism ; in nearly all young criticism there is
a difficulty of deciding between the truth of
imitation and the truth of reality. When Bruce,
the African traveller, gave the picture of a fish
to one of the Moors, the latter saw in it not a
painting but a reality, and, after a moment of
surprise, asked : “If this fish at the last day
should rise against you and say: Thou hast
given me a body, but not a living soul,-
what should you reply ?"
In keeping with
this tone of mind, the Saracens who built
the Alhambra, and in it the fountain of the
lions, deemed it advisable to inscribe on the
basin of the fountain : “Oh thou who beholdest
these lions, fear not. Life is wanting to enable
them to show their fury.” In Italian art, not
only in its earlier stages, but even in its period
of perfect development, we find the same pheno-
menon. I might quote whole pages
from Vasari
to show how an artist and a critic of the Cinque
Cento thought of art. He says that one of
a
The Agreement of the Critics.
103
V.
love of illu-
sion showed
itself for
Raphael's Madonnas seems in the head, the CHAPTER
hands, and the feet to be of living flesh rather
than a thing of colour. He says that the instru-
ments, in a picture of St. Cecilia, lie scattered
around her, and do not seem to be painted, but
to be the real objects. He says of Raphael's
pictures generally that they are scarcely to be
called pictures, but rather the reality, for the
flesh trembles, the breathing is visible, the
pulses beat, and life is in its utmost force
through all his works.
In Italian art also it may be well to note a How the
tendency to confound fact and fiction, which
may explain something of the same tendency example in
as it showed itself among the Greeks.
Let Italian art.
me ask-What is the meaning of the two Domi-
nicans who are introduced kneeling in the pic-
ture of the Transfiguration ? Many another
picture might be mentioned in which a similar
treatment is adopted, and especially by the
painters before Raphael, as Dominic Ghirlan-
dajo, and men of that stamp. But everybody
knows the crowning work of Raphael, and that,
therefore, may serve best for an illustration.
What are we to make of the two Dominicans ?
If, instead of the two bald-pated, black-robed
monks, the artist had placed on the Mount of
Transfiguration a couple of wild bulls feeding or
fighting, they would puzzle one less than his
two monks. Why is their monastic garb in-
truded among the majestic foldings of celestial
104
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER draperies? The Saviour went up to the mount
with Peter, James, and John, alone; he was trans-
figured before them; he appeared in company
.;
with Moses and Elias; he charged the disciples
that they should tell it unto none till the Son
of Man were risen from the dead. And yet
Raphael introduces on the scene two modern
monks to share the vision ! Not only is the
Gospel narrative thus violated; there is a still
stranger anomaly. The three disciples are lying
down, blinded with the light and bewildered in
their minds. The Dominicans are kneeling up-
right and looking on. Raphael has deliberately
introduced into his picture—the spectator. He
has torn aside the veil which separates art from
nature--the ideal from the real; and we, even
we, the living men and the real world, are
absorbed into the picture and become part of
it, so that if that be indeed a picture and a
dream, then are we also pictures and dreams;
and if we are indeed certainties and realities,
then also is that wondrous scene a certainty and
a reality. The old Geronimite in the Escurial
said to Wilkie, as he stood in the Refectory
gazing on Titian's picture of the Last Supper :
'I have sat daily in sight of that picture
for now
now nearly threescore years; during
that time my companions have dropped off,
one after another. More than one generation
has passed away, and there the figures in the
picture have remained unchanged. I look at
Wilkie's
story of the
Geronimite. for
The Agreement of the Critics.
105
V.
illustration
of illusion in
of art.
them till I sometimes think that they are the CHAPTER
realities, and we but the shadows." And that is
the mood of mind which the introduction into a
picture of the modern spectator in modern cos-
tume is calculated to awaken. The Italians,
when, on the canvas of Ghirlandajo, they
looked on the well-known figures of Ginevra
di Benci and her maidens, as attendants in an
interview between Elizabeth and the Virgin
Mary, found themselves projected into the
picture and made a part of it.
Now, this method of confounding fact and fic- Further
tion, in order that fiction may appear to rise to of the love
the assurance of fact, was not peculiarly Italian, Greece and
but existed in full force among the Greeks. It other forms
was an essential feature of their drama. The
most marked characteristic of the Greek drama
is the presence of the chorus. The chorus are
always present,--watching events, talking to
the actors, talking to the audience, talking to
themselves,-all through the play, indeed, pour-
ing forth a continual stream of musical chatter.
And what are the chorus ? The only intelligible
explanation which has been given is that
they represent the spectator. The spectator is
introduced into the play and made to take part
in it. What the Greeks thus did artistically
on their stage, we moderns have also sometimes
done inartistically and unintentionally, but still
to the same effect. We have had the audience
seated on the stage, and sometimes, in the most
106
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER ludicrous manner, taking part in the perform-
ance. When Garrick was playing Lear in
Dublin to the Cordelia of Mrs. Woffington, an
Irish gentleman who was present actually ad-
vanced, put his arm round the lady's waist, and
thus held her while she replied to the reproaches
of the old king. The stage in the last century
was sometimes so beset with the audience, that
Juliet has been seen, says Tate Wilkinson, lying
all solitary in the tomb of the Capulets with a
couple of hundred of the audience about her.
We should now contemplate such a practice
with horror, as utterly destructive of stage
illusion; and yet we must remember that it
had its illusive aspect also, by confounding the
dream that appeared on the stage with the
familiar realities of life.
From all this, however, it follows that if the
Greeks made a confusion between fact and
fiction, art and nature, they were not peculiar
in so doing. What is peculiar to them is this,
the Greeks. that they gave a critical character to their doubt
as to the limits of truth in art. It was fairly rea-
soned. If it showed itself sometimes as a childish
superstition, sometimes as the mere blindness of
a prosaic temper, and sometimes as an enjoyment
of silly illusions, it also at times bore a higher
character and rose to the level of criticism. The
Greeks were the first to raise this subject of the
truth of art into an important critical question
which they transmitted to after times.
What is
peculiar to
The Agreement of the Critics.
107
V.
Plato's
as to the
This is not the place to enter into a dis- CHAPTER
cussion whether they were right or wrong,
and whether fiction be or be not falsehood. manner of
That discussion will be more fitly handled when Stitichly
we come to examine the ethics of art. Here the doubt
we need only record and confront the fact that truth of
pleasure.
the objection to the pleasure of art which most
frequently puzzled the Greek thinkers, was that
it appeared to be mixed up with lies. Plato, as I
have already said, exhausted his dialectical skill
in showing the untruthfulness of art. He con-
demned it as an imitation at third hand. He
meant, for example, that a flower in the field is
but the shadow of an idea in the mind of God;
that the idea in God's mind is the real thing;
that the blossom in the meadow is but a poor
image of it; and that when a painter gives us a
copy of that copy, the picture stands third from
the divine original, and is, therefore, a wretched
falsehood. Plato's statement as to the truth of
art is thus grounded on his theory of ideas, and
when that theory goes, one would imagine that
the statement should go also. It is a curious The doubt
proof of the vitality of strong assertion, that his
opinion (but it would be more correct to say the the reasou-
opinion to which he gave currency) abides with which it
all the force which his name can give to it, while
the theory of ideas from which it sprung and
derived plausibility, has long since gone to the
limbo. It is incredible that mankind should
find enduring pleasure in a lie. There cannot
survives
apart from
108
The Gay Science.
V.
Aristotle's
statement
of the
counter
doctrine.
upon this
CHAPTER be a more monstrous libel against the human
race than to say that in the artistic search for
pleasure, we have reality and all that is most
gracious in it to choose from; that we look from
earth to heaven and try all ways which the in-
finite beneficence of nature has provided; that
nevertheless we set our joy on a system of lies;
and that so far the masterpieces of art are but
tokens of a fallen nature, the signs of sickness
and the harbinger of doom.
As Plato took one side of the question,
Aristotle took the other, and in the writings
of the latter we have the final conclusion and
the abiding belief of the Greek mind
subject of the truth of art. The view which he
took was concentrated in the saying that poetry
To be fonnd is more philosophical than history, because it
looks more to general and less to particular
his Poetics. facts. We should now express the same thing
in the statement that whereas history is fact,
poetry is truth. Aristotle does not set him-
self formally to answer Plato, but throughout
his writings we find him solving Plato's riddles,
undoing Plato's arguments, and rebutting Plato's
objections. Many of his most famous say-
ings are got by recoil from Plato. Thus his
masterly definition of tragedy, which has never
been improved upon, and which generation after
generation of critics have been content to repeat
like a text of Scripture, is a rebound from Plato.
And the same is to be said very nearly of Aris-
in the ninth
chapter of
a
The Agreement of the Critics.
109
V.
a
.
.
totle's doctrine concerning the truth of art. It CHAPTER
is so clear and so complete that it has become a
common-place of criticism. It asserted for the
Greeks, in the distinctest terms, the truthfulness
of art; it showed wherein that truthfulness con-
sists; and, as far as criticism was concerned, it
;
at once and for ever disposed of the notion that
art is a lie. Greeks like Gorgias could see
vaguely that if art be a cheat, it may, neverthe-
less, be justifiable, as we should justify a feint or
other stratagem in war. It was reserved for
Aristotle to put the defence of art on the right
ground—to deny that it is a cheat at all—and to
claim for it a truthfulness deeper than that of
history.
This, then, is one of the earliest lessons which the lesson
the student of art has to learn. The first lesson criticism.
of all is that art is for pleasure; the second is
that the pleasure of art stands in no sort of
opposition to truth. We in England have
especial reason to bear this in mind, for we are
most familiar with the doctrine that art is for
pleasure, as it has been put by Coleridge; and it How it has
is not unlikely that some of the repugnance verted by
which the doctrine meets in minds of a certain Coleridge.
order may be due to his ragged analysis and
awkward statement. He rather prided himself
on his anatomy of thought and expression, but
he hardly ever made a clean dissection. Mark
what he says in this case. He says that the
true opposite of poetry is not prose, but science,
of Greek
been per
110
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER and that whereas it is the proper and immediate
object of science to discover truth, it is the
proper and immediate object of poetry to com-
municate pleasure. This is not right. Coleridge
has defined science by reference to the external
object with which it is engaged; but he has
defined poetry by reference to the mental state
which it produces. There is no comparison
between the two. If he is to run the contrast
fairiy, he ought to deal with both alike, and to
state either what is the outward object pursued
by each, or what is the inward state produced
by each.
He would then find that, so far
as the subject matter is concerned, there is no
essential difference between poetry and science,
it being false to say that the one possesses more
of truth than the other; and he would define the
difference between the two by the mental states
which they severally produce the immediate
object of science being science or knowledge,
while that of poetry is pleasure. To say that
the object of art is pleasure in contrast to know-
ledge, is quite different from saying that it
is pleasure in contrast to truth. Science gives
us truth without reference to pleasure, but
immediately and chiefly for the sake of know-
ledge; poetry gives us truth without reference
to knowledge, but immediately and mainly for
the sake of pleasure. By thus getting rid of the
contrast between truth and pleasure, which
Coleridge has unguardedly allowed, a difficulty
The true
doctrine.
a
The Agreement of the Critics.
111
V.
is smoothed away from the doctrine that the end CHAPTER
of art is pleasure, and that of criticism the analysis
of pleasure. His statement has an air of extra-
ordinary precision about it that might wile the
unwary into a ditch. All his precision goes to
misrepresent the pure Greek doctrine.
school of
criticism.
>
II. From Greece we pass over into Italy, as The Italian
the stepping-stone to modern Europe; and it
matters not whether we speak of old pagan
Italy, whose critical faith was most brightly
expressed in the crisp verses of Horace ; or of
christianised Italy, which at the revival of
letters stood forward as the earliest school both
of art and of criticism in modern Europe.
Everybody will remember how Horace describes
a poem as fashioned for pleasure, and failing
thereof, as a thing of nought, that belies itself,
like music that jars on the ear, like a scent
that is noisome, like Sardinian honey bitter
with the taste of poppy. Among the great
.
critics of the moderns, Cæsar Scaliger stands As repre-
first in point of time, and he takes the same
view as the old Greek philosophers. After Castelvetro
,
denying the Aristotelian doctrine of imitation as others.
the one method of art, he says that poetry is a
delightful discipline by which the heart is edu-
cated through right reason to happiness--happi-
ness being with him another name for perfect
action. Next to Scaliger stands another Italian
critic, Castelvetro, who wrote a commentary on
sented by
Scaliger,
,
, and
112
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER Aristotle's Poetics, in which he fearlessly opposed
the master, when he thought it right to do so.
He, too, saw in enjoyment the end of poetry, and
maintained the doctrine so uncompromisingly,
that some of the French critics long afterwards
took him to task for it. But Scaliger and
Castelvetro were a sort of antiquarians, and
might be said to lean too much towards ancient
literature. Tasso was more distinctly a modern,
and has left us, with his poems, a number of
critical discourses. In these he states unflinch-
ingly that delight is the immediate end of
poetry, and the whole of the Italian school of
criticism goes with him. The doctrine is firmly
stated in Vida's famous poem.
It is less interesting, however, to know that
peculiar in
their view the Italians, as well as the old Romans, main-
tained the universal doctrine concerning art
than to ascertain with what limitations they
maintained it. Here we come to another
great lesson. If the first of all lessons in
art is that art is for pleasure, and the second
is that this pleasure has nothing to do
with falsehood, the third is that art is not
to be considered as in any sense opposed to
utility. The ancient Romans and the modern
Italians were never much troubled with what
vexed the too speculative Greeks--the seeming
untruthfulness of art pleasure; their more prac-
tical genius brooded over its seeming careless-
ness of profit. Scaliger describes the Italians of
.
What is
of art.
The Agreement of the Critics.
113
V.
his day as bent on gain; and in most of their CHAPTER
statements of the end of art they take heed to
link together the two ideas of pleasure and pro-
fit; pleasure taking the precedence, no doubt;
but pleasure always with profit. In the Latin
language, indeed, the verb to please or delight
signifies at the same time to help or be of use,
and the two ideas became inseparable in all
criticism traced back to Rome. See how stur-
dily Horace insists upon the twin thoughts :
Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poeta,
Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitæ.
And again, how in one of his neatest and best-
known phrases, he steadily keeps in view the
need of mingling wisdom with pleasure :
Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci,
Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo.
Scaliger among the moderns faithfully reflects that the
this Roman view, and never refers to the art must be
pleasure of
pleasure for which and in which art lives, profitable.
without limiting the idea of pleasure by asso-
ciating it with moral discipline and gain.
Castelvetro leant more to the Greek view, and
put all thought of profit as connected with art How Tassu
puzzled
in a secondary position. Tasso, however, per- over the
fectly caught the spirit of the Latin doctrine ; dorthy of
and as he puzzled over the Horatian line in particular
which poets are said to set their hearts either on
doing good, or on giving pleasure, he asked him-
self whether it is possible that art should have
two ends, the one of pleasure, and the other of
.
doctrine
VOL. I.
I
114
The Gay Science.
V.
How the
Italian doc-
CHAPTER profit? He came to the conclusion that art
can have only one end in view—pleasure; but
that this pleasure must be profitable. The
strain of criticism thus originated flows through
all modern literature that owns to Italian influ-
ence. In one form or another, we come upon
it
in Spanish, in French, in German writers; and
we find it very rife in England during those
Elizabethan days when our literature was most
open to Italian teaching. Philip Sidney, for
example, says that the end of poesy is to teach
and delight; while in another passage he adds
that to delight “is all the goodfellow poet seems
to promise."
In these Horatian, in these Italian maxims,
trine is to the true wheat has to be threshed from a great
be under- deal of straw, and winnowed from a good deal
of chaff. Deep at the root of them lies the
conviction which takes possession of every
thoughtful mind, that nothing in this world
exists for itself, can in the long run be an
end to itself, can have an ultimate end in its
Wherein it own good pleasure. In pursuing this line of
thought, however, a man soon finds that he is
apt to argue in a circle-such a circle as one of
our subtlest poets suggests in saying
Not well he deems who deems the rose
Is for the roseberry, nor knows
The roseberry is for the rose.
So, therefore, when we hear men like Victor
Hugo crying aloud in our day that the end of
goes too far.
Sydney
Dobeli.
The Agreement of the Critics.
115
V.
art is not art, but the cause of humanity, we can CHAPTER
only answer that there may be a sense in which
tạis is correct enough, as there is also a sense
in which science may be said to exist not for
itself, but for human advancement; still that
we are now talking of immediate ends, and that
as the end of science is science, even if we are
wholly ignorant of the practical use to which it
may hereafter be turned, so the end of art is its
own good pleasure, even if we fail to see the
direct profit which this pleasure may bring.
And thus the laureate sings-
So, lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair?
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose ?
Again, there is a core of truth in the Horatian How far it
maxim that art should be profitable as well as
pleasing, since it always holds that wisdom's ways
are ways of pleasantness, that enduring pleasure
comes only out of healthful action, and that amuse-
ment as mere amusement is in its own place good,
if it be but innocent. There is profit in art as there
is gain in godliness, and policy in an honest life.
But we are not to pursue art for profit, nor god-
liness for gain, nor honesty because it is politic.
There are minds, however, so constituted that
nothing seems to be profitable to them, except it
comes in the form either of knowledge or of
is true,
1
1
I 2
116
The Gay Science
.
V.
absurdities
lexi.
CHAPTER direct utility. Those of a didactic turn are fond
of dwelling on the idea of poet and artist, to
which Bacon refers when he points out that
the Greek minstrels were the chief doctors of
Some of the religion; to which Thomas Occleve bore witness
to which it when he saluted Chaucer—“O universal fadre
of science;" which Sir Thomas Elyot entertained
when he said that poetry was the first philo-
sophy; which Puttenham had in view when he
devoted one of his chapters to showing that the
poets were not only the first philosophers of the
world, but also the first historiographers, orators,
and musicians; which Sir John Harington con-
templated when he described poetry as “the
very first nurse and ancient grandmother of all
learning;" which La Mesnardière stuck to when
he discovered that Virgil was useful as a teacher
of farming, Theocritus for his lessons of econo-
my, and Homer for the knowledge which he
displays of wellnigh every handicraft. “Sonate,
que me veux tu ?” cried Fontenelle, as he heard
a symphony, and thought of those who see a
deep meaning and a useful purpose in all works
of art; but he might have found enthusiasts to
answer him, and to show him philosophy in a
jig, theology in a fugue, like that sage who
discovered the seven days of creation in the
seven notes of music. Divines opposed to
dancing, from Saint Ambrose to the Rev. John
Northbrooke, have yet had much to say in
favour of what they call spiritual dancing, such
The Agreement of the Critics.
117
V.
as that of King David; Sir Thomas Elyot dis- CHAPTER
covered all the cardinal virtues in the various
figures of a dance; and the dancing-master
Noverre treated of his steps as a part of philo-
sophy. These are, of course, vanities on which
,
it is needless to comment. Nor need we waste
time on those who apply to art the utilitarian
test. The inhabitants of Yarmouth in 1650
begged that Parliament would grant them the
lead and other materials “ of that vast and alto-
gether useless cathedral in Norwich” towards
the building of a workhouse and the repairing
of their piers. Thomas Heywood, who has been
described as a sort of prose Shakespeare, gave a
rather prosaic proof of the utility of the drama
from the effect produced by a play acted on the
coast of Cornwall. The Spaniards were landing
"at a place called Perin," with intent to take the
town, when hearing the drums and trumpets of
a battle on the stage, they took fright and fled
to their boats. When men condescend to talk
of the utility and profit of art in this sense, one
is reminded of those religions which
followers first the pleasure of worshipping the
god, and then the advantage of eating him:
gave their
The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced,
When gods were recommended by the taste;
Such savoury deities must needs be good
As served at once for worship and for food.
Once more, pleasure is an indefinite term, Pleasure an
which is so often connected in our minds with term very
indefinite
118
The Gay Science.
V.
misunder-
stood.
CHAPTER
Chapter forbidden gratifications, that it may be necessary,
,
not in logic, but in practice, to fence it from mis-
apt to be apprehension. When we sound the praises of
love, it is taken for granted that we mean pure,
not unhallowed, passion; when we vaunt the
excellence of knowledge, it is understood that we
are referring to knowledge which is neither vile
nor vain ; but pleasure-people are so frightened
at pleasure that when we speak of it as the proper
end of art, it has to be explained that we are
thinking of pleasure which is not improper, and
it has to be shown that if art, in the pleasure
which it yields, fail to satisfy the moral sense
of a people, it is doomed. It may amuse for a
little, but it has within itself a worm that gnaws
its life out. Be the pleasure however good or
bad, lofty or mean, there are some who object to
it as such. We have seen how Plato could not
away with pleasure, because the gods, whose
nature is unchangeable, have no experience of it.
Mr. Ruskin is the modern critic who has the
strongest objection to pleasure as the end of art.
the end of* In a lecture delivered at Cambridge he said that
artunay be all the arts of life end only in death, and all the
here, plea- gifts of man issue only in dishonour,“ when they
regarded as are pursued or possessed in the sense of pleasure
ayd there only.” Since no one thinks of pleasure as the only
profitable
. end of art, it may be supposed that his objection
to the doctrine maintained in this chapter is not
so strong as it appears to be. In another passage,
however, he states his view more distinctly.
Ruskin's
protest
against
as
considered
sure being
immoral,
fore un-
The Agreement of the Critics.
119
V,
t
“ This, then, is the great enigma of art history : CHAPTER
you must not follow art without pleasure, nor
must you follow it for the sake of pleasure.”
.
It must be admitted that there is some reason
for this objection. Mr. Ruskin has here, in fact,
touched on one of the most curious laws of
pleasure. It will be found that when we begin
to talk of pleasure, at once we fall into seeming
inconsistencies and contradictions. It is only by
a concession to the exigencies of language that
we can speak of pleasure as obtained from any
conscious seeking. Not to forestall what has
to be said of pleasure in the proper place, it may
be enough here to illustrate the present diffi-
culty about it by quoting what Lord Chester-
field says of wit. “If you have real wit,” he Answered
”
says, “ it will flow spontaneously, and
,
you
need
not aim at it; for in that case the rule of the Chester-
Gospel is reversed, and it shall prove, seek and ye ing about
shall not find.” So pleasure is spontaneous, and
comes not of any conscious seeking. But there
is such a thing as unconscious seeking ; and all
great art'has in it so little of wary purpose that
it does not even pursue pleasure with a perfect
and sustained consciousness. If you strive after
wit, as Lord Chesterfield says, you will never be
,
witty; and if you hunt after pleasure, as Mr.
Ruskin says, you will fail of joy. And yet, after his
,
kind, with what may be called an under-conscious-
ness, the man of wit intends wit, the man of art
intends pleasure, and both attain their ends. Mr.
by reference
to Lord
field's siy-
.
120
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER Ruskin himself has defined art as the expression
of man's delight in the works of God. Why is
delight expressed except for delight? There is
not only no objection to saying that art is the ex-
pression of delight, but also the statement of that
fact is essential to the true conception of art. It
is, however, an advance upon the Italian doctrine
of pleasure, which will more properly be handled
in the sequel, when in the course of travel we
come to Germany.
The Spanish
school of
criticism
not very
original,
but still
authorita-
tive.
a
III. Next in order after the Greek and Italian
schools of criticism comes the Spanish, which
took its cue mainly from the Italian, and ori-
ginated little that can be accepted for new.
That it should adopt the universal doctrine of
criticism, and represent art as made for pleasure,
is but natural. Montesquieu put forth a wicked
epigram, that the only good book of the Spaniards
is that which exposes the absurdity of all the
rest. It is unfair, however, because a book
like Don Quixote is never quite solitary in its
excellences and though the Spaniards have the
name of being echoes in art and timid in criti-
cism; though they were fettered by the Inquisi-
tion, and got such men among them as Cervantes
and Lope de Vega to hug their chains as if they
were the jewelled collars and the embroidered
garters of some splendid order of chivalry-
bound down and ground down, they showed the
native force of genius in masterpieces of art
The Agreement of the Critics.
121
T.
which, for their kind, have never been surpassed, CHAPTER
and in touches of criticism that still hold
good.
Now, the Arragonese and Castilian poets, at a It held to
very early period, adopted the Provençal concep- doctrine.
tion of poetry as the Gay Science. And not only
was that conception of poetry entertained by the
Spanish races at a time when they were light of
heart, and spoke of their own lightheartedness as
an acknowledged fact; they kept it when, to all
the world, and to themselves, they grew sombre,
grave and grandiose. A Spanish Jew of the
fifteenth century, even if he were a converted one,
is not the sort of person whom one would select
as the type of joyousness, and the expounder of
the gay art. Juan de Baena, a baptized Jew,
secretary and accountant to King John II.
and a poet of some mark, published a famous
Cancionero, or collection of the poets, in the pre-
face to which he has never enough to say of the
delightfulness and charm of poetry. He mingles
this view, it is true, with some stiff notions, as
that the poet who can produce so much pleasure
must be high-born, and must be inspired of God,
but his idea throughout is, that the art is for
pleasure. Other Spanish critics follow in the
same track, as Luzan, who, however, takes most
of his ideas on criticism from the Italians. He
refers at considerable length to the Italian dis-
cussion as to the end of poetry—is it pleasure ?
is it profit? is it both ? and if both, how can any
122
The Gay Science.
V.
But it had
its own
view.
CHAPTER art have two ends of co-ordinate value? Like
the Italians, he came to the conclusion that the
two ends must be identified—that the pleasure
must profit, and that the profit must please.
But the Spaniards had their own point of view
special
just as the Greeks and the Italians had theirs.
The Greeks raised a question as to the truth of
the pleasure created by art; the Italians raised a
question as to its profitableness; and these two
inquiries practically exhausted all discussion as
to the morality of poetry and art. The Spaniards
raised another question, which is more purely
a critical one. Art is for pleasure, but whose
pleasure ? Not that this question had been
wholly overlooked by the Italians. On the con-
trary, some of the French critics, that in the days
of the Fronde and of the Grand Monarch buzzed
about the Hôtel Rambouillet, were wild and
withering in the sarcasms which they poured on
the
poor
old Italian, Castelvetro, for venturing
to assert that poetry is to delight and solace the
That art is multitude. But the Spaniards, having a noble
ballad literature that lived amongst the people,
and was thoroughly appreciated by them, were
prepared to maintain a similar doctrine more
strenuously—a doctrine the very opposite of that
which would describe art as caviare to the general,
and confine the enjoyment of it to the fit and
few.
Gonzalo de Berceo is the first known of
Spanish poets. There were poets before him,
for the
people.
The Agreement of the Critics.
123
V.
doctrine
Berceo, in
Vegan
Vantes dis-
but their works are anonymous. He lived in the CHAPTER
thirteenth century, and he begins one of his tales
in this characteristic manner :-" In the name of How this
the Father, who made all things, and of our Lord showed
Jesus Christ, son of the glorious Virgin, and of
the Holy Spirit, who is equal with them, I intend Cervantes,
to tell a story of a holy confessor. I intend to Lope de
tell a story in the plain Romance in which the
common man is wont to talk with his neighbour;
for I am not so learned as to use the other Latin.
It will be well worth, as I think, a cup of good
wine.” What the unlearned Gonzalo thus
simply expressed, Cervantes and Lope de Vega,
some three centuries later, uttered with more
critical precision. The view of Cervantes will be How Cer
found in Don Quixote in those two chapters in cussed it
which the canon and the priest discourse together Quicote
.
on the tales of chivalry, and on fiction generally.
They complain that the tales of chivalry, intended
to give pleasure, have an evil effect in minis-
tering to bad taste. But the canon, who has no
mean opinion of the approbation of the few as
opposed to the many, tells us distinctly that the
corruption of Spanish art, which, he laments, is
not to be attributed to the bad taste of the com-
mon people, who delight in the meaner pleasures.
“Do you not remember,” he says, “that a few,
•
years since, three tragedies were produced which
were universally admired, which delighted both
the ignorant and the wise, both the vulgar
and the refined ; and that by those three pieces
in Don
124
The Gay Science.
V.
Lope de
Vega.
CHAPTER the players gained more than by thirty of the
best which have since been represented.” His
hearer admits the fact. “Pray, then, recollect,"
returns the canon, “that they were thus success-
ful, though they conformed to the rules of high
art; and, therefore, it cannot be said that the
blame of pursuing low art is to be ascribed to
the lowness of the vulgar taste.
Lope de Vega, however, was still bolder than
Cervantes. It will be observed that, according to
Cervantes, you must follow the recognised rules of
high art, and you may be quite sure that they will
please the people; but in the chapter from which
I am quoting (the 48th), while he bestows the
highest praise on Lope de Vega, he expresses a
regret, that, in order to please the public, he
had yielded to the demands of a depraved taste,
and had swerved from the rules of art. Lope's
conception of his duty is the converse of this,
and is quite logical. “Tales have the same
rules with dramas, the purpose of whose authors
is to content and please the public, though the
rules of art may be strangled thereby.” Terence
pressed by propounded a like doctrine in the prologues of
two of his plays. In the prologue to the Andria
he reminds his audience that when the poet first
took to writing he believed that his only business
was to please the people; and in that to the
Eunuch, he says, that if there be any one who
strives to please as many, and to offend as few
good men as possible, it is the poet. But
The same
view ex-
Terence,
The Agreement of the Critics.
125
V.
a
a
Terence was merely a comedian, and Lope de CHAPTER
Vega is, to the best of my knowledge, the first
serious writer who stated ruthlessly the doctrine
of pleasure with all its logical consequences. He
has been well backed, however, both by comic and
serious writers. Molière, when his School for Wives By Molière.
was attacked, and proved to be against the rules,
wrote a little piece in defence of it in which he en-
trusts his cause to the logic of a certain Durante.
One great point in Durante's pleading is ex-
pressed as follows :-“I should like much to
know whether the grand rule of all rules be not
to please, and whether a stage piece that has
gained this end has not taken the right way.
Will
you
have it that the public are astray, and
are not fit to judge of their own pleasure ?"
In
English we have expressed the same view in
the well-known couplet of Johnson's--
The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give,
And those who live to please, must please to live.
There is a difficult question here involved. It A difficult
is indeed the first difficult question that meets here in-
the critic. Tasso played with it a little. He
saw that the end of poetry is to please; he saw
also that to the Italians the romances of Ariosto
and other poets gave greater pleasure than the
epics of Homer; and putting these two facts
together, he saw an inference before him, from
which he shrank back in dismay. It was left
for the French critics to sound the abysses of
such an inference, and to turn it to account as a
By Johnson,
question
volved.
126
The Gay Science.
V.
doctrine
CHAPTER critical warning. In the meantime the Spanish
writers scarcely see the difficulty that lies ahead,
and are content to insist on the wisdom of pleas-
ing the multitude. Cervantes says, Please the
multitude, but you must please them by rule.
Lope de Vega says, Please the multitude even if
you defy the rules.
An opposite
The view thus set forth invites misapprehen-
supposed sion, but it has not a little to say for itself.
been held Never have words of such innocent meaning
by Milton, had such baneful effects upon literature as those
in which (if I may be allowed to anticipate) Milton
expressed his hope that he would fit audience
find though few. It might be all well for Milton
who had fallen, as he himself expresses it, on
evil days and evil tongues, who lived almost as
an outcast from society, who saw around him
universal irreligion and unblushing licence, to
hint a fear that he might not command an audi-
ence attuned to his sacred theme, and ready to
soar with him to heavenly heights; but his
example will not justify those who would wrest
his words into a defence of narrow art-of art
that fit audience finds though few, or, as we
might otherwise phrase it, in an opposite sense,
that fit welcome finds though small. If the
effect of Milton's phrase were simply to soothe
the feelings of the disappointed poets who
write what nobody will read, it would be a
pity to deprive them of such comfort; but the
fact is, that poets of rare ability often in our
a
The Agreement of the Critics.
127
V.
a
worth.
>
and few as
bookish times brood over the same idea, content CHAPTER
themselves with a small audience, adapt them-
selves to the requirements of a coterie, and in
imagination make up for the scantiness of pre-
sent recognition by the abundance of the future
fame which they expect. It may be remembered and cer-
that Wordsworth, in a celebrated preface, enters by Words-
tainly held
into elaborate antiquarian researches, to show
that the neglect which he suffered from his con-
temporaries was only what a great poet might
expect, and that the most palpable stamp of a
great poem is its falling flat upon the world to
be picked up and recognised only by the fit
and few.
Now, in art, the two seldom go together; the On the fit
fit are not few, and the few are not fit. The judges of
true judges of art are the much despised many-
the crowd and no critic is worth his salt who
does not feel with the many.
doubt, questions of criticism which only few can
answer; but the enjoyment of art is for all; and
just as in eloquence, the great orator is he who
commands the people, so in poetry, so in art, the
great poet, the great artist will command high
and low alike. Great poetry was ever meant,
and to the end of time must be adapted, not to
the curious student, but for the multitude who
read while they run for the crowd in the
street, for the boards of huge theatres, and for
the choirs of vast cathedrals, for an army march-
ing tumultuous to the battle, and for an assembled
art.
There are, no
i
1
128
The Gay Science.
V.
Does &
printed as
distin-
from a
written
literature,
make any
difference?
CHAPTER nation silent over the tomb of its mightiest. It
is intended for a great audience, not for indi-
vidual readers. So Homer sang to well greaved
listeners from court to court; so Æschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides wrote for the Athenian
populace; so Pindar chanted for the mob that
fluttered around the Olympian racecourse.
The discovery of the alphabet and the inven-
tion of printing have wrought some changes.
guished
A read is different from a heard literature,
but the change is not essential.
In modern,
as compared with ancient literature, we find
Dante compelling the attention of every house
in Italy, by describing its founders in hell
fire; we find Tasso writing verses that are
still sung by the gondoliers of Venice; we find
Chaucer pitching his tale for the travellers who
bustle through the yard of an inn; we find
Shakespeare doing all in his power to fill the
Globe Theatre; we find our own laureate send-
ing forth a volume that sells by the myriad, by
the myriad to be judged. Few English critics
have been more fastidious than Johnson, and
yet what was his opinion as to the pleasure
which Shakespeare created ? “Let him who is yet
unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare,”
he says, “and who desires to feel the highest
pleasure that the drama can give, read every
play from the first scene to the last with utter
negligence of all his commentators. When his
fancy is once on the wing, let him not stop at cor-
The Agreement of the Critics.
129
i
V.
។
mindaco
will be
rection or explanation. Let him read on through CHAPTER
brightness and obscurity, through integrity and
corruption; let him preserve his comprehension
of the dialogue, and his interest in the fable;
and when the pleasures of novelty have ceased,
let him attempt exactness, and read the com-
mentators." In a word, the highest pleasure
which the drama can give is a pleasure within
reach of the many, and belongs to them with-
out the help or the wisdom of the learned
few.
There is an aristocracy of taste to which such
conclusions as these will be repugnant. And trine of art
at first sight, indeed, it appears odd that an
displeasing
aristocratic people like the Spaniards should to some.
thus frankly accept a low-levelling democratic
doctrine of taste--should regard the domain of
letters as essentially a republic; while on the
other hand, as we shall presently see, the French
who are now known to us as the most demo-
cratic people in Europe, established the theory
of art as caviare to the general. The truth is,
that the French theory of art was established by
the French noblesse and courtiers when the
people were among the most downtrodden in
Christendom, and had no rights that were re-
spected; while again the Spanish idea of art
arose among a race whose very peasantry had
some ancestral pride, were, so to speak, but a
lower rank of peers, and were divided by no
impassable gulf from the haughtiest Don. Those
.
VOL. I.
K
130
The Gay Science.
V.
by saying
that all
ܪ
CHAPTER who dislike the republican tinge of the Spanish
view may see, at least, this much truth in it-
Expressed that all great art is gregarious. The great
artist is never as one crying solitary in the
gregarious. wilderness; he comes in a troop; he comes in
constellations. He is surrounded by Paladins,
that with him make the age illustrious. He
belongs to his time, and his time produces many,
who if not great as he, are yet like him. Nothing
is more marked in history than the phenomenon
of seasons of excellence and ages of renown.
