Often such broad qualities as restlessness, lack of selfknowledge, or ironical divergence between ideal and practise, are dominant notes in the conception.

116. Nature in Man. By nature, in this connection, is meant a combination of qualities found in man, but associated with his animal life, rather than with his humanity proper, or with his supposed divinity. Nature, so interpreted, may appear in heredity, instinct, health or disease, buoyancy or depression of spirits, and in the lower passions. It may be exhibited in the individual or in social groups. It is not identical with ferocity, for there is an animal repose, temporary gentleness, which is often in striking contrast to the restlessness of the intellectual life, and the agonies of the saint's aspiration. The interpretation of man as a child of nature may be optimistic or pessimistic. Nature may be viewed as a force to be gladly accepted, as the normal guide of life, or as the arch-enemy of the rational and the religious ideal.

From Daphnis and Chloe to Pepita Jiménez, natural instinct has often been approved by the novelist, as more authoritative than any principle of self-denial. Since the Renaissance, the naturalism of Greek culture, or even the uncultivated naturalism of the savage, has often been considered more attractive than any form of asceticism. Within the church itself, such conceptions as that of "muscular Christianity" have offered a protest against the medieval praise of bodily mortification.

Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften is one of the famous novels in which naturalistic philosophy is applied to the passion of love. On the other hand, in George Eliot, a principal cause of moral mistake and crime is the weak indulgence of natural instinct. Pater's Marius the Epicurean is a notable exposition of the refined animalism of ancient philosophy.

117. External Nature. Some exhibition of natural environment is essential to the illusion of an expanded novel, for there is no representative individual or social

group whose life history is not partially determined by such environment. The human body itself is an object in nature, and to a large extent the human mind is occupied in observing, utilizing, and interpreting natural phenomena. Language is constantly referring the reader, directly or indirectly, to external nature.

In relation to man's moral life, nature may be considered as helpful, hostile, or ironically indifferent. In one of Matthew Arnold's sonnets, the idea of a moral companionship with nature is treated with scorn:

"Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends;
Nature and man can never be fast friends.

Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave."

To the novelist, as to the lyric poet, and to the essayist Emerson, nature has often appeared as something illusive, unresponsive, hindering rather than helping man's search for reality and truth.

Important specific subjects in the novel are climate, animal life, and landscape. The early forms of romance had their own types of landscape, in the main artificial and without basis in careful observation. Artificial also, to a large degree, was the eighteenth century interest in landscape gardening; represented in the Spectator, though this journal gave some foretaste of the romantic return to nature. The Gothic and the sentimental schools developed new phases of the subject. In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne says "admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon," and Edward adds, “I like a fine prospect, but not on picturesque principles. I do not like crooked, twisted, blasted trees. I admire them much more if they are tall, straight, and flourishing," etc. (Chapter XVIII). This is presumably the sentiment of the author. Mrs. Radcliffe was one of the early novelists to develop a treatment of landscape in detail; and since Scott prose fiction has elaborated every phase of the subject, often beyond the point of plot-economy.

118. The Supernatural. In the novel, the supernatural may be introduced in the structural values of character,

background, motivation, or subject of conversation. It is never a main theme in the realistic novel.

The lighter phases of mythology may be viewed as quite remote from the serious consideration of theology. Fairies, demons, ghosts, are usually treated in a fanciful rather than deeply imaginative manner, in late fiction. The Supreme Being, whether conceived as a personal God, or as fate, force, or chance, cannot be considered by a true artistic spirit, except in a reverent manner.

The life of man after death is a conception of deep human interest, at least in so far as it affects the activities and the thought of this life, and is therefore not alien to the spirit of the novel.

The European novelist ought not to complain of lack of variety in this subject of the supernatural. He is familiar with the mythology of classical antiquity; he finds ample treatment of Gothic mythology in art; he inherits the ideas of Christian supernaturalism, and he may easily explore the kindred ideas of uncivilized races.

