Atkinson — On the Function of an Academy. 



49 



Our age is one of criticism rather than of creation, so that any paper 

 of a critical purpose is in the spirit of the time and on the lines of the 

 Academy's modern work. And here, assuredly, there is no want of 

 material for new and instructive essays. It is an age of education, and 

 all education at the present time must be critical to begin with, for all 

 teaching is concerned about the work of others ; the first stages are 

 necessarily analytical ; the creation, if it comes at all, must come last. 

 The analysis of psychology is the stock-in-trade of all writers, and 

 this psychology is based on abundant and careful investigation. The 

 art of writing has been elaborated by practice into a discipline that can 

 be taught like any other manual labour, but the genius which gives 

 life and power to a work based on this analysis and this training, is 

 just as mysterious as ever, and as full of problems of criticism as before ; 

 and it is just this problem of genius tliat opens ever fresh ground for 

 reconsideration and discussion. The one never-exhausted topic is to 

 place a writer in harmony with his age and surroundings, to fit him 

 into his locus, to account for his productivity under his circumstances. 

 These are the ever-recurrent questions : What are the relations of 

 genius and circumstance ? What are the reactions of society on the 

 individual? And to us of the Irish Academy what could be more 

 interesting, more absorbing, than the investigation of the causes 

 of the success of certain works of art in the past, and of the 

 prospects of the success of certain others in the future ? AVhat were 

 the peculiar elements that made such a success of MacPherson's 

 Ossian ? What makes Celtic poetry so attractive ? What is Celtic 

 glamoui' ? What is the place and sphere of criticism in Celtic ? 

 The Academy would, I think, welcome any exhaustive exposition of 

 the claims of Celtic as a contribution to knowledge in its department 

 of Polite Literature. 



The discussion of papers on these and kindred topics would 

 naturally lead to the discovery and formulation of principles to be 

 attended to in the estimation of any given literary product. And 

 in particular the habit would be acquired of applying tests, the 

 normal tests of modern critical judgment. A mere plebiscite is no 

 rriterion ; neither is simple assertion sufficient, however loud, nor 

 individual sympathy, however intense. There must be valid reasons, 

 critical grounds alleged for the judgment ; and these reasons can be 

 only found in the institution of comparisons with the great masters 

 of the art of writing. Not by comparison of individual passages, 

 for the conditions of life differ too widely to admit of any narrow 

 method ; not by the elaboration of mechanical rules, but by the 