Witness the eras of Pericles, Augustus, the
Medici, Elizabeth, and others. What means
this clustering, this companionship of art, un-
less that essentially the inspiration which pro-
duces it is not individual but general, is common
to the country and to the time, is a national
possession ? And how again can this be if the
pleasure of art is not in the people, and the
standard by which it is to be judged is not in
their hearts? In one word, the pleasure of art
is a popular pleasure.
The French
school
IV. It would be too much, however, to say
criticism. that the Spanish view of art is in itself com-
plete. There is another side of the question to
which justice must be done before we can have
this theory of poetic pleasure well balanced.
What the Spanish critics want in this respect,
the French critics supply. The French, like
other schools of criticism, had their own special
-
The Agreement of the Critics.
131
V.
views, but for the most part they held firmly to CHAPTER
pleasure as in one form or another the end of art.
Those who made any doubt about it, as Father
Rapin, did so chiefly on the score of religion,
which in their eyes made light of all earthly
pleasure. Rapin allows delight to be the end of
poetry, but he will not hear of it as the chief end,
because by that phrase he understands--the
public weal which all human arts ought to look
to as their highest work. It is scarcely needful
to say that here is .but a mistake of terms.
Father Rapin is thinking of ultimate ends,
whereas those who dwell on pleasure as the
chief end of art, have no thought but of its
immediate object. The strongest statement of
what that object is, I have already given from
one of Molière's plays. If French critics did not
commonly advance the doctrine of pleasure with
like fearlessness of logic, still they accepted it Accepts the
freely. In the tempest of discussion which rose doctrine.
on the publication of Corneille's drama of the
Cid, one of his defenders who professed to be
but a simple burgess of Paris and church warden
of his parish took his stand on this simple prin-
ciple: “I have never read Aristotle, and I know
not the rules of the theatre, but I weigh the
merit of the pieces according to the pleasure
which they give me.” La Motte said, without
mincing, that poetry has no other end than
to please, and La Harpe taking note of this,
declares, “ If he had said that to please is its
.
K 2
132
The Gay Science.
V.
same sense.
The pecu-
liarity of
French
CHAPTER chief end, I should have been entirely of his
mind.” There is no limit to the quotations from
French criticism which might be made in the
It may be enough to summon
Marmontel, who puts the case as follows:
“L'intention immédiate du poète est de plaire et
d'interesser en imitant." All the critics have
their little varieties of statement that go to
limit the sort of pleasure which art seeks. One
says that it is a pleasure excited by imitation,
another that it is a pleasure which leads to
profit; but one and all seize on the idea of
pleasure as the purpose of art.
What is most peculiar to French criticism
received its impulse from the revolution wrought
criticism. in French literature at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. It is a revolution, the
converse of
of that which overthrew French
society towards the close of the eighteenth: and
for that very reason, indeed, the two revolutions
are intimately related. That which gave a new
turn to French literature in the days of the
in the early earlier Bourbons, was led by the most brilliant
Bourbons. bevy of bluestockings that ever lived, whose
ways and works, whose very names are almost
unknown in this country. How many English-
men know who was Salmis, or Sarraïde or
Sophie ; who was the brilliant Arthenice; who
the gracious Sophronie; who the charming Féli-
ciane ; who was Nidalie, or Stratonice, or Célie,
or the rare Virginie ; who can tell where was the
a
Began to
show itself
.
;
The Agreement of the Critics.
133
V.
France on
palace of Rozelinde, and the bower of Zyrphée ? CHAPTER
Arthenice was the poetical name of Madame
de Rambouillet,* whose residence, known as the
palace of Rozelinde, with a certain famous hall
in it, known as the blue room, and another as
the bower of Zyrphée, was the chief haunt of
those bright ladies, whom we should call blue-
stockings, and who under an Italian princess,
Marie de Medici, and a Spanish one, Anne of
Austria, introduced refinement into France.
When, in 1610, Henry IV. died, and the Picture of
child Louis XIII. began to reign, there was the death
no want of greatness in the country. There was
Henry IV.
a superabundance of force in the French nation
that showed itself in great soldiers, great states-
men, great thinkers.
But taste was wholly
wanting. Manners needed refinement and lite-
rature the regulation of taste. Of the grossness The utter
of French manners in those days it is difficult to refinement.
give in few words an adequate idea. The most
simple method of conveying an impression of it
to English readers is to refer them to the earlier
portion of the preceding century, of which they
have some inkling through the not unknown
want of
* The names of the others run
as follows: Salmis was Made-
moiselle de Sully ; Sarraïde and
Sophie were Madame and Made-
moiselle Scudery ; Sophronie was
Madame de Sevigné; Féliciane
was Madame de la Fayette;
Nidalie was Ninon de Lenclos;
Stratonice was Madame Scarron;
Célie was Madame de Choisy ;
and Virginie was Madame de
Vilaine. Generally the names
were so chosen that the initial of
the fictitious should correspond
with that of the real name.
134
The Gay Science.
V.
by reference
to the
century.
CHAPTER writings of Rabelais and of Margaret of Angou-
lême; the one rector of Meudon, the other
Queen of Navarre, and sister of Francis I.
Illustrated Priest and Queen wallowed in filth, and strange
to say, they did not seem to know it. The
preceding
more indecent writers of the English school are
thoroughly conscious of their trespasses, and take
good care to show that they regard superfluity
of naughtiness as a sign of spirit. But the Queen
of Navarre and the priest of Meudon indulged
in their coarseness with such an air of simple-
ness, that the most outrageous disclosures, and
the most hideous obscenity, seemed to come as
a matter of course, and to be all perfectly right.
Priest as he was, Rabelais had no self-reproach,
,
and gets the credit of being a great moral
thinker, at heart earnest and eager for reforms.
As for the Queen of Navarre, she passed for a
Lutheran, she delighted in the Bible, she loved
to compose spiritual songs. Brantôme says that
her heart was very much turned to God; and
in token thereof she chose for her device a
marigold, that ever turns to the sun. If those
who, like Rabelais, were great moral thinkers,
and those who, like the Queen of Navarre, may.
hap, turned their hearts to heavenly things, and
certainly represented the highest society, were
unutterably gross, and indeed bestial, in their
plainspeaking, what are we to imagine of the
lightheaded and the bad ? It is enough to say,
that when Henry IV. died, the French were,
>
The Agreement of the Critics.
135
V.
death the
behaved
,
,
came from
Italy.
while abounding in all brilliance and force, the CHAPTER
most vicious and worst behaved nation in
Europe. Their language showed none of that At Henry's
rare taste for which it has since become re-worst
nowned; it was loose in every sense loose for nation in
the lack of grammar, loose for the lack of Europe.
modesty.
But the nation, sound at heart, and rejoicing But sound
in its strength, was ripe for a reform, and reform and ripe for
came from Italy. To the Italians belong the reform.
credit of inspiring the French with taste in Reform
cookery, in manners, and in criticism. When
Henry died, his widow, of the Florentine house
of Medici, was left regent of the kingdom. It
was under, though not through her, that the
reform began. Strictly speaking, it can never
be right to describe a social revolution as the
work of one mind, but it may be safe to say
that the reform of which we speak made its first
appearance and had its head-quarters in the
Hôtel, or as it was then written, the Hostel of
Catherine de Vivonne, Marchioness of Ram-
bouillet.
This lady, whose baptismal name was trans- Catherine
formed by her admirers into Arthenice, by
which she is best known in French literature,
was the daughter of Jean de Vivonne, Marquis of
Pisani, who held great place at the court of
the Tuileries, and who, at the age of three-score
and three, had married a Roman lady of illus-
trious birth, Giulia Savelli. Three years after
de Vivonne.
136
The Gay Science.
V.
tion,
a
CHAPTER their marriage, a daughter, Arthenice, that is,
Catherine, was born at Rome, and there, for
Her educa- some time, brought up. When in her eighth
year she came with her Italian mother to France,
the Marquis of Pisani was tutor to a little boy of
her own age, the son of the Prince of Condé.
Catherine de Vivonne, carefully trained by her
mother, took part in the games of this little
prince, who was carefully trained by her father.
So much strictness was observed in the education
of these young people, that when the Prince, at
the age of eight, ventured to kiss Mademoiselle
de Vivonne, of the same age, the Marquis
thrashed him for it soundly. When in her
twelfth year the little lady espoused the Marquis
of Rambouillet, she soon found that the manners
and customs of the French court were too gross
to be endured, and she chose to withdraw from
it as much as possible. But she knew how to
.
And how entertain brilliantly, and by degrees she drew
mistress of her friends about her to the Hôtel Rambouillet.
In a celebrated blue chamber there she held
assemblies, into which princes and princesses of
the blood were glad to be admitted, and which
outshone in brilliancy of wit and refinement of
manner, if not in wealth and in numbers, the
great gatherings of the court.* To the blue
she became
the Hôtel
Ram-
bouillet
* Les premiers visiteurs lettres
de l'hôtel de Rambouillet furent :
Malherbe, Gombaud, Racan, dès
l'origine ; peu après Balzac,
Chapelain, et Voiture, qui avoit
assez de fortune pour figurer
parmi la noblesse, et trop d'esprit,
disoit M. de Chaudebonne, pour
The Agreement of the Critics.
137
V.
the Pret
chamber of the Marchioness flocked a dainty CHAPTER
troop of bluestockings, aiming at refinement-
refinement of manner, refinement of taste, refine-
ment of speech. The gold of society had to be
cleared of its dross, and their society was to
present in its pureness all that was precious in
the metal. These purists accordingly came to be Origin of
called Precious, and the refinements which they cieuses.
favoured Preciosity.
Very few Englishmen, and not many French- On mistakes
men, ever think of the sayings and doings of about them.
those who haunted the blue chamber and the
lodge of Zyrphée, in the Hôtel Rambouillet,
as worthy of admiration. To talk of a Pré-
cieuse is to kindle their mirth. It is because
they have in their minds the witty play in which
Molière made his first great hit, and in which he
exposed the follies, not of the Précieuses, but of
committed
2
rester dans la bourgeoisie. Pré- Sarasin, Conrart, Mairet, Patru,
senté à la Marquise, "réengendré Godeau, Pierre Corneille, Rotrou,
par elle et M. de Chaudebonne," Benserade, Saint - Evremont,
Voiture devint l'âme du rond. Charleval, Ménage, La Roche-
Il y trouva Vaugelas, puis le foucauld, Bossuet, Fléchier, et
jeune évêque de Luçon, qui se enfin, le galant marquis de la
plaisoit, dans les loisirs de son Salle, chansonnier accompli, im-
épiscopat, à y soutenir des thèses provisateur fécond, dont on &
a
d'amour. Là encore brilloient
tant assombri l'image pour en
la princesse de Condé, Mlle.de faire l'austère duc de Montausier,
Scudéry, la marquise de Sablé; et dont nous ne voyons plus les
plus tard, la duchesse de Longue- traits, à tout age, que sous le
,
ville, Mme. d' Adington, depuis masque du Misanthrope.-From
comtesse de la Suze ; la femme M. Livet's Preface to the Dic-
de Scudéry ; Costar, si dévoué tionnaire des Précieuses of So
à Voiture, qui se moquoit de lui ; maize.
138
The Gay Science.
V.
his real
regard to
them.
CHAPTER the Précieuses Ridicules, who at the third, fourth,
fifth hand, attempted an imitation, and achieved
Molière and a burlesque of the true blues. The true Préci-
object with euses were of the best blood, the highestb reeding
in France; the ridiculous ones whom Molière
shot at were the city dames and the country
hoydens, who aped the manners of the great, and
who made themselves ridiculous, both by pre-
tending to habits which were above their reach,
and by a caricature of the habits which really
existed in the upper ranks. It must be remem-
bered that Molière came forth with his banter
when Madame de Rambouillet was over seventy
years of age, and when amid the sorrows and
infirmities of her approaching end she was no
longer able to hold her court in the blue
chamber. She had done her work; noble ladies
of the lesser houses followed in her wake, tried
to imitate her, and passed on the desire of imita-
tion to lower and lower ranks in the social scale,
till burgesses and upstarts caught the infection,
and limped in the footsteps of the great original.
When Molière laughed at this limping gait,
none more heartily applauded him than the
fine old lady whose heart was with the dead;
and all that bright society which used to gather
to her call joined in singing his praises. His
satire, however, was so pungent, so amusing, so
directly levelled against a weakness of French
taste, that whereas it professed only to strike at
the absurdities of the upstarts, in the end it
T'he false
Précieuses
whom
Molière
ridiculed.
The Agreement of the Critics.
139
V.
Précieuses
French
taste.
glanced off, and hit the true blues, so that what- CHAPTER
ever they failed in lives a jest, and all the silli-
ness of low-bred imitation and mock-purity
cleaves to their memory. What they actually
achieved is little known, because it has passed
into French literature, and become part and
parcel of it. They made the French taste that the real
taste which still inherits the weakness derided by made the
Molière. It is because that weakness is an essen-
tial part of the French taste that the satire which
the comedian brought to bear on it is to this
day relished as much as ever, and as special and live to
this day.
criticism never is relished two hundred years
after the occasion which called it forth has passed
away. The bluestockings of the Hôtel Ram-
bouillet made the French taste, I repeat, so that
I
thenceforward, until the Deluge of '89 intro-
duced a new order of things, the leading cha-
racteristic of French art and literature, and
all things French, was Preciosity. The two
greatest thinkers whom France has produced,
Descartes and Pascal, were formed before the
Precious had reached the height of their power;
but one can trace in the refinement of their style
some of the Precious influences that were, so to
speak, in the air; and as for later writers, even
when like Boileau, they made a show of resist-
ance to the over-delicacies of the new school ; or
when, like Molière, they get the credit of entirely
exploding it; or when, like Bossuet, they soar
above mere tastefulness into grandeur; in one
ܪ
140
The Gay Science.
V.
The clue to
French art
and criti-
cism.
CHAPTER and all we can detect a certain purism, a touch
as of the precisian which marks them as essen-
tially Precious.
The moment we feel at home in the blue room
of the Hôtel Rambouillet we get the clue to
French art and criticism. It was here that the
theory of the fit and few—the caviare theory of
art—first grew into importance, and became a
power in criticism. Anyone who has but a
smattering of French history will know of how
small account up to the time of the great revo-
lution were the people and all popular belongings.
The people were nought; the aristocracy all in
all; and it was but a matter of course that the
new movement should go to establish an aristo-
cracy of taste as distinct from, and infinitely
superior to, popularity of taste.
The more
extreme of the French purists were aghast to
find Boileau, notwithstanding his purism, speak
of the belly of a pitcher; and they were amazed
that, without loss of dignity, Racine, himself a
visitant of the blue room, could, in referring to
Jezebel, make mention of the dogs that licked
her blood. What would they say to Homer
with his lowly similes about peas and beans, and
his homely picture of Achilles roasting a steak
upon the fire ? La Harpe and other critics of
his school made it their chief accusation against
Shakespeare that he sacrificed to the rabble.
Certainly the French poets could not be charged
with this fault. They showed so little regard
French
purism,
its origin
The Agreement of the Critics.
141
V.
larity.
for popular taste, that Madame de Stael passed CHAPTER
this just judgment on them: “La poésie Fran-
çaise étant la plus classique de toutes les poésies
modernes, elle est la seule qui ne soit pas ré- and singu-
pandue parmi le peuple." It stands alone in
this respect. It has nothing that can stand a
comparison with the ballads of Spain, with
those of England and Scotland, with the pol-
ished strains that are familiar to every Italian
beggar, with the folksongs of Germany. It
would be amusing to hear what a French critic,
with all the blue and gold of Versailles in the
chambers of his heart, would say to the master
singers of Nuremberg and other chief towns of
Almayne in the middle ages; to the honest
cobblers that, like Hans Sachs, were powerful in
honied words as well as in waxed threads; to
the masons that built the lofty rhyme; to tailors
that sang like swans while they plied the goose ;
to smiths that filed verses not less than iron tools;
to barbers that carolled cheerily while as yet the
music of Figaro slept far from its rise in the un-
born brain of Mozart, and while as yet, indeed,
music, in the modern sense of the word, had not
even glimmered in the firmament of human
thought. It is in a state of savage revolt against Hugo's re-
volt against
the ancient priggishness of French criticism that is
Victor Hugo now proclaims himself the admirer
of genius, even when it stoops to folly and
meanness. For me, he says, I admire all, be it
beauty or blur, like a very brute, and it seems to
it.
142
The Gay Science.
V.
La Mes-
nardière.
*
A great
man with
the Pré-
cieuses.
CHAPTER me that our age-he ought to have added our
nation-needed such an example of barbaric
enthusiasm and utter childishness.
Jules de la Mesnardière, physician, poet, and
critic, was one of the most remarkable of the
men of letters who danced attendance in the
saloons of the Marchioness of Rambouillet. He
published the earliest work of systematic criti-
cism of the new school, a book called La
Poétique, which is very scarce, and which, from
a phrase of Bayle's, it would seem that even in
his time it was difficult to get.* But La Mesnar-
dière was a great man with the Précieuses, and
what he has to say of the dominion of pleasure
in art has the perfect tint of azure.
I might
quote others of that brilliant coterie who are
better known; as Georges de Scudéry, whose
sister's name has become proverbial for romances
of the bluest blue, and who himself had among
the assemblies of the elect no mean name as a
poet and a critical authority. Scudery's state-
ment of the precious doctrine of pleasure will
be found in the preface to that grand epic bug
--his poem of Alaric. But La Mesnardière was
before him, and stated the case in the more formal
manner of a systematic treatise. It has been
already intimated that La Mesnardière is one of
those who insist very much on the uses of art, and
* It is not to be found in the
British Museum, it is not men-
tioned in the first edition of
Brunet, and I believe that only
one copy exists in England be-
sides my own.
The Agreement of the Critics.
143
V.
cism,
a
never like to speak of its pleasure apart from CHAPTER
profit. But beyond this, he maintains, what now
more nearly touches our argument, that the His criti-
pleasure which art aims at is never that of the
many. He runs foul of Castelvetro for suggest-
ing the contrary, and heaps terms of contempt
on the rude, the low, the ignorant, the stupid
mob--a many-headed monster, whom it is a
farce to think of pleasing with the delicacies of
art. No, he says, it is kings, and lords, and fine
ladies, and philosophers, and men of learning
that the artist is to please. Who but princes
can get a lesson from the story of kings ? who
but ministers of state from the fall of rulers ?
What is Clytemnestra to the vulgar herd ?
Tragedy is of no good but to great souls—
great by birth, by office, or by education. Art
in a word is only for the Precious few,
for fine ladies and gentlemen, for those who,
whether literally or metaphorically, may be said
to wear the blue riband.
If the views of the Precious school as repre- Absurd, but
sented by La Mesnardière seem to be expressed despised.
with rare absurdity, they nevertheless open
some questions which are worth attending to,
and which are not easily answered. After we
have reached the point of critical analysis
which the Spanish dramatists came to when they
propounded a doctrine in art, the equivalent of
that in politics which Bentham made so much of
-the necessity of studying the greatest pleasure
not to be
144
The Gay Science.
V.
of taste.
CHAPTER of the greatest number, we are quickly thrown
back upon an inevitable tendency of human
nature to define and square the standard of
pleasure. If pleasure is an enviable thing, it is
also very envious—-envious even of itself, and
lives by comparison. Pleasure varies—it differs
in different men, and in the same men at different
On varieties times. Notwithstanding this diversity, which
is well known, men are ever bent on finding
something that will act as a sort of thermometer
or joy-measure; and so the Spartan ruler de-
creed that no harp should have more than seven
strings, the French critics cried aloud for a
proper observance of the three unities, and
purists in architecture stood out for the five
orders. What is to be said in presence of
such a fact as Tasso encountered in his critical
analysis—that the romances of Ariosto gave
more pleasure to his countrymen than the epics
of Homer and Virgil ? Is Ariosto, there-
And critical fore, the greater artist ? Tasso very quickly
settled that question for himself: it did not
arising.
trouble him. But this was precisely the sort of
question that troubled the French critics most,
and which lay at the root of La Mesnardière's
objection to consulting the pleasure of the
commonalty. Your highly educated persons-
your true blues-might be able to appreciate the
classics, to get the full quantity of pleasure
from them—a pleasure which need not shun
comparison or competition with the pleasure
a
questions
thence
The Agreement of the Critics.
145
V.
afforded by the lower art of the moderns. But CHAPTER
put the same comparison before the uneducated,
and inevitably antique art will be sent to the
right-about. They do not understand the
ancients; they do understand the moderns. The
former kindle no pleasure at all, or but a few
faint sparks; the latter give a great blaze of
pleasure. And it therefore appears that if art,
is to be measured by the amount of enjoyment
thus evolved in rude minds, all our most approved
critical judgments would be upset. So La Mes- How La
nardière held lustily to his point, that if pleasure urged these
be the aim of poetry and art, it must be the questione
pleasure of those who wear the blue riband and
are free of the blue chamber. He was easily
able to satisfy himself, but had he pushed his
inquiries further he would have found the same
difficulty confronting him in another shape. In
that shape the difficulty has so staggered another
Frenchman, M. Victor Cousin, that he refuses to And in the
acknowledge in pleasure the immediate end of present day
art. He argues that if pleasure be the end of
.
art, then the more or less of pleasure which an
art affords should be the standard of its value,
and that in such a case music with its ravishing
strains should, in spite of its vagueness, stand at
the head of the arts. But this, according to
Cousin, lands us in an absurdity that reflects
upon the soundness of the principle from which
we set out.
Although we may not be able to adopt the
VOL. I.
L
146
The Gay Science.
V.
mate.
>
CHAPTER conclusions either of La Mesnardière or of
Cousin, still their objections are taken from a
These objec- legitimate point of view, and ought to throw
tions legiti-
some additional light upon the quality of art
pleasure. Now the chief thing to be noted here
is that the standard of pleasure is within us, and
,
that therefore it varies, to some extent, with the
circumstances of each individual. We can never
measure it exactly as we can heat with a ther-
mometer. Sometimes a man feels cold when
the thermometer tells him it is a warm day, and
sometimes a man derives little pleasure from a
work of art which throws all his friends into
rapture. There is no escaping from these vari-
ations of critical judgment, whatever standard of
comparison we apply to art. It is impossible to
measure art by the foot-rule, to weigh it in a
balance with the pound troy, or to deal it forth
in gallons. But though the results of art are
not reducible to number, and there is no known
method of judgment by which we can arrive at
perfect accuracy and unanimity, still there is a
sort of rough judgment formed, which is as trust-
worthy as our common judgments on the tem-
perature of the air. Nor is there any need of
greater accuracy. We should gain nothing by
being able to say that this artist is so many
inches taller than that, or that one art gives so
many more gallons of pleasure than another.
But granting that perfect accuracy is out of
the question, La Mesnardière comes in here with
Statement
of the
question.
9
The Agreement of the Critics.
147
V.
a
Cousin's
form of it.
>
his suggestion : Is your standard accurate enough CHAPTER
to show that Homer, who gives less pleasure
than Ariosto, is a greater artist ? and M.
Cousin chimes in with the question : Is your
standard capable of showing that music, which
gives the most exquisite thrills of enjoyment, is
yet on account of its vagueness a lower form of
art than the drama, which is more articulate ?
These two questions are identical in substance,
though there may be some difficulty in granting But an ob-
to M. Cousin the facts upon which his form of urged to M.
jection to be
query proceeds. Those who are best able to
judge of such compositions as the ninth sym-
phony of Beethoven, or the C minor, will not
grant that as works of art they are to be placed
below
any
human performance. Mr.J. W. Davi-
son, than whom no one is better able to make the
comparison, assures me that, judge he never so
calmly, he cannot accord to Beethoven a rank
in art below that of Shakespeare; and one of
our ablest thinkers, Mr. Herbert Spencer, de-
clares, at the end of an elaborate essay devoted
to prove it, that music must take rank as the
highest of the fine arts as the one which, more
than any other, ministers to human welfare.
After these testimonies, there may be some
difficulty, I say, in granting to M. Cousin his
facts. For the sake of argument, however, let
it be granted that music, as the least expressive,
is the lowest form of art. How are we to recon-
cile this supposition with the fact that it gives
L 2
148
The Gay Science.
V.
Answer to
M. Cousin.
his own
regarding
science.
CHAPTER a keener pleasure than any art? or, to return to
La Mesnardière, how are we to reconcile the
greatness of the ancients with the superiority of
the pleasure which our more familiar modern
poets yield ?
One might reply to the argument of M. Cousin
by a parallel argument, which would be good as
Drawn from against him, at least. Thus, if the end of art is
opinion pleasure, the end of science is knowledge. That,
then, is the king of the sciences, it may be
argued, which gives us the most knowledge and
the clearest. But metaphysics has always hitherto
held the place of honour among the sciences; it
certainly holds that place in M. Cousin's regard,
and considering the grandeur of its ambition,
many thoughtful men will be inclined to concede
its claim to the honour. Undoubtedly, therefore,
it must be the clearest, the best, and the most
certain of the sciences. Is it so? Is it not well-
nigh the direct opposite of this? In that sense,
is there no absurdity in speaking of knowledge
as the end of science, when the grandest of all
the sciences gives us the least certain knowledge ?
Pursuing the line of argument of which M.
Cousin has set the example, I might urge that
science must have some other more domipant
end than knowledge, such, perhaps, as that
which Lessing indicated when, in reply to Goeze,
he said that it is not truth, but the striving after
truth, which is the glory of man; that if God in
his right hand held every truth, and in his left
ܪ
The Agreement of the Critics.
149
V.
but this one thing, the thirst for truth, albeit CHAPTER
mixed up with the chances of continual error;
and that if he bade the child of earth take his
choice, he, Lessing, would humbly reach to the
left hand, saying, “O Father, give me that,
pure truth is for thee alone.” If metaphysics be
entitled to the crown of the sciences, it is not
because of the amplitude of the knowledge which
it conveys, but because of its dignity. And so
if we are to make comparisons between art and
art (a thing in itself as useless as it would be to
run comparisons between science and science),
we have it in our power to say that the intensity
of the pleasure produced by an art is not always
the standard of its value. The prolongation of
intense enjoyment is sometimes a positive pain,
and to procure a lasting pleasure, we must de-
scend to a lower level. To use the language of
geometry, pleasure has two dimensions, length
as well as height. Increase the height, you cut
short the length; increase the length, you lessen
the height. The sum of enjoyment is not to be
measured by the height alone of its transports.
It is impossible to adjust exactly the comparison
which M. Cousin suggests between pleasure and
pleasure; but there is no reason to suppose that,
fairly balanced, the pleasure produced by the
most expressive art, which is the drama, is one
whit inferior, is not rather superior to the plea-
sure awakened by the least expressive, which is
music. Sir Joshua Reynolds, for one, was quite
a
150
The Gay Science.
V.
The objec-
tion, how-
ever,
deserves
& more
direct
CHAPTER willing to accept the standard of merit which
M. Cousin objects to. He commences his fourth
discourse with these very words :-“The value
and rank of every art is in proportion to the
mental labour employed on it, or the mental
pleasure produced by it.”
That is a sufficient answer to M. Cousin per-
sonally, but further consideration of his argument
must be included in what I have now to say of
La Mesnardière and other critics. Hitherto I
reply.
have made the Cruse turn on the comparison sug-
gested by Tasso, between the pleasure which
Homer or Virgil awakens, and that which
Ariosto stirs in the breast of an Italian. But as
that comparison is complicated by the fact of
Homer writing in a language foreign to the
Italian, let us change the illustration. Let us
take Milton, who has been said to equal both
Homer and Virgil combined. There is a cele-
brated sentence of Johnson's, that much as we
admire the Paradise Lost, when we lay it down
we forget to take it up again. We prefer the
pleasure of a novel. Is the novel, therefore, a
more successful work of art ? Or take the ques-
tion as put by La Mesnardière. The great mass
of the people like nothing so well as buffooneries.
What can they know of the true pleasure of art
who stoop to the lower pleasures of farce and
frivolity ?
Here it must be observed that our feeling
and choice of delight is perfectly distinct from
The Agreement of the Critics.
151
V.
Our sense
is distinct
from our
drawn from
taste.
our opinion of it. In the pleasure of the palate CHAPTER
there is a good example. A friend tells me
that he never enjoyed any food so much as a of delight
barley bannock and some milk, which once, when tomis time
he lost himself in childhood among the Ross-estimate of
shire hills, and became faint with hunger, he got
from some quarrymen who were eating their
simple dinner, and kindly offered him a share.
Does he therefore say that a barley bannock and
milk is the most enjoyable food ? It gave him, An example
famished as he was, the utmost enjoyment, and the sense of
he remembers that meal with the poor quarry-
men, and their great sandy fingers, as it were a
banquet of the gods; but to enjoy it equally
again, he must be again in the same plight, with
the simple tastes of childhood. We learn thus
instinctively to separate our estimate of what is
pleasurable from the choice which the accidents
of time, place, or health impose upon us. The
man who, stretched upon a knoll with his
gun
by his side, calls for a draught of bitter beer
from the pannier that carries the luncheon,
knows right well that though this be the beve-
rage which for the moment he prefers, there
are liquids beyond it in taste. There is no-
thing to puzzle one in this, and neither is
there
any real puzzle in the case of a man who
takes up a novel in preference to a great epic.
The deliberate selection of the lower form of
pleasure does not interfere with our estimate
of the higher.
152
The Gay Science.
CHAPTER
V.
Another
of sadness.
of these
to the
Or take another example from the state of
mind which is clearly described in the following
from the quatrain :-
pleasure
Go, you may call it madness, folly,
You shall not chase my gloom away;
There's such a charm in melancholy,
I would not if I could be gay.
The man is happy in his way, and clings to his
melancholy mood
That sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind,
while he recognises the existence of a livelier
joy which is not for him.
Application The bearing of these facts must be obvious.
examples
The critic is apt to denounce a partiality for
the lower forms of art, either as on the one
Argument.
hand betokening depravity of taste, or on the
other hand rendering null the standard of plea-
The case is precisely parallel to that
of the man who, in the midst of his shooting,
asks for bitter beer when he might be drink-
ing, if he chose, the finest Château Margaux.
It cannot be said that his taste is depraved,
neither can it be said that the superiority of
rare claret over beer is not meted, even in his
mind who quaffs the beer, by a standard of
The ideal pleasure. The fact is that we all cherish an ideal
of picture of pleasure which is not always the real joy of
the moment. It is a commonplace of moralists
reality.
that man never is, but always to be blest. He
has an ideal bliss before him, of which sometimes
even his highest actual joys seem to fall short.
sure.
distinct
from the
The Agreement of the Critics.
153
V.
The mind thus forms an estimate of pleasures of CHAPTER
which it does not partake. And we now, there-
fore, arrive at this further conclusion, that the
standard of pleasure in art is not always actual,
it is ideal. The Greeks teach us that the plea-
sure is based on truth; the Italians that it must
tend to good; the Spaniards that it belongs to
the masses, and is not peculiar to a few; and the
French that it is an ideal joy which may not
always be present as a reality.
a
school of
V. And what say the Germans ? If any The German
school of criticism is likely to disown the doctrine criticism.
of pleasure as the end of art, it is the German;
but they have all along allowed it.
The earliest luminaries of German criticism,
Lessing and Winckelmann, most distinctly accept
the doctrine. The confession of Lessing's faith
will be found in his treatise on the Laocoon.
There he describes pleasure as the aim of art,
though he adds that beauty is its highest aim.
Winckelmann, in like manner, in the forefront
of his work, places on record the statement
that art, like poetry, may be regarded as a
daughter of pleasure. Kant, at a later period,
promulgated the self-same doctrine, and Schiller
developed it into his theory of the Spieltrieb
or play-impulse. Art compared with labour,
said Kant, may be considered as a play. In
every condition of man, said Schiller, it is
,
play, and only play, that makes him complete.
a
154
The Gay Science.
V.
What is
art.
CHAPTER Man is only serious with the agreeable, the good,
the perfect; but with beauty he only plays, and
he plays only with beauty. In case this may ap-
pear somewhat shadowy, I refer for a more
distinct view to Schiller's essay on tragic art,
where he says, that an object which, in the
system of life, may be subordinate, art may
separate from its connection and pursue as a main
design. “Enjoyment may be only a subordinate
object for life ; for art it is the highest.”
It is not easy to compress into a single phrase
peculiar to
its view of what is peculiar to the German definition of art.
The schools of thought in Germany are widely
sundered; each views art from its own stand
point, and has its own term for the work of art.
Putting aside minor differences, however, one
can detect something like a common thought
running through all German speculation on this
subject. Hitherto, we have seen that in the
various schools of criticism, art came to be de-
fined as something done (perhaps imitated, per-
haps created) for pleasure. The German schools
advanced upon this notion so far as to make out
that art not only goes to pleasure, but also comes
of it. According to them, it is the free play or
pleasure pleasure of the mind embodied for the sake of
goes to it
. pleasure. How embodied, whether in imitation,
or in a creation, or in a mimic creation, is a
different question, that no doubt, as in the
system of Schelling, from which our own Cole-
ridge borrowed largely, occupies a most impor-
That art
comes of
as well
.
The Agreement of the Critics.
155
V.
German
tant place. But whatever is of essential value CHAPTER
in that speculation really works into the defini-
tion of art which I have attempted, a sentence or
two back, to draw for the Germans as a whole.
Thus it is a great point with Schelling that art
is a human imitation of the creative energy of
nature of the world soul of God. But this is
only another mode of saying that it is the ex-
ercise of a godlike power, therefore of a free
power, which cannot be conceived as under com-
pulsion, and subsists only as play or pleasure.
Art, I repeat, is, in the German view, the free
play or pleasure of the mind, embodied for
pleasure.
Most of the German thinkers, however, when But the
speaking of the pleasure of art, are disposed to thinkers
confine it to the pleasure of the beautiful. They confine the
derived this tendency from one of the fathers of art to the
their philosophy, Wolf, and from his disciple
Baumgarten, who first attempted to establish a
science of Æsthetic. Wolf went to work in a
right summary fashion. Philosophy, high and
dry, had not then thought much of the human
heart, and rather despised the fine arts. Baum-
garten wrote an apology for deeming them
worthy of his notice. So when Wolf came to How this
look into the mystery of pleasure and pain, he given to
made short work of it. He said that pleasure is Geringen
philosophy
simply the perception of the beautiful, and pain by Wolf,
the sense of ugliness. On the other hand, beauty
is the power which anything possesses of yield-
beautiful,
bias Was
156
The Gay Science.
V.
Baum-
CHAPTER ing us pleasure, ugliness its power of giving pain.
He indeed went much further, and, if I understand
him rightly, spoke of the beautiful, the good,
and the perfect as synonyms, and of each as cor-
relative to pleasure. Thus it came to pass that
And by his when his disciple Baumgarten, overcoming the
disciple
coyness of philosophy, ventured to think that
garten;
the pleasure of art might be worthy of examina-
tion, and saw in his mind's eye the outlines of a
science to which he gave the hitherto unknown,
and still incomprehensible name of Æsthetic,
instead of drawing the obvious inference that since
art aims at pleasure, a science of criticism must
be the science of pleasure—he argued that since
art aims at pleasure, and since pleasure comes
only from the beautiful, the science of criticism
must be the science of the beautiful. The mis-
take which was thus committed at the outset by
the man who first came forward to rear a science
of the fine arts, was never afterwards corrected
And how in Germany, and gave to all subsequent specula-
tion a fixed bias in favour of beauty as the one
theme of art. Even when further analysis
long after showed that beauty was but one of the sources
from which of pleasure, the critics continued to speak of it as
the one idea of art. There was a reason and a
jected.
defence of the mistake so long as with Wolf and
Baumgarten the pleasurable and the beautiful
were co-ordinate terms——that is to say, when
everything pleasing was to be defined as beauti-
ful, and everything beautiful as pleasing. It was
.
their con-
clusion
remained
in force
was re-
The Agreement of the Critics.