Classical and Gothic mythology have appeared in prose fiction in both a serious and a fanciful treatment, as they did in Shakespeare. The modern novel has rarely if ever reëmbodied the primitive Germanic religious ideas with the majesty or dramatic power of the Wagnerian opera. - A curious tribute to the occasional practical atheism of the novel is quoted from a Comtist, in reference to The Princess of Cleves, in an introduction to that fiction by Anatole France.

The treatment of the supernatural is often entirely dramatic, the views belonging to the dramatis personæ and not to the author; the virtual subject being therefore man.

In Silas Marner, the theology of the characters is essentially different, even in terms, from that of the novelist. It is only the characters who refer to the Supreme Being as God, or Providence; to George Eliot, the

idea is better expressed by such phrases as The Invisible, The Unseen Love, etc.

For a discussion of the theology of modern English novelists, see the volume by S. Law Wilson.

119. General Philosophy. The interpretation in a novel may give a philosophy of separate subjects—of society, history, nature, etc. or it may give a more general view of the meaning underlying all these aspects of experience. Such interpretation may be the real purpose of a novel, or it may be incidental, perhaps unconscious. It may be in solution, completely embodied in the warp and woof of the illusion, or appear as outside exposition, in occasional comment or in extended generalization. Consistency may perhaps be expected from the author, but disagreement among the dramatis personæ may be a sign of true dramatic power in the writer.

Masson writes: "In short, the measure of the value of any fiction, ultimately and on the whole, is the worth of the speculation, the philosophy, on which it rests, and which has entered into the conception of it." (Page 33.) This may seem to be a characteristic English emphasis; but it is in harmony with the view of at least one great French critic. Edmond Scherer says that "philosophy is the real final desideratum in a novel."

In practical analysis, the philosophy of a novel may be examined by a comparison of all the stated or implied minor generalizations; or by finding the largest generalizations and following them out into details.

EXAMPLES AND STUDIES

In Voltaire's Candide, compare the presentation of pessimism by persiflage and by serious argument; by concrete example and by speculative idea; negatively and positively. Compare the philosophy in general with that of Rasselas.

In Wilhelm Meister, unify into a general philosophy the interpretations of art, travel, culture, education, love, and religion.

Sense and Sensibility. The philosophy is mainly social. It is found in solution, no single paragraph being entirely given to generalization. Compare and unify the following views, and relate them to similar utterances in the other works of the author: "Unlike people in general, she proportioned [her words] to the number of her ideas"; — “an apparent composure of mind, which in being the result . . . of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and cheerfulness ”; - "almost all labored under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable - want of sense, either natural or improved — want of elegance — want of spirits—or want of temper; "—"Lucy does not want sense, and that is the foundation on which everything good may be built."

In Robinson Crusoe, there is considerable social and religious philosophy, in solution, in the first two parts. Note the interpretation of middle-class social position, of Providence, reason, industry, religious toleration, etc. Compare this with the more expanded and direct exposition of the third part.

In Ivanhoe, the philosophy is mainly historical. Compare the generalizations in the first five paragraphs; in the first paragraphs of Chapter VII; in Chapter XIV, on the character of King John; in Chapter XXIII, on the manners and morals of the period.

In Silas Marner, the ethical and psychological facts of life are looked at in a large way. The longest direct generalization is on religious trust. Note also paragraphs in Chapters I, II, III, IX, and XVII.

120. The Main Theme. Some rhetoricians have said that the central theme was more obscure in narration than in any other type of literary structure. It is often difficult to give it a clear statement in the novel, because it is so thoroughly wrought into the general fiber of the action and characterization. It is frequently obscure in romance, but generally more clear in the short story. Sometimes it is found in a motto, preface, moral, or epilogue. The main theme may be more closely identified with the plot or with the characters, with a single character or a group. It is likely to be apparent at the principal turning-points of the