548 BELLES-LETTRES 



as "proper objects of the poet's art," declaring that "if the time 

 should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized 

 to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and 

 blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, 

 and will welcome the being thus produced as a dear and genuine 

 inmate of the household of man." 



Again, the "use of the scientific method" is not equivalent to the 

 application in the arts of scientific theories, although here once 

 more the man of letters is free to take these for his own and to bend 

 them to his purpose. Ibsen has found in the doctrine of heredity 

 a modern analogue of the ancient Greek idea of fate; and although he 

 may not "see life steadily and see it whole," he has been enabled 

 to invest his sombre Ghosts with not a little of the inexorable 

 inevitability which we feel to be so appalling in the master work of 

 Sophocles. Criticism, no less than creation, has been stimulated 

 by scientific hypothesis; and for one thing, the conception of literary 

 history has been wholly transformed since the theory of evolution 

 was declared. To M. Brunetiere whom I hoped to have had the 

 honor of following today and to whom I am glad here to be able to 

 express my many debts we owe the application of this doctrine 

 to the development of the drama in his own language. He has shown 

 us most convincingly how the several literary forms the lyric, 

 the oration, the epic, with its illegitimate descendant the modern 

 novel in prose may cross-fertilize each other from time to time, 

 and also how the casual hybrids that result are ever struggling to 

 revert each to its own species. 



Science is thus seen to be stimulating to art; but the "'use of the 

 scientific method" would seem to be more than stimulation only. 

 It leads the practitioners of the several arts to set up an ideal of 

 disinterestedness, inspired by a lofty curiosity, which shall scorn 

 nothing as insignificant and which is ever eager after knowledge 

 ascertained for its own sake. As it abhors the abnormal and the 

 freakish, the superficial and the extravagant, it helps the creative 

 artist to strive for a more classic directness and simplicity: and it 

 guides the critic toward passionless proportion and moderation. 

 Although it tends toward intellectual freedom, it forces us always to 

 recognize the reign of law. It establishes the strength of the social 

 bond; and thereby, for example, it aids us to see that, although 

 romance is ever young and ever true, what is known as neo-roman- 

 ticisni. with its reckless assertion of individual whim, is anti-social. 

 and therefore probably immoral. 



The "use of the scientific method" will surely strengthen the 

 conscience of t he novelist and of t lie drainal i-t ; and it will train 1 hem 

 to a sterner veracity in dealing with human character. It will inhibit 

 that pitiful tendency toward a falsification of the facts of life which 