157
V.
Germans
are be-
witched
beauty.
unreasonable and indefensible when the origin CHAPTER
of the theory was forgotten, and it was recognised
that beauty is but a part of pleasure.
When, however, the doctrine of beauty as How the
the essence of art came to be placed distinctly
before the minds of Germans, it exerted over with
the
them such a fascination that whenever their notion of
critics approached the idea of the beautiful they
seemed incapable of containing themselves, burst
into raptures, and, instead of their usually
patient analysis, went off in swoons of ecstacy,
shrieks, interjections, vocatives, and notes of ad-
miration. Nothing is more curious than to see
how, in Schiller especially, the rapturous, inter- Their
jectional sort of criticism is mixed up with good raptures.
sense, hard facts, and stiff logic. After every
sober bit of argument, he breaks into inarticulate
rhapsody, which we can only interpret as the
fol-de-diddle-dido, fol-de-diddle-dol at the end of
a song
But other Germans also are more or
less so bewitched, and some of them so besotted
with beauty, that with scarcely an exception they
fall down and worship it as the be-all and end-
all of art. Baumgarten, Lessing, Winckelmann,
Kant, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, and the Schle-
gels, all treat of art as the empire of the beauti-
ful, and of the beautiful as the one article of
Æsthetic. It was reserved for Richter to rebuke They are
them, and call them back to reason.
That man to reason
of true genius was a loose, vague thinker, and by Richter.
an extravagant writer, but he could poise pretty
called back
158
The Gay Science.
V.
a
Richter's
own de-
CHAPTER well as a critic, and he saw clearly the weakness
of those who insisted upon beauty as the one
thought of art. Long ago Horace laid down
the principle that it is not enough for a work of
art to be beautiful; it must have other sources
of interest. And now in his fashion Richter
pointed out that art has to manifest ideas of the
sublime, of the pathetic, of the comical, as well
as of the beautiful. His criticism was quite suc-
cessful, as against his countrymen who magnified
the province of beauty and made it a king
where it is only a peer; but if those whom he
.
criticised had turned upon him and asked him to
state precisely what is the definition of art which
ficiency.
he proposed to substitute for theirs, he could
have given them only the impotent answer that
the thing to be defined is indefinable.
Though Wolf, at the fountain-head, led the
German school of criticism into error by identi-
bet fying all pleasure, and therefore the pleasure
which art seeks with the sense of beauty, the
consideration which was thus given to the
nature of the beautiful led directly to what I
have described as the German contribution to the
doctrine that pleasure is the end of art. What
Here again is beauty? Now, here again, the German
they own
answer to that question trails back to Wolf.
Beauty, said the philosopher, arguing out the
case after the manner of mathematieians in a
regular sequence of propositions and demonstra-
tions, with attendant corollaries and scholia,
On the
German
notion of
beauty-
what it
their bias
to Wolf.
The Agreement of the Critics.
159
V.
ceeding
the
Where you
C
beauty is perfection, and perfection is beauty. CHAPTER
Everything is beautiful which is perfect of its
kind. A perfect toad is beautiful; a perfect
monster. You cannot define beauty further,
because you cannot define perfection; but you
can vary the terms of your definition. Accord- How suc-
ingly upon the terms of the definition all manner thinkers
of changes were rung. The essence of beauty, changes
said Schelling and a whole set of thinkers, is in upon Wolf.
character--in being—in life-in individuality.
have a man or thing of perfect being
or character—there is beauty. No, said Goethe,
--
it is not in the character itself, but in the ex-
pression or form of it that the beauty lies—the
perfect expression even of imperfect character.
Ah, said Hegel, we must unite the two views of
perfect expression and perfect character, and
then we shall arrive at the conclusion that the
beautiful is the perfect expression of the perfect
idea--my grand idea of the absolute, in which
contraries are at one, and the all is nothing. So,
in turn, other philosophers saw in art the mani-
festation of the beautiful, and in the beautiful the
perfect expression of their pet ideas.
Gradually it crept into sight that art may or What view
may not be the expression of an idea about which ally into
the philosophers could wrangle as much as they sight.
pleased, but that it certainly is the expression of
the artist's character. In this connection one
might take up the view of Novalis, that the poet
is a miniature of the world, a view which would
came grailu-
.
160
The Gay Science.
V.
Goethe's
final view
of the
beautiful
in art,
a
CHAPTER satisfy the philosophers who look to find in art
the expression of their highest generalisations.
If poetry expresses the poet, and the poet is a
miniature of the world, why then art is the
expression of their world-ideas. Happily, how-
.
ever, we need not trouble ourselves to throw
sops to the philosophers. It is enough to state
what is Goethe's final view of the beautiful in
art. Art, in his view, is an embodiment of
beauty, and the beautiful is a perfect expression
of nature, but chiefly the poet's or artist's nature
-either of his whole mind, or of a passing mood.
But between the lines of this definition we are
to see the handwriting of Schiller interposing
his remark on the grandeur of the play-impulse
in man—that man is only perfect when his mind
is in free play, moving of itself, and its move-
ment is a play or pleasure. All that has been
put forth by me, said Goethe, consists of frag-
ments of a great confession. But art, said
Winckelmann, is the daughter of pleasure.
Art, said Kant, is play. Art, re-echoed Schiller,
is the expression or product of the impulse to
play. I put both views together, and arrive at
the German the conclusion that, according to the Germans,
art is the play or pleasure of the mind, embodied
for the sake of pleasure. With which doctrine
compare and see how little they vary the words
of Shelley, that poetry is the record of the best
and happiest moments of the best and happiest
minds; and those of Mr. Ruskin, that art is the
And sum-
doctrine of
pleasure.
The Agreement of the Critics.
161
V.
doctrine
balanced
ter state-
ment of the
sorrows of
art.
3
expression of man's delight in the works of CHAPTER
God.
The statement so far, however, is incomplete, The German
and needs for its proper balance a counterstate- needs to be
ment of the sorrows of art. In the heaven
by a coun-
which is promised to the saints there is no
sorrow, and the tears are wiped from every
eye; but the paradise of art is peculiar in this
respect, that sorrow and pain enter into it.
Through the sense of pain art has reached
some of its highest triumphs, and Christian art
has in it so deep a moaning as to make Augustus
Schlegel say, that whereas the poetry of the
ancients was the poetry of enjoyment, that of
the moderns is the expression of desire. It is
quite clear that there is more of pain in modern
than in ancient poetry, just as there is more of
a penitential spirit in the Christian than in the
Olympian faith. But will the Christian, with
all his sadness, admit that he has no enjoyment?
Does he not luxuriate in his melancholy? Will
he not smile through his tears, and say that he
has attained a higher happiness than the Greek,
with all his lightheartedness, could even con-
ceive? In these things we are apt to play with
words. We
We say that our religion is the religion
of sorrow; but what do we mean?
mean that the Greeks had pleasure in their
religion, and that we have none in ours ? Not
80; the Christian maintains that his is the
higher joy, and that it is not the less joy because
a
a
Do we
VOL. I.
M
162
The Gay Science.
V.
sense of
enjoyment
ancient.
Is it less
enjoyment ?
CHAPTER it has been consecrated by suffering. So in art;
the modern sense of enjoyment as there displayed
The modern is no doubt different from that of the Greeks,
with stranger contrasts of light and shade; but
as compared it would be quite false to say that theirs was the
poetry of enjoyment, and that ours is the poetry
not of enjoyment but of desire.
Some have
gone so far as to say that the pleasure coming
from sorrow is the greatest of all; as Shelley,
that it is “sweeter far than the pleasure of
pleasure itself;" or as Schiller, that “the
pleasure caused by the communication of mourn-
ful emotion must surpass the pleasure in joyful
emotion, according as our moral is elevated
above our sensuous nature." In the same sense,
Bishop Butler, in his sermon on compassion,
says that we sympathize oftener and more
readily with sorrow than with joy; and Adam
Smith maintains that our sympathy with grief
is generally a more lively sensation than our
sympathy with joy. It is possible that these
statements are not altogether accurate; for it is
characteristic of pleasure that we do not think
of it, while on the other side we do think of our
pains; we count every minute of woe, while
years of happiness are unaware gliding over our
heads; and we are thus prone to make a false
reckoning of the intensity and relative values of
our pleasurable and painful feelings and fellow-
feelings.
But the existence of delicious pain is a great
a
The Agreement of the Critics.
163
V.
fact, and in modern art a prominent one, which CHAPTER
,
hasty thinkers of the Schlegel type are sure
to misinterpret.
There is a crowd of facts The exist-
which go to justify the statement of Shelley, delicious
that poets
soriowa
great fact.
Are cradled into poetry by wrong,
And learn in suffering what they teach in song.
And people do not all at once see how to recon-
cile such a statement with that other of Shelley's,
already quoted, that poetry is the record of the
best and happiest moments of the best and hap-
piest minds.
So when the Chancellor von
Müller, the close friend of Goethe, says that
most of Goethe's writings sprang from a ne-
cessity which he felt to get rid of some inward
discordance, some impression with which he
was laden to distress; and when, on the other
hand, Mr. Lewes, in one of the finest biogra- But the
phies in our language--in his life of Goethe of the artist
-say that “he sang whatever at the moment is not in-
filled him with delight,” we are struck with with the
what seems to be a contradiction. In reality, his art
there is none. The artist, like other men, must from plea-
get his experience of life through suffering, and
sometimes he suffers much and long; but the
power of expressing himself in art implies,
if not perfect relief, a certain recovery-im- The power
plies that he has so far got the better of his sion implies
trouble as to be curious about it, and able to
dandle it. Those who cherish the luxury of woe, ,
of course will not admit this. It is a pleasure
emerges
sure.
recovery.
x 2
164
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER to them to think that they are utterly miserable;
the idea of solace is distasteful to them; and
when, to convict them of their error, we ask,
“ Why, then, are ye so tuneful ?” the question
seems as heartless as that of the rustic in the
fable, who said to the roasting shell-fish : “Oh,
ye Cockles! near to death, wherefore do ye
sing ?” Notwithstanding our self-deception, the
fact remains, as Euripides has expressed it in
verses which appear in every modern edition of
the Suppliants, but are probably an interpola-
tion from some other play—that if the poet is
to give pleasure, he must compose in pleasure;
and this is as true of Christian as of classical
art. If the art of the Greeks be more distinctly
joyous than that of any other people, it is to
the Germans we owe the more distinct elucida-
tion of the fact that the sense of joy underlies
all art.
The English
school of
criticism
VI. At last we come to English writers, and
among them is no name greater than that of
with Bacon, Bacon. Everyone has by heart the definition of
poetry which is contained in the most eloquent
work of criticism ever penned. “To the king
--it is addressed, and as we read it we are kings
In this definition, and in the context, as well as
in many other passages scattered throughout his
works, Bacon plainly presents poetry as an art
which studies above all things the desires and
zabethans. pleasures of the mind. The criticism of the
And the Eli-
The Agreement of the Critics.
165
V.
Elizabethan period is not of much importance, CHAPTER
and perhaps it is enough if I further quote from
Webbe's treatise on English poetry. There the
author tells us that “the very sum or chiefest
essence of poetry did always for the most part
consist in delighting the readers or hearers with
pleasure ;" and when, in another passage, he
asserts, after the Italians, that the right use of
poetry “is to mingle profit with pleasure, and
so to delight the reader with pleasantness of art
as in the meantime his mind may be well in-
structed with knowledge and wisdom," it will
be observed that he still regards pleasure as
the immediate end. All our best criticism, how-
ever, dates from the time of Dryden, and in his But our
school nothing was more clearly recognised than cism dates
the subservience of art to pleasure. Dryden Dryden.
himself says that delight is the chief, if not the
only end of poetry, and that instruction can be
admitted only in the second place. In the same
strain wrote Johnson: “What is good only be-
cause it pleases, cannot be pronounced good until
it has been found to please.” Dugald Stewart
follows in the beaten path : “In all the other
departments of literature,” he says, “ to please
is only a secondary object. It is the primary
one in poetry.”
Towards the end of last century English A new spirit
criticism began to breathe a new spirit. But into criti-
did the critics then newly inspired discover cism at the
that the end of poetry is different from what it century.
3
breathed
end of last
166
The Gay Science.
V.
But ever
art is
CHAPTER was supposed to be ? On the contrary, they
saw more clearly, and declared more stoutly than
ever, that the end of art is pleasure. “The end
of poetry,” says Wordsworth, “is to produce ex-
citement in coexistence with an overbalance of
pleasure.” In the same mood, Coleridge main-
tains that “the proper and immediate object
of poetry is the communication of immediate
pleasure;” and again, though, as I have tried to
show, less accurately, that " a poem is that species
doctrine as of composition which is opposed to works of
to the end science by professing for its first immediate object
taught.
pleasure, not truth.”
I have already quoted
Shelley in the same sense, and I reserve to the
last a writer who belongs not to the present,
but to the past century. I thus refer to him
out of his proper place, because he is the only
critic known to me who draws the inference
upon which I have insisted, that if poetry be the
art, criticism must be the science of pleasure,
though he cannot be said to have fully under-
stood, or to have carried out his own doctrine.
“The fine arts," said Lord Kames, "are intended
to entertain us by making pleasant impressions,
and by that circumstance are distinguished
from the useful arts; but in order to make
must be the pleasant impressions, we ought to know what
pleasure objects are naturally agreeable, and what natu-
ally disagreeable.” He draws the inference
rather faintly, but still he draws it, and there-
fore he is worthy to be singled out from his
And Lord
Kames even
draws in a
faint
way
the infer-
ence that
criticism
The Agreement of the Critics.
167
V.
culiar
English
fellows. It is not with his inference, however, CHAPTER
that we are now concerned, but with the grand
fact which stands out to view, that in all the
critical systems poetry is regarded as meant for
pleasure, as founded on it, and as in a manner
the embodiment of all our happiness--past,
present, and to come.
But now it will be asked, is there anything What is pe-
peculiar in the English mode of rendering the engin the
definition of art? The point about art which view of art ?
the English school of thinkers has most con-
sistently and strenuously put forward is, that it
it is the offspring of imagination. Not that
other schools have ignored this doctrine. All
along, while speaking of the peculiarities of the
different schools of thought, I have been anxious
to show that the lesson taught most prominently
in each has not been wholly overlooked by the
others; and of a surety the French and German
schools of criticism have not been backward to
acknowledge the influence of imagination in the It dwells
work of art. In English criticism, however, the power of
imagination is the Open Sesame--the name to tion in art.
conjure with. It is the chief weapon, the ever-
lasting watchword, the universal solvent, the all
in all. When we come to ask what it really
means, we are amazed at the woful deficiency
of the information which we can obtain about
this all-suflicient power; but be the information
much or little, the importance of the power-
its necessity, is so thoroughly established in
the imagina-
.
168
The Gay Science
Bacon it
us to treat
of art as
tion.
CHAPTER England, that (though after all it comes to the
same thing) it is more fully recognised among
us that art is the creature of imagination than
that it is created for pleasure.
Bacon it was who forced English criticism
first taught into this furrow, assisted by a word of Shake-
speare's. Our great philosopher arranged all
the creature literature in three main divisions, correspond-
of imagina-
ing to three chief faculties of the human
mind.
History, science, and poetry were
severally the products of memory, reason,
and imagination. There was something very
neat in this arrangement, which D’Alem-
bert afterwards adopted, when, in the preface
to the celebrated French Encyclopædia, he
attempted to make a complete map of liberal
study. Plato, who thought of the Muses as
daughters, not of imagination, but of memory,
would have been not a little startled by the
division; and D'Alembert, in following Bacon,
had yet to show that imagination was as essen-
tial to, and as dominant in Archimedes, the
man of science, as in Homer, the man of art.
Bacon himself, too, had some little doubt as to
the perfect wisdom of his arrangement.
Still
*
This doubtfulness appears
ties of the mind of man is of two
in a passage in the Advancement kinds; the one respecting his
of Learning, where he speaks of understanding and reason, and
imagination, and seems to find a the other his will, appetite, and
difficulty in fixing upon its spe- affection; whereof the former
cialty. “The knowledge,” he produceth position or decree, the
says, "which respecteth the facul- latter action or execution. It is
The Agreement of the Critics.
169
then it has
for general purposes he deemed it sufficient, and CHAPTER
V.
he defined poesy,
“ the pleasure or play of
imagination.” We had Shakespeare's word for A word of
Shake-
it, too, that the poet is of imagination all com- speare's
assisted.
pact; and both authorities combined to form in
the English mind the conception of art as the
product mainly of imagination. After that we
know how imagination came to be the grand
engine of our criticism. Addison wrote essays And since
on the pleasures of it; Akenside wrote a long been the
favourite
poem on it; Johnson described poetry as the art dogma of
English
criticism.
true that the imagination is an over a bondman; but that rea-
agent or nuncius, in both pro son hath over the imagination
vinces, both the judicial and the that commandment which & ma-
ministerial. For sense sendethgistrate hath over a free citizen ;'
over to inagination before reason who may come also to rule in
have judged : and reason sendeth his turn. For we see that, in
over to imagination before the matters of faith and religion, we
decree can be acted : for imagin- raise our imagination above our
ation ever prcccdcth voluntary reason; which is the cause why
motion. Saving that this Janus religion sought ever access to the
of imagination hath differing mind by similitudes, types, pa-
faces : for the face towards rea- rables, visions, dreams. And
son hath the print of truth, but again, in all persuasions that are
the face towards action hath the wrought by eloquence, and other
print of good; which neverthe- impressions of like nature, which
less are faces,
do paint and disguise the true
Quales decet esse sororum.'
appcarance of things, the chief
recommendation unto reason is
Neither is the imagination simply from the imagination. Never-
and only a messenger ; but is theless, because I find not any
invested with or at leastwise science that doth properly or
usurpeth no small authority in fitly pertain to the imagination,
itself, besides the duty of the I see no cause to alter the former
message. For it was well said
division. For as for poesy, it is
by Aristotle, “That the mind rather a pleasure or play of ima-
hath over the body that com- gination, than a work or duty
inandment, which the lord hath thereof."
ܪ
170
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagi-
nation to the help of reason. Then, at a later
date, Shelley, not altering his meaning, which
I have already given, but altering his phrases,
said that “poetry may, in a general sense, be
defined to be the expression of the imagination;"
and Mr. Ruskin came to the conclusion that
poetry is the suggestion by the imagination of
noble grounds for the noble emotions.” It thus
became the first commandment of English criti-
cism that in poetry there are no gods but one--
imagination. To imagination belongs the crea-
tive fiat of art. It furnishes the key to all criti-
cal difficulties-it possesses the wondrous stone
that works all the marvels of poetical transmuta-
tion. It was one of Coleridge's dreams to write
a great work on poetry and poetical alchymy,
the basis of which should be a complete exposi-
tion of what he called the Productive Logos—in
plain English, the imagination.
This power of imagination is so vast and
vance a step thaumaturgic that it is impossible to lift a hand
first under- or move a step in criticism without coming to
terms with it, and understanding distinctly what
gination is. it is and what it does. On the threshold of every
inquiry, it starts up, a strange and unaccount-
able presence, that frights thought from its
pro-
priety, and upsets all reason. I
propose, there-
fore, to devote the next few chapters to a fresh
and thorough-going analysis of it, which ought
to yield some good results. In the meantime, it
Criticism
standing
what ima-
The Agreement of the Critics.
171
V.
will be enough for the purposes of this chapter CHAPTER
to point out, as far as it can be done at the
present stage of our inquiry, what imagination
has to do with pleasure.
All English criticism admits, and indeed in- The relation
of imagina-
sists, that art is the work, or, as Bacon more tion to
» .
“
strictly puts it, “the pleasure of imagination.” pleasure.
Even if, however, we reject the word pleasure,
and speak of art simply as the product of ima-
gination, this, it will be found, is but an implicit
statement of what is stated more explicitly in
German criticism, that art is the mind's play.
In accepting imagination as the fountain of art,
we accept art also as essentially a joy, for ima-
gination is the great faculty of human joyance.
It is the food of our desires even more than the Imagination
things themselves which we desire.
Of course largely
we cannot live upon dreams. Bolingbroke was with the
quite right when he cried :
pleasure.
Oh! who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking of the frosty Caucasus ?
Or clog the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December's snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat ?
But when he adds that, “ the apprehension of
the good gives but the greater feeling to the
worse,” his experience is not that of a man gifted
with strong imagination. The power of dream-
ing is proverbial as a magic that brings far things
near--that transports us whither we will, and
that turns all things to pleasure. Call it
to be
source of
172
The Gay Science.
v.
CHAPTER glamour--call it lunes-call it leasing; we need
not now dispute about the name, if we can only
agree as to the fact that imagination is often as
good to us as the reality, and sometimes better.
Is any feast so good as that which we imagine ? Is
any landscape so glorious as that which we see in
the mind's eye? Is any music so lovely as that
which floats in dreams? Is the pleasure which
Alnaschar could derive from the possession of
unbounded wealth to be compared with that
which he feels when in the fancied possession of
wealth he kicks over his basket of wares ? Not
only is the bare imagination of pleasure thus
often beyond the pleasure itself—that of real
pain is in many cases a source of enjoyment. It
is not seldom a pleasure to remember past suf-
fering
Limits,
however,
of it.
There is no doubt, another side to the
to that view picture, in the known facts that the terror of ill
is worse to bear than the ill itself, and that the
sympathetic pain which the good Samaritan
feels in seeing a wound is frequently more acute
than the pain felt by the wounded man himself.
That there are nightmares, however, and aches
of imagination, does not obliterate the general fact
that imagination is the house of pleasure, and
that dreamland is essentially a land of bliss.
Wordsworth speaks of imagination as that in-
ward eye which is the bliss of solitude; Shakes-
peare gives to it a name which bespeaks at once
its elevation and its delightfulness--the heaven
The Agreement of the Critics.
173
V.
ment of the
deñciency.
of invention; and my argument is, that if in CHAPTER
this heaven is the birthplace of art, and if from
this heaven it comes, its home is heavenly, its
ways are heavenly, to a heaven it returns, for a
heaven it lives.
This, then, may be described as the English Re-state-
gift to the definition of art--that it comes of ima- English
gination, and that it creates a pleasure coloured contribution
by the same faculty. All pleasure, obviously, is and its
not poetical : it becomes poetical when the ima-
gination touches it with fire. It must be re-
peated, however, that when we ask for distinct
information as to what this means, it is not easy,
it is indeed impossible, to get it; and I make
bold to claim for the next few chapters this
praise at least, that they are the first and only
attempt which has been made to give an exhaus-
tive analysis of imagination—to give an account
of it that shall at once comprise and explain all
the known facts. Those writers who give us
a rounded theory of imagination ignore half
the facts; those who recognise nearly all the
facts are driven, either like Mr. Ruskin, to
confess that they are a mystery inscrutable,
or like Coleridge, to throw down their pens
with a sigh, not because the mystery is inscrut-
able, but because their explanations would
be unintelligible to a stiff-necked and thick-
headed generation of beef-eating, shop-keeping
Britons.
Although
The result of this backward state of criticism imagination
174
The Gay Science.
V.
serted, it is,
nowhere
CHAPTER is, that when we come to ask the first of all
questions, what is art? we discover to our
is magnified chagrin that we are answered by statements that
where as keep on running in a vicious circle. Thus, if
however
, poetry is defined by reference to imagination ; on
explained. the other hand, imagination is defined by reference
to poetry. If we are told that poetry must be
imaginative, we are also told that imagination
must be poetical—for there is an imagination
which is not poetical. Thus, when we inquire
into the nature of poetry, we are first pushed for-
ward to search for it in imagination, and then
when we examine into the imagination, we are
thrown back on the original question-what
is poetical ? Few things, however, are more re-
markable in the world than the faculty which the
human mind has of seizing, enforcing, and
brooding over ideas which it but dimly compre-
Imagination hends; and although in English criticism, indeed
quantity. in all criticism that makes much of it, imagina-
tion is, as it were x, an unknown incalculable
quantity, still the constant recognition of that
something unknown is a preserving salt which
gives a flavour to writings that would often
cognition of taste flat from the want of precision and clear
outcome. Rightly understood, also, there is no
something critical doctrine to be compared for importance
importance. with that of the sovereignty of imagination in
art, and in art pleasure, which the English school
of critics has ever maintained. Let me add,
though at the present stage of the discussion I
an unknown
But the con-
tinual re-
that un-
known
of immense
The Agreement of the Critics.
175
V.
cannot make it clear that the leading doctrine CHAPTER
of English criticism is in effect but an anticipa-
tion of the prime doctrine of the Germans.
The English and the Germans, nearly allied in
race, are so far also allied in their thinking, that
the views of art upon which they mainly insist
are virtually the same. The German expression
of these views is the more precise. On the
other hand, the English expression of them
is, in point of time, the earlier, and in point
of meaning will be to most minds the more
suggestive.
a
If the foregoing statement be rather lengthy, Summary
and have inevitably been loaded with the repeti- chapter
.
tions of a multitude of authorities, the upshot of
all may be stated very shortly. All the schools
of criticism, without exception, describe art as
the minister of pleasure, while the more ad-
vanced schools go further, and describe it also as
the offspring of pleasure. Each may have a
different way of regarding this pleasure. The
Greek dwells on the truth of it; the Italian on
its profit. The Spaniard says it is pleasure of
; the Frenchman says it is of the few.
The German says that it comes of play; the
Englishman that it comes of imagination. But
all with one voice declare for pleasure as the
end of art. The inference is obvious—the in-
ference is the truism which is not yet even
recognised as a truth; that criticism, if it is
the many
176
The Gay Science.
V.
CHAPTER ever to be a science, must be the science of
pleasure. What wonder that it shows no sign
of science, when the object of the science is not
yet acknowledged ?
ON IMAGINATION.
VOL. I.
N
CHAPTER VI.
ON IMAGINATION.
VI.
I
>
manifesta-
tions.
IMAGINATION is the Proteus of the CHAPTER
mind, and the despair of metaphysics.
When the philosopher seizes it, he A general
finds something quite unexpected in his grasp, of imagina-
a faculty that takes many shapes and eludes tion and its
him in all. First it appears as mere memory,
and perhaps the inquirer lets it escape in
that disguise as an old friend that need not
be interrogated. If, however, he retain his
hold of it, ere long it becomes other than me-
mory; suddenly it is the mind's eye; sudden
;
again, a second sight; anon it is known as
intuition ; then it is apprehension ; quickly it
passes into a dream; as quickly it resolves itself
into sympathy and imitation ; in ore moment it
turns to invention and begins to create; in the
next moment it adopts reason and begins to
generalize; at length it flies in a passion, and is
>
ܪ
N 2
180
The Gay Science.
VI.
>
ation a
its own?
What most
strikes one
when we
.
into the
nature of
CHAPTER lost in love. It takes the likeness, or apes the
style by turns of every faculty, every mood,
every motion of thought. What is this Proteus
of the mind that so defies our search ? and has it
like him of the sea, a form and character of its
own, which after all the changes of running
water and volant flame, rock, flower, and strange
beast have been outdone, we may be able to fix
Has imagin- and to define ? Is there such a thing as ima-
character of gination different from the other faculties of the
mind? and if so, what is it?
Any one attempting to grapple with this
question, will at once be struck with a remark-
approach able fact.
the inquiry
able fact. Everybody knows that imagination
sways and overshadows us, enters into all our
this power studies and elaborates all our schemes. If we
knowledged swerve from the right path, it is fancy, we are
imagina.“ told, that has led us astray; if we pant after
;
splendid achievement, forsooth, it is the spirit of
romance that leads us on. Imagination, say the
philosophers and divines, the Humes and Bishop
Butlers, is the author of all error, and the most
dangerous foe to reason ; it is the delight of
life, say the poets, the spur of noble ambition,
the vision and the faculty divine. For good or ill,
it gives breath and colour to all our actions ;
even the hardest and driest of men are housed
in dreams; it may be dreams of tallow or treacle
or turnips, or tare and tret; but in dreams they
move. By all accounts, the imagination is thus
prevalent in human life, and the language of all
--the ac-
potency of
tion.
>
On Imagination.
181
VI.
withstand-
men, learned and simple, bears witness to its CHAPTER
puissance.
Nevertheless, imagination, thus rife, thus But not-
potent, whose dominion, even if it be that of ing its
a tyrant against whom it is wisdom to rebel, potency, the
philosophers
we all acknowledge, whose yoke, will or nill, do not tell
we all wear-is as the unknown god. First-is.
born of the intellectual gifts, it is the last studied
and the least understood. Of all the strange
things that belong to it, the strangest is that
much as the philosophers make of it, much as
they bow to it, they tell us nothing about it or
next to nothing. This is no hyperbole, but a
plain fact. Any one, who, fired by the magni-
tude and variety of the effects attributed to
imagination, inquires into the nature of their
causes, will be amazed at the poverty of all that
has been written on the subject, and the utter
inadequacy of the causes assigned. Most phi-
losophers, though they defer to popular usage
in speaking of imagination, yet when they
examine it closely, allow it no place whatever
among the powers of the human mind.
of the human mind. In the And indeed
account of our faculties given by Locke, and that it is
almost every other English psychologist, down nought.
to Herbert Spencer, the imagination is put out
of doors and treated as nought. The chief source
of illusion, it is itself an illusion; it is an impos-
tor; it is nothing; it is some other faculty. I
repeat that here I am using no figure of speech,
but speaking literally. Whereas in common
assure us
182
The Gay Science.
VI.
ز
The current
opinions I
have sum-
CHAPTER parlance and in popular opinion imagination is
always referred to as a great power, the autho-
rities in philosophy resolve it away. It is some
bther faculty, or a compound of other faculties.
It is reason out for a holiday; it is perception
in a hurry; it is memory gone wild; it is the
dalliance of desire; it is any or all of these
together.
The sum of the information about it which I
have been able to glean I have endeavoured to
the "parable convey in the parable of Proteus. One man says
of Proteus. this, and another man says that. Each one
gives a little of the truth, but none the whole
truth. Nor indeed is the whole truth conveyed
in the parable of Proteus. All that is attempted
in that similitude is to bring together the
scattered fragments of opinion and to mould them
into something like a consistent whole. The
current opinions of imagination are all fragmen-
These cur- tary: there is no wholeness about them. They
may be summed up under four heads--those
which identify imagination with memory; those
which melt it into passion; those which make
it out to be reason ; and lastly those which
represent it as a faculty by itself, different
from the other powers of the mind.
take a hasty glance at each of these sets of
opinions.
Most commonly imagination is described as a
department of memory. So it appeared to the
Greeks, in whose idea the muses were daugh-
rent opinions
may be
examined
under four
heads.
Let us
On Imagination.
183
VI.
Imagination
is sometimes
identified
with
ters, not as we should say of God and imagina- CHAPTER
tion, but of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Even those
who, like Aristotle, distinguished between fan-
tasy and reminiscence, failed to establish any went
clear difference between them, save such as may memory.
exist between whole and part. Aristotle, indeed,
says distinctly that memory pertains to the same
region of the mind as fantasy ; that it is
busied with the self same objects; and that such
objects of memory as are without fantasy are
objects accidentally. So in modern times, we
find Wolf, who is the father, even more directly
than Leibnitz, of German philosophy, giving
in his Rational Psychology a long chapter to
the imagination. It is the same chapter in
which he treats of memory. In his Empirical
Psychology, he gives a separate chapter to each
of the two faculties; in his Rational Psychology,
he is fain to treat of both together as but phases
of the same power.
From Aristotle to Hume we may say roundly,
that those who whether in form or in sub-
stance — identified imagination with memory,
defined imagination as a loose memory of the
objects of sense. I
say loose memory rather Generally in
than bad, because among the philosophers I
refer to there is some difference of opinion as
to the relative force of the two names—imagin-
ation and memory. Thus Hobbes, while he tells
us that these are two names for one and the same
thing, seems to indicate that the imagination is a
this way it
is regarded
as a loose
memory.
184
The Gay Science.
VI.
CHAPTER lively memory. It is in the same sense that
Locke defines fancy as a quick memory. Hume,
on the other hand, who often refers to the work-
ings of imagination, who tells us that it is the
greatest enemy of reason, and who has a famous
passage in which he compares it to the wings of
cherubim hiding their faces and preventing
them from seeing, sets out with the assertion
that it is nothing but a dim memory. Which-
ever of these views be correct, it is a pity that
the philosophers do not stick to one or other,
and instead of pouring their anathemas on such a
nonentity as imagination, attack the real sinner
a loose memory.
It is because they never
know whether to describe imagination as a de-
partment of memory or memory as a depart-
ment of imagination. Some, like Locke, make
imagination a part of memory ; some, like Male-
branche, make memory a part of imagination;
some, like Hobbes, regard the one as identical
Yet from with the other. The philosophers have a vague
ner of treat idea that imagination and memory are in a man-
ing it, many ner involved one with the other, but when
who idemo they cast blame on one of the confederates and
nation with acquit the other, when they vilify imagination
show that and glorify memory, they betray a suspicion that
they really
regard it as in the former there are elements which are not to
be found in the latter. What are these elements ?
Descartes is among those who virtually de-
fined imagination in terms of memory. This he
did in his Méditations on the more abstract
their
of
tify imagi-
memory
more than
memory.
On Imagination.
185
VI.
with pas-
-a
questions of philosophy; but when he came to CHAPTER
write on the passions of the soul, he saw that he
had to account for certain arbitrary compounds, Imagination
such as gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire, identified
which are created by imagination and are not sion.
furnished by memory. He then defined imagi-
nation as a passion partly of the soul and partly
of the body—a passion directed in its combina-
tions partly by the will, partly by the chance
movements of the bodily spirits. But before
Descartes, we were, in this country, accustomed
to insist in even a stronger sense than he
would allow, on the passionate element of ima-
gination. There was a strong tendency in our
language to identify imagination with desire.
Shakespeare constantly uses fancy as a synonym
for love, and this sense of the word still
survives. To love a thing is to have a fancy
for it. In the same spirit Bacon writes. After
ascribing poetry to the imagination (as history
to memory, and philosophy to reason), he in-
dicates what imagination is, by saying that
poetry is a submission or adaptation of the shows
of things to the desires of the mind. I believe
that Dr. Thomas Brown is the latest of our
philosophers who has seen in desire the pre-
siding element of imagination. In his view
imagination is only desire operating upon the
suggestions of memory.
In the same vein,
Shelley among the later poets sees in imagina-
tion the attitudes of love and of sympathy. It
>
186
The Gay Science.
VI.
Imagination
identified
CHAPTER is the faculty by which we forget ourselves and
love our neighbours, putting ourselves in their
place.*
A not less important band of thinkers make
with reason. out reason to be the characteristic feature of
imagination. It is Wordsworth's view that ima-
gination is but reason in her most exalted mood.
One can trace the germ of this opinion back to
the early days of logic, when the Stoics divided
that science into invention and judgment. In
course of time the heap of irrelevancies which
were elaborated under the name of invention
and which were supposed to help out the dis-
covery of middle terms was rejected from the
science. But although formally rejected from
logic as a thing which could be taught, it was
always understood that invention is a part of
reasoning. It was very much, though not entirely
in this sense, that dragons and hippogriffs, which
Shelley's words are worth our own nature, and an identifi-
quoting. “Poetry," he says, cation of ourselves with the beau-
“ lifts the veil from the hidden tiful which exists in thought,
beauty of the world, and makes action, or person, not our own.
familiar objects be as if they were A man, to be greatly good, must
not familiar. It reproduces all that imagine intensely and compre-
it represents; and the imperson- | hensively; he must put himself
ations clothed in its Elysian light in the place of another, and of
stand thenceforward in the minds
many others: the pains and
of those who have once contem- pleasures of his species must be-
plated them as memorials of that come his own. The great in-
gentle and exalted content which strument of moral good is imagi-
extends itself over all thoughts | nation; and poetry administers
.;
and actions with which it co- to the effect by acting upon the
exists. The great secret of cause." Essays and Letters,
morals is love, or a going out of | vol. i. p. 16.
p
On Imagination.
