What are the conditions which we can hope to modify by combined effort, and what are the irrevocable conditions imposed upon men by virtue of their position in the planet, by accommodating themselves to which they can minimise the evils of their lot, but of which it is in vain to seek the absolute removal? In the coming years such problems were to assume continually greater prominence; and, as yet, we are only on the threshold of the speculations which they suggest. On one side were to range themselves the Utopians, who hoped for an extemporised regeneration of society; on the other, the rigid and sometimes cynical observers who proclaimed too unequivocally the impossibility of ever delivering ourselves from the tyranny of our fate.

40. The two schools found themselves opposed when Godwin announced the perfectibility of man, and Malthus opposed to him the limits presented by the invariable conditions of human existence. This controversy once opened, it was plain that political economy could no longer be regarded as an isolated science. Its assumptions entered into all the great political and social questions of the day. Whatever might be its methods, and whether or not the industrial organisation could by a logical artifice be studied apart from other problems, it was evident that it had a common ground with wider speculations. It must henceforth be regarded not as a separate study, but as a department of sociological theory. Here, as in the history of political speculation, I must stop at the opening of a new era. In the gradual process of generalisation which I have attempted to describe, the true character of problems, which had been attacked only in detached fragments, was beginning to make itself evident. The new theories which were to be introduced are all significant of the wider scope of the dawning science. If Malthus called attention to the limits produced by the struggle of the whole human race against natural forces, Ricardo, and Malthus himself, showed how individuals who had posted themselves in advantageous positions obtained the largest share of its profits; and Ricardo discussed the general connection between the phenomena of exchange and the conditions under which labour is applied to different objects. The doctrines of rent and of population had been partly anticipated, as later writers have

pointed out by various authors; but, as in so many other cases, their observations did not attract general attention until the times were ripe, and the special struggle to whose conditions they referred was making its nature evident in the convulsions of a great revolution.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XI.

The following are the chief authorities for this chapter and the editions cited:

BENTHAM, Jeremy (1747-1852), 'Defence of Usury,' 1787.

DAVENANT, Charles (1656-1714), ' Various Tracts on Trade,' &c., 1695– 1712. Works. London: 1771.

6

HUME, David (1711-1776), Political Discourses,' 1752. Philosophical Works, by Green and Grose.

LOCKE, John (1632-1704), Treatises on Value of Money,' &c., 1691. Works. London : 1824.

NORTH, Sir Dudley (1641-1691), 'Discourse upon Trade,' 1691. Collection of 'Select Tracts,' by Political Economy Club.

SMITH, Adam (1723-1790), 'Wealth of Nations,' 1776. Edinburgh : 1863.

STEUART, Sir James (1713-1780), Enquiry into Principles of Political Economy,' 1767.

TUCKER, Josiah (1712-1799), ‘Essay on French and English Trade,' c. 1750. 'Scarce and Valuable Tracts,' published by Lord Over

stone.

Richardson's Decline of Foreign Trade,' 1744, is in the 'Scarce and Valuable Tracts;' the 'Considerations on the East India Trade,' in the 'Select Tracts.'

329

CHAPTER XII.

CHARACTERISTICS.

I. INTRODUCTORY.

I. THE literature of a people may be divided into three classes; the historical, that of which it is the primary purpose to record facts, and to summarise or amplify existing knowledge; the speculative, of which it is the primary purpose to discuss the truth of the various theories by which our knowledge is bound together; and the imaginative, of which it is the primary purpose to utter the emotions generated in mankind by the conditions in which they are, or believe themselves to be, placed. With the historical literaturetaking that word in the widest sense-this book has little direct connection. The views which men take of history are indeed very significant of their speculative opinions; but I have not ventured to enlarge my plan sufficiently to include such indirect evidence. Hitherto I have dealt with the speculative literature, or rather with that part of it which deals directly with the highest problems of human thought. And here I might stop, but that it seems desirable to touch briefly upon the reflection of the prevalent theories upon the world of the imagination. The doctrines which men ostensibly hold do not become operative upon their conduct until they have generated an imaginative symbolism; the reaction of the emotions upon the intellect is again of primary importance; and too great a gap would be left in this account of English thought if I were to omit all consideration of the influences, not less effective because exerted through extra-logical channels, which were due in different directions to such men as Law, Wesley, Pope, Swift, Fielding, Johnson, Cowper, and Burns. It is desirable, however, to explain with some care the limits within which my remarks must necessarily be confined.

