PRESENT PROBLEMS IN ROMANCE LITERATURE 459 



ecus statement that Provencal was the link between Latin and the 

 languages derived from it. 



In science we are far above the men of antiquity, whether we 

 include in the term science the study of language or of the natural 

 sciences, but we cannot claim any superiority over the ancients 

 in letters or in art. At the very dawn of history the mind of man 

 seems to have been as vigorous as in our own time, and the genius 

 of Homer, Virgil, Apelles, and Phidias is not surpassed by that of 

 Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, Hugo, Goethe, Raphael, and Michael 

 Angelo. The artistic feeling, literary genius, is the direct gift of 

 God to a great man, who will produce immortal works, provided he 

 labors sufficiently and cultivates his genius. The knowledge of science, 

 however, is the heritage of centuries, and each generation enjoys 

 what the preceding one has bequeathed to it. The discoveries of 

 Pascal and Newton will never be lost to the world, and the bulk 

 of knowledge will go on increasing down the ages. Literary works 

 remain also, but they are not dependent upon one another for their 

 existence. Dante did not need Homer to enable him to produce his 

 masterpiece, and Homer, long before Dante, produced a work as 

 great as the Divina Corn-media. Archimedes, on the other hand, 

 could not have done the work of our modern scientists, and they, 

 in their turn, are generally indebted to their predecessors for some 

 principle on which their discoveries are based. If, therefore, we speak 

 of the highest works of literature, we find among them but few pro- 

 blems to solve. 



It is. however, interesting to study the forces which have influ- 

 enced men of genius in some parts of their works. The creative 

 instinct was theirs as a divine gift from the very beginning of their 

 career, and they did not owe to their predecessors that essential part 

 of their works which has given them immortality. Let us. neverthe- 

 less, endeavor to discover the sources of the minor parts of great 

 literary productions. We shall, in this way, understand better the 

 workings of a great mind and obtain a more accurate knowledge of 

 I he character and disposition of the author. Ilo\v interesting it is. 

 for instance, to study in Moliere 's works what that extraordinary 

 man owed to French, Spanish. Italian. Greek, and Latin models, 

 and what he owed to his wonderful observation of the living man. 

 There are. therefore, many influences and tendencies which affect 

 greatly the mass of literature, and we shall endeavor to discuss some 

 of those problems. 



The teaching of the Romance literatures in the colleges and uni- 

 versities of the United States is one of the most serious problems 

 which we have to solve. For a number of years higher instruction 

 in our country has lie en dominated by the German methods. The 

 splendid work done by the German universities attracted to them 