187
we should now deem the offspring of sheer ima- CHAPTER
gination, were, in the language of the Schoolmen,
described as beings of reason—entia rationis. It
was natural that those who took invention for Schoolmen
the prime element in imagination should in one
form or another identify that faculty with reason.
Gassendi, the great opponent of Descartes, would
have it that there is no real difference between
imagination and what he calls intellection. In
Sir John Davies' pithy account of fantasy it is
described as forming comparisons, holding the
balance and exercising all the faculties of
judgment. Henry More, the Platonist, regarded
reason and imagination as so involved together
that when, after having said his say about ima-
gination, he came to speak of reason, he merely
observed—“ we need say nothing of it apart by
itself.” Dugald Stewart is perhaps the firmest To Dugald
recent upholder of this view; for he treats the others.
imagination as a composite faculty, made out of
the elements of reason-such as apprehension,
abstraction, judgment and taste. Dr. Carpenter,
another good authority, has probably Stewart's
analysis in his mind, when he says that the
imagination “ involves an exercise of the same
powers as those concerned in acts of reasoning.”
He is at fault in his further assertion that the
chief difference between imagination and reason
is that the one has to do with fictitious, the
other with real objects; and I summon him here
only to bear witness that apart from the objects
VI.
From the
days of the
downwards.
Stewart and
188
The Gay Science.
VI.
Even those
who treat of
as
ality.
CHAPTER with which they are engaged, the two faculties
are almost indentical.
Even some of those who do not go so far, but
imagination allot to imagination a walk of its own, are
by airport are puzzled with a certain rationality which it dis-
itself
struck by plays, and which the separation of it from
reason seems to render unaccountable. Thus
D'Alembert maintained, contrary to the general
opinion, that imagination is as essential to the
mathematician as to the poet, and boldly declared
that he who in all antiquity deserved to be
placed next to Homer for strength of imagina-
tion is Archimedes. Herein however he is but
following up a hint of Descartes' to which
Dugald Stewart gives a flat contradiction, that
the study of mathematics tends to develop the
imagination, and that this is the reason why
mathematicians seldom succeed in metaphysics.
No, said Stewart“ of all the departments of
human knowledge, mathematics is that in which
imagination is least concerned ;” and he left it
to be inferred (I fancy he said it explicitly, but I
cannot recall the passage) that in the metaphy-
sician imagination exists in full force. Sir
William Hamilton at least adopted this view,
and said that it may reasonably be doubted
whether Aristotle or Homer were possessed
of the more powerful imagination; only Sir
William is more consistent in maintaining this of
Aristotle than D'Alembert was in maintaining
it of Archimedes, for his analysis of the fantasy
On Imagination.
189
VI.
And
the conclu-
sion that
or creative imagination had given him the result, CHAPTER
that it is a compound of reason and memory or
at least of what is commonly so called. But as work up to
if even this were an account of imagination not
quite satisfactory to him, Sir William Hamilton there is an
imagination
adopts in modified terms the statement of for every
faculty of
Ancillon, that there are as many different kinds the mind.
of imagination as there are different kinds of in-
tellectual activity.* There is the imagination of
abstraction, that of wit, that of judgment, that
of reason, that of feeling, that of volition, that of
the passions
and an addition to all, imagina-
In point of fact, however, it is not
tion proper.
* The statement of Ancillon rates, les antitheses, les con-
is very remarkable, and as we trastes, entre lesquels on saisit
may have to refer to it in the ensuite des rapports ou des res-
sequel, it may be well to quote semblances; l'imagination du
it here. The curious thing is jugement, que à l'occasion d'un
that it occurs in his chapter on objet reproduit toutes les qualités
Memory. Both memory and de cet objet, et les lie principale-
imagination are treated in the ment sous le rapport de substance,
same chapter (Essais Philosa d'attributs, et de modes ; l'ima-
phiques, tome ii. page 139), and gination de la raison, qui à
yet into this chapter on memory l'occasion d'un principe reproduit
he introduces the following: les conséquences, à l'occasion des
“On peut même dire qu'il y conséquences le principe ; l'ima-
a autant de genres différens d'ima- gination du sentiment, qui repro-
gination, qu'il y a de facultés de duit toutes les idées et toutes les
l'âme, à qui l'imagination fournit images accessoires, qui ont de
les élémens nécessaires à leur | l'affinité avec un certain senti-
travail. Il y a l'imagination de ment, et qui lui donnent par-là
l'abstraction, qui nous présente même plus d'étendue, de profon-
certains faces de l'objet sans nous
deur et de force; l'imagination
présenter les autres, et en même de la volonté, qui dans
temps le signe qui réunit les moment donné reproduit toutes
premières ; l'imagination de les idées, qui peuvent imprimer
l'esprit, qui reproduit les dispa- 1 à la volonté une direction fixe, ,
un
190
The Gay Science.
VI.
All these
views of
are com-
CHAPTER possible to separate between a mental act or
state and the imagination of it. To imagine
feeling is to feel ; to imagine judgment is to
judge ; and to say that there is an imagination of
every faculty in the mind is simply to say that
imagination takes the form of every faculty.
Any one who will gather together these
different views of imagination may see that
imagination
though on the surface they conflict one with
patible.
another (as when one set of philosophers make
imagination an exalted mood of reason, while
another set denounce it for the worst enemy of
reason) yet essentially they are compatible and
their variances are but the variances of partial
statement. The North says,
“I am the North
and there is no South.” The East wind whistles,
“I am of the East and I have never found the
West."
So then at length we return to our starting-
view of ima- point, and out of many theories which are all
file Proteus more or less true, form the idea of a Protean
of the mind power. Imagination remembers, feels, desires,
we started. wills, dreams, invents, judges, reasons.
It is a
name which we give for a change to every
And we ar-
gination as
the
which
ou bien l'ébranler et la rendre | puis m'exprimer ainsi, qui ne
vacillante;
l'imagination des travaille que pour elle-même, et
passions, qui selon la nature et qui produit les images de la
l'objet de la passion, reproduit nature sensible, celles des senti-
toutes les représentations qui lui mens, et celles des idées, unique-
sont homogèncs ou analogues; ment pour enfanter des combi-
enfin l'imagination proprement maisons nouvelles; c'est l'imagi-
dite, l'imagination pure, si je
mation du poète."
On Imagination.
191
VI.
Has ima-
character of
faculty in the mind, and to almost any com- CHAPTER
bination of these faculties. But is imagination
which bulks so large in popular theories, and in Question
common language, nothing of itself? Is the still recurs
power of which we hear so much, and which gination no
now looks like reason, now like memory, and its own ?
now like passion, blessed with no character, no
standing of its own ? Is it nothing but a name
to conjure with—an empty sound, a philosophical
expletive, a popular delusion ? Here we come
upon the fourth set of partial opinions to
which I proposed to call attention. According
to every intelligible analysis of imagination that
I have seen, it is a name, and nothing more.
On the other hand, there are a few writers who
regard it as a king in its own right, with a
territory of its own; but they give us
intelligible account of it. Thus Jean Paul
Richter, after saying that fantasy can do duty Those who
for the other faculties, and is their elemental imagination
spirit, but that the other faculties cannot take racter of its
the form and do the work of fantasy, proceeds fail to ex-
to tell us what this fantasy or creative imagina-plain what
tion is. What is it? Die Phantasie ist die
Weltseele der Seele, und der Elementargeist
der übrigen Kräfte. Wenn der Witz das
spielende anagramm der Natur ist; so ist die
Phantasie das Hieroglyphen-Alphabet derselben,
wovon sie mit wenigen Bildern ausgesprochen
wird. I fear that I cannot make this clearer in
English. Fantasy is the world-soul of the soul-
no
declare that
has a cha-
own
it is
192
The Gay Science.
VI.
CHAPTER and the elemental spirit of the other faculties. As
wit is the playful anagram of nature, fantasy is
its hieroglyphic alphabet. What all this comes to,
it is not easy to say; only it looks big. Nothing,
however, looks half so big as Coleridge's defini-
tion. “ The imagination I consider either as
primary or secondary. The primary imagination
I hold to be the living power and prime agent
of all human perception, and as a repetition in
the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in
the infinite I AM. The secondary I consider
as an echo of the former.” Oh gentle shep-
herds! what does this mean? Is it something
very great or very little? It reminds me of a
splendid definition of art which I once beard.
When the infinite I AM beheld his work of
creation, he said Thou ART, and ART was. The
philosopher of Highgate never explained himself.
He was a great believer in the independence of
imagination, but when he had written a few
sentences of his chapter on what he called with
a fine flourish the esemplastic power — the
Productive Logos, he suddenly stopped short
and got a friend to write him a letter, or
perhaps he himself wrote the letter which he
published, begging him not to put forth his
theory, for it would be unintelligible to the
addle-pated public, and he should reserve it for
Or, like Mr. another and a better world. Mr. Ruskin follows
say frankly in the same track, but more honestly, with all
scrutable. the frankness of a transparent and clear-seeing
a
Ruskin, they
that it is in-
On Imagination.
193
VI.
*
mind. He has written several magnificent CHAPTER
chapters on the work of imagination. The
words come from his mouth like emperors from
the purple, and describe with commanding
power the effects of imagination. But for the
faculty itself all that Mr. Ruskin has to say of
it is that it is utterly inexplicable. It is not to
be dissected or analysed by any acuteness of
discernment.*
Thus nobody tells us what imagination really Imagination
is, and how it happens that being, as some say, demands
nothing at all, it plays an all-powerful part in
human life. Driven to our own resources, we
must see if we cannot give a clearer account of it for our-
this wonder-working energy, and above all,
cannot reconcile the philosophical analysis
which reduces imagination to a shadow with
the popular belief which gives it the empire of
the mind. I propose this theory, that the
therefore
a new
analysis,
and we
must define
.
In this history of opinions, ation may not be applied. In
James Mill's theory of imagin- this comprehensive meaning of
ation ought not to be forgotten. the word Imagination there is
Imagination," he says, “is not no man who has not imagination,
a name of any one idea. I am
and no man who has it not in
not said to imagine unless I an equal degree with any other.
combine ideas successively in a Every man imagines; nay, is
less or greater number. An ima- constantly and unavoidably ima-
gination, therefore, is the name gining. He cannot help ima-
of a train. I am said to have gining. He can no more stop
an imagination when I have a the current of his ideas than
train of ideas; and when I am he can stop the current of his
said to imagine I have the same blood." --James Mill's Analysis
thing; nor is there any train of of the Human Mind, chap. vii.
ideas to which the term imagin-
VOL. I.
0
194
The Gay Science
VI.
It is not &
special
function.
Soul.
CHAPTER imagination or fantasy is not a special faculty
but that it is a special function. It is a name
given to the automatic action of the mind
faculty, but
a special
or any of its faculties—to what may not unfitly
be called the Hidden Soul. This is a short
The Hidden sentence. Perhaps to some it may appear a
trifling one, with which to docket and explain
the grand mystery of imagination. At least
those who have not well considered the subject
will scarcely see its pregnancy of meaning. It
involves an immense deal, however; and to the
next three chapters is assigned the task of show-
ing what it involves. It seems possible to get
out of it a more suggestive definition of the
nature of art than any which has yet been pro-
pounded. That definition will be furnished in
the ninth chapter of the present volume to which
the whole argument leads up. But I must ask
the reader, if he should be curious about the
definition, and should glance forward to see what
it looks like, not to decide upon it off-hand, but
to come back and read the argument which is
now to be opened out. The result to which the
argument tends may have the air of paradox to
those who have not formed previously an ac-
quaintance with the vast array of facts upon
which it proceeds, and their peculiar signifi-
cance. The facts which have to be unfolded
are among the most curious in human nature;
but they are also among the most neglected,
and I must beg for them a careful attention.
On Imagination.
195
VI.
have now to
for the problem to
of the
be solved.
They are, in very truth, by far the most im- CHAPTER
portant with which any science of human nature
can have to deal; and they provide us with a of the facts
key to more than one problem that hitherto has which we
been deemed insoluble. Whether the conclusion study.
as to art which may here be drawn from them
be correct or not, they are otherwise valuable,
and deserve some systematic arrangement. And
as the facts are important, so also I think I may
count upon the reader's interest in the strange
history which I now undertake to relate.
Only before buckling to that task let me
point out distinctly what it is that I am going
to show the working of. I have said that statement
imagination is but another name for the
automatic action of the mind or any of its
faculties. Now for the most part this automatic
action takes place unawares; and when we come
to analyse the movements of thought we find
that to be quite sure of our steps we are obliged
very much to identify what is involuntary with
what is unconscious. We are seldom quite sure
.
that our wills have had nought to do in pro-
ducing certain actions, unless these actions have
come about without our knowledge. Therefore
although involuntary does not in strictness
coincide with unconscious action, yet for prac-
tical purposes, and, above all, for the sake of
clearness, it may be well to put out of sight
altogether such involuntary action as may
consist with full consciousness, and to treat of
02
196
The Gay Science.
VI.
CHAPTER the automatic exercise of the mind as either
quite unconscious or but half conscious. And if
on this understanding we may substitute the one
phrase for the other as very nearly coinciding,
then the task before me is to show that imagina-
tion is but a name for the unknown, unconscious
action of the mind—the whole mind or any of its
faculties for the Hidden Soul. If this can be
--
made good-evidently it will meet the first con-
dition of the problem to be solved. It will
reconcile philosophical analysis with popular
belief. It will grant to the satisfaction of philo-
sophers that imagination is nothing of itself;
and it will prove to the satisfaction of the
multitude that it is the entire mind in its secret
working.
THE HIDDEN SOUL.
Hills
CHAPTER VII.
THE HIDDEN SOUL.
VII.
T.
to show
a
what it
imeans.
HE object of this chapter is not 80 CHAPTER
much to identify imagination with
The object
what may be called the hidden soul, of this
as to show that there is a mental existence chapter is
within us which may be so called — a secret that there
flow of thought which is not less energetic soul,
and
than the conscious flow, an absent mind which
haunts us like a ghost or a dream and is
an essential part of our lives. Incidentally,
there will be no escaping the observation that
this unconscious life of the mind-this hid-
den soul bears a wonderful resemblance to the
supposed features of imagination. That, how-
ever, is but the ultimate conclusion to which we
are driving. My more immediate aim is to
show that we have within us a hidden life, how
vast is its extent, how potent and how constant
is its influence, how strange are its effects.
200
The Gay Science.
VII.
The cha-
be studied.
Chapter This unconscious part of the mind is so dark,
and yet so full of activity ; so like the conscious
intelligence and yet so divided from it by the
veil of mystery, that it is not much of a hyper-
bole to speak of the human soul as double ; or
at least as leading a double life. One of these
lives the veiled life, now awaits the rudeness
of our scrutiny.
Many of the facts which in this exposition it
the facts to will be requisite to mention must be known to
some readers, and nearly all of them indeed
should be recognized as more or less belonging to
common experience. But notwithstanding their
familiarity we must needs go the whole round of
the facts that bear witness to the reality of a
hidden life within us, for it is only from a pretty
full muster of the evidence--the familiar with
the unfamiliar—that we can see the magnitude
-
of our hidden life, the intimacy of its relations
with our conscious every-day thinking, the con-
stancy and variety of its working in all the nooks
and crannies of the mind. Though some of
these facts are familiar, they are also inter-
esting enough to be worth repeating. To lay
The interest bare the automatic or unconscious action of
the mind is indeed to unfold a tale which out-
vies the romances of giants and ginns, wizards
in their palaces and captives in the Domdaniel
roots of the sea. As I am about to show
how the mind and all its powers work for us
in secret and lead us unawares to results so
of the sub-
ject.
The Hidden Soul.
201
VII.
of the mind.
a
much above our wont and so strange that we CHAPTER
attribute them to the inspiration of heaven or to
the whispers of an inborn genius, I seem to
tread enchanted ground.
The hidden efficacy
of our thoughts, their prodigious power of work-
ing in the dark and helping us underhand, can The romance
be compared only to the stories of our folk-lore,
and chiefly to that of the lubber-fiend who toils
for us when we are asleep or when we are not
looking. There is a stack of corn to be thrashed,
or a house to be built, or a canal to be dug, or a
mountain to be levelled, and we are affrighted at
the task before us. Our backs are turned and it
is done in a trice, or we awake in the morning
and find that it has been wrought in the night.
The lubber-fiend or some other shy creature
comes to our aid. He will not lift a finger that
we can see; but let us shut our eyes, or turn
our heads, or put out the light, and there is
nothing which the good fairy will not do for us.
We have such a fairy in our thoughts, a willing
but unknown and tricksy worker which com-
monly bears the name of Imagination, and
which may be named—as I think more clearly
-The Hidden Soul.
It is but recently that the existence of hidden The exist-
or unconscious thought has been accepted as a hidden
fact in any system of philosophy which is not
mystical. It used to be a commonplace of phi- -cently
losophy, that we are only in so far as we know ledged.
that we are.
In the Cartesian system, the
ence of
thought
only re-
202
The Gay Science.
VII.
tesian
doctrine
to it.
CHAPTER essence of mind is thought; the mind is nothing
unless it thinks, and to think is to be conscious.
The Car- To Descartes and his vast school of followers,
a thought which transcends consciousness is a
opposed
nullity. The Cartesian system is perfectly ruth-
less in its assertion of the rights of consciousness,
and the tendency of the Cartesians has been to
maintain not only that without consciousness
there can be no mind, but also that without
consciousness there can be no matter. Nothing
exists, they inclined to say, except it exists as
thought (in technical phrase, esse is percipi), and
nothing is thought except we are conscious of
it. In our own times, the most thorough-going
statement of the Cartesian doctrine has come
from Professor Ferrier, in one of the most grace-
fully written works on metaphysics that has
ever appeared. “We are," says Ferrier, “only
in so far as we know; and we know only in so
far as we know that we know." Being and
knowledge are thus not only relative, but also
identical.
To Leibnitz is due the first suggestion of
gested the thought possibly existing out of consciousness.
He stated the doctrine clumsily and vaguely,
but yet with decision enough to make it take
root in the German system of thought. There
it has grown and fructified and run to seed;
there, also, it has expanded into all the ab-
surdities and extravagancies of the transcen-
dental philosophy. But though much of that
Leibnitz
modern
doctrine.
The Hidden Soul.
203
VII.
.
ܪ
also allowed
Spencer.
philosophy is mere folly, and though to most CHAPTER
of us it is nearly all unintelligible, we must
take heed not to scout it as a baseless fabric. It
has a foundation of fact, and that foundation of
fact is recognised now by our most sober thinkers,
who-be they right or wrong at least never quit
the ground of common sense. It is recognised
by Sir William Hamilton; it is recognised by which is
his opporrent, Mr. Mill; it is recognised by in our
another great authority, Mr. Herbert Spencer. Hamilton
, ,
How they recognise it, whether or not they are Mill, and
consistent in what they say of it, and what use
they make of the fact they have learned to
acknowledge, are questions which we need only
glance at. For me, the great point is that they
admit the principle.
Sir William Hamilton is not consistent in his Sir William
assertions with regard to consciousness. Every-view.
body who is acquainted with his writings must
know how forcibly he has described the existence
within us of what he calls a latent activity.
He shows as clearly as possible how the mind
works in secret without knowing it. His proof
of the existence of hidden thought is one of the
most striking points in his philosophy. Yet it
shows the effect of his training that again and
again he lapses into the old Cartesian way of
speaking, and in many little passages which I
might quote says that mind is co-extensive with
consciousness—that thought exists only in so far
as we know it exists.
Hamilton's
204
The Gay Science
CHAPTER
VII.
Then again for Mr. Mill, I do not know that
he is inconsistent in his views with regard to the
Mill's view. reality of hidden thought; but some of us may
object to the conclusions which he draws from
that reality. He has attacked in the person of
Sir William Hamilton the established philosophy
of Europe. He challenges the whole of that
system of philosophy which now reigns, and has
reigned for the last century, having begun in a
recoil from Hume. He has a rival system to
propound a reassertion of Hume; and the
grand weapons by which he proposes to beat
down the current philosophy and to establish
his own are what he calls the law of inseparable
association and its attendant law of obliviscence.
I must not vex my readers with the object of
the discussion, which is rather dry, and indeed
of little interest save to professed metaphysi-
cians; and it is enough to state the bare fact
that the argument-whatever it be and whither-
soever it tend-turns entirely on the fact of
hidden thought—the mind acting in a certain
way and without knowing it.
As for Mr. Herbert Spencer, he has stated the
case very pithily in his defence of the current
philosophy against Mr. Mill's attack. He comes
upon a strange contradiction, which no one who
will fully and fairly relate the facts of his con-
sciousness can escape. Mr. Spencer puts the
contradiction in its most suicidal attitude, and
assures us that we cannot avoid it. “Mysterious
ܪ
Statement
of Herbert
Spencer,
a
The Hidden Soul.
205
VII.
as seems the consciousness of something which is CHAPTER
yet out of consciousness," we are “obliged to
think it." Here then is admitted the funda-
mental fact out of which all the fogs of the
transcendental philosophy have arisen—the fact
that the mind may be engaged in a sphere that
transcends consciousness. I do not at present
ask the reader to accept any of these views or
any of these statements. The views may be
faulty, and the statements may be obscure.
But I ask him to understand that I am not
about to preach to him an utterly new doctrine,
or a doctrine which none but transcendental
philosophers have allowed.
In point of fact it is an old doctrine. Although But in
Leibnitz was the first to indicate plainly and
soundly the existence of thought working for us has been
in our minds occult and unknown, it is not to
be supposed that this phenomenon had wholly
escaped previous observers. On the contrary,
the fact of vast tracts of unconscious, but still it is the
active, mind existing within us, lies at the base of
of mys-
all the theories of the mystics. And I know not
that in Shakespeare there is a more profound
saying than one which is uttered by a nameless
lord. Parolles, soliloquizing, as he thinks in
secret, expresses a fear that the hollowness of and it
his character has been discovered, and that all
his bombast and drumming and trumpeting are
understood at length to be but sound and fury,
signifying nothing : “They begin to smoke me,
one form
or another
of old
standing.
foundation
ticism,
is often
suggested
by the
purets.
206
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER and disgraces have of late knocked too often at
my door. I find my tongue is too fool-hardy;
but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it,
and of his creatures, not daring the reports of
my tongue. Tongue, I must put you into a
butter-woman's mouth, and buy myself another
of Bajazet's mule.” The anonymous lord who
overhears this extraordinary soliloquy, then asks,
“Is it possible he should know that he is, and be
that he is ?” It is a question which goes down
to the very centre of life-how far knowledge is
compatible with being, existence with the con-
sciousness of existence. Here it is the crucial
test of an irrecoverable ass. Look at Dogberry
anxious to be written down an ass, and proving
his donkeyhood by utter unconsciousness of it.
Look at Falstaff, on the other hand, laughing at
himself and stopping the laughter of others
when he says, “I do begin to perceive that I
am made an ass.” And it is not only the final
test of donkeyhood, but goes down to the deeps
of life. Shakespeare is very fond of such
phrases as these : “The fool doth think he is
wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a
fool.” “The worst is not as long as we can
say, This is the worst.” “I am not very sick,
since I can reason of it.” Shakespeare--could
Shakespeare himself have known what he was,
and yet have been that he was ?
Not so; we are far more than we know;
description
and, paradoxical though it may appear, yet
General
of the
The Hidden Soul.
207
VII.
which we
to deal.
our life is full of paradoxes, and it is true CHAPTER
that the mere circumstance of our knowing that
we are, is often a valid proof to the contrary, facts with
I hope to avoid the nonsense and the jargon of have now
those who have discoursed most on the sphere
of the transcendental—that is, the sphere of our
mental existence which transcends or spreads
beyond our consciousness; but that conscious-
ness is not our entire world, that the mind
stretches in full play far beyond the bourne
of consciousness, there will be little difficulty
in proving. Outside consciousness there rolls
a vast tide of life, which is, perhaps, even
more important to us than the little isle of our
thoughts which lies within our ken. Com-
parisons, however, between the two are vain,
because each is necessary to the other. The
thing to be firmly seized is, that we live in two
concentric worlds of thought,—an inner ring, of
which we are conscious, and which may be
described as illuminated ; an outer one, of which
we are unconscious, and which may be described
as in the dark. Between the outer and the
inner ring, between our unconscious and our
conscious existence, there is a free and a con-
stant but unobserved traffic for ever carried on.
Trains of thought are continually passing to and
fro, from the light into the dark, and back from
the dark into the light. When the current of
thought flows from within our ken to beyond
our ken, it is gone, we forget it, we know not
208
The Gay Science.
VII.
These facts
are to be
divided
CHAPTER what has become of it. After a time it comes
back to us changed and grown, as if it were a
new thought, and we know not whence it comes.
So the fish, that leaves our rivers a smolt, goes
forth into the sea to recruit its energy, and in
due season returns a salmon, so unlike its
former self that anglers and naturalists long
refused to believe in its identity. What passes
in the outside world of thought, without will
and for the most part beyond ken, is just that
which we commonly understand as the inscru-
table work of imagination; is just that which
we should understand as the action of the hidden
soul, and which, after these generalities, it is
necessary now to follow in some detail.
The facts with which we have to deal fall
naturally into three groups, corresponding to the
into three first three groups of opinion, as to the nature
of imagination enumerated in the last chapter.
There it was stated that imagination has been
identified by philosophers with memory, with
reason, or else with passion; and that there is a
fourth group of thinkers who, not satisfied with
any of these views, declare that in imagination
there is something special, though they cannot
And state tell what it is. The argument here is that each
argument to of the first three sets of thinkers are quite right.
Imagination is memory; imagination is reason ;
imagination is passion. But the argument goes
further, and will have it that the fourth set of
thinkers are also right, and that imagination has
groups.
ment of the
be followed.
The Hidden Soul.
209
VII.
a specialty. It is memory—but it is memory CHAPTER
automatic and unconscious. It is reason, but it
—
is reason of the hidden soul. It is passion and
all that we connect with passion, of instinct, feel-
ing, and sympathy—but it is passion that works
out of sight. It is, in a word, the whole power
or any power of the mind—but it is that power
energising in secret and of its own free will.
Now, for the present, let us put by the question
whether it be right or wrong to say that this is
a sufficient account of what we understand by
the imagination. Hold that question in abey-
ance until we have completed a survey of the
hidden soul. At present, what we are to keep
in view is this, that as the conscious soul may be
roughly divided into faculties of memory, of
reason, and of feeling, so the unconscious or
hidden soul may be divided in the same manner,
and may be considered as memory, as reason,
and as feeling. Let us examine it in these three
aspects.
and its hid-
.
I. In memory we encounter the oftest-noted On memory
marvel of hidden thought. It is a power that den work.
belongs even more to the unconscious than to
the conscious mind. How and where we hide our
knowledge so that it seems dead and buried;
and how in a moment we can bring it to life
again, finding it in the dark where it lies
unheeded amid our innumerable hoards, is a
mystery over which every one capable of think-
VOL. I.
P
210
The Gay Science.
VII.
marvel.
.
tions of
memory.
CHAPTER ing has puzzled. The miracle here is most
evident and most interesting when memory halts
A constant a little. Then we become aware that we are
seeking for something which we know not; and
there arises the strange contradiction of a faculty
knowing what it searches for, and yet making
the search because it does not know. Moreover,
nothing is commoner than, when a man tries to
recollect somewhat and fails, to hear him say,
Contradio “Never mind, let us talk of something else, I
shall remember it presently," and then in the
midst of his foreign talk, he remembers. So
that the condition of his remembrance depends
on this odd contradiction that he shall not only
forget what he wants, but even forget that he
wanted to remember it. When Daniel surpassed
all the magicians, the astrologers, and the sooth-
sayers of Babylon, by discovering to Nebuchad-
nezzar the dream which he had forgotten, he did
not perform a more wonderful feat than the king
himself would have accomplished had he been
able by an effort of his own memory to recover
the lost vision. In the plenitude of his powers,
Newton could not remember how he arrived at
the binomial theorem, and had to fall back upon
his old papers to enable him to discover the
process.
The clue, but only a clue, to this perpetual
hidden life. magic of reminiscence lies in the theory of our
hidden life. I do not attempt to follow out the
explanation, since at best it only throws the
The clue to
it
The Hidden Soul.
211
VII.
riddle but a step or two backwards, and for the CHAPTER
present inquiry it is enough that I should
barely state the facts which indicate the reality
and the intensity of our covert life. Strictly
speaking the mind never forgets : what it once
seizes, it holds to the death, and cannot let go.
We may not know it, but we are greater than we
know, and the mind, faithful to its trust, keeps a
secret watch on whatever we give to it. Thus
beams upon us the strange phenomenon of
knowledge, possessed, enjoyed, and used by us,
of which nevertheless we are ignorant-ignorant
not only at times, but also in some cases during
our whole lives.
First of all, for an illustration, take the well- Story of the
known story of the Countess of Laval, who Laval and
always in her sleep spoke a language which those
about her could not understand and took for gib-
berish. On the occasion of her lying-in, how-
ever, she had a nurse from Brittany who at once
understood her. The lady spoke Breton when
asleep, although when awake she did not know
a word of it, and could attach no meaning to her
own phrases which were reported to her. The
fact is that she had been born in Brittany, and
had been nursed in a family where only the old
Celtic dialect of that province was spoken. This
she must have learned to prattle in her infancy.
Returning to her father's home, where French
only was spoken, and Breton not at all, she soon
forgot her early speech-lost all traces of it in
Countess of
others.
P 2
212
The Gay Science.
VII.
Captain
CHAPTER her conscious memory. Beyond the pale of
consciousness memory held the language firm as
ever, and the Countess prattled in her dreams
the syllables of her babyhood. Captain Marryat
Marryat.
gives an account of what happened to himself,
not so striking perhaps, but equally pertinent.
A man belonging to his ship fell overboard, and
he jumped into the sea to save him. As he rose
to the surface he discovered that he was in the
midst of blood. In an instant the horror of his
situation flashed on him. He knew that the
sharks were around him, and that his life was to
be measured by seconds. Swifter than pen can
write it, his whole life went into the twinkling
of an eye. Burst upon his view all that he had
ever done, or said, or thought. Scenes and
events in the far past which had been long
blotted from his remembrance came back upon
him as lightning. The end of the story is that
he escaped, the sharks having followed the ship,
while he, left behind, was picked up by a boat;
but the point of it for us lies in the fealty of
memory to its trust, and in the perfectness of the
art by which it held all the past of the man's
life to the veriest trifle of gossip in safe keeping.
De Quincey. De Quincey, in the dreams of his opium-eating
days, felt the same power in himself. Things
which, if he had been told of them when waking
he could not have acknowledged as parts of his
former experience, were in his dreams so placed
before him with all the chance colour and
The Hidden Soul.
213
VII.
feelings of the original moment, that at once he CHAPTER
knew them and owned their memorial identity.
As he thus noted the indelibility of his memory,
he leaped to the conjecture which divines before
him had reached, that in the dread day of reckon-
ing the book which shall be opened before the
Judge is but the everlasting roll of remem-
brance.
In this unfailing record two things particu- Two things
larly call for attention ; the first, that understand- noticed in
ing is not essential to memory; the second, that memory.
the memory of things not understood may be
vital within us. A word or two on each of these
to be chiefly
great facts.
That understanding is not essential to memory The first,
we see in children who learn by heart what has standing is
no meaning to them. The meaning comes long hoito
years afterwards. But it would seem as if the
process which we have all observed on such a
small scale goes on continually on a much larger
scale. Absolute as a photograph, the mind
refuses nought. An impression once made upon
the sense, even unwittingly, abides for evermore.
There has long been current in Germany a story
about a maid in Saxony who spoke Greek,
Henry More refers to the fact as a sort of
miracle and an antidote against atheism. Cole-
ridge tells a similar story of later date and with
explanatory details. In a Roman Catholic town Story of the
in Germany, a young woman, who could neither maid of
read nor write, was seized with a fever, and was
that under-
not essential
а.
Saxony.
214
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER said by the priests to be possessed of a devil,
because she was heard talking Latin, Greek and
Hebrew Whole sheets of her ravings were
written out, and were found to consist of
sentences intelligible in themselves but having
slight connection with each other. Of her
Hebrew sayings, only a few could be traced to
the Bible, and most seemed to be in the Rab-
binical dialect. All trick was out of the ques-
tion ; the woman was a simple creature; there
was no doubt as to the fever. It was long
before any explanation save that of demoniacal
possession could be obtained. At last the mystery
was unveiled by a physician who determined
to trace back the girl's history, and who, after
much trouble, discovered that at the age of nine
she had been charitably taken by an old Protes-
tant pastor, a great Hebrew scholar, in whose
house she lived until his death. On further
inquiry it appeared to have been the old man's
custom for years to walk up and down a passage
of his house into which the kitchen door opened,
and to read to himself with a loud voice out of his
books. The books were ransacked, and among
thern were found several of the Greek and Latin
Fathers, together with a collection of Rabbinical
writings. In these works so many of the
passages taken down at the young woman's bed-
side were identified, that there could be no
reasonable doubt as to their source. A succes-
sion of unintelligible sounds had been so caught
.
a
The Hidden Soul.
215
VII.
absolute as
a
graph.
tiations
Abercrom-
by the ear that years afterwards the girl could CHAPTER
in her delirium repeat them. And so we may
say generally, that, whether we know it or not, Memory
the senses register with a photographic accuracy a photo-
whatever passes before them, and that the regis-
ver, though it may be lost, is always imperish-
able.
As it is only by a variety of illustrations that Other illus-
this great fact can be thoroughly impressed upon given by
the mind, I may be allowed to detain the reader bies
with yet another anecdote pointing to the same
conclusion. It is told by Abercrombie ; indeed,
he has several like it. Thus, he makes mention
of one of his patients who had in health no kind
of turn for music, but sang Gaelic songs in his
delirium. The most remarkable case, however,
which he describes is that of a dull awkward
country girl—who was considered uncommonly
weak of intellect, who in particular showed not
the faintest sense of music, and who was fit only
to tend the cattle. It happened that while thus
engaged with cattle, she had to sleep next a
room in which a tramping fiddler of great skill
sometimes lodged. Often he would play there
at night, and the girl took notice of his finest
strains only as a disagreeable noise. By and by,
however, she fell ill, and had fits of sleep-waking
in which she would imitate the sweetest tones of
a small violin. She would suddenly stop in her
performance to make the sound of tuning her
instrument, and then after a light prelude would
216
The Gay Science.
VII.
а.
CHAPTER dash off into elaborate pieces of music, most
delicately modulated. I have forgotten to men-
tion that in the meantime a benevolent lady had
taken a liking to her, and received her into her
family as an under-servant. This accounts for
the fact of her afterwards imitating the notes of
an old piano which she was accustomed to hear in
the house. Also, she spoke French, conjugated
Latin verbs, and astonished everybody who
approached her in her sleep-waking state, with
much curious mimicry, and much fluent and some-
times clever talk on every kind of subject-
including politics and religion. Here the High-
land lass is but exhibiting in another form the
same sort of phenomenon as Coleridge described
Conclusion, in the German girl. In both of these anecdotes
the fact stands out clear, that the memory grips
lets
het brothing and appropriates what it does not understand-
appropriates it mechanically, like a magpie
stealing a silver spoon, without knowing what
it is, or what to do with it. The memory can-
not help itself. It is a kleptomaniac and lets
nothing go by.
Nor must we have mean ideas as to the
nature of the existence in the mind of things
memory of preserved beyond our knowledge and without
our understanding. This is the second point
may be vital aforesaid which calls for attention. When we
think of something preserved in the mind, but
lost and wellnigh irrecoverable, we are apt to
imagine it as dormant; when we know that it
that the
memory
go by.
The second
point to be
noticed,
that the
things not
understood
within us.
