LXIV ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



reproduces the face of his original truly; but at its highest expression. 

 He shows the man as he migiit be — as God intended him to be. In 

 art, then, the soul is exalted by the contemplation of the universal ideal, 

 and in that way shares the creative rapture of the poet. 



It follows from this that poetry has an entirely different canon of 

 truth from history; for, while history deals with what has happened, 

 poetry deals with what may happen. Aristotle somewhat paradoxically 

 observes that it is better to follow the impossible which is probable than 

 the improbable which is possible. There must be the truth of consis- 

 tency. The poem must be congruous with the ideal or the universal 

 basis of human nature, while that which is particular or accidental is 

 of slight account. Therefore, in Shakespeare's " Winter's Tale " we are 

 not troubled at reading of a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia. In 

 reading the " Idylls of the King " it is not in the least important 

 whether King Arthur ever lived. The character drawn by Tennyson 

 is grand and noble — ideally true to universal type. So also with 

 Enoch Arden — how far the story is founded on fact is immaterial, 

 the type of heroic self-sacrifice is felt to be true and possible to human 

 nature and so rests on the universal. 



While the literature of a people is the expression of the genius 

 of that people it is, at the same time, a formative power which moulds 

 and preserves national character. Especially is this true of poetry, 

 for in its poetry the ideals of a people find utterance, and, just as the 

 plays of Aeschylus were both tJie outcome and the stimulus of Greek 

 national life at the critical period of the Persian wars, so the plays of 

 Shakespeare were at once the epic of English history and the support 

 of English freedom in its struggle with Spanish despotism. Nations 

 live their lives — they rise, endure, and pass away. Knowledge has 

 no bearing on their duration. Life is spiritual, and the . soul of a 

 people is not in what it has, or Avhat it knows of the material world; 

 but in the spiritual power of its aggregate personality. If material 

 prosperity could have built up an empire Carthage would have crushed 

 Rome, but Carthage is now nothing but a name, and its character and 

 history are recorded only by its enemies. Yet what impartial observer 

 in those far-off days would not have anticipated the success of Carthage. 

 She had commercial eminence, a powerful navy, and wealth without end. 

 While her antagonist was without money and had to learn the art of 

 building ships, Carthage had commerce, manufactures, and capital ; but 

 not one AVTiter or bard to kindle the flame of patriotism in her soul. 

 As the nationalities of modern Europe crystallized out of the confusion 

 of the middle ages, a distinctive national literature grew up in each and 