2. The character of an imaginative literature is a function of many forces. It depends not only upon the current philosophy, but upon the inherited peculiarities of the race, upon its history, its climate, its social and political relations, and upon individual peculiarities of mind and temperament which defy all attempt at explanation. Thus, in our English literature of the eighteenth century, we can see the reflection of the national character; its sturdy common sense; the intellectual shortsightedness which enables it to grasp details whilst rejecting general systems; the resulting tendency to compromise, which leads it to acquiesce in heterogeneous masses of opinions; its humour, its deep moral feeling, its prejudices, its strong animal propensities, and so forth. Or, again, the social development affects the literature. The whole tone of thought is evidently coloured by the sentiments of a nation definitely emerging from the older organisation to a modern order of society. We see the formation of an important middle-class, and of an audience composed, not of solitary students or magnificent nobles, but of merchants, politicians, lawyers, and doctors, eager for amusement, delighting in infinite personal gossip, and talking over its own peculiarities with ceaseless interest in coffee-houses, clubs, and theatres. Nor, again, are the political influences unimportant. The cessation of the fierce struggles of the previous century culminating in the undisputed supremacy of a parliamentary oligarchy led to a dying out of the vehement discussions which at other periods have occupied men's minds exclusively, and made room for that theological controversy which I have described, and which itself disappeared as the political interests revived in the last half of the century. Foreign influences, again, would have to be considered. French literature was to Dryden and Pope what Italian had been to Spenser and Milton; the influence of Bayle may be traced in the earlier criticism, as at a later period Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire profoundly affected English thought. The attempt, then, to deduce Pope from Clarke, or to connect Swift with Butler, to the neglect of the many conflicting influences, would be necessarily illusory. It is not the less true that remarkable analogies may be traced between the speculative and the imaginative literature. The complex conditions to which I

have referred affected both modes of thought; and sometimes we may best regard the two manifestations as springing from the same root, sometimes as directly influencing each other. My attention, even in discussing the speculative literature, has been chiefly confined to what I may call the logical relations of different intellectual creeds. I have considered the successive controversies as of a continuous debate, in which each writer starts from positions determined by the previous course of discussion. I have only referred incidentally to other conditions which, so to speak, dislocated the logical. series. I now propose to touch briefly upon the mode in which the logical conclusions affected the imaginative embodiment of thought. From such a point of view much that would otherwise be of the highest interest must be overlooked. That which gives the special value to a work in the eyes of the literary critic is often due to some idiosyncrasy of the individual writer; whilst the historian will be interested in the light which it throws upon the social and political conditions of the time. Though I shall have to touch such topics incidentally, my primary purpose is to suggest some answer to the problem: How far, and in what way, was the imaginative literature of the time a translation of its philosophy in terms of emotion?

3. We can conceive of a state in which all growth should be consistent with equilibrium, and involve no destruction. We may imagine a society growing in wealth, intelligence, and order, without the need of revolutionary disturbance. Its creeds, we may suppose, would be thoroughly assimilated, and therefore be in perfect harmony with each other, with the social order, and with facts. The religious impulse would receive its form from the philosophical, every moral doctrine would be the application of some admitted social law, and every poetical conception be the imaginative reflection of some scientific truth. No near approximation has hitherto been made to such a condition; fatal errors have always lurked in philosophy, and the seeds of disorder been germinating in the most stable social order. There have, however, been periods at which some common convictions and passions have so dominated mankind as to suggest an impression of the possible harmony. Those have been the