The Hidden Soul.
217
VII.
active
within us
of which
we know
was unintelligible we are apt to imagine it as CHAPTER
dead. On the contrary, the mind is an organic
whole and lives in every part, even though we
know it not. Aldebaran was once the grandest
star in the firmament, and Sirius had a companion
star once the brightest in heaven, and now one
of the feeblest. Because they are now dim to
us, are we to conclude that they are going out
and becoming nought? The stars are overhead,
though in the blaze of day they are unseen;
they are not only overhead, but also all their
influences are unchanged. So there is knowledge Knowledge
active within us of which we see nothing, know
nothing, think nothing. Thus, in the sequence
of thought, the mind, busied with the first link nothing.
in a chain of ideas, may dart to the third or
fourth, the intermediate link or links being utterly
unknown to it. They may be irrecoverable, they
may even be unintelligible, but they are there,
and they are there in force.
As it is sometimes difficult to follow a general Examples
statement like this without the help of example,
I will suppose a case in point, suggested by the
story of the girl who in her waking state had
no ear for music, but yet in her sleep-waking
could imitate the music of the violin with won-
drous accuracy and sweetness. Take the case
of a man who has no ear for music, who cannot
keep time in a simple dance, who can neither
remember nor recognise a tune, and to whom
melody is but an unmeaning succession of sweet
in illustra-
tion.
218
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER noises. That man may, nevertheless, through
associations the most fine and indefinable of
any, but also the most sure and irresistible
through an association of unknown musical
ideas-connect two objects of thought which are
otherwise far apart. The hearing a Methodist
hymn sung, for example, may put him in mind
of a snow storm. Say that the hymn is sung to
the air of Scots wha hae wr Wallace bled. He
may not know this; neither may he know that
The Land o' the Leal which he once heard has
the same air transposed to the minor key; but
forthwith on hearing the hymn, his mind re-
verts to the idea of the snow-drift which is
mentioned in the first verse of the Scotch song.
The knowledge of the strain, once heard, is in
the mind, quick and quickening, although he
knows it not nor understands it. So, in the
Showing
how what days of our feebleness we have witnessed scenes
and events for which we seemed to have no
imagination
eyes and no ears, and a long time thereafter we
describe as from imagination what is really a
surrender of the memory. Looks and tones come
back upon us with strange vividness from the
far past; and we can picture to the life transac-
tions of which it is supposed that we have never
had any experience. Shelley was filled with
terror when he thought of these things. In a
walk near Oxford, he once came upon a part of
the landscape for the first time (as he deemed)
which nevertheless his memory told him that he
we attri-
bute to
is but a
surrender
of hidden
memory.
The Hidden Soul.
219
VII.
tained in
view of
these facto
.
had seen before. When long afterwards, in CHAPTER
Italy, he attempted to describe upon paper the
state of his mind in half feeling that he had seen
this landscape before in a dream, he became 80
terror-stricken in contemplation of his thought
that he had to throw down his pen and fly to
his wife to quell in her society the agitation of
his nerves.
No wonder that Plato when he saw the vast Plato main-
resources of the mind when there came to him
a dim feeling that much of what he seemed to
the theory
create he was only drawing from remembrance, of pre-ex-
and when he could trace back to no period in
the present life the origin of impressions which
had been self-registered, and ideas which had
been self-grown in the dark of his mind,
straightway started the hypothesis of a previous
life passed in a previous world, before we found
our way hither to be clogged by clay. Many a
time since then men have caught at the same
One of our least known poets, but a true
one, Matthew Green, has it in the following
terms:
idea *
As prisoners into life we've come;
Dying may be but going home;
Transported here by bitter fate,
The convicts of a prior state.
А query has been raised as
to the meaning of the question
which we find in the Gospel of
St. John: "Master, who did sin,
this man or his parents, that he
was born blind ?" How could
the man have sinned before he
was born, except on the supposi-
tion of pre-existence ?
220
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER But he who has in modern times most emphati-
cally expressed it is Wordsworth. In the finest
of his poems he says:
The same
view sug-
gested by
Words-
worth
ܪ
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home.
Summary
of the facts
inemory.
So much then for memory, in so far as it
relating to represents the immense involuntary life which
we lead out of consciousness. If the facts I
have brought together do not account for all,
certainly they account for much of what we
understand by the word imagination. They
account for much even of what is most mys-
terious in the processes called imaginative. In
the mechanical accuracy with which memory all
unknown to us registers the flitting impressions
of our daily life, and in the faithfulness with
which at times and in ways of its own choosing,
it surrenders to consciousness these impressions,
we have a glimpse of what is meant by the
creativeness of imagination. It is true, that the
theory of unconscious memory does not explain
all the creative work of fantasy. There is in
.
the mind, as I shall afterwards have to show, a
genuine creative process, over and above the
seeming creativeness of unconscious memory.
Still, it is difficult to exaggerate the importance
The Hidden Soul.
221
VII.
a
a
Sir Walter
of mere memory-involuntary and secret—as a CHAPTER
worker of miracles, as a discoverer of things
unknown, and as contributing to invest all
objects of thought with a halo of mystery,
which is but the faint reflection of forgotten
knowledge. The Platonic theory of pre-ex-
istence is but the exaggeration of a truth. Our
powers of memory are prodigious ; our powers
of invention are very limited. The same fables,
the same comparisons, the same jests are pro-
duced and reproduced like the tunes of a barrel-
organ in successive ages and in different
countries.
When Sir Walter Scott was engaged on the Aneodote of
composition of Rokeby, he was observed to take Scott
notes of the little wild flowers that grew not far
from the cave which he was going to allot to
Guy Denzil. He describes how Bertram laid
him down :
Where purple heath, profusely strewn,
And throat-wort, with its azure bell,
And moss and thyme his cushion swell.
To one who expressed surprise that for such
details he did not trust to imagination, meaning
the faculty of invention, he replied that this
faculty is circumscribed in its range, is soon ex-
hausted and goes on repeating itself, whereas
nature is boundless in its variety, and not to be
surpassed by any efforts of art. Thus it is not
80 much to a trained invention as to a trained
memory that the poet who seeks for variety must
222
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER chiefly trust; and it will be found that all
great poets, all great artists, all great inventors
are men of great memory
their unconscious
memory being even greater than that of which
they are conscious. These unconscious memories
stirring we know not what within us, fill some
men with a sense of the mystery of life, and shed
on all things visible the hues of poetry,—that
light, which, according to Wordsworth, never
was on sea or land. Other men they enrich with
visions of what they fancy they have never seen.
In a moment at a single jet the picture is in
the mind's eye complete to a pin's head with all
the perfectness of imaginative work. One blow,
one flash, is all we are conscious of; no fum-
bling, no patching, no touching up.
up. We are
unconscious of the automatic energy within us
until its work is achieved and the effect of it is
not to be resisted. We see the finished re-
sult; of the process we know nothing. We
enjoy the one and we stand in awe of the other.
We endow these extraordinary memories with
divine honours. Yo are as gods, we say to
the poets. And thus far at least one can see
a deeper wisdom in the doctrine of the Greeks
that the muses were all daughters of Mnemo-
syne.
ܪ
II. Let us now look for the exercise of reason
in the hidden soul, by reason understanding not
merely what the logicians mean, but all that is
On the hid-
den life of
reason.
The Hidden Soul.
223
VII,
plexity of
thought.
included in the popular sense of the term-as CHAPTER
judgment, invention, comparison, calculation,
selection, and the like movements of thought,
forethought and afterthought.
When we come to look into the complex The com-
movement of our thoughts, we discover that in
almost every mental operation there are several
distinct wheels going, though we may be con-
scious of only one. No better illustrations need
we seek for, than the favourite ones of play-
ing on the piano-forte and of reading a book.
The beginner on the piano-forte strikes the
notes far between like minute guns. For
every key that he touches a distinct enterprise
of thought is required. After a time he fingers
the scale more deftly, and can grasp whole
handfuls of notes in quick succession with
greater ease than at first he could hit upon'a
single key. See how many things he can do at we do a
With both hands he strikes fourfold ber of things
chords—eight separate notes ; he does this in at once, but
perfect time; he lifts his foot from the pedal so scious of all.
as to give the sound with greater fulness
meanwhile his eye, fixed on the music-book,
is reading one or two bars in advance of his
hand; and to crown all, he is talking to a com-
panion at his side. This enumeration of the
various courses which the mind pursues at one
and the same moment, is far from complete ;
but it is enough to show that many lines of
action which when first attempted require to be
great
once.
ܪ
.
;
224
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER carried on by distinct efforts of volition become
through practice mechanical, involuntary move-
ments of which we are wholly unaware. In the
act of reading we find the mind similarly at
work for us, with a mechanical ease that is
independent of our care. There are indeed well
attested cases of readers overtaken with sleep
and continuing to read aloud, although thus
overpowered. Children at the factories have
fallen asleep over the machines which their
fingers kept plying. Postmen have gone upon
their daily rounds dead asleep, without oversight
of consciousness or intervention of will. In these
cases the mind spontaneously went forward in
certain accustomed grooves.
More particular examples are at hand.
examples,
Houdin could not only keep four balls tossing
in the air, but also while these were flying
sues several about could read a book placed before him.
Canning dictated despatches to three secretaries
at once, and we may rest assured that in the
complicated operations of thought required for
such a performance, he very much depended on
certain self-acting processes which he had taught
his mind to follow. Sir Walter Scott sometimes
dictated his narratives, and the penman whom
he employed on one occasion very soon dis-
covered that he was carrying on two distinct
trains of thought, one of which was already
arranged and in the act of being spoken, while
the other was further advanced, putting together
Further
showing
how the
mind pur-
distinct ac
tions at
once.
>
The Hidden Soul.
225
VII.
what was afterwards to be said. It was a proof CHAPTER
of this double movement, that sometimes Scott
would let slip a word which was wholly out of
place, and was even superfluous (as entertained
for denied or in addition to it), but which
clearly belonged to the following sentence, and
there fell into its proper place. It became thus
evident that he was composing the one sentence
while he was dictating the other, and that a
word occasionally dropped from the sentence
which was in his mind into that which was on
his tongue. The act of composition had in
his mind become so automatic that when he
was released from the irksomeness of pen-
manship, and could rely upon another hand to
drive the quill, he would forget what he had
done
every
incident, character, and con-
versation of his book. It was thus that during
an illness, the Bride of Lammermoor was
,
composed amid groans of suffering which
seemed far more than the story to engross his
mind. The sentences of this, one of his finest
tales, flowed on freely in spite of the cries with
which they were mingled; but when the work
was finished, Scott had no memory of it; to no
one did the tale appear a greater novelty than
to himself; and he read the proofs in a fever
of fright lest he should come upon some huge
blunder.
The self-working of his mind was however Several of
still more evident in another habit.
When tinct actions
Q
these dis-
VOL. I.
226
The Gay Science.
VII.
become
quite un-
in secret
its work.
CHAPTER in the conduct of his plot he became entangled
in a knot which he could not quickly unravel,
or when he was stopped by any consider-
conscious able difficulty, it was his custom to put
aside his papers for the day, and to forget
his embarrassment in other occupations. When
he awoke on the morrow the problem was
solved, and he got rid of the difficulty with ease.
Some may account for the clearance of the
stumbling-block, by the increased vigour of the
mind after it had been freshened with sleep.
The mind The true explanation is that the mind, though it
broods over seemed to be otherwise engaged, was really
brooding in secret over its work, and mechani-
cally revolving the problem, so that it was all
ready for solution at peep of dawn. There are
few thinking minds that have not had expe-
riences which bear out this view. They too
have had to face perplexity, have been baffled
in the first encounter, and have withdrawn for a
time from the fray. Perhaps they resolve, as
the saying is, to sleep upon it. What then ?
Not always does light come in the morning; it
comes at other times when the mind has had no
chance of rest. It may flash upon us unex-
pectedly when we are lost in other cares, in the
deeps of sorrow, or in the roar of business, or in
the whirl of pleasure. Many of us can remem-
ber that in our college days when some hard
mathematical problem had fairly mastered us,
and we were driven in despair to throw it aside,
>
The Hidden Soul.
227
VII.
vents,
suddenly the solution shot into the mind when CHAPTER
we were bent on different thoughts in the
hunting-field, or at a wine party, or in the house
of prayer. Archimedes was in the bath when
he jumped to the shout of Eureka; and the angel
of the Lord appeared unto Gideon as he threshed
wheat by the wine-press in Ophrah, to hide it
from the Midianites. I believe it was Goethe
who pointed out that Saul the son of Kish found
a kingdom while his only thought was to find
his father's asses.
The gist of these anecdotes is, I hope, clear. That the
mind calcu-
By a flood of examples I am trying to make lates
, in-
manifest the reality of certain mental ongoings water
judges,
of which, from their very nature, scarcely digests for
anything is known. Out of them all emerges
the fact that the mind keeps watch and ward
for us when we slumber; that it spins long
threads, weaves whole webs of thought for us
when we reck not. In its inner chamber,
whither no eye can pierce, it will remember,
brood, search, poise, calculate, invent, digest, do
any kind of stiff work for us unbidden, and
always do the very thing we want. Although
we cannot lift the veil and see the mind working,
yet the facts crowd upon us which show that it
does work underhand. They are of all sorts,
from the most simple to the most complex.
For a very simple illustration of the law, we
may
note what is called absence of mind. We
are all more or less absent, and having thoughts
our know-
ing it.
Q 2
228
The Gay Science.
VII.
of Avicenna
CHAPTER here and far away, in sight and out of sight,
may be described as double minded. But some
men attend more habitually than others to the
under-currents of thought, and are thus remark-
able for their absence. From such simple illus-
trations of undersong and involuntary concealed
action in the mind, we rise to higher examples.
The story There is the case of Avicenna. Avicenna was
a very hard student who went regularly to the
mosque to pray that Allah would help him in
his studies, and get him middle terms for the
syllogisms he required. The story goes that
Allah heard his prayers and found him the
middle terms while he slept; at least they came
to him in dreams. Without supposing that
Allah was so deeply interested in his syllogisms
as to work a miracle in his behalf, we can still be-
lieve in the efficacy of the philosopher's prayer.
Kneeling was the highest expression of his
which we anxiety, and this anxiety so urged his mind
that what it could not reach under the dis-
turbing gaze of consciousness, it seized in sleep
easily
easily when its movements were allowed to
conscious. become spontaneous. So it happens often.
There are things which we fail to do if we are
watched, and which we do easily if no one is by;
which we cannot do at all if we think about it,
and which we do readily if we do not think. “His
memory was great,” says Sir Philip Warwick of
Lord Strafford, “and he made it greater by
confiding in it.” I have already referred to the
a
There are
cannot do if
we are con-
scious
, but, turbing gaze
if we
become un-
The Hidden Soul.
229
VII.
saying of Mozart: “If you think how you are CHAPTER
to write, you will never write anything worth
hearing. I write because I cannot help it."
What we try to do, we cannot do ; when we
cease trying, we do it. Is this because trying is
useless, and when we are sore pressed for middle
terms, we must ring down the Almighty with a
church bell? On the contrary, it is trying that
succeeds, and Heaven helps with inspiration
only those who help themselves. In one of the
English versions of the Psalms there is a fine
expression: “Oh tarry thou the Lord's leisure;"
but the most luminous gloss upon this text is to
be found in the saying of Father Malebranche,
that attention is the prayer of the intellect;
only here we must limit ourselves to attention
that is passive. Think you, says Wordsworth,
Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking ?
Nor less, I deem that there are powers
Which of themselves our minds impress,
And we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.
That story of Avicenna reminds us that in Action of
mind
sleep we have the boldest evidence of the mind's in sleep.
latent activity. Like those heavenly bodies
which are seen only in the darkness of night, the
realities of our hidden life are best seen in the
darkness of slumber. We have observed that in
the gloaming of the mind, memory displays a rich-
a
230
The Gay Science,
VII.
CHAPTER ness which it is fain to conceal in the full glare
of consciousness. It has languages, it has music
at command of which when wide awake it has
no knowledge. Time would fail us to recount
the instances in which through dreams it helps us
to facts—as where a stray will is to be found, or
how the payment of a certain sum of money can
be proved—which in broad day we have given up
There is no for lost. Nor is there any end to the cases which
waking life might be cited of actions begun in consciousness
which we and continued in sleep_soldiers thus marching,
carry on in coachmen driving, pianists playing, weavers
our sleep.
throwing the shuttle, saddlers making harness,
seamstresses plying the needle, swimmers floating,
sailors mounting the shrouds or heaving the log.
Probably our first impulse when we hear of these
things is to make merry with the sleeping palace
where for a hundred years a somnolent king sits
on the throne, surrounded by drooping coun-
sellors, while not far off the butler dozes with a
flask between his knees, the steward reposes
amid his wrinkles, the page in a dream is intent
on a slumbering maid of honour, the sentinel
hybernates in his box, the winds are all snoring,
the trees are all nodding, the fowls are all
roosting, the fires are all dormant, the dogs are
all heavy with the selfsame spell that sent the
beautiful Princess to drowse for an age upon a
golden bed. Especially may we be inclined to
smile at such a picture of life, since in the
philosopher's rendering of it the sleepers would
The Hidden Soul.
231
VII.
facts per-
drunken-
ness.
not as in the poet's fable be arrested in their CHAPTER
actions, but would go on acting without let or
hindrance.
One is not more inclined to treat the matter Similar
gravely, when one remembers how closely and ceived in
how ludicrously these experiences of actions
continued in sleep are connected with the phe-
nomena of narcotics. We laugh to hear of the
drunken Irish porter who forgot when sober what
he had done when drunk, and who had to get
drunk again in order to remember any circum-
stances which it was necessary for him to recall,
so that having once in a state of intoxication lost
a valuable parcel, he could give no account of it,
but readily found it again in his next drinking
bout. We laugh as we remember the story of the
ancient Persians who would undertake no im-
portant business unless they had first considered
it drunk as well as sober. We laugh to think that
in this England of ours, and in a time of terrible
storm, the helm of the state was held by a prime
minister, the Duke of Portland, who almost
lived on opiates, was always in a state of stupor,
and would fall dead asleep over his work. We
have our jokes about the sleep-bound cabinet
that from the brow of Richmond Hill sent an
order to Lord Raglan to go and take Sebastopol.
.
We have our memories of Laputa, in which the
philosophers were so wise, so absent-minded and
so given to sleep that they had to hire flappers
who with bladders at the end of strings would
9
232
The Gay Science.
VII.
of
have a
ludicrous
are deseiy.
tention,
some of the
formed in
CHAPTER flap them on the head and rouse them to their
senses.
Though
Laugh as we may, we return to the mystery
these facts of sleep with ever-increasing wonderment.
What is most wonderful in it is the ease with
side, they which the mind works and overtakes results that
ing of the waking it would either fail to approach, or would
serious at approach with faltering painful steps. Heaps of
examples are at hand. None is better known
Account of than that of Coleridge, who in a sleep composed
actions per- the beautiful fragment of Kublah Khan. Not-
sleep.
withstanding their sibilation, nothing can be
more musical than such lines as these.
A damsel with a dulcimer,
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on a dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Coleridge's sleep was produced by opium;
but the Queen of Navarre, Augustus la Fontaine,
Voltaire and others, in their natural sleep made
verses which they remembered on waking. .
Thomas Campbell woke up in the night with the
line, “ Coming events cast their shadows before,”
which he had been beating his brains for during
a whole week. In like manner, Tartini com-
posed the Devil's Sonata, in a dream in which
the enemy of mankind seemed to challenge him
to a match on the fiddle. In sleep Benjamin
Franklin forecast events with a precision which
in the daytime he could never attain, and which
by contrast seemed the result rather of a second-
a
a
The Hidden Soul.
233
VII.
sight than of his ordinary work-a-day faculties. CHAPTER
In sleep, Father Maignan used to pursue his
mathemetical studies, and when he worked out a
theorem in his dreams, he would awake in the
flush and pleasure of his discovery. In sleep,
Condillac would mentally finish chapters of his
work which, going to bed, he had left un-
finished. Abercrombie tells of an advocate who
had to pronounce a legal opinion in a very com-
plicated case which gave him much concern.
His wife saw him rise in the night, write at his
desk, and return to bed. In the morning he
informed her that he had a most interesting
dream, in which he had unravelled the difficulties
of the case and had been able to pronounce a
most luminous judgment, but unfortunately it
had escaped his memory and he would give any- .
thing to recover it. She had but to refer him
to his desk and there the judgment was found
clear as light.*
a
* I placo in a foot-note a re- professor a question to resolve
markable story which appeared which required a difficult anc
in Notes and Queries, 14th prolix calculation ; and often
January, 1860. The story is already had the mathematician
told on the authority of the Rev. tried to find out the problem,
J. de Liefde. A brother clergy-but as to effect this some sheets
man, whom he perfectly trusted, of paper had to be covered with
told him as follows:-" I was a ciphers, the learned man at each
student at the Mennonite Semi- trial had made a mistake. Thus,
nary at Amsterdam, and fre- not to overfatigue himself, he
quented the mathematical lec- communicated the puzzle to ten
tures of Professor Van Swinden. of his students--me amongst the
Now, it happened that once a number--and begged us to at-
banking-house had given the tempt its unravelling at homc.
234
The Gay Science.
CHAPTER
VII.
bulism and
This last example, however, is not ordinary
dreaming, but comes under the head of sleep-
Somnam- walking or waking, a peculiar class of phenomena,
its wonders, so well and so long recognised that when, in the
year 1686, a brother of Lord Culpepper was
indicted at the Old Bailey for shooting one of the
guards and his horse, he was acquitted on the plea
of somnambulism. In this state as in that of
My ambition did not allow me
any delay. I set to work the
same evening, but without suc-
cess. Another evening was sacri-
ficed to my undertaking, but
fruitlessly. At last I bent my-
self over my ciphers, a third
evening. It was winter, and I
calculated to half-past onc in the
morning-all to no purpose !
The proluct was erroncous. Low
at heart, I threw down my pen-
cil, which already that time had
beciphered three slatcs. I hesi-
tated whether I would toil the
night through, and begin my
calculation ancw, as I know that
the professor wanted an answer
the very same morning. But lo!
my candle was alreadly burning in
the socket, and, alaus! the persons
with whom I lival ham long ago
gone to rcst. Then I also went
to bad, my head filled with
ciphers, and tired of mind I fell
asleep. In the morning I awoko
just carly enough to dress and
prepare myself to go to thc lcc-
turc. I was vexed at heart not
to have been able to solve the
question, and at having to dis-
appoint my teacher. But, o
wonder! as I approach my
writing table, I find on it a
paper, with ciphers of my own
hand, and think of my astonish-
ment, the whole problem on it
solved quite aright, and without
a single blunder. I wanted to
ask my hospita whether any onc
had been in my room, but was
stopped by my own writing.
Afterwards I told her what haul
occurred, and she herself won-
dered at the event, for she as-
sured me no one had entered my
apartment. Thus I must have
calculated the problem in my
slcep and in the dark to boot,
and what is most remarkable,
tho computation was so succinct,
that what I saw now before mc
on a single folio sheet, had rc-
quired thrco slatefuls closely be-
ciphered at both sides, during
my waking state. I'rofessor
Von Swinden was quite amazed
at the event, and dcclared to me
that whilst calculating the pro-
blem himself, he never once had
thought of a solution so simple
and concise."
The Hidden Soul.
235
ordinary dreaming the precision and the facility CHAPTER
of the work we can do are very remarkable. The
sleep-walker seldom makes a false step, or sings
a wrong note. She rivals the tones of the
Swedish nightingale, warbling in her presence ;
and high on some giddy edge she foots it with
the skill of a rope-dancer. Especially is it
curious to see how the waking and the sleep-
waking states are severed from each other as by
a
a wall. Just as the Irish porter, already men-
tioned, had no remembrance in his sober state of
what he had done in his fits of intoxication, and
had to get drunk in order to discover it, the
sleep-waker leads in vision a life which has no
discernible point of contact with his daily life.
His day life is a connected whole in keeping
with itself; his night life is the same; but the
two are as distinct as parallel lines that have no
chance of meeting. By day the man has not
the faintest recollection of what goes on at
night; and by night he has in his memory no
trace of what passes in the day. The physio- The double
logists attempt to account for this by regarding
the brain as a double organ, one-half of which lulist soen
may be active while the other is in repose. degree in
But these physical explanations are not satis- states.
factory. Even in full consciousness, when it
may be supposed that both sides of the brain
are active, we sometimes know of a double life
being prosecuted something like that which
sleep-waking shows. Sir James Mackintosh
VII.
life of the
somnam-
in fainter
our waking
236
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER was a man who mixed much in the world and
took a forward part in public affairs; but from
his youth upwards, he led another life of curious
reverie. He was the Emperor of Constantinople,
his friends were his ministers and generals. In
endless day-dreams he saw transacted the history
of his empire; he watched the intrigues of his
palace; he gave rewards to his faithful ser-
vants ; and formed alliances with neighbour-
ing powers.
To the last the habit clung to
him. Among his friends he was the gentle
clansman of the north country, born to belie the
rhyme,
Of all the Highland clans,
The Macnab is the most ferocious,
Except thc Macintyres,
The Macraws and the Mackintoshes.
ܪ
In long-drawn dreams he soared far above the
Clan Chattan, hė stood imperial upon the Golden
Horn, he made war upon his enemies, and with-
out remorse he chopped off the heads of rebellious
subjects. He thus led two lives which were
quite distinct from each other, and which resem-
bled the double life of sleep-wakers in all but
this, that in the one state he did not lose his
consciousness of the other.
The hidden
life of
pas
sion and
instinct.
III. If memory has its hiding places in the
mind, and if there too is to be found a hidden
reason; so also, nearly all that we understand
by passion, feeling, sympathy, instinct, intuition
The Hidden Soul.
237
VII.
is an energy of the hidden soul. It is so en- CHAPTER
tirely a hidden work that in popular regard it is
readily accepted as of kin to imagination.
Instinct, intuition, passion, sympathy—these are
forces which we at once recognise as of them-
selves poetical, as for the most part indistin-
guishable from imagination, and as involved in
the recesses of the mind. They are processes
which never fairly enter into consciousness,
which we know at best only in a semi-conscious-
ness, and less in themselves than in their results.
The instinctive action of the mind so clearly
belongs to the hidden soul—to that part of the
human intelligence which is automatic and out
of sight, that we need not dwell upon it so
minutely as on those actions of the mind of
which secrecy is not the rule. The operations
of
reason, for example, are chiefly known to us
in their conscious exercise; and it was necessary
at some length, to show that there is a prodi-
gious empery of reason which is not conscious.
Secrecy, on the other hand, is the normal con-
dition of passionate and instinctive movements.
The mere existence of such forces as instinct and
passion is a vulgar fact which to those who read
it aright will at once tell a tale of the hidden
soul.
Passion, whether we view it as feeling or Passion no-
as fellow-feeling, is notoriously a blind uncon- blind force.
scious force. Love is a blind god, and Shake-
speare says that it has no conscience--a word
238
The Gay Science.
VII.
The
mystery of
love.
CHAPTER which in his time had the sense of consciousness
besides that which it now bears :
Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love.
It is thus the type of all passion. It matters
not which of the passions we select for cross-
examination : they are all, in this respect, alike.
But love is the emotion which, in literature, has
received the most thorough scrutiny. It is the
central fire of modern poetry and romance.
And if all poetry and all romance, bear witness
to the greatness of its power, they are also full
to overflowing of the proofs of its mystery, its
waywardness, its unreason. It is a mighty
potentate that springs from a chance look, that
feeds on itself, and that is not to be outdone.
The preference of the lover is accorded to one
knows not what, for often it flies in the face of
all reason-even the reason of the lover himself.
It catches him like a fever, and rides him like
destiny. It is a spell that works within him, he
knows not how, and drives him he cares not
whither. Under its sway he is no longer him-
self; perhaps he is greater than himself; at
lcast, he is another being. He is caught in a
1
dream, and his known self becomes the sport
and creature of a hidden self which neither he
nor his friends can always recognise as verily
his. He rejoices in the accession of a new life,
because then, for the first time, he becomes
aware of his hidden soul-of dim Elysian fields
The Hidden Soul.
239
VII.
because
therefore
trustworthy
of thought, far stretching beyond the bounds of CHAPTER
his daylight consciousness; and he blesses the
angel, or the fairy, or the goddess-call her any-
thing but a woman-through whom this witch-
ing sense of endowment comes to him. Nor is a And passion
passion, because it is blind, to be branded as un- blind is not
trustworthy. It is quite capable of error;
it
makes huge mistakes; but I know not that it
makes more mistakes than the more conscious
forces of the mind, and I do know that very
often, far more often than we think, the greatest
of all mistakes is not to be in a passion-not to
feel. There is a well-known remark of a
French actor (Baron, I think), who, however,
had only his own business in his
eye,
that
pas-
sion knows more than art--blind feeling more
than all science. It is a saying which applies
to passion generally, and to that hidden soul of
which it is a part.
Passion reminds us of sympathy, and we may Sympathy
take sympathy as next door neighbour to instinct.
It is a strange power which the mind
possesses
of taking a colour from whatever besets it, like
the chameleon that takes the colour of the
place it passes.
We imitate without knowing
that we imitate ; and this is sympathy. One
man smiles, and another without knowing it
repeats the action. So we have a fellow-feeling
with the joy and sorrow and every motion of
each other's minds. Remember Grétry's trick.
He had a clever method of slackening or quick-
and its un-
i. conscious
action.
ܪ
a
240
The Gay Science.
VII.
Bacon ac-
it.
CHAPTER ening the pace of any companion in his walks.
When he did not like to tell his friend that the
pace was too fast or too slow, he sung softly an
air to the time of their march, and then by
degrees either quickened or slackened it accord-
ing to his wishes. It is strange too to note
how little will suffice to set a strong sympathy
in action. St. Bernard preached the crusade in
Latin to the German peasants, and we know
how they were roused by sermons of which they
And how did not understand a word. As he pondered
counted for over this marvel of unconscious imitation, Bacon
could not see a way to the understanding of it,
but by supposing a transmission of spirits from
one to another.
“It would make a man think
(though this which we shall say may seem ex-
ceeding strange) that there is some transmission
of spirits,” and he promises to treat of this
transmission more at large when he comes to
speak of imagination. His suggestion is but
one more form of a conjecture that continually
recurs to all who have much noted the hidden
action of the mind. It is inspiration, we say;
it is genius ; it is magic; it is the transmission of
spirits ; it is anything but the natural mind-the
mind of which we are conscious. Here again,
therefore, in sympathy, and in Bacon's account
of it, we have additional evidence of the hidden
soul.
Then for instinct, Cuvier pitching about for a
definition of definition of instinct as it appears in the lower
Instinct, and
Cuvier's
The Hidden Soul.
241
VII.
somnam-
bulism,
animals, felt that he could compare it to nothing CHAPTER
so fitly as to the action of the human mind in
somnambulism. It is the clearest and most it as akin to
pregnant definition of this mysterious power
which has yet been suggested. The mind of
beasts, void of self-knowledge and the reason
which looks before and after, may well be
compared to the belated mind of the sleep-
walker; and on the other hand, the processes
which we can trace in sleep-walking remind us
for their easy precision of nothing so much as
instinct. The bee never fails in his honeycomb;
the swallow is unerring in her calendar; and the
sleep-walker is equally precise. And as when
you wake the somnambulist to reason you render
him incapable; so when you teach the savage
that lives by instinct to think, you make him
stupid. For men as well as beasts have their
instincts, and in each of them, the power is to be
defined in the same terms. It is said of the wolf
that when he was in his hornbook, he spelt every
word, 1, a, m, b. This is a perfect description of
the instinctive process, however various its
forms.
The more we examine into these instinctive The
mental actions, the more are we surprised at variety of
their variety and their number. You do not actious.
know, for example, how many steps there are in
the staircase of your house, but your foot knows.
You can ascend and descend in the dark, and
when
you reach the landing, your foot makes of
immense
instinctive
VOL. I.
R
242
The Gay Science.
VII.
tive action
of our
muscles.
Madame
Mara and
CHAPTER its own accord the appropriate action. This is
but one of a great class of mental actions going
on ever unknown to us. It resembles reason, as
all instinct does; and without any breach of
propriety, it might be called an effort of the
hidden reason, because this hidden knowledge
and calculation comes of experience. But it is
scarcely possible to resolve into any exercise of
reason or into the lesson of experience, certain
The instinc- other actions of the unconscious muscles. The
artist can trust to his hand, to his throat, to his
eye, to render with unfailing accuracy subtle
distinctions of tone and shades of meaning with
which reason seems to have nothing to do—with
which no effort of reason can keep pace. It is
told of Madame Mara that she was able to sound
her singing. 100 different intervals between each note of
music. The compass of her voice was at least
three octaves, so that the total number of
intervals at her command was 1500. This
immense variety of sound is produced by the less
or greater tension of certain muscles of the
throat. The difference between the least and the
greatest tension of these muscles in a woman's
throat is the eighth of an inch. Therefore, all
the 1500 varieties of musical sounds which
Madame Mara could produce came from degrees
in the tension of her muscles which are to be
represented by dividing the eighth part of an inch
into 1500 subdivisions. Which of us by taking
thought can follow such arithmetic? No singer
The Hidden Soul.
243
VII.
Ruskin says
subtle
can consciously divide the tension of her vocal CHAPTER
chords into 12,000 parts of an inch, and select one
of these; nevertheless she may hit with infallible
accuracy the precise note which depends upon this
minute subdivision of muscular energy. It would
be easy to multiply examples of the same sort. What Mr.
Mr. Ruskin has shown with great felicity how of them were
infinitely the hand of a painter goes beyond the instinct of
power of seeing in the delicacy and subtlety of
its work—the gradations of light and form which
it can detail being expressible only in fabulous
arithmetical formulas with no end of ciphers in
them.* The eye itself too is an arithmetician that
beats us hollow in its calculations. Mr. Nunneley
tells us that when we behold red colour the
retina pulsates at the rate of 480 billions of
times between every two ticks of a clock. This
is what the most advanced science of our time
teaches us, and as in practice we are quite
unconscious of it, we can only stand in awe of
that instinctive power wherewith we are endowed
---a power that with the greatest ease reaches
spontaneously to results beyond reckoning,
beyond understanding.
It seems to be the same sort of power as the secret
that which the brain exerts in secret over the which the
whole body. The brain keeps guard over the
various processes of the body-as the beating whole body.
--
of the heart and the breathing of the lungs;
brain exerts
over the
|
too long for a foot-note, but it chapter.
* Mr. Ruskin's statement is
will be found at the end of this
R 2
244
The Gay Science
VII.
а.
tion in
CHAPTER sets them a rhythm and keeps them to it.
Grief in one night will silver the hair, fear fills
the bladder, rage dries the mouth, shame reddens
the cheek, the mere thought of her child fills
the mother's breast with milk. In numerous
facts like these there is evidence of a hidden life
of thought working with a constant energy in
our behalf in the economy of the bodily frame.
Curiously enough too for my argument one great
division of this mental energy goes expressly
by the name of imagination. It is an old
notion, though whether it be true or false has
yet to be determined, that the mind of the
On the effect mother has a marked influence on the outward
of imagina-
appearance of her child. It is not merely that
pregnancy. she imparts her own character to her child-but
that some chance event, some passing thought,
some momentary vision, may so impress itself in
her mind during the period of her pregnancy,
as to leave upon her babe an indelible and
recognisable sign. This is said to be the effect
of imagination, and many books have been
written on it. I shall not soon forget the
surprise with which—when some years ago
I
wanted to master this subject of imagination,
and read everything about it I could lay my
hands on I chanced on a number of books in
Latin, in Italian, and in French, as, for example,
Fienus De Viribus Imaginationis, or Muratori
Della Forza della Fantasia, and found that they
were all about the freaks of the mind in preg-
The Hidden Soul.
245
VIJ.
