1 6 Prosscr Hall Pryc 



point of view : ''To create for a purpose, to imitate for a pur- 

 pose is what distinguishes the genius from the httle artist who 

 creates only to create and imitates only to imitate, who is quite 

 content himself with the minor satisfactions of technique, makes 

 this technique his sole aim, and requires that we also shall be 

 content with just that same sort of minor satisfaction which 

 arises from his artistic but purposeless exercise of his tech- 

 nique."^ And to the same effect, were it not otiose to do so, it 

 would be possible to cite the criticism of every age which has 

 had a great literature;^ while a lack of sense for this "sortc de 

 lieu commun moral" is an almost infallible sign of critical and 

 literary decadence. For life is a moral aft'air ; and if literature 

 succeeds in its purpose of representing life, its perusal, like ex- 

 perience, will result in the attachment of correct values to human 

 action, not because it is the business of literature to inculcate 

 morals, but because it is the business of literature to represent 

 life, and life is a moral affair. The mere stylist like Gautier is 

 felt to be less than first rate, in spite of the seduction of his man- 

 ner, simply because he has no great ideas of human life to com- 

 memorate. 



But this is very different from expecting a novel to be written 

 for the promotion of social or religious doctrine or for the ex- 

 ploitation of theories or hypotheses of any kind. To attempt to 

 use literature for such a purpose or to require of it the solution 

 of philosophical problems is evidence of a strange perversion on 

 the part of writer or critic. Philosophies are at best fluctuating 

 and transitory ; they change from generation to generation. The 

 consequences of human action are alone of eternal interest to 

 the human kind. And he who builds beyond the moment must 

 build not upon the former but upon the latter. Nor do such 

 ideas as a rule or as an exception afford a just measure for the 

 evaluation of human life. On the contrary, they tend to force 

 life and its expression into narrow, ready-made equations, true 

 enough for the day but by so much the falser for the mor- 



^Hambiirgische Dramaturgie, Stiick 34. 



2 For instance, Johnson: Rambler, No. 4; Addison: Spectator, No. 70; 

 Dry den: Giound'i of Criticism in Tragedy; etc. Indeed the idea has a 

 clear liti^rary pedigree back to Aristotle. 



214 



