THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. Sk 
so much difference in power of imagination as in the general concep- 
tion of life and of what is worthiest of being represented. If this be 
true, and if we can determine what conceptions of life are greatest 
and best, then these conceptions adequately imaged will be what is 
greatest in novel-writing from the author’s standpoint. To me it will 
ever seem that the greatest conception of life will be a conception of 
life as it really is, of the laws that actually govern it, and of the pos- 
sibilities it actually contains. This is greatest because it is truest 
and because it requires incomparably the most knowledge in the 
author. To follow a possible character through a natural develop- 
ment it is necessary that we know all the circumstances in which the 
life is placed from its beginning to its close ; we must know the bias 
given by heredity, by early training, by love, by hate, by opposition 
from others, by every motive, by every resolve, by every imagina- 
tion; we must recognize the effect of the gradual strengthening or 
weakening of character, and of the formation of habits. Only if we 
have all this knowledge, and much more, and work upon it without 
error, can we produce a character with truth to nature; while only 
the slightest knowledge of the generalities of human nature is neces- 
sary to the production of a work when the only standard is an 
arbitrary determination in the matter. 
The novel I have defined will be greatest, then, not only from 
the reader’s but also from the author’s standpoint. 
A practical question will here at once present itself, namely, 
how are we to tell what is true to human nature, and so, greatest ? 
Our judgments must be based mainly, I suppose, on our own 
experience of what life really is, and so at first will doubtless be very 
faulty, but this faultiness will gradually disappear with every addi- 
tional experience. Twelve months from now our standard wil! be 
higher and truer than it is to-day. In this case, however, we are 
not left to verify everything by our own experience In history and 
in the thoughts of great and good men and women of all time—that 
is to mention other sources than the most authoritative, Revelation— 
we have the solution of many of the problems of life. And it seems 
to me that in our reading we should have before usa few general 
principles drawn from these sources to supplement our own ex- 
perience in forming a basis of judgment. I think we may take it as 
established, for example, that that novel will not be true to the 
principles of life which 