But why
of
tion ?
a
nancy. But why should this particular class of CHAPTER
hidden mental influences be called Imagination ?
If such mental action exists, there can be no call this
objection to our calling it imagination ; for particul
the theory of this chapter is that imagination is hidden men-
but a popular name given to the unconscious imagina-
automatic action of the hidden soul. But I fail
to see why in popular phraseology this class of
the hidden actions of the mind upon the body
should be selected and set apart and honoured
with the name of imagination. There is a hidden
energy of the brain working day and night in
every province of the body-controlling every
motion of every limb, and directing like any
musical conductor the movement of the vital
forces. It is but a part of a vast and manifold
energy which the mind exerts in secret, and
which because of its separation from our
conscious life, I have ventured to name the
Hidden Soul.
Parallel to these movements of hidden thought
in the bodily functions—movements which may on those
be roughly classed under the general name of in- movements
stincts—there is another class of the same order, call intui
though belonging to the more spiritual part of tion.
our nature, which are known by the name of
intuitions, and which give the mystics a foun-
dation to build upon. Mysticism is the oldest
and widest spread system of philosophy, and what is
gives a tinge to many schemes of thought which, mysticism.
like that of Plato, cannot strictly be called mys-
а
hidden
we
.
246
The Gay Science.
VII.
CHAPTER tical. Whether we find it in the bud, as in
Plato, in Malebranche, in Berkeley and in some
of the Germans, or in full bloom as among the
Brahmins, among the schools of Alexandria, in
the religious system of Bernard and many another
saint, in fantastic dreams of Rosicrucians, in the
illuminations of Behmen, and in the inspirations
of George Fox, the mystical theory has a deep
root in human nature, and could not be so rife
but that it springs from fact. The great fact
out of which it springs is the felt existence with-
in us of an abounding inner life that transcends
consciousness. We feel certain powers moving
within us, we know not what, we know not why
-instincts of our lower nature, intuitions of the
higher, dreams and suggestions, dim guesses,
and faint, far cries of the whole mind. There
is a vast and manifold energy, spontaneously
working in a manner which at once reminds us of
Cuvier's definition of instinct as akin to somnam-
bulism. The mystic is keenly alive to the reality
and the magnitude of this hidden life which is
known to us mainly in its effects, and not being
able to analyse it or to trace its footsteps, he starts
the theory now of a special faculty of spiritual
insight bestowed on man, and now of special
enlightenment and inspiration from on high.
Socrates had his demon ; Numa his Egeria ; Para-
celsus had a little devil in the pummel of his
sword; and Henry More was befriended by a
spirit with the look of a Roman-nosed matron.
a
The Hidden Soul.
247
VII.
powerfully
.
The theory of mysticism is a great subject~ CHAPTER
none more suggestive. It is impossible to do
justice to it here, and my business with it now is And how
merely this, to show that the theory of an in- the creed of
stinctive, automatic action of the mind, the the Mystic
theory of a hidden mental life which is only existence of
now beginning to be understood, has, although
misunderstood, been always fully recognised in
philosophy as one of the great facts of our moral
nature, and as such 'has been the fertile seed of
many a strange, many a potent system of
thought. Nor only in philosophy is this great
fact recognised. It is understood in practical
life that there are many things which we must
believe before we can know them to be true.
So sings the poet in reference to love :
You must love her ere to you
She will seem worthy of your love.
It is on precisely the same principle that we are
sometimes told to accept the Christian doctrine
before we see it to be true, and as the first step
to a recognition of its truth; and it is in this
.
vein of thought that Prior gave utterance to the
fine couplet :
Your music's power your music must disclose,
For what light is, 'tis only light that shows.
1
den life of
I will only add in this connection that the on the hid-
reality of a hidden life is a cardinal doctrine of the believer.
our faith. The believer is said to have a life
hid with Christ in God. When the Apostle
248
The Gay Science.
VII.
but canst not tell whence it cometh 3
CHAPTER describes the existence within him of a spiritual
life, he says, “ I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me." This is one of the favourite texts of
Platonic and Puritanic divines, who are keenly
alive to the existence of a life within them other
than that which comes within the scope of ordi-
nary consciousness. “The wind bloweth where
it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
, whither
it goeth : 80 is every one that is born of the
Spirit.” That is another of their favourite texts. .
Especially It is a great charm in the writings of these
by Platonist divines-Platonists and Puritans—that they are
and Puritan haunted with the sense of another life within
them which is not the known and surface life of
thought. They mistake however in supposing
that it is only the saint who has a hidden life, as
no doubt many persons also err who, discovering
that they possess a hidden life, leap to the con-
clusion that it can be nothing else than the in-
dwelling of the Holy Ghost. It is to this inner
life that Wordsworth refers when in one of his
prettiest little poems he addresses a child as
follows:
recognised
Dear child I dear girl, that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine.
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worship’st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
It must be
“ Inner shrine." I find that I have reversed
remembered
that we are this image and have been speaking of the un-
The Hidden Soul.
249
VII.
we
conscious tracts of the mind as an outer ring, a CHAPTER
great chase as it were spreading far beyond the
cultivated park of our thoughts. It matters not speaking in
which metaphor we take so long as we recognise sehen,
that it is but a metaphor, and that from meta- have to de
phor we cannot escape. Whether we speak of hidden life.
our unconscious activities and our stores of
memory, as belonging to an inner place, as it
were an ark within the veil, or to an outlying
territory beyond the stretch of observation, the
meaning is still the same. The meaning is that
a part of the mind and sometimes the best part of
it, is covered with darkness and hidden from
sight. When one is most struck with the gran-
deur of the tides and currents of thought that
belong to each of us, and yet roll 'beyond our
consciousness, only on occasions breaking into
view, one is apt to conceive of it as a vast outer
sea or space that belts our conscious existence
something like the Oceanos of Homer. When
like Wordsworth one is most struck with the
preciousness of what passes in our mind uncon-
sciously, when one feels that we are most conscious
of the mere surface of the mind, and that we are
little conscious of what passes in its depths, then
one turns to other metaphors and speaks of the
inner shrine and secrets of the deep.
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
I have now at some length, though after all we
250
The Gay Science.
VII.
of the evi-
dence of a
or soul
CHAPTER have but skimmed along the ground, gone over
nearly all the heads of evidence that betoken
Summary the existence of a large mental activity-a vast
world of thought, out of consciousness. I have
hidden life tried to show with all clearness the fact of its
within us. existence, the magnitude of its area and the
potency of its effects. In the dark recesses
of memory, in unbidden suggestions, in trains
of thought unwittingly pursued, in multiplied
waves and currents all at once flashing and
rushing, in dreams that cannot be laid, in the
nightly rising of the somnambulist, in the clair-
voyance of passion, in the force of instinct, in the
obscure, but certain, intuitions of the spiritual
life, we have glimpses of a great tide of life
ebbing and flowing, rippling and rolling and
beating about where we cannot see it; and we
come to a view of humanity not very different
from that which Prospero, though in melancholy
of Prospero. mood, propounded when he said :
Stated in
the words
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
We are all more or less familiar with this
doctrine as it is put forward by divines. “ The
truth is," says Henry More, “man's soul in this
drunken, drowsy condition she is in, has fallen
asleep in the body, and, like one in a dream,
talks to the bed-posts, embraces her pillow
instead of her friend, falls down before statues
instead of adoring the eternal and invisible God,
The Hidden Soul.
251
VII.
prays to stocks and stones instead of speaking to CHAPTER:
Him that by his word created all things.” Such
"
expressions as these however have about them
the looseness of parable; and one can accept
Prospero's lines almost literally. For what is
it? Our little life is rounded with a sleep;
our conscious existence is a little spot of light,
rounded or begirt with a haze of slumber—not a
dead buť a living slumber, dimly-lighted and
like a visible darkness, but full of dreams and
irrepressible activity, an unknown and inde-
finable, but real and enjoyable mode of life
Hidden Soul.
a
.
a
the
fer.
See, then, the point at which we have now Position of
arrived, and let us look about us before we go ment thus
further. It has been shown that our minds lead
a double life-one life in consciousness, another
and a vaster life beyond it. Never mind for
the present how much I have failed in the
attempt to map with accuracy the geography of
that region of the mind which stretches out of
consciousness, if the existence of such a tract be
recognised. We have a conscious and voluntary
; we have at the same time, of not less
potency, an unconscious and involuntary life;
and
my argument is that the unknown, auto-
matic
power which in common parlance we
call imagination is but another name for one of
these lives--the unknown and automatic life of
the mind with all its powers. Our conscious
.
life;
252
The Gay Science.
CHAPTER life we know so well that we have been able to
VII.
divide it into parts, calling this part memory,
that reason, and that other, feeling; but of the
unconscious life we know so little that we lump
it under the one name of imagination, and sup-
pose imagination to be a division of the mind
co-ordinate with memory, reason, or feeling. I
should hope that by the mere description of the
hidden life I may have, to some extent, suc-
ceeded in making this thesis good or may at
least have established a presumption in its
favour. The completion of the proof however
will rest upon the next chapter, in which it
ought to be shown that the free play of thought,
the spontaneous action of the mind, generates
whatever we understand as the creation of
fantasy. This chapter has been all analysis ;
the next should be synthetic. Hitherto we have
regarded the existence of the hidden soul only
as a fact: now it has to be shown that imagina-
tion is nothing else. I could not help giving,
in the course of this chapter, a few indications
of the proof. Now the proof may be demanded
in all due form.
NOTE.
Mr. Ruskin makes the follow- series), Turner's pencil did not
ing statement, to which reference move over the thousandth of an
has been made at page 243, with inch without meaning; and you
regard to the subtlety of Turner's charge this expression with ex-
handiwork. “I have asserted,"travagant hyperbole. On the
he says,“ that, in a given drawing contrary, it is much within the
(named as one of the chief in the
truth, being merely a mathe-
The Hidden Sout.
253
matically accurate description of mathematics and of natural
fairly good execution in either science is joined, not only with
drawing or engraving. It is only singular powers of delicate ex-
necessary to measure a piece of perimental manipulation, but
any ordinarily good work to with & keen sensitiveness to
ascertain this Take, for in- beauty in art. His answer, in
stance, Finden's engraving at its final statement respecting
the 180th page of Rogers' poems;
Turner's work, is amazing even
in which the face of the figure, to me, and will, I should think,
from the chin to the top of the be more 80 to your readers.
brow, occupies just a quarter of Observe the successions of mea-
inch, and the space between the sured and tested refinement:
upper lip and chin as nearly as here is No. 1:
possible one-seventeenth of an
anu 4. The finest mechanical work
inch. The whole mouth occupies that I know, which is not opti-
one-third of this space, say one cal, is that done by Nobert in
fiftieth of an inch, and within the way of ruling lines. I have
that space both the lips and the & series ruled by him on glass,
much more difficult inner corner giving actual scales from 000024
of the mouth are perfoctly drawn and .000016 of an inch, per-
and rounded, with quite success- fectly correct to these places of
ful and sufficiently subtle expresa decimals, and he has executed
sion. Any artist will assure you others as fine as 000012, though
that in order to draw a mouth I do not know how far he could
as well as this, there must be repeat these last with accuracy.'
more than twenty gradations of “ This is No. 1, of precision.
shade in the touches; that is Mr. Kingsley proceeds to No. 2:
to say, in this case, gradations " But this is rude work com-
changing, with meaning, within pared to the accuracy necessary
less than the thousandth of an for the construction of the object-
inch.
glass of a microscope such as
* But this is mere child's play Rosse turns out.'
compared to the refinement of “I am sorry to omit the ex-
any first-rate mechanical work planation which follows of the
--much more of brush or pencil ten lenses composing such a
drawing by a master's hand. In glass, each of which must be
order at once to furnish you with exact in radius and in surface,
authoritative evidence on this and all have their axes coinci-
point, I wrote to Mr. Kingsley, dent;' but it would not be in-
tutor of Sidney-Sussex College, a telligible without the figure by
friend to whom I always have
which it is illustrated; so I pass
recourse when I want to be pre- to Mr. Kingsley's No. 3:
cisely right in any matter; for “I am tolerably familiar,' he
his great knowledge both of proceeds, with the actual grind-
254
The Gay Science.
me.
ing and polishing of lenses and our ears are than our eyes in
specula, and have produced by this country: if an ignorant man
my own hand some by no means were to be “bold” with a violin
bad optical work, and I have he would not get many admirers,
copied no small amount of though his boldness was far
Turner's work, and I still look below that of ninety-nine out of
with awe at the combined deli- a hundred drawings one sees.'
cacy and precision of his hand ; « The words which I have put
IT BEATS OPTICAL WORK OUT OF in italics in the above extract are
SIGHT. In optical work, as in those which were surprising to
refined drawing, the hand goes
I knew that Turner's was
beyond the eye, and one has to as refined as any optical work,
depend upon the feel; and when but had no idea of its going be-
one has once learned what a yond it. Mr. Kingsley's word
delicate affair touch is, one gets awe' occurring just before, is,
a horror of all coarse work, and however, as I have often felt,
is ready to forgive any amount | precisely the right one. When
of feebleness, sooner than that once we begin at all to under-
boldness which is akin to im- stand the handling of any truly
pudence. In optics the distinc- great executor, such as that of
tion is easily seen when the any of the three great Venetians,
work is put to trial; but here of Correggio, or Turner, the awe
too, as in drawing, it requires of it is something greater than
an educated eye to tell the dif- can be felt from the most stu-
ference when the work is only pendous natural scenery.
For
moderately bad ; but with the creation of such a system as
s bold” work, nothing can be a high human intelligence, en-
seen but distortion and fog; and dowed with its ineffably perfect
I heartily wish the same result instruments of eye and hand, is
would follow the same kind of a far more appalling manifesta-
handling in drawing; but here, tion of Infinite Power, than the
the boldness cheats the un- making either of seas or moun-
learned by looking like the pre- tains. The Two Paths. - pp.
cision of the true man. It is 263-265.
very strange how much better
-
:
THE PLAY OF THOUGHT.
:
CHAPTER VIII.
.
THE PLAY OF THOUGHT.
VIII.
難
​action of
for
F IMAGINATION is to be identified CHAPTER
with the automatic action of the mind,
with the free play of thought, all its that the
characters ought to be there involved. As in hidden
imagination we find a play of thought, so in the thought
play of thought we should find the whole business all the facts
of imagina-
of imagination. What magic resides in the one, tion.
ought also to reside in the other--and more.
Like Aaron's wand that became a serpent, and
swallowed the serpent-wands of the magicians
of Egypt, the automatic action of the mind, the
free play of thought, should not only simulate,
but
grasp
and contain within itself all the sor-
ceries of imagination.
But is not this an acknowledged fact? Has The sponta-
there ever been any doubt that imagination, of imagina-
whatever be its nature, is at least spontaneous ? finowane doo
knowledged
It is nothing if it does not belong to the auto- fact.
ac-
.
VOL. I.
S
258
The Gay Science.
VIII.
sory imagi-
nation a
contradic-
tiou.
power in
CHAPTER matic actions of the mind. If any doubt upon
.
this point is ever expressed, it comes from those
who, like Malebranche, discover in imagination
some other faculty--say memory—and then call
to mind that memory is voluntary as well as in-
A compul- voluntary. But a compulsory imagination, a
forced fancy, is a contradiction. The attempt to
beget such a state of mind is unnatural, and
ends ever in falsehood. The type of imagina-
tive activity is dreaming, with which fantasy
has always been identified. Indeed, Charles
Lamb lays it down that the strength of imagin-
ation may be measured by the dream
any man. He says, that the mind's activity in
sleep might furnish no whimsical criterion of
the quantum of poetical faculty resident in the
same mind waking. But dream by night and
reverie by day are not to be raised, nor yet are
they to be laid, by efforts of the will. We may
coax and cozen imagination; we cannot com-
mand it. We must bide its time. The poet is
born-not made; he lies in wait for the dawn,
and cannot poetise at will. Bacon says truly
of poetry, “ that it is rather a pleasure or play
of imagination, than a work or duty thereof;"
but he might have said the like of all imagina-
tive activity : it is spontaneous—it is play. In the
same passage (in the Advancement of Learning),
from which I have drawn the foregoing remark,
he
says that "imagination ever precedeth volun-
tary motion;" and Hobbes repeats the statement,
»
The Play of Thought.
259
VIII.
3
of imagina
tion due to
its involun-
observing that imagination is “ the first internal CHAPTER
beginner of voluntary motion.” It produces voli-
tion, and by volition is not to be produced. What
control of imagination lies in our power is rightly
compared by Henry More with the sort of control
which we can bring to bear upon the essentially
involuntary act of breathing. In his Discourse
Enthusiasm he speaks of the delusions of
mankind, and says that they are due “to the
enormous strength and vigour of the imagination;
which faculty (though it be in some sort in our
power as respiration is), yet it will also work
without our leave."
This sentence of More's is particularly happy the errors
in tracing to their proper source the errors of
imagination. The imaginations of man's heart
are only evil continually, says the Scripture; im- unconscious
agination is the source of all error, says Bishop
Butler; it is the most dangerous foe to reason,
says Hume. But Hume resolves imagination
into mere memory, and other philosophers
into mere reason; and is it fair to say that
memory is the most dangerous foe to reason,
or that reason is the source of all error? It is
difficult to find out from the more common
theories wherein the vice of imagination con-
sists; and we are all the more at a loss to find it
out when we know that sundry thinkers go quite
in the opposite direction, and describe imagina-
tion as the faculty of clearest insight-reason in
her highest mood. If imagination be identified
tary and
a
s 2
260
The Gay Science.
VIII.
CHAPTER with faculties, exact as memory, and sober as
reason-where is the source of illusion ? It is
to be found, as More points out, in the absence
of control, in the vagrancy of spontaneous move-
ment, in the freedom from supervision. Its
weakness lies in its stronghold. Because it is
automatic and unconscious, it reaches to the
grandest results; but also because this is its
character, when it falls into error, the error is
not
easy
of correction. It has been adopted in
a blind, mechanical act of thought, and it is not
to be dispelled by determined efforts of conscious
reason. By its very nature, imagination is a
wanderer; to it belong the thoughts “that
wander through eternity.” But the habit of
wandering implies that it may sometimes lose
itself.
We are not to push the argument however
nothing but further than it will go. Imagination clearly is
automatic, and so far I was justified in comparing
the automatic action of the mind with Aaron's
called ima- rod that, becoming a serpent with a serpent's
gift of fascination, swallowed and contained
within itself the serpent-rods of the magicians.
Still, this leaves unsettled the grand point at
issue. Granting that imagination is automatic,
and only automatic, may it not in kind be
different from other faculties which are only at
times spontaneous and unconscious ? May it not
be different from the hidden memory, or the
hidden reason, or the hidden instincts and
If imagina-
the free
play of
thought
why is it
gination ?
The Play of Thought.
261
VII.
а.
the name
the defini-
tion of the
passions the three orders of hidden power CHAPTER
described in the last chapter ? If imagination
be not different from the other faculties of the
mind—if imagination be but a name for these
other faculties in their automatic, and for the
most part unconscious, exercise-in a word, for
the free play of thought, why is it called ima-
gination ?
The clue to the name is contained in the The clue to
definition of the faculty. It is to be expected, contained in
that in the free play of thought certain habits
should be of more frequent recurrence than faculty.
others. There is a saying, as old at least as
Horace, that the mind is most vividly impressed
through the
eye,
and it is but natural that when
left to itself it should dwell most on the shows In the free
of vision-images-whence arises the name of
thought we
imagination. According to any and every theory
on images
of imagination which has been propounded, the of sight.
name is of less extent than the faculty, and takes
a part for the whole. “Our sight,” says Addi-
son, “is the most perfect, and most delight-
ful of all our senses.
It is this sense
which furnishes the imagination with its ideas,
so that by the pleasures of imagination—I mean
such as arise from visible objects, either when
we have them actually in view, or when we call
up their ideas to our mind, by paintings, statues,
descriptions, or any the like occasions. We
cannot, indeed, have a single image in the
fancy that did not make its first entrance
play of
dwell most
262
The Gay Science.
VIII.
>
CHAPTER through the sight." Addison, and the writers
”
,
who follow in his wake, are so far true to etymo-
logy; but no one now-a-days can suppose that
they are true to the nature of imagination. We
imagine sounds as well as sights; we imagine
any sensation. And if it be granted that imagi-
nation contains more than its etymology conveys
-is the name of a part extended to the whole,
then I may turn round and say, that here is
granted the principle on which my definition
proceeds. Imagination is but a name for the
free play of thought, one of the most important
features of which, but still only one, is its
attachment and sensibility to the memories of
sight.
It is only by supposing that imagination,
gination as although so called, must embrace the action (that
free play is, of course, the spontaneous action) of the
explains
whole mind, that we can account for many of
with regard the opinions which have been held in regard
are other to it. I have already pointed out the incon-
plicable.sistency of those who tell us of the enormous
influence of imagination, and yet, when they
come to analyse it, reduce it to a shadow—the
mere double of some other faculty; and, I trust,
that the view which I have been able to pre-
sent, while it will satisfy the philosophers in
granting that imagination is not a faculty by
itself, different in structure from the other
faculties of the mind, will also satisfy those who
see in it the most imperious power in the mind
The defini-
many
opinions
to it which
wise inex-
The Play of Thought.
263
VIII.
>
of man. Then there is the curious opinion of CHAPTER
two such men as D'Alembert and Sir William
Hamilton to be accounted for.
Who in all As the
opinion of
antiquity, after Homer, had the greatest force of D'Alembert
imagination ? Most of us would be inclined to ton.
name, perhaps, Æschylus, or Phidias, or at any-
rate, some artist. D'Alembert names Archi-
medes-a mathematician; Sir William Hamilton
selects Aristotle-a philosopher. Those who
treat of imagination as but a special form of
reason, will have no difficulty in understanding
that the greatest reasoners should have the
greatest force of imagination. But on the other
hand, the poetical mind of Homer, seems to be
quite unlike the philosophical mind of Aristotle,
or the mathematical mind of Archimedes ; and it
is not easy to see that they are in any respect
comparable, according to any known theory of
imaginative activity. Once admit, however,
that the specialty of imagination lies not in any
specialty of structure, but only in specialty of
function-a specialty which belongs to any and
every faculty of the mind—the specialty of
hidden automatic working, and there need be
no difficulty in saying, that Aristotle possessed
as much imagination as Homer. There must
have been a prodigious automatic action in his
mind to enable him to accomplish what he did.
.
The difference between the mind of Homer
and the mind of Aristotle-the mind of art,
and the mind of science is not the difference
264
The Gay Science.
VIII.
On ima-
gery.
CHAPTER between less and more in the amount of hidden
action (though that, no doubt, may make some
part of the distinction), but it is the difference
between possessing, and being possessed by it-
the difference in proportion of energy between
the known and the unknown halves of the mind.
The name of imagination, however, suggests
not only the power of imaging or figuring to
ourselves the shows of sense, but also that of
imagery, the power of bringing these shows into
comparison, and using them as types. Indeed,
when we speak of a poetical image, we mean a
comparison, a symbol. It falls, therefore, to be
considered whether this apparatus of imagery, in
all its varying forms of comparison, similitude,
metaphor, personification, symbol, and what not,
need for its production some special faculty,
which we call imagination, or may not rather be
due to the free play of thought in general. Here,
as before, it can be shown that imagination is
but another name for the automatic action of the
mind. Here, moreover, it will be found that we
get to the heart of what people commonly un-
derstand by imagination; for, although we are
speaking only of imagery, and although imagery
mere ques. is rarely treated but as a point of language, it
language. involves much larger issues, and cannot pro-
perly be handled unless we understand it in the
broadest sense, as including the whole work of
imagination. It is in this broad sense of the word
that we have now to face the question, “ Son of
Imagery
not to be
treated as a
The Play of Thought.
265
dities of
man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house CHAPTER
of Israel do in the dark (of unconsciousness);
VIII.
every man in the chamber of his imagery?"
A book might be written on the absurdities The absur-
of criticism which this one subject of imagery criticism in
has engendered, only it would be a waste of regard to
labour on barren sand. One of the most piteous
things in human life is to see an idiot vacantly
teasing a handful of straw, and babbling over the
blossoms which he picks to pieces. It is not more
piteous than the elaborate trifling of criticism over
figures of speech and the varieties of imagery,
showing how metaphor differs from simile, how
this kind of image is due only to an exercise of
fancy, how that comes of true imagination, and
how fancy is one thing, imagination another.
The worst of it is that, as I have said, these
questions are nearly always handled as questions
of language, questions of detail, without any
clear perception of the relation between different
forms of imagery and different forms of art. The
full discussion of the subject does not fall within
the range of the present inquiry. All I have
now to do with it is to show in the rough that
the production of imagery, whether we use the
word in a narrow sense, as referring merely to
figures of speech, or, in a wider sense, as referring
also to conceptions of life, and thus including the
whole work of imagination, needs no special
faculty, but belongs to the general action of the
mind, in the dusk of unconsciousness. Perhaps,
a
266
The Gay Science.
VIII.
The most
obvious
imagery is
that it
,
CHAPTER however, the easiest path of entrance into the
subject is the beaten one which lies over the
assumption, that an image is but a figure of
speech.
Now, in imagery, in this narrower sense of
fact about the word, the most obvious thing to be noted is,
that from the simplest form of similitude to the
always con- most complex form of metaphor and symbol, it
comparison, always involves a comparison of some kind. And
this raises the question—is the act of comparison
a peculiar property of imagination ? The truth
is, that every effort of thought, from the least to
the greatest, any the faintest twitch of conscious-
ness, is an act of comparison. There is no
thought in the mind but has two factors, one
to be compared with the other. In the com-
mon act of recognising a face as a face we have
scen, we are but comparing one impression with
another. And so on to the most intricate forms
of the syllogism, it can be shown that we never
thought im-
plies compa- get away from comparison. To compare is the
first glimmer of intelligence in the mind of an
infant: to compare is the utmost splendour of
reason in the mind of a sage. No comparison, no
,
thought. Yet by no means does it therefore fol-
low that the comparisons of poetry may not be the
outcome of a special faculty. For if memory be
but one form of comparison, if reason be another,
and if, nevertheless, the comparisons involved
in memory and in reason be so diverse that we
attribute them to separate faculties, why may
But all
rison.
a
The Play of Thought.
267
VIII.
parisons
answer.
not the comparisons of poetry be the work of a CHAPTER
faculty which is different from every other ?
What then is the peculiarity of those com- What is the
parisons which are fathered on imagination ? of the com-
How, for example, are they distinguished from httributed
those of ordinary judgment? The best account to imagina-
of the difference between the two is given by
Locke; although, after all, he gives but half
the truth. Both Bacon and Father Malebranche
had, in a vague way, anticipated Locke, and
to appreciate the full force of his statement, it
must be remembered that in his time the word
wit was used as identical with poetry, and as
ruling the whole territory of imagination. And Locke's
what does Locke say? He describes wit as
“ lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and put-
ting those together with quickness and variety,
wherein can be found any resemblance or con-
gruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and
agreeable visions in the fancy. Judgment, on
the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in
separating carefully one from another ideas
wherein can be formed the least difference,
thereby to avoid being misled by similitude and
by affinity to take one thing for another."
This, I say, is not a full account of the dis- But does
tinction, but so far as it goes it is good. It is answer give
quite true that in imagination we think more of any sanc-
resemblances, and that in the exercise of con- notion that
scious judgment we make more of differences. parisons of
But do we find here a distinction great enough to there is
Locke's
in the com-
imagination
268
The Gay Science.
VIII.
arity of
explained by
CHAPTER prove the existence of two separate faculties ?
Is it beyond imagination to see a difference? Is
anything it beyond judgment to see resemblance ? In all
special?
comparison there is implied difference as well as
resemblance, and the perception of the one brings
with it that of the other. From this point of
view, therefore, it is not to be supposed that
the production of imagery needs a faculty of
imagination different from that of judgment.
The peculi- The difference between the comparisons of im-
imaginative agination and those of reason is explained by the
as thus far one proposition for which I am contending, that
stated to be those of the former are automatic, and that those
the fact of of the latter are the result of conscious effort.
imagination
being free It is hardly possible to make this quite clear,
play.
while as yet we have reached but a half-truth as
to the nature of imagery ; yet at least there
should be a presumption in favour of the idea
that, in its automatic or dreamy state, the mind
looks more to resemblances, and that in its
waking efforts it inclines more to detect variety.
I must be content in the meantime with a bare
statement of the fact, which I hope to make good
in the sequel.
Half the truth, however, is less easy of com-
is only half prehension than the whole, and to understand
the truth. aright the full meaning of what Locke has
advanced, we ought to be able to eke it out
with that other view of the subject which he has
not advanced. The most royal prerogative of
imagination is its entireness, its love of wholes,
a
But Locke's
The Play of Thought.
269
VIII.
of the other
comparison
wholes.
its wonderful power of seeing the whole, of claim- CHAPTER
ing the whole, of making whole, and-shall I
add ?--of swallowing whole. Now, to any one Statement
who is strongly impressed with the wholeness of half.
imaginative working, the utter absence of nib-
bling in it, the most striking thing about poetical
comparisons is not that they assert resemblance, Imaginative
but that they assert the resemblance of wboles to asserts the
wholes. And here we get to the root of the resemblance
matter. For the grand distinction between
logical and poetical comparisons is this, that in
the former we compare nearly always wholes
with parts, or parts with parts; but in the
latter, almost always wholes with wholes. Take
the two assertions that man is an animal, and
that man is a flower. In the form of language
these phrases are alike; but we all recognize
that they are unlike in the form of thought;
that the one belongs to the order of logical, the
other to that of poetical judgments. In point
of fact language is but a clumsy expedient,
and our thoughts are ever more precise than
our words. Now, if after the manner of logi-
cians, we attempt to express in words the pre-
cision of our thoughts, then the two phrases
which I have put side by side will, in all their
awkward exactitude, stand thus—that the class
man is a part of the class animal, and that the
whole class man is like or interchangeable with
the whole class flower. In other words, the
logical comparison here asserts the identity of a
270
The Gay Science.
VIII.
competent
to reason.
And are
belong
the sponta-
cise of
CHAPTER certain whole with a certain part; the imagina-
tive comparison asserts the identity or inter-
But these changeableness of a certain whole with a certain
are not in- whole. But between these modes of comparison
is there any radical difference? Is it beyond
reason to compare as imagination does ? Is
there anything to prevent the every-day faculty
of conscious judgment from comparing wholes
with wholes ? The truth lies in a nutshell.
called vibe. There is no reason why in conscious judgment
ginative
cause they we should not compare wholes with wholes; but
chiefly to this sort of comparison belongs rather to the
neous exer- automatic and unconscious action of the mind.
thought.
Left to itself, in the freedom of unconsciousness,
the mind acts more as a whole, and takes more
to wholes. It is not much given to the splitting
of hairs and the partition of qualities. To
make the partitive assertions and comparisons of
every-day judgment, there is needed a certain
amount of abstraction; to abstract needs atten-
tion; and attention is but another name for the
rays of consciousness gathered into a sheaf or
focus.
Here then are the two halves of one doctrine.
imageriyorut Imagination looks out for resemblances rather
and how it than differences: there is the one half. It looks
is proposed
to treat of out for the resemblance of wholes rather than of
parts: there is the other. And these two views
are almost inseparable. It is because imagination
looks out for resemblance rather than difference
that it leaps to wholes. It is because imagina-
ܪ
The whole
it.
The Play of Thought.
271
VIII.
tion keeps to wholes and avoids analysis that it CHAPTER
overlooks difference and seizes on resemblance.
In nearly all the attempts which have been made
to establish a distinction between fancy and
imagination, it will be found that the division of
labour between the two supposed faculties corre-
sponds very much to the division of doctrine as
above explained. To fancy is assigned chiefly
the habit of catching at likenesses; to imagina-
tion is allotted chiefly the habit of discerning
unity and grasping wholes. The distinction is
of little importance to any one who has noted
with what constancy the perception of resem-
blance or identical forms goes hand-in-glove
with the perception of total form and unity; and
I, who maintain that there is no special faculty
of fantasy, must, of course, much more contend
that there are not two faculties, one going by
the name of fancy, the other known by that of
imagination.
Nevertheless, it is convenient in practice to We shall
consider the two great characteristics of imagery two halves
apart, and there is no harm in doing so if of them
we remember that in reality they are seldom separately.
found apart. I now therefore ask the reader to
bear with me for a few pages more while I dwell
in succession on the likenesses and on the whole-
nesses of imagery. And I promise him that we
shall no longer be tied to the consideration of
figures of speech. By a rude analysis of these
figures we have arrived at a general conclusion
treat of the
doctrine
272
The Gay Science.
VIII.
Nature of
the discus-
sion.
8
CHAPTER as to the characteristics of imagery and the ele-
ments of imagination; and what imagery and
imagination are in the forms of language that
they also are in all their ways. They take and
make like: they take and make whole.
Only as the ensuing remarks must be very
brief, the aim of the present discussion must
be clearly kept in view. It is no business of
ours just now to trace in detail all the footsteps
of imagination. We are solely concerned with
the inquiry-what is imagination ? That it is
an automatic action no one doubts. It remains
to be shown that it is the automatic action or
play not of any special faculty, but of any and
every faculty: the play of reason, the play of
memory, the play of the whole mind with all its
powers at once; in one word, the play of
thought. To prove this, it is unnecessary that
we should go very much into detail. It will be
enough if we rake up only so much of detail
as may indicate the general characteristics of
imagination.
On like-
nesses, and
how we are
to examine
them.
I. First of all, let us think for a little of the
love of likeness and the tendency of the mind
both to discover and to invent it. Does this
imply a special faculty, or is it not rather a
function of all the faculties? The point is not
difficult of proof, if I may be allowed to start
with an assumption, namely, that all these like-
nesses which the mind either finds or makes are
The Play of Thought.
273
VIII.
to be measured by the same line and rule. They CHAPTER
are all in the same case, and spring from the same
law of the mind. It may be more difficult to
analyze some forms of similitude than others,
and to trace their lineage; but if it can be shown
that the leading modes of resemblance have
nothing to do with imagination in the ordinary
acceptance of the word, that the attempt to
ascribe them to a special faculty of imagination
is a hoax like that which gave the paternity of
Romulus and Remus and many another won-
drous child to some god, then in those cases
wherein the parentage is not very clear we shall
be at liberty utterly to reject the supposition
that this or that image must be the offspring of
a god—imagination. Call it the offspring of
imagination if you will, but it must be under-
stood that imagination means no more than the
automatic action of
every faculty.
Now, the tendency of the mind to similitude The ten-
dency of the
runs into three forms, and no more. Every pos- mind to
sible variety of likeness which the mind either takes three
finds or generates takes one or other of these
forms. They are:
1. I am that or like that.
2. That is I or like me.
3. That is that or like that.
any and
similitude
leading
forms.
The first of these forms contains the ruling
principle of dramatic art, and is best known
as sympathy. The second contains the ruling
VOL. I.
T
274
The Gay Science.
VIII.
And first of
the like-
nesses pro-
CHAPTER principle of the lyrical art, and is best known as
egotism. The third contains the ruling prin-
ciple of epic or historical art, and is best known
as imagination. A word or two upon each of
these in succession.
There is no form of imaginative activity
more wonderful than sympathy, that strange
duced by involuntary force which impels me to identify
.
myself with you, and you to identify yourself
with me. If I yawn, you yawn; if
you yawn,
I
yawn. We cannot help it. I have described
the attitude of the mind in the formula-I am
that or like that. I am no longer myself, but
you, or the person, or the thing I am interested
in. We are transformed by a subtle sympathy
into the image of what we look on.
sonate each other; nay, more, we personate
things. At bowls a man sways his body to
this side or to that, following the bias of the
ball. He fancies for the moment that he is
the rolling sphere. And so Goethe came to say
of an artist painting a tree or a sheep, that for
the time he enters into and becomes that which
he delineates, he becomes in some sort a tree, in
some sort a sheep. Remember that fine
passage
in which Wordsworth speaks of the girl that
grew three years in sun and shower:
We per-
She shall lean her ear
In many a secret place,
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face.
The Play of Thought.
275
VIII.
in life, and
.
The essence of the thought is always the CHAPTER
same; its manifestations are infinite. It shows
itself in thousands of ways both in life and in art. How preva-
The most potent of the social forces, it is sympathy tendency is
which gives meaning to fashion, and makes manifested
education possible. We are constantly copying many ways.
each other, echoing each other, aping each other,
personating each other, weeping with them that
weep, laughing with them that laugh, catching
the trick of a manner, the tone of a voice, the
bent of an opinion, and growing into the likeness
of the company to which we belong. And when
this tendency shows itself in art, it is no other
and no more than that with which we are familiar
in life. In art, too, there is no proper differ- The ten-
ence in the nature of the tendency or manner of
thinking, whether it shows itself in words and the same
be called an image, a figure of speech, or show shows itself
itself in action and be called an imitation, a per- in action.
sonation. When Romeo goes to the supper of
the Capulets, he disguises himself as a holy
palmer, and means to play the pilgrim. He
assumes that attitude of the mind which we
know as the act of personation. When he
takes Juliet's hand for the first time he speaks
of his lips as two blushing pilgrims :
dency is
essentially
,
it
in speech or
,
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this-
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
But the strain of mind which produces that
T 2
276
The Gay Science.
VIII.
CHAPTER image is not different from the strain of mind
which produces the personation. In the act
of personation, Romeo says: I am not myself,
but a holy palmer. In the figure of speech, he
says: my lips are not themselves, but blushing
pilgrims. And so throughout all art and life
the formula of sympathy is this : I am you, or
like you; I am, or am like, or at least I wish to
be, or to be like, something which is not myself:
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
01 that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.
On sym-
what im-
portance
was at one
to the study
of it.
It is a pity that this grand subject of sympathy
pathy, and
is not more systematically studied among us. It
used to be of no small account in philosophy, but
time given, it led so many wildgoosechases, that at length
our thinkers seem to have become afraid of it,
and to underrate its importance. In the old
systems of physiognomy the likeness of men to
animals was the chief guiding principle. This
man must be of a swinish disposition, because
he has a long narrow face; that other must
be like a bull for some equally cogent reason.
And so as we trudge through the writings of
Baptista Porta, Cardan, Bacon, Kenelm Digby,
and Henry More; we hear of sympathetic cures
and influences. If you eat bear's brains it
will make you bearlike; if you put a wolfskin
“ for the wolf is a beast of great audacity and
digestion ') on the stomach it will cure the colic.
“ The heart of an ape worn near the heart com-
The Play of Thought.
277
VIII.
forteth the heart and increaseth audacity," says, CHAPTER
Bacon, quoting from the writers on magic. “ It
is true that the ape is a merry and a bold beast.
The same heart likewise of an ape applied to the
neck or head, helpeth the wit. The ape also is
a witty beast, and hath a dry brain.” This track
of thought led to the wildest absurdities and the
most comical situations that reflected no small
amount of discredit on any attempts to analyze
and turn to account the force of sympathy in
human nature; and I cheat the reader of some
amusement in refusing to arrest the course of
this argument in order to laugh over many
queer stories.
portant it is
and of
Smith.
The most important writer after Bacon, who How im-
made much of sympathy as a power in human in the sys-
nature, was Malebranche. Malebranche regarded thought of
it as a form of imagination, and saw in it the Bacon, of
source of many errors, leading men to follow branche,
authority when they ought to be independent Adam
and think for themselves. Long after him came
Adam Smith, who based his system of moral
philosophy on this one principle of sympathy.
The standard of morality, he said, is determined
entirely by the measure of sympathy which any
action can command. But he never identified
.
sympathy with imagination; nor after him did
the Scotch metaphysicians ever speak of ima-
gination unless by itself, or of sympathetic
imitations except as a separate power of the
mind. Since then the subject of sympathy
278
The Gay Science.
VIII.
What is the
point of the
about
pathy.
CHAPTER has chiefly been handled by the writers on
physiology, who treat of it for the most part as a
purely physical characteristic.
But see now where this rapid survey of
argument sympathy has led us, and what is the point of the
nbehte sym- argument. The argument is, that you may call
this assimilating tendency of the mind imagina-
tion; but that imagination can signify no more
than automatic action—the free play of any
faculty of thought. We gain nothing by the
supposition of a special faculty having a special
dominion over such resemblances as come within
the meaning of sympathy; we only create con-
fusion. There are animals that change colour
with the places over which they pass. Spiders
have been known to turn white on a white wall;
salmon in certain situations change their colour
to that of the bed they swim over; the story of
the chameleon is familiar to all. But to what
soluble fact, purpose should we say that these changes are
which is not the result of imagination, if by imagination we
the least by meant anything more than that they are spon-
thesis of a taneous ? Every faculty we possess reflects
special
and simulates as a mirror does. If you laugh,
gination.
I will laugh too; if you pull a long face, I
turn grave; if I see you sucking a peach on
a hot summer day, I have the sense in my
mouth that I am sucking one also : as I am
arguing this very point, it may
reason is following mechanically, and reflect-
ing the movements of mine. Here is a constant
It is an
ultimate in-
the hypo-
faculty,
called ima-
be that your
The Play of Thought.
279
VIII.
automatic action leading to numerous resem- CHAPTER
blances. What do you gain by refusing to
accept this automatic process of imitation as
an ultimate insoluble fact, and by starting the
hypothesis of a special faculty called imagina-
tion, the express business of which is to produce
it? The mind reflecting like a mirror, how
are the reflections of the one rendered more
intelligible by the supposition of a faculty of
imagination than are the reflections of the
other without any such explanatory supposition ?
The sympathy of our minds is a wonder of the
world;
but no one who can see that the fine
English word, fellow-feeling, contains the most
perfect expression of all that is meant by sym-
pathy will ever dream of a special faculty of
fellow-feeling differing from the feelings which
are in fellowship. Bacon, it was shown in the
last chapter, started the hypothesis of a trans-
mission of spirits, to account for the sympathy
we have with each other. When one man
mechanically repeats the action of another-a
yawn, a laugh, a start-it would seem, says The hypo-
Bacon, that there must be a transmission of imagination
spirits from one to the other to produce the tenable than
assimilation. Nobody now dreams of such a
hypothesis. We are all so enlightened and as to the
scientific that, with a fine consciousness of our sion of
superiority, we smile at Bacon's suggestion.
But the prevalent supposition of an imagina-
tive faculty, if by that is to be understood any-
thesis of
Bacon's
hypothesis
spirits.
--
280
The Gay Science
VIII.
deceived by
words.
And the
word ima.
gination
no
CHAPTER thing beyond the power of spontaneous move-
ment, is not a whit more tenable than the
hypothesis of Bacon.
People are It is curious to see how people are deceived
by words, and fancy they get a new idea when
they get a new phrase. Mr. Buckle announced
that the leading object of his two great volumes
was to show that the spirit of scepticism pro-
motes free inquiry. He seemed to think that
scepticism, because, coming from the Greek, it is a
different expression, must also be a different thing
from free inquiry. So it is supposed that by
this additional word imagination we obtain some
new light new light; and yet, on the other hand, there is
on the facts no difficulty in showing that in ordinary speech
we may get rid of the name of imagination
plained.
altogether, and still be none the worse. There
is a story told of Samuel Rogers, showing the
“ force of imagination.” About the time when
plate-glass windows first came into fashion, he
sat at dinner with his back to one of these single
panes of glass, and he laboured under the im-
pression that the window was wide open. It is
related on his own authority that he caught a
cold in consequence. The story is no doubt a
Yankee jest, and I give it here not as a fact,
but as an illustration. Some people say it
shows the force of imagination ; but are they one
whit nearer, nay, are they not further from the
truth, than those who drop the word imagina-
tion altogether, and say the story shows the force
to be ex-
The Play of Thought.
281
VIII.
of faith? Here it was distinctly his belief that is CHAPTER
supposed to have operated on Rogers, and yet
there are writers—I do not mean to say cor-
rect, but at least entitled to consideration, Dr.
Thomas Reid being one, and Mr. Ruskin another
—who maintain that in imagination there never
is belief. When faith leads a man to do that
which without faith he could never achieve, what
do we gain by calling his faith imagination ?
Call it imagination if you will, but let us dis-
tinctly understand that by this term you mean
nothing more and nothing else than the auto-
matic action of the faith, whatever it be. And
so of fellow-feeling, call it imagination if you
please, but let us understand that it is no more
than one of the many modes of automatic action.
This view will be not weakened but strength- Secondly,
ened if now we pass from the assimilating ten- nesses pro
dency of sympathy to consider the assimilating
egotism.
tendency of egotism, which is the germ of lyrical
art. Here we come to the second formula of
resemblance-That is I, or like me. The sort of
imagery which this begets is known as anthro-
pomorphism and personification.
66 Let the sea Examples
roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they
that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their
hands : let the hills be joyful together.” There
is one example. “For ye shall go out with
joy, and be led forth with peace : the mountains
and the hills shall break forth before you into
singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap
of the like-
duced by
of it.
282
The Gay Science.
On the
pathetic
CHAPTER their hands." There is another. Mr. Ruskin calls
VIII.
this form of imagery the pathetic fallacy, and
says that it is only the second order of poets who
fallacy.
much delight in it-seldom the first order. But
this is surely a mistake. It by no means denotes
the height of art—first-rate, second-rate, or
tenth-rate; it denotes the kind of art--it belongs
to the lyrical mood. When Prometheus, as he
enters on the scene, makes his magnificent appeal
to the various powers of nature, and amongst
,
others to the multitudinous laughter of the waves,
,
the whole speech is lyrical at heart, it breaks
again and again into lyrical metres, and the
,
play in which it occurs belongs to the most
lyrical of the Greek dramatists. And so when
examples.
the lover of Maud says in the garden:
Further
The slender acacia could not shako
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sako,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sighed for the dawn and thee :-
and again,
There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate !
The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps,
" She is late
The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, “I wait :"
the egotism which leads the lover to suppose
The Play of Thought.
283
VIII.
the flowers like himself with his own feelings CHAPTER
is in that kind of art perfectly natural; and to
attribute egotistic imagery to second-rate poets
is but another way of saying that it is chiefly
the second-rate poets who have the lyrical in-
spiration. With that question we have nothing
to do. We have but to examine into the nature
of that assimilating tendency in our minds, which
has been described as follows:
Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee in rock, bush, river in the face.
Never yet thine eye beheld a tree,
It is no sea thou seest in the sea :
'Tis but a disguised humanity.
meant by
Now if this egotism is to be called in any What is
peculiar sense imagination, it must be on the
attributing
principle of lucus a non lucendo. Imagination is this egotism
to
here conspicuous for its absence. The egotism tion ?
which would make me see in a tree the double of
myself is but the inability to imagine an exist-
ence different from my own. Call this assimi-
lating tendency of egotism by the name of
imagination if you will, but let us not be misled
by words, let us fully understand that imagina-
tion means no more than egotism, the natural
play of thought and the automatic action of the
mind.
There is a third class of comparisons which it Thirdly,
may be more difficult to resolve to the satisfac- likenesses
tion of certain minds without the intervention which are
of a special faculty; and I will here, there objective.
of the
purely
284
The Gay Science.
VIII,
That is,
in which
we do
CHAPTER fore, remind the reader of the assumption which
I asked him to allow me at starting, namely:
that similitudes are to be judged as a whole,
and that if we find large classes of them owing
their origin to no special faculty, then it may
be presumed that those others of which it is
not so easy to trace the parentage, are of ana-
logous origin, and do not need the figment of
a god for progenitor. It is not necessary, how-
ever, to lean much upon this presumption. In
dealing with the third class of resemblances,
we can adduce quite enough to show that they
are produced in the play of ordinary thought.
The formula of the class of similitudes which
we are now to look into, is purely objective :
not bring That is that, or like that. We do not bring
ourselves into the comparison at all. In both
the dramatic and the lyrical systems of com-
parison—in the systems of comparison which
take their rise from sympathy on the one hand,
or from egotism on the other, one of the factors
in the comparison is always I or mine. But in
this third kind of imagery, that is-in the class
of comparisons which belong to epic or historical
art, there is no appearance of me and mine; the
things compared are quite independent of me
and mine. They are, if I may repeat the formula,
They are that and that. Now, sometimes comparisons
very com of that and that come to be very complicated,
difficult of and are so curious that if we look at them
explanation. alone, and think of them merely as figures of
into the
comparison.
and
The Play of Thought.
285
VIII.
speech, we shall find it difficult to explain them CHAPTER
fully. Everybody will, for example, remember
how Wordsworth speaks of an eye both deaf
and silent; how Milton speaks of both sun and
moon as silent:
The sun to me is dark,
And silent as the moon
When she deserts the nighty
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
There is no end of fine poetical passages in
which a man is said to see a noise : Sir Toby
Belch speaks of hearing by the nose; Ariel
speaks of smelling music. Samuel Butler makes
a jest of these images in mentioning the
Communities of senses
To chop and change intelligences,
As Rosicrucian virtuosis
Can sce with cars and hear with noses.
senses.
of
Sometimes the imagery is even more complicated,
and confounds the facts of three or four different
There is a famous passage in the Examples
beginning of Twelfth Night, the description of complicated
music:
imagery.
That strain ayain : it had a dying fall;
O! it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets
Stealing and giving odour.
Here we have such an involution and redupli-
cation of idea, that in order to improve the
passage Pope altered the word sound to south,
which is the common reading. Mr. Charles
Knight, however, has wisely insisted on the
pro-
286
The Gay Science.
VIII.
CHAPTER priety of recurring to the original reading of the
first folio, which is quite Shakespearian. May I
add, that not only is the original reading Shake-
spearian in the reduplication of the idea conveyed
(a sound, coming o'er the ear, breathing, stealing,
and giving odour, and so in the delight and
delicacy of its magic, ministering not to one
sense only but to three), there is also to my mind
clear evidence that whether the word sound
were actually penned by Shakespeare, or were
only a printer’s error, still upon that word
Milton once alighted, that it caught his fancy,
that it became vital within him, and that as a
consequence he produced in Comus a similar
involution and reduplication of ideas, though
in a somewhat different arrangement ?
At last a soft and solcmn-breathing sound,
Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even silence
Was took, cre she was ware.
Notwithstanding the freshness and originality
of this passage, who does not feel that nearly all
the ideas which are thus connected with dulcet
sound-sound breathing on the ear, stealing on
the air, and giving odour-owe their suggestion
to Shakespeare ?
But this amalgam of metaphors, though fused
metaphors by the passion of the poet into an apparent unity
of thought, unlike any other mode of thinking,
and therefore seemingly the product of some
peculiar faculty, does not defy analysis. We
The amal-
of
does not
defy ana-
lysis.
The Play of Thought.
287
VIII.
can reduce it to its elements, and when SO CHAPTER
reduced we find that the sort of likeness it
involves has its analogy in other modes of
thought which are not commonly supposed to
be the product of imagination. Remember the
form of thought we are considering :-That is
that, is like that, or may stand for that. There
are poets who boast, or whose critics boast for
them, that they seldom or never, in certain
works, condescend to the weakness of metaphor;
that they are sparing of what is especially
called imagery-namely, images in figures of
speech. But it will be found that these very Symmetry
writers fly to similitude of another kind--to similitude
,
similitude on a large scale — in one word; to and no one
symmetry. The classicism which eschews the the love
symmetry of details produced by figures of imagina-
speech, eschews them only to ensure a whole-
sale symmetry, as in that sort of architecture
where the two sides of the edifice are alike,
and as in horticulture where
a form of
of it to
tion.
a
Every alley has a brother,
And half the garden but reflects the other.
This is only the craving for similitude in an-
other form, and the argument I build upon it
is--that since we do not think it necessary to
refer the love of symmetry to a special faculty
of imagination, neither need we refer to such
a faculty the tendency of similitude in other
forms.
Take, again, our natural delight in reflections.
288
The Gay Science.
CHAPTER
VIII.
in reflec-
tions an-
other form
of the
tendency to
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we
call the reality ?” asks Mr. George Macdonald,
pure delight in a fairy romance of rare subtlety, entitled
a
Phantastes. “ Fair as is the gliding ship on the
shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting
similitude. sail below is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting
.
Ocean itself reflected in the mirror has a won-
drousness about its waters that somewhat
vanishes when I turn towards itself. All mir-
rors are magic mirrors. The commonest room
is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass.”
This is a form of imagery or simile which the
poets delight in, and constantly use.
.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough;
Each scemed as 'twere a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light,
Which in the dark carth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day.
In which the lovely forests grew,
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views, which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green;
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.
&
The Play of Thought.
289
VIII.
flections
are the
form of
>
of reflected
.
This is one of Shelley's finest passages, and it CHAPTER
would be easy to quote many parallel ones from
other poets, showing how they love to dwell on
mirror-like reflections. Take a single instance :
The swan on still St. Mary's lake
Floats double, swan and shadow.
But such reflections more strictly belong to These re-
painters, and are their favourite mode of simile
and metaphor. Truly to represent reflections Painters
and shadows, and to give all that is contained in metaphor.
the system of reflected colour, is one of the most
refined exercises of the artist's power, and won-
derfully enhances the beauty of a picture. The The system
system of reflected colour occupies a very promi-colour in
nent place in modern art, and, I repeat, is to pictures.
picture what metaphor is to poetry. Metaphor is
the transfer to one object of the qualities belong-
ing to another. This is precisely what we
understand by reflected colour. A lady in
white leans on the arm of a soldier in scarlet.
The scarlet of bis uniform is transferred by
reflection to the white of her dress, and makes
it appear no longer what it really is. It becomes
transfigured. And so throughout the whole of
a picture there is scarcely an object which does
not suffer some sort of metamorphosis by the
shadows and reflections that are cast upon it
from other objects. My argument is that all But no one
this metamorphosis, which is but the painter's the reflec
mode of metaphor, is not to be explained by a picture to
transfiguring faculty of imagination, and that, imagination.
VOL. I.
U
290
The Gay Science.
VIII,
a
a
CHAPTER by parity of reasoning, we need no faculty of
imagination to account for the transfigurations
of poetry produced by simile and metaphor.
Here is a story which is told in many different
ways: it is told of Queen Elizabeth when her
portrait was painted by Zucchero; it is told by
Catlin of some Red Indians, whose likenesses he
was taking. In each case the limner represented
the nose as throwing a shadow on the face. In
each case the sitter for the portrait objected to
the shadow as a blur that altered and misrepre-
sented the facts of the face. Let me ask two
questions : Is it the force of imagination that
enables the painter to perceive a shadow on the
face, and leads him to imitate it? Is it through
lack of imagination that Queen Elizabeth failed
to see a shadow on her face, and objected to
its being placed there in a picture? I follow
Why should up these questions with a third : Why should it
be supposed that, whether in picture or in
when they poetry, the transfer of the qualities of one object
to another must require a special faculty of
imagination ? “ All things are double one against
another,” says the son of Sirach; “and God
hath made nothing imperfect.” Why should the
perception of this fact and the constant assertion
of it in art be set down to imagination ? The
only explanation is, that this faculty of seeing
double is supposed to be a sort of drunkenness,
and imagination is sometimes used as a synonym
for illusion.
we attribute
them to
appear in
poetry.
>
The Play of Thought,
291
VIII,
imagination
.
II. The imagination not only takes and makes CHAPTER
like; it also takes and makes whole. The one
process is clearly a step towards the other. The How the
discovery of resemblance is an advance to the sees wholes.
perception of unity. And as we have spent
some time over that state of the mind in which
it contemplates resemblance, we must now give
our attention to that more complete grasp of
thought in which we attain to the sense of unity
and wholeness. The mind is never content with
a part; it rushes to wholes. Where it cannot
find them it makes them. Given any fragment
of fact, we shape it instantly into a whole of
some sort. In scholastic language which I shall
presently explain, the mind discovers or invents Invents or
for itself three sorts of wholes—the whole of three sorts
intension, the whole of protension and the of wholes.
whole of extension. The intensive whole is the
favourite of the lyrical mood; the protensive
whole dominates in the epic; and the extensive
whole is the very life and essence of dramatic art. .
But these phrases are enigmas, and the reader if
he pleases may forget them at once and for
ever. Throughout this treatise I have taken
care not to trouble him with the jargon of tech-
nical language, and he shall not be troubled
with it now. Technical language is too often
the refuge of obscurity, and a make-believe of
depth. The technicalities of philosophy are
like the tattooing and war-paint of savages to
affright the enemy. Stripped of its war-paint, ,
U 2
292
The Gay Science.
VIII.
be shown
that the
CHAPTER the greater part of philosophy is tame enough,
and fit for the understanding of M. Jourdain
himself. What I have now to state about the
way in which imagination seizes upon wholes is
in reality very simple. Never mind about the
names of the wholes. Only understand that in
number they are three; and the point of the
argument which I have to establish is, that when
the mind leaps to wholes—leaps from the par-
ticular to the universal, from the accidental to
But it can the necessary, from the temporary to the eternal,
from the individual to the general-we gain
imagination nothing by the supposition of a faculty called
in creating imagination which has the credit of making the
wholes in leap. It can be shown that the very same sort
of leap is made every hour in reason.
We are told of Peter Bell, that “a primrose
,
by the river's brim a yellow primrose was to him,
example of and it was nothing more.
This is character-
istic of a man without the power of imagination,
as people say generally-without the power of
thought, as they might say more correctly. Now
let us ask what is it that the man of imagination,
the man of thought, sees more than Peter Bell
Peter does in a primrose ? He sees in it a type. It is
the prim- not merely a fact; it is a representative fact.
The primrose by the river's brim stands for all
primrosesand more, for all flowers—and yet
more, for all life. It comes to signify more than
itself. By itself it is' but a single atom of
existence. Our thought sees in it the entirety
to itself.
The case of
Peter Bell,
for an
the first
whole.
not see that
rose is a
type.
The Play of Thought.
293
VIII.
of existence and raises it into a mighty whole. CHAPTER
This is what I mean by the whole of intension,
which predominates in lyrical art, and in arts
not lyrical when they rise in the early or
lyrical period of a nation's life. The units of
.
existence are intensified and exalted into things
of universal existence,
All things seem only one
In the universal sun.
whole takes
many
forms.
The tendency of the mind to see or to make the typical
these wholes shows itself in inany ways; but in
art it chiefly shows itself in the love of symbols
and types, emblems and heraldic devices. Judah
is a lion's whelp; Issachar a strong ass; Dan
shall be a serpent by the way; Naphtali a hind
let loose. According to this view, which most
frankly expresses itself in the earlier stages of
thought, everything in nature becomes a type of
human nature. So we find in all young art that
man and the world amid which he lived were And in-
placed on an equality. The beasts of the field, the assertion
and the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, kinship be-
of a peculiar
became the friends and confederates of man. wema tome.
He was as they were; and they were all alike.
Not only so; trees and flowers could think
and feel, and vegetable life was to human life
but as the grub to the butterfly.
stones had life; they were not dead but sleep-
ing. All nature was sentient, and had its voices
for man, who was, indeed, a superior being, but
still a being on the same platform of existence
volves in it
>
tween man
The very
294
The Gay Science.
VIII.
CHAPTER with all else. The man might one day become
a beast, and the beast might one day become a
man. The beast epic of the middle ages, the
natural expression of this belief, was received
less as an allegoric representation of human
life than as a genuine description of a pos-
sible history. We can trace the faith, in all
its stages of childish simplicity, boorish doubt,
and final relinquishment, in the various legends
of almost every literature belonging to the
Indo-European tribes, where, in the first stage
of the tendency, the beast-world is represented
as equal—in many respects superior to the
man-world; in a lower stage the beasts are
treated with less veneration and as inferior
beings; in a still lower stage the sense of
human superiority creates a feeling of dislike
we are taught to think, not simply of the
stupidity, but also of the hatefulness of the
animal kingdom; and, finally, we reach the
position of Æsop, who, when he makes his lions,
bears, and foxes talk and act, uses them pal-
pably as the representatives of men. The forms,
however, in which this love of type, this ten-
dency to symbol manifests itself are innumerable
and their history is not what we have now to
But why study. What concerns us now is to see clearly
that the symbolism of art, however and when-
ever it appears—whether in the frank seizure of
types, as in the earlier periods of art, or in
the subtle suggestion of them, as in the more
should we
suppose a
special
faculty to
Create
types.
The Play of Thought.
295
VIII.
nature of
the whole
in a type.
advanced periods, does not need the figment of a CHAPTER
special faculty to produce it.
It is evident that in the determination of what is the
thought which raises a primrose into a type, the
mind has added something which is not found in which feat
the fact. A yellow primrose after all is but a
yellow primrose; and if the mind sees more in
it, that more is an addition, a creation. Now, it
is too often and too hastily assumed that this
creation of the mind is a special property of
fantasy ; and people are the more ready so
to think because the process by which we arrive
at that creation is perfectly inexplicable. How
do we come to know that this primrose is a
type ? What right have we to say that it may
stand for all flowers ? What reason is there in
the endowment of it with the power of repre-
senting all life-and not least, human life?
Critics are much too prone to go off in fits of
wonder when they consider the working of
imagination. This is the easiest mode of es-
caping from the difficulties of analysis, and the
perils of explanation. In the present case there
is a real and wellnigh insoluble difficulty
before us; but a very little consideration will
serve to show that it is nothing peculiar to a
so-called faculty of imagination. It is the grand It is the
problem of logic; it is the crux of reason.
type is but a name for the result of generaliza- creates in
tion; and generalization is a process of re
reasoning.
generaliza-
Now, we never generalize without adding some-
;
same sort of
A whole as
• tion.
296
The Gay Science.
VIII.
And the
tions of
as
as those of
and not less
CHAPTER thing which is not in the facts, and which is
a creation of the mind. Here is a well-known
specimen of generalization : All men are mortal.
Nobody doubts this : but when logicians proceed
to analyze it they find themselves unable to ex-
plain satisfactorily how we reach from particular
examples to the general conclusion. All we
know of a surety is, that a certain limited
generaliza-
number of men have died what has become of
reason are the rest we know not. But suppose we know
wonderful for certain that all men hitherto have died; how
imagination do we arrive at the conclusion that in future all
inexplicable. men must die ? Old Asgill, in the last century,
seriously disputed the necessity of death passing
upon all men.
all men. The leap to a generalization is a
creature of the mind. From the earliest dawn
of reason the mind is in the habit of taking these
leaps. It may generalize well, or it may gene-
ralize ill, but generalize it must. The child
burns its finger with the flame of a candle :
straightway it flies to the conclusion that all
fire burns. There is a correct generalization.
Once is enough : it flies from the one to the
all. But it also makes mistakes of generali-
.
zation. It calls every man it sees, papa;
it calls every bird, Polly ; it calls the dog,
puss; it runs to eat the snow for sugar. Right
or wrong, it generalizes so continually that
philosophers have raised a question whether
knowledge in man begins in generals or in
particulars.
:
The Play of Thought.
297
VIII.
The argument then stands as follows: You CHAPTER
wonder at the work of imagination when you see
how it magnifies isolated facts into continental Summary
truths; you are amazed at its creativeness, and argument.
think that there must be something singular in
the faculty, which, in a manner quite inexpli-
cable, can effect such transformations.
But,
strange to say, this is the very work, and this
the very marvel of reason. No man has yet
been able to explain how, because this, that,
or some other thing, has happened so many
times, we are driven to the conclusion that it
shall happen always. In both cases, the process
of generalization is precisely the same. When
imagination makes a seven-leagued stride from
the one to the all, and from the part to the
whole, it is no other than the usual stride of
reason from the particular to the general.
What is peculiar to imagination is not that it
differs in this respect from the usual process
of reasoning, but that it exhibits that process
working automatically. Just as in the free
play of thought, the mind tends to dwell on
images of sight, whence one of the leading
characteristics of imagination from which its
very name is derived; so, in the same free
,
play, the mind tends to generalize and totalize
every individual fact that engages its attention : :
and hence another leading characteristic of that
automatic energy which is commonly known as
imagination.
298
The Gay Science.
CHAPTER
VII.
We never
Here as before, then, we never get beyond the
conception of imagination as the free play and
get beyond unconscious movement of thought. There is
ception of nothing peculiar in it except that it reveale the
imagination instinctive tendency of the mind. That instinc-
.
tive tendency to generalize on every possible
occasion, which shows itself in the first dawn of
childish reason, we learn to check as we grow
older, and thought becomes more conscious.
Then we become hard and prosaic, sticking to
facts, in and for themselves, as mere facts. A
child accepts every event as a matter of neces-
sity, and it is often exceedingly difficult to con-
vince the little soul - following the natural
tendency of mind—that what has happened once
may not or will not happen again. Experience
comes with years and corrects the imperious
tendency of the mind to believe in the uni-
formity of nature and the necessity of all things.
The idea of accident enters, and, while a general
belief in the certainty of nature remains, it no
longer usurps the throne of absolute law. Per-
haps the process goes even further, until at
length in the mind's dotage certainty is banished
from our expectations, the muse of history
becomes the most incredible of Cassandras, and
the whole world lies dead before us and around
us, with men and women rattling over it like
dice from a dice-box. And here we can see pre-
cisely the difference between the realism of child-
hood and poetry and the realism of dotage and
a
The Play of Thought.
299
The element
which ima-
kind of
mind
.
prose. The child in everything perceives the CHAPTER
element of necessity; the old man perceives
but the element of contingency. In particulars of necessity
the child sees the universal, the old man sees
gination
in particulars only the particular.
Herein supplies.
lies the difference between poetry and prose.
It is the difference not between imagination
on the one hand and reason on the other
but between reason on the one hand playing
free and fast, and reason on the other going
warily in fetters.
Much of what has been said about symbols The second
in art, their meaning and their origin, will apply whole
to that other form of generalization, described which the
above as the whole of protension or duration. creates.
We have a natural tendency when we see a
thing, to think of it not only as now existing
but as having always existed; and as destined to
exist for ever. The mind is unable to conceive
either the beginning or the end of existence.
When left to itself in free play it conceives
an idea of life in which there is no death. One We raise
the tempor
living thing may be transformed into another rary into
living thing, but there is no annihilation. It is the eternal.
just as in our dreams, where life appears to us as
a series of dissolving views, a transmigration of
souls, an incessant Protean change, without an
end. We pass through innumerable avatars;
we run the cycle of existence; but cycle is
followed by cycle, and existence is indestruc-
tible. To die, in the old legends, is to be
.
300
The Gay Science.
VIII.
compass the
idea of
death.
she says,
CHAPTER changed for a certain length of time into tree
or stone, beast or bird, but never to be quite
extinct. The primrose of our dreams is trans-
muted as we look on it, into a damsel or some
other fair creature: it never dies. Words-
worth has a little poem-We are Seven-in
which he takes note of this, our natural in-
And cannot ability to compass the idea of death. The little
child has lost one of her brothers, but still
“ We are seven." Still to her mind
the lost Pleiad remains one of the seven.
And under the eye of heaven there is not
a more touching sight than that presented by
Oriental artists when they enter the tombs to
protest against dissolution. Some of the elder
races of the world arranged the homes of the
dead as if they were homes of the living, with
panelled walls and fretted ceilings, elbow chairs,
footstools, benches, wine flagons, drinking-cups,
ointinent phials, basins, mirrors, and other fur-
niture. By painting, by sculpture, by writing,
they had the habit, as it were, of chalking in
large letters upon their sepulchres, NO DEATH.
The assertion of the continuity of existence
tion of the which the mind thus makes is the generating
makes epical principle of epic or historical art, of all art,
indeed, which has to do with the evolution of
events; and is there any reason why, when
the narrative poet pleases us with his pictures
of the transmutations of life, we must call up a
special faculty-fantasy--to account for those
The asser-
of existence
art.
The Play of Thought.
301
The trans-
of poetry.
transmutations? It is no more than the ordinary CHAPTER
process of reasoning by which, involuntarily, we
connect every fact or thing that comes before formations
us with causes and with effects. We may, with
the greater poets, trace our facts to the gods;
with Homer, show how the will of Zeus is
accomplished in the slaughter of the Achaians;
with Milton, how man's first disobedience leads
to his fall Or again, with the lesser poets
and storytellers, we may show how the Beast,
when Beauty gives him her hand, becomes
a prince; how Daphne, pursued by the god,
is transformed into a laurel. But what is
there in all this metamorphosis of persons, of
things, or of actions, which needs for its pro-
duction a special faculty ? When we come to
analyze it, is there any real difference in
thought between the transmutation of one per- But do these
sonality into another, and the transmutation of
one action into another? In either case the for their
production,
mind is actuated by one law, the law with a separate
faculty?
which we are most familiar in thinking about
causes and effects.
We know we are com-
pelled to think of a cause for every event,
and that likewise every event suggests to us
an effect.
Why we are thus compelled to
rush back to causes and to rush after effects
wc cannot tell. We only know the fact, and
we are able to resolve it into this more general
fact, that to think of a breach in the continuity
of existence is beyond our power. We cannot
transforma-
а.
302
The Gay Science.
VIII.
The third
kind of
whole
creates
that of
CHAPTER think of existence beginning ; we cannot think
of existence ending; we only think of it as
passing from one form to another. This is the
law of all thought, and nothing peculiar to a
faculty of imagination.
And now a few words in conclusion about the
third kind of whole which the mind creates, and
which the which is best known as it appears in dramatic
art. Not that the two other tendencies I have
extension, been describing are to be held as excluded from
dramatic art. On the contrary, it appropriates
them and turns them to account. But it has
also a way of its own which may be described
as constructive. The drama is, in a far higher
sense of the word than can be applied to any
mere narrative-it is in the highest sense of the
word, constructive. There is the construction
of character and all its traits; there is the con-
On drama- struction of the personages in relation to each
other; there is the construction of events into
a consistent plot. The constructive skill re-
quired in a drama will appear all the more
remarkable if we remember that the dramatist
cannot plaister and conceal defects of construc-
tion by comment or description.
Now when, a single trait of character given,
an artist builds upon it with endless details,
many of them conflicting, an entire character,
this, which in popular criticism is most fre-
quently cited as evidence of the creative power
and wholeness of work belonging to imagi-
tic con-
struction.
The creation
of charac-
ter.
K
The Play of Thought.
303
nation, is the result of a mental process not CHAPTER
different in kind from that by which the com-
parative anatomist sees the perfect form of an
unknown animal in one of its bones. When
Professor Owen pictures for us some great
saurian of the ancient world, we do not accuse
him of drawing upon his imagination, because
he reasons consciously at every step, and we
can follow his processes.
But when a dra-
matist or novelist raises before us a great
complex character, finely moulded and welded
into a consistent whole, we attribute his work
to imagination, because it has been devised
in unconsciousness, and neither he nor we can
follow the process. It is not imagination in the
sense of a special faculty that does the work, but
imagination in the sense of the hidden soul, the
ordinary faculties engaged in free, unconscious
play.
In the free play of thought the mind may on the
commit many errors; but there is one error of imagination.
which we always absolve it, that of inconsistency,
or a disregard of wholeness. We who know
what ill names have been heaped on imagination,
how it is represented often as the great source of
illusion, may be perplexed sometimes to find that
many an error, many a lapse from truth, is ex-
plained by the absence of imagination. How
constantly do we hear it said, when a poet or an Where
artist fails of truth, that he has no imagination, allowed.
or a feeble one. In these cases it will be found
truth of
always
a
.
304
The Gay Science.
VIII.
a
CHAPTER that the want of truth, and therefore the want of
imagination, shows itself in a want of consis-
tency or of construction. When in one of the
beautiful windows of the Sainte Chapelle, in
Paris, Isaiah is pictured reproving Mohammed ;
there may be want of truth, but not of imagi-
nation, If the history be wrong, the thought
is right. When Goethe in the play presents
Egmont as a bachelor, though at the time of the
story he had a wife and children, there is a want
of truth, but we do not call it a want of imagi-
nation. When the Greek sculptor gives us Lao-
coon naked, though as the priest of Apollo he
must have been in his sacerdotal robes at the
time of the serpent seizing him, there again is
want of truth, but we do not complain of want
of imagination. But when, in one of the mys-
teries enacted in Germany towards the end of
last century, the Creator of the world was repre-
sented as an old gentleman in a wig, who groped
about in the dark, and after running his head
against posts, exclaimed in utter peevishness,
“Let there be light,” and there was light—the
light of a candle; there was not only the absence
of truth, but also that of imagination. When
Domenichino, in a picture of Creation, put into
the garden of Eden trees decaying with age
and pollarded trees, there again was a defect of
imagination as well as of truth. And, lastly,
when Dryden made Eve in the garden a
modern coquette, who, on Adam first offering
a
The Play of Thought.
305
VIII.
her love, expressed a doubt as to his fidelity, CHAPTER
whether he would always be true to her, and
whether he would not be running after others ;
there once more was a lack of truth, and with it
a lack of imagination.
These falsehoods are
offences against imagination, because they are
offences against consistency, derelictions from
the sense of wholeness. But in thus attributing
to imagination the sense of wholeness, of fitness,
of consistency--in attributing the lack of con-
sistency to the lack of imagination-what do we
really mean? Do we mean that imagination is a
special faculty, which looks after consistency as
no other faculty looks after it ? and that only ima-
ginative persons can be consistent ? Surely not.
The wholeness that marks all the work of the whole
imagination is a very simple matter, to be ex- imaginative
plained on a very obvious principle. Imagina- explained
tion, I repeat, is only a name for the free, un-
conscious play of thought. But the mind in free principle.
play works more as a whole than in conscious
and voluntary effort. It is the very nature of
voluntary effort to be partial and concentrated
in points. Left to itself the mind is like the
cloud that moveth altogether if it move at all;
and this wholeness of movement has its issue in
that wholeness of thinking which we find in
true works of imagination.
ness of
work to be
on & very
simple
But this lengthy argument must now draw Summary
to a close. I have, one by one, touched upon argument.
of the
VOL. I.
X
306
The Gay Science.
VIII.
CHAPTER every feature of imagination which is supposed
to be peculiarly its own, and I have shown that
each, without exception, belongs to the general
action of the mind. In the first place, the name
of imagination is derived from one of the most
evident facts connected with the free play of the
mind-sensibility to images or memories of sight.
Sight is the most lively of the senses, and we
recur most readily in idea to the impressions
derived through that sense. Next in free play,
and according to the very notion of it, the mind
wanders; it is, therefore natural to speak of
imagination in this sense as a source of illusion.
And so we go over the other tendencies of free
play. The mind has a tendency to see likeness
and to become like what it sees. The mind
has a tendency to see and to create wholes.
Moreover, all these tendencies herd together.
They are separable and quite distinct; but in
the free play of the mind, they generally appear
in combination. The result is, that by the law
of inseparable or pretty constant association, we
come to regard all these uniting tendencies as a
composite whole, one special faculty.* It is true
* For the fullest and clearest 1 placing the established philo-
account of the law of inseparable | sophy of Europe. Mr. Mill,
association, see Mill's Examina- however, complains that this,
tion of Sir William Hamilton's his leading principle, is not so
Philosophy, chapter xiv. It is much rejected as ignored by
really an important law, and it the great European schools of
is the corner-stone of Mr. Mill's thought. “The best informed
system of philosophy, which German and French philoso-
aims at overthrowing and dis- phers," he says, are barely
The Play of Thought.
307
VIII.
that, in the processes which we attribute to ima- CHAPTER
gination, there is a specialty. It is a specialty,
however, not of power, but of function; not of
tendency, but of the circumstances under which
the tendency is exerted. The nature of the
work performed by imagination is not peculiar
to itself. What is peculiar to itself is, that the
work is done automatically and secretly. That
ence,
aware, if even aware, of its exist- pean thinkers do not attach so
And in this country and much importance to it as he be-
age, in which it has been em- lieves it deserves, and as it really
ployed by thinkers of the highest does deserve. We all know the
order as the most potent of all force of association in our ideas
instruments of psychological ana- of things. We see things to-
lysis, the opposite school usually gether; we learn to think of
dismiss it with a few sentences, them as inseparably associated,
so smoothly gliding over the sur- and of their union as incapable
face of the subject as to prove
of dissolution. Mr. James Mill
that they have never, even for uses the following illustration:
an instant, brought the powers “When a wheel, on the seven
of their minds into real and effec- parts of which the seven pris-
tive contact with it.” Of the matic colours are respectively
thinkers “ of the highest order," painted, is made to revolve
who have made much of the law, rapidly, it appears not of seven
I know only one-Mr. John Mill
--Mr. John Mill colours, but of
colours, but of one uniform
himself; and if it be a fact that colour-white. By the rapidity
it has hitherto been ignored, that of the succession, the several
would be the clearest of all sensations cease to be distin-
proofs that until Mr. John Mill guishable; they run, as it were,
took it up, it cannot have been together; and a new sensation,
applied by any thinker “of the compounded of all the seven, but
highest order." The truth, how- appare
apparently a single one, is the
ever, is that the law is nowhere result.” That is precisely the
ignored. It is a very simple and case of imagination. In the free
a very obvious law which cannot play of the mind, there are a
have escaped the notice of the number of tendencies which har-
blindest bat in philosophy. All monize and unite; we come to
that Mr. Mill has a right to com- regard them as a unity; and we
plain of is that the chief Euro- dub that unity Imagination.
a
x 2
308
The Gay Science.
VIII.
CHAPTER the work is automatic, or that the work is secret,
does not alter its character, and make it different
from reason, memory or feeling. Imagination
therefore, can only be defined by reference
to its spontaneity, or by reference to its uncon-
sciousness. Regarding it as automatic, we define
it the Play of Thought. Regarding it as uncon-
scious, we define it the Hidden Soul.
THE SECRECY OF ART.
cm
li
CHAPTER IX.
THE SECRECY OF ART.
IX.
JE OUGHT now to proceed at once to CHAPTER
the consideration of pleasure. I began
by showing that pleasure is the end of Review of
art. I brought forward a cloud of witnesses to ous argu-
prove that this has always been acknowledged.
And after showing that all these witnesses, in
their several ways, define and limit the pleasure
which art seeks, we discovered that the English
school of critics has, more than any other, the
habit of insisting on a limitation to it, which
is more full of meaning as a principle in art
than all else that has been advanced by the
various schools of criticism. That the pleasure
of art is the pleasure of imagination is the one
grand doctrine of English criticism, and the
Inost pregnant doctrine of all criticism. But
it was difficult to find out what imagination
really is ; and therefore the last three chapters
the previ-
а.
ment.
7
312
The Gay Science.
IX.
And its
CHAPTER were allotted to an inquiry into the nature of it.
The result at which we have arrived is that
imagination is but another name for that un-
conscious action of the mind which may be
called the Hidden Soul. And with this under-
standing, we ought now to proceed to the scru-
tiny of pleasure. I will, however, ask the reader
to halt for a few minutes, that I may point out
the defini- how this understanding as to the nature of
tion of art. imagination bears on the definition with which
we started—that pleasure is the end of art. Few
are willing to acknowledge pleasure as the end
of art. I took some pains to defend pleasure in
this connection as a fit object of pursuit, and if I
have not satisfied every mind, I hope now to do
so by the increased light which the analysis of
imagination will have thrown upon the subject.
We started with the common doctrine, that
opposite of
art is the opposite of science, and that, as the
object of science is knowledge, so that of art is
pleasure. But if the reader has apprehended
what I have tried to convey to him as to the exist-
ence within us of two great worlds of thought
a double life, the one known or knowable, the
other unknown and for the most part unknow-
able, he will be prepared, if not to accept, yet
to understand this further conception of the
difference between science and art that the
field of science is the known and the knowable,
while the field of art is the unknown and the
unknowable. It is a strange paradox that the
Art is the
science.
Its field
therefore is
the an-
The Secrecy of Art.
313
IX.
known and
y
knowable.
nary use
mind should be described as possessing and com- CHAPTER
passing the unknown. But my whole argument
has been working up to this point, and, I trust, the una
rendering it credible—that the mind may pos-
sess and be possessed by thoughts of which
nevertheless it is ignorant.
Now, because such a statement as this will That state-
appear to be a paradox to those who have not con- ever Bounds
sidered it; also, because to say that the field of art like a para-
is the unknown, is like saying that the object of dox for ordi-
art is a negation, it is fit that in ordinary speech
we should avoid such phrases, and be content
with the less paradoxical expression—that the
object of art is pleasure. The object of science,
we say, is knowledge —a perfect grasp of all the
facts which lie within the sphere of conscious-
ness. The object of art is pleasure—a sensible
possession or enjoyment of the world beyond
consciousness. We do not know that world,
yet we feel it-feel it chiefly in pleasure, but
sometimes in pain, which is the shadow of
pleasure. It is a vast world we have seen ; of
not less importance to us than the world of
knowledge. It is in the hidden sphere of
thought, even more than in the open one, that
we live, and move, and have our being; and it
is in this sense that the idea of art is always a
secret. We hear much of the existence of such People do
a secret, and people are apt to say--If a secret stand how a
exist, and if the artist convey it in his art, why which cauta
does he not plainly tell us what it is? But here not be told.
,
not under-
exists
314
The Gay Science.
IX.
Yet there
are current
understand
the para-
CHAPTER at once we fall into contradictions, for as all
language refers to the known, the moment we
begin to apply it to the unknown, it fails.
Until the existence of an unknown hidden life
within us be thoroughly well accepted, not only
felt, but also to some extent understood, there
will always be az esoteric mode of stating the
doctrine, which is not for the multitude.
Although at first sight it may appear absurd
phrases to speak of the unknown as the domain of art,
help us to and to describe the artist as communicating to
the world, through his works, a secret that he
doxical defi- and it will never unravel, yet there is a common
phrase which, if we consider it well, may help
to render this paradox less difficult of belief.
Montesquieu has a profound sentence at which
I have often wondered : “Si notre âme n'avait
point été unié au corps, elle aurait connu; mais
1;
il
y a apparence qu'elle aurait aimé ce qu'elle
aurait connu : à présent nous n'aimons presque
que ce que nous ne connaissons pas." I have
I
wondered by what process of thought a man
of the last century arrived at such a conclu-
sion. It scarcely fits into the thinking of his
time; and I imagine he must have worked it
Je ne sais out of the phrase-Je ne sais quoi. * It was
nition of
art.
quoi.
* Montesquieu's remark will some subtle process of hidden
be found in his Essai sur le Goút, thought, unknown to himself,
where, indeed, he dwells so much it suggested the remark. The
upon the je ne sais quoi, as to curious thing is, that he attempts
make one nearly certain that by to explain in measured language
The Secrecy of Art.
315
IX.
in the last century a commonplace of French (HAPTER
criticism and conversation, that what is most
lovely, most attractive, in man, in nature, in
art, is a certain je ne sais quoi. And adopting
this phrase, it will not be much of a paradox
to assert that, while the object of science is to
know and to make known, the object of art
is to appropriate and to communicate the name-
less grace, the ineffable secret of the know-
not-what.
If the object of art were to make If the ob-
the je ne sais quoi; and his une belle personne fait ordinaire-
explanation robs it of its richness ment le contraire de ce que nous
of meaning. Nothing can be avions attendu; elle parvient à
more flat; and one is puzzled nous paroître moins aimable;
to understand how the thinker après nous avoir surpris en bien,
who could make the remark elle nous surprend en mal; mais
which I have quoted above, l'impression du bien est ancienne,
should give us the following celle du mal nouvelle : aussi les
definition of the je ne sais quoi : belles personnes font-elles rare-
“ Il y a quelquefois dans les ment les grandes passions, pres-
personnes ou dans les choses un
que toujours réservées à celles
charmo invisible, une grâce na- qui ont des graces, c'est-à-dire
turelle, qu'on n'a pu définir, et des agrémens que nous n'atten-
qu'on a été forcé d'appeler le dions point, et que nous n'avions
je ne sais quoi. Il me semble pas sujet d'attendre. Les grandes
que c'est un effet principalement parures ont rarement de la grâce, ,
fondé sur la surprise. Nous et souvent l'habillement des ber-
sommes touchés de ce qu'une geres en a. Nous admirons la
personne nous plait plus qu'elle majesté des draperies de Paul
ne nous & paru d'abord devoir, Véronèse; mais nous
a
sommes
nous plaire, et nous sommes touchés de la simplicité de Ra-
agréablement surpris de ce qu'elle phaël et de la pureté du Corrége.
a su vaincre des défauts que nos Paul Véronèse promet beaucoup,
yeux nous montrent, et que le et paye ce qu'il promet. Raphaël
cæur ne croit plus. Voilà pour- et le Corrége promettent peu, et
quoi les femmes laides ont très- payent beaucoup; et cela nous
souvent des grâces, et qu'il est plait davantage."
rare que les belles en aient. Car
316
The Gay Science.
IX.
were to
make
known, it
be art but
science,
CHAPTER known and to explain its ideas, it would no
longer be art, but science. Its object is
very
ject of art different. The true artist recognises, however
dimly, the existence within us of a double world
would not of thought, and his object is, by subtle forms,
tones, words, allusions, associations, to establish
a connection with the unconscious hemisphere
of the mind, and to make us feel a mysterious
energy there in the hidden soul. For this
purpose he doubtless makes use of the known.
He paints what we have seen, he describes what
we have heard; but his use of knowledge is ever
to suggest something beyond knowledge. If he
be merely dealing with the known and making
it better known, then it becomes necessary to
ask wherein does his work differ from science ?
Through knowledge, through consciousness, the
artist appeals to the unconscious part of us.
It is to the The poet's words, the artist's touches, are elec-
tric; and we feel those words, and the shock of
known part those touches, going through us in a way we
the artist cannot define, but always giving us a thrill of
appeals.
pleasure, awakening distant associations, and fill-
ing us with the sense of a mental possession
beyond that of which we are daily and hourly
conscious. Art is poetical in proportion as it
has this power of appealing to what I may
call
the absent mind, as distinct from the present
mind, on which falls the great glare of conscious-
ness, and to which alone science appeals. On
the temple of art, as on the temple of Isis,
hidden soul,
the un-
of 118, that
The Secrecy of Art.
317
66
IX.
art sup-
in Macari-
might be inscribed—“I am whatsoever is, what- CHAPTER
soever has been, whatsoever shall be ; and the
veil which is over my face no mortal hand has
ever raised.”
There are persons so little aware of a hidden This view of
life within them, of an absent mind which is
theirs just as truly as the present mind of authority.
which they are conscious, that the view of art I
have just been setting forth will to them be
well nigh unintelligible. Others, again, who
have a faint consciousness of it, may see the
truth more clearly if I present it not in my own
words, but in words with which others have
made them familiar.
Here, for example, is what Lord Macaulay It is implied
says
of Milton and his art: “ We often hear of
lay's criti-
the magical influence of poetry. The expres- Miltou.
sion in general means nothing ; but applied to
the writings of Milton it is most appropriate.
His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit
lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult
power.
There would seem at first to be no
more in his words than in other words. But
they are words of enchantment. No sooner are
they pronounced than the past is present and the
distant near.
New forms of beauty start at
once into existence, and all the burial places of
the memory give up their dead. Change the
structure of the sentence, substitute one syno-
nyme for another, and the whole effect is de-
stroyed. The spell loses it power; and he who
should then hope to conjure with it, would find
cism on
318
The Gay Science.
IX.
6
same
criticism
all
well as
to Milton's.
are
CHAPTER himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the
Arabian tale when he stood crying, 'Open wheat,
Open barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound
Only the
but Open sesame.' This is admirably ex-
pressed, with the fault, however, of attributing
applies
af poetry as magic to Milton's poetry alone, while denying
that magic belongs to poetry in general. The
fact is, that all poetry, all art, has more or less
of the same magic in it. We are touched less by
the obvious meaning of the poet than by an
occult power which lurks in his words. This
.
is what I have been all along enforcing, that
art, affects us not as a mode of knowledge or
science, but as suggesting something which is
beyond and behind knowledge, a hidden trea-
sure, a mental possession whereof we
ignorant. Given the magic words, given the
magic touch, and not only Milton's poetry,
but all good poetry and art will force the
burial places of memory to render up their
dead, will set innumerable trains of thought
astir in the mind, fill us with their suggestive-
ness, and charm us with an indefinable sense of
pleasure.
Precisely in this vein of thought sings Thomas
Moore
Oh, there are looks and tones that dart
An instant sunshine through the heart:
As if the soul that minute caught
Some treasure it through life had sought;
As if the very lips and eyes
Predestined to have all our sighs,
And never be forgot again,
Sparkled and spoke before us then.
It is im-
plied in
Moore's
verses.
The Secrecy of Art.
319
IX.
ܪ
He is here referring to the action of love in CHAPTER
that sense of it which suggested the well known
sentence that the poet, the lunatic, and the
lover, are of imagination all compact. Love,
says Shakespeare, is too young to know itself.
It belongs to the secret forces of the mind, and
is connected with them by a freemasonry which
mere consciousness may recognise but cannot
penetrate. There is a passing glance, a sign, a
tone, a word. In the lover as in the poet, it
appeals not to the conscious intelligence, but to
the secret places of the soul; it illumines them
with an instant gleam, which allows us no time
to see what passes there; it gives light with-
out information; and the light as it vanishes
leaves us with a vague sense of possessing, we
know not where, some hidden treasure of the
mind for which all our lives we have been
searching
Now let us turn to Byron for a change. He Byron also
takes a gloomy view of the strange power of
the mind which we are considering, but he
dwells on its existence as a great fact. He
refers to it again and again, but the best known
passage in which he makes mention of it will
be found in the fourth canto of Childe Harold,
where he describes with much force the insidious
return of grief:
But ever and anon of griefs subdued
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
refers to it.
320
The Gay Science.
CHAPTER Back on the heart the weight which it would ling
IX.
Aside for ever: it may be a sound-
A tone of music summer's evoor spring-
A flower--the wind-the ocean which shall wound,
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;
And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
When least we deem of such, calls up to view
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind,-
The cold, the changed, perchance the dead-anew
The mourned, the loved, the lost --too manyl-get too fow!
It is implied
Let me ring another change upon the same
in Words-
worth's idea by next quoting Wordsworth. One of the
poetry.
most admired passages in his works, and fre-
quently cited as a perfect embodiment of the
poetical spirit, is the following from the poem
on Tintern Abbey :
I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows, and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world,
Of eye and earn both what they half create,
And what perceive.
The Secrecy of Art.
321
IX.
The mean-
ing of some
passages Un
res
ference to
soul.
What is the meaning of it? Does he simply CHAPTER
mean that sunsets and other sights of nature
are so beautiful as to afford him great pleasure ?
He says much more, which it is not easy to proteins cible
intelligible
put into clean-cut scientific language. Any without me
man of poetical temperament knows what it the hidden
means, though he might be puzzled to express it
logically. What is the presence which surprises
the poet with the joy of high thought? What
is that something in the light of setting suns
which is far more deeply interfused than the
five wits can reach, and is to be apprehended
only by a sense sublime? Is it fast or fiction?
It is but Wordsworth's favourite manner of
indicating the great fact upon which all art, all
poetry, proceeds. Nature acts upon him as
Milton's words upon Macaulay, like magic. It
appeals to his hidden soul, and awakens the
sense of a presence which is not to be caught
and made a show of. The light of setting suns,
,
the round ocean, and the living air, arouse
in him a demi-semi-consciousness of a treasure
trove which is not in the consciousness proper,
What that treasure, what that presence is, it
would pose Wordsworth or any one else to say.
All he knows is that nature finely touches a
secret chord within him, and gives him a vague
hint of a world of life beyond consciousness, the
world which art and poetry are ever pointing
and working towards.
The poetry of Wordsworth abounds with But there
VOL, I.
Y
322
The Gay Science
IX.
sages in
Words-
worth.
CHAPTER passages that vividly refer to the concealed life
of the mind and the secret of poetry. Some
sochname of these were quoted in the last chapter, and I
will now, even at the risk of becoming tedious,
quote another, which is one of the finest de-
scriptions of that which we are to understand
by the know-not-what of art. I should like to
cite every line of the Ode on Immortality, but
restrict myself to the following verses, in which
the poet raises the song of praise. It is not
Another in simply because of the delights of childhood and
the Ode on
Immor- its simple creed that he gives thanks for the
tality.
remembrance of his youth :
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise ;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised;
And for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day;
Are yet a masterlight of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish us, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence; truths that wake
To perish never,
Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavour,
Nor man, nor boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy
Can utterly abolish or destroy.
What a
Now, it may be interesting to read the com-
Saturday
ment which a very intelligent critic makes
a
The Secrecy of Art.
323
IX.
Reviewer
says of it.
6
upon this in one of the weekly journals. He CHAPTER
is obliged to confess that the passage reads like
nonsense ; it has no special meaning; but his
heart responds to it, and he pronounces it per-
fectly beautiful.
“ There is no reason," he says,
“why a confused state of mind should not be
poetical. Indeed we may go further and say,
that some of what is universally acknowledged
to be the finest poetry, has soarcely any definite
meaning whatever. In Wordsworth's great ode
there are many lines comprising a kind of essence
of poetry, but to which it is scarcely possible to
attribute any distinct signification. The often-
quoted passage about the 'fallings from us, va-
nishings, blank misgivings of a creature moving
about in worlds not realized,' &c., are exquisitely
beautiful, but are altogether without any special
meaning. If we try to interpret them, to fix the
idea embodied in them, it evaporates at once.
The words are the right ones to awaken, for
some reason, a set of pleasant associations, and to
stimulate our imaginations; but as soon as we
try to dissect and analyze them, to distinguish
between the form of expression and the sense
which it is intended to convey, we fail alto-
gether. The words themselves are the poetry,
It is like a mosaic work, which puts together a
number of beautiful colours, without attempting
to form any definite picture.”
The view which the critic here indicates, How far he
although not altogether correct, is well ex- his view.
>
is correct in
Y 2
324
The Gay Science.
IX.
CHAPTER pressed; and, making allowance for some incau-
tious phrases, the reader will find no difficulty
in squaring it with the view of art contained
in these pages. It is hard to say that Words-
worth's phrases have no special meaning which
it is possible to fix in the terms of cold reason.
The poet is describing, with all the clearness he
can command, the know-not-what-the vanish-
ing effects produced in his consciousness by the
veiled energy of his hidden life; and by the
;
bare mention of these vanishing effects (not as
the critic says, by unmeaning words that are
as the colours of a kaleidoscope) he appeals
to an experience which all who can enjoy poetry
must recognize, he brings back upon us strange
memories, and through memory surprises us with
a momentary sense of the hidden life, a sudden
gleam as of a falling star that comes we know
not whence, and is gone ere we are conscious of
having seen it :
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say-behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up.
Since Wordsworth, the man who has shown
Lytton
gives ex-
the most abiding sense of a mystery surround-
pression to
ing human life and thought, of an energy which
thoughts. is ours, and yet is separate from conscious pos-
session, is Sir Edward Lytton. It may be
doubted whether he fully understands the nature
of this mysterious energy_whether, at any rate,
Sir Edward
similar
The Secrecy of Art.
325
IX.
tion of
he understands it as fully as Wordsworth. Still, CHAPTER
hu is so impressed with its reality, that it has sug-
gested to him more than one marvellous tale of
a secret magic belonging to humanity; and even
when he is not thinking at all of Rosicrucian
mysteries, but merely describing ordinary flesh
and blood, he refers to the mental gifts of his
more poetic personages in terms which, without
the key supplied by the theory of the Hidden
Soul, are to most readers a perfect riddle. Take
the description of Helen, in Lucretia. “There is
a certain virtue within us,” says Sir Edward Lyt- His descrip-
ton, “ comprehending our subtlest and noblest Helen.
emotions, which is poetry while untold, and grows
pale and poor in proportion as we strain it into
poems.” In other words—if I may interpolate
my own explanation-which is poetry so long
as it remains the know-not-what, and ceases to
be poetry when it is defined into knowledge and
becomes an item of science. “This more spiritual
sensibility,” Sir Edward proceeds,“ dwelt in
66
Helen, as the latent mesmerism in water, as the
invisible fairy in an enchanted ring. It was
an essence, or divinity, shrined or shrouded in
herself, which gave her more intimate and vital
union with all the influences of the universe-a
companion to her loneliness, an angel hymning
low to her own listening soul. This made her
enjoyment of nature; in its merest trifles, ex-
quisite and profound; this gave to her tendencies
;
of heart all the delicious and sportive variety
326
The Gay Science.
IX.
Senior's
criticism on
tion.
understand
it.
Chapter love borrows from imagination; this lifted her
piety above the mere forms of conventional re-
ligion, and breathed into her prayers the ecstacy
of the saints."
I have not seen this passage as it stands in
this descrip-
the original, and quote it from a critical essay of
Mr. Nassau Senior. The comment which that
hard thinker makes upon it, struck me as a capital
example of one-eyed criticism. He introduces
the passage by saying that Sir E. Lytton is apt
to ascribe to his characters “ qualities of which
we doubt the real existence;" and he dismisses
it with the declaration, "we must say that these
“
He does not appear to us to be mere words.” The anony-
mous critic whom I quoted just now saw in the
extract from Wordsworth meaningless phrases ;
but he allowed that the phrases had an influence
on him, and suggested something very delightful
to his mind. In Bulwer Lytton's description,
Mr. Nassau Senior sees words without influence
Nor would and without any hold on reality. What would
such a man say to Shelley's account of poetry
Shelley.
with which he closes his Defence of Poetry? “ It
is impossible to read the compositions of the most
celebrated writers of the present day without
being startled with the electric life which burns
within their words. They measure the circumfer-
ence and sound the depths of human nature with
a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and
they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely
astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their
he under-
stand
66
The Secrecy of Art.
327
LX.
definition of
Un-
been ex-
poetry.
spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the CHAPTER
.
hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration;
the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futu-
rity casts upon the present; the words which ex-
press what they understand not; the trumpets
which ring to battle, and feel not what they
inspire; the influence which is moved not, but
moves.
In these various quotations I have been endea- So far the
vouring, from as many points of view as I can com- art as the
mand, to justify and make clear the paradox that the Pin
of
whereas the theme of science is the known and known has
knowable, that of art is the unknown and unknow- plained
solely by re-
able. But the quotations which I have been ference to
able to bring forward relate chiefly to poetry,
and they ought to have the supplement of a few
words on the other forms of art, showing that
they too, music, painting, sculpture, not less
than poetry, are what they are, and gain their
peculiar ends, not as exhibitions of knowledge
in one form or another, but as suggesting some-
thing beyond knowledge. This, however, is See the
even more clear in the case of music than in that
of poetry. There is no pretension in music to applies to
increase the store of knowledge, and so far it is
to be regarded as the purest type of art. The
glory of music is to be more intimately con-
nected than any other art with the hidden soul ;
with the incognisable part of our minds, which it
stirs into an activity that at once fills us with
delight and passes understanding. We feel a
a
game defini
tion as it
328
The Gay Science.
IX.
a
Music is
the ar,
more direct
than any
any other
other with
the un-
kuown of
thought.
a
CHAPTER certain mental energy quickened within us; faint
;
far-away suggestions, glimpses of another world,
crowd upon the uttermost rim of consciousness ;
and we entertain through the long movements
of a symphony the indefinable joy of those who
wake from dreams in the fancied possession of a
treasure, they wot not what. Music being thus
which has the most spiritual of the arts--having less con-
connectionnection than any other with knowledge and
matter of fact; more connection than
with the unknown of thought; we are for a
moment reminded of the opinion of those who
would make it the queen of the arts, as there are
those on the other hand who would make meta-
physics queen of the sciences. Into a discussion
of that point which, after all, is of little import-
ance, I shall not now be tempted to stray; but
1 wish to say, in passing, that when critics seek
to measure a great musician like Beethoven with
a great dramatist like Shakespeare, they are apt
to run the comparison upon qualities which are
incommensurable.
Beethoven The art of Shakespeare, be it observed, is
complex. It is built on a vast expenditure of
pared.
facts, on a wonderful exposition of knowledge.
Through the splendid collision of facts, we learn
to catch at something which is not in the facts ;
from the conquered world of knowledge we sidle
into the unconquered world of hidden thought
" the worlds unrealized” of Wordsworth. But
in
any attempt to show the greatness of Shake-
and Shake
8peare com
The Secrecy of Art.,
329
IX.
parison
speare, the proofs are nearly all based on the CHAPTER
greatness of his knowledge. It is only this kind
of proof that we can logically construe. Who
can take the measure of his influence in the
hidden world of thought? We can measure his
knowledge, we cannot measure all that is com-
prised in the know-not-what of his influence.
Now if we try to put into comparison the menta
grasp of Beethoven with that of Shakespeare-
what do we find ? We find in Beethoven the
great master of an art, which is not complex but
simple—which acts powerfully and vitally on
the unknown realm of thought, but not through
the means, or at least very little through the
means, of definite knowledge. The definite know- The com-
ledge which Beethoven or any great musician impossible.
puts before our minds as a means of gaining
access to the hidden soul is very small; compared
with that which Shakespeare sets in the glare of
consciousness it is as nothing. The standard,
therefore, of conscious comparison between the
great musician and the great dramatist entirely
fails.
When we turn from music and poetry to The defini-
painting and sculpture, there may be more diffi- to the parts
applied
culty in accepting art as in the strictest sense of painting
the opposite of science—the keeper of a secret ture.
which may be imparted but never known. .
Music is nothing if not suggestive, and all good
poetry has a latency of meaning beyond the
simple statement of acts. But in the arts of the arts of
330
The Gay Science.
IX.
painter and
science.
a
CHAPTER painting and sculpture there is the precision, the
clearsightedness, the accuracy of science; and
sculptor ex- we admire so much the knowledge of the
precision of thing represented, which the artist exhibits
,
that we are less struck by the something beyond
knowledge — the know-not-what which he
suggests to the imagination. When the poet
makes Perdita babble of the daffodils that come
before the swallow dares, and take the winds of
March with beauty, he displays a suggestiveness
which outruns the whole art of painting. Qui
pingit florem, non pingit floris odorem. How
can a painter in the tinting of a daffodil convey
fine suggestions of the confidence and power of
beauty in a tender flower ? The painter may
give us "pale primroses,” but how can he convey
what Perdita means when she tells us that they
die unmarried ere they can behold bright
Phoebus in his strength? The painter's art is
painter's art
especially evidently tied to fact more strictly than that of
strictly tied the poet. We are all familiar with the manner
in which truth of drawing, truth of colour, truth
of perspective, truth of light and shadow, truth
to the minutest hair and filament of fact-in one
word, complete science is demanded of the artist
who appeals to us through the visual sense; and
his scientific mastery of the human forms, or dog-
forms, or forms of whatever else is to be pictured,
bulks so large in our esteem that we forget often
the somewhat more than science which ought to
be on his canvas or in his marble, and without
And the
is very
to fact.
The Secrecy of Art.
331
IX.
.
torial artist
science.
9
which his art is naught. If mere accuracy, if CHAPTER
mere matter of fact, were all in all, then the
artist would stand a poor chance in competition But science
with the photograph and other mechanical modes enough.
of copying nature. It is the artist's business, by The pic-
the capture of evanescent and almost impalpable reaches to
something
expression, by the unfathomable blending of
beyond
light in shadow, by delicacies of purest colour,
by subtleties of lineament, by touches of a
grace that is beyond calculation, by all the
mysteries that are involved in the one word -
tone-to convey to the imagination a something
beyond nature, and beyond science-
The light which never was on sea or shore,
The consecration and the poet's dream.
If there be artists who content themselves with the artists
adhesion to bare fact, who are never able to tran- to bare fact
scend fact and to move the imagination, then
they ?
we must think of them as of Defoe, We take
an interest in what Defoe tells us, but it is not
the interest excited by art. He sees things
clearly and describes them sharply; but the com-
plaint against him is that he has no imagination
-that he never touches the hidden sense, which
we have been trying to analyze. And as a man
may tell a story well (it is done every day in the
newspapers), and yet his clear story-telling is
not poetry; so a man may paint a picture well,
and yet his picture for all the clearness and
fulness of knowledge it exhibits may not be art,
because it wants that something which a great Their art
who adhere
- what are
>
332
The Gay Science.
IX.
wants the
essential
quality of
art.
CHAPTER artist once described by snapping his fingers.
“ It wants, said Sir Joshua Reynolds, “it wants
that."
There is a famous saying of Shakespeare's
Ulysses, " that one touch of nature makes the
whole world kin;" and in a sense very
different
from that wbich our dramatist had in his mind,
it is frequently cited as the clearest expression
of what art most gloriously achieves, and what
the artist ought most steadily to pursue. Who-
ever will refer to the passage in the original,
will see that Shakespeare meant nothing like
what his readers divorcing the line from the
context now see in it. The supposition is, that
when we discover any one touch of nature our
hearts are stirred into sympathy with all nature,
and we rejoice in the felt grandeur of the bond
which links us to the universe. It is a mistake,
however, to suppose that any touch of nature
will produce this effect, and that the artist has
nothing to do but to render nature. It is only
by touches of nature that he can move us, but
he has to select his touches. Truth of touch is
not enough, because every true touch is not in
magnetic relation with the hidden life of the
mind. The artist may fill his canvas with true
touches ; and Sir Joshua, snapping his fingers,
may have to say—“ It wants that.”
But if the
If the essential quality of art may be expressed
The Secrecy of Art.
333
IX.
domain of
unknown
and un-
how can it
subject of
by the pantomime of snapping one's fingers, and CHAPTE
by saying, “ 'tis that,” then there is good reason
why in a previous chapter I should have art is the
refused to limit the scope of art to the true, to
the beautiful, or to any one idea within the knowable,
sphere of knowledge; but there may also seem ever be the
to be fair grounds for challenging the possibility science ?
of a critical science. If the field of art be the
unknown and unknowable, where is the room
for science ? Is it not likely that all our inquiries
into the nature of art may end in no better
result than the page-boy in one of Lilly's plays
got out of Sir Tophaz? “ Tush, boy!" cries the
”
bragging soldier, Sir Tophaz, “I think it but
some device of the poet to get money." “ A.
poet!” says Epiton; “what's that ?”
6 Dost
thou not know what a poet is ?” “No," says
the page. “Why, fool,” rejoins Sir Tophaz,
“ a poet is as much as one should say, a poet."
If, however, there be aught of which a science
is impossible there may still be room for scientific
ignorance. Nay, more, Sir William Hamilton,
who, notwithstanding Mr. Mill, will hold his
place as the greatest thinker of the nineteenth
century, maintained, though he did not originate
the paradox, “ that what we are conscious of is
constructed out of what we are not conscious of,
that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made
up
of
the unknown and incognisable," I do not insist
upon this, although it is capable of distinct proof,
because to render such a mystery in knowledge
66
.
334
The Gay Science.
IX.
tion and
reference
of some
.
essence of
which is
unknown.
CHAPTER plain to the popular mind would be too much of
a digression. But it may be enough to say that
The ques- if we cannot tear the secret from art, we can, at
wered by
any rate, lay bare the conditions under which it
to biology, passes current. There is a science of biology, and
the science yet no one can define what is life. The science
thing the
the of life is but a science of the laws and conditions
under which it is manifested. So, again, is it
essential to the science of electricity that we
should know for certain what is electricity ?
We know not what it is : we only see its effects;
and yet relating to these effects of an unknown
power there has been built up a great science.
Again, we can trace the orbits of comets and
reckon upon their visits, though of themselves,
their what, their why, their wherefore, we know
almost nothing. And so there may be a science
of poetry and the fine arts, although the theme
of art is the Unknown, and its motive power is
the Hidden Soul.
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