The arts may be ranked according to the materiality of the mediums they employ. On this basis, Hegel arranged the scale of the fine arts thus: - architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry.1 In one important respect, therefore, this philosopher gives a very high place to the novel (if considered as poetry); though the judgment might not have much weight with an anti-Hegelian.

199. The Value of Form. - Form is an elemental fact in nature, and in large part artistic form is a more or less direct imitation of natural form. In a more inevitable manner, form is an essential element in all art, as defined in Section 197; the main human modification of nature being in the form and not in the composition of the material.

The student cannot escape the presence of form, however much he is inclined to under-estimate it; nor can he escape the fact that it is mainly in this form — external and internal that the humanity and the significant individuality of a work of art inhere. His theory may make form less important than matter, but his analysis must invariably turn and return to the development of raw material into expressive shape. (Compare the first conception of style, in Section 121.)

In the novel, form is of emphatic value, because even the external material has almost no artistic meaning considered purely as a natural product, and reveals the shaping mind of the artist in all its continuous and intricate details.

200. Individuality of a Work of Art. The simple fact that a work of art is given a material embodiment is suffi

1 See Weber's History of Philosophy, English translation, p. 524 ff.

cient to give it a physical individuality — for no two portions of matter can occupy the same place at the same time. Such individuality, however, belongs to works of nature as well as to works of art, and guarantees nothing more than such numerical identity as is found in every grain of sand. In works of art made by machinery, also, two pieces may be alike so far as the eye can detect; and of exactly equal artistic value, so far as the imagination can discover. It is human mind or human hands which give noblest form to a composition, and it is practically impossible for the mind to think twice in exactly the same manner; or for the hands to repeat their execution exactly, in a true expression of mind.

The last fact does not prove that every novel has a noteworthy value of beauty or moral stimulus; but it does indicate that every novel is an unmistakably individual work from the strictly historical, social, and psychological points of view. There are no real duplicates in the history of fiction; for there are no two novels with the same arrangement of words.

201. Unity-General Design. - Unity may be viewed as a characteristic of external nature, or as an ideal of the human mind. In either case it extends beyond the boundaries of art; but in art there is an unusual opportunity to conceive and attain a satisfactory form of unity. Even without definite purpose of the artist, and apart from all theory as to what art should be, a significant degree of unity is found in every work of art, through a necessity of the artistic process.

In some works, a more satisfying unity may be found in certain details than in the composition as a whole. In the novel, examine the unity of sentences, paragraphs, and chapters; of single incidents and single characters.

Examples of well-unified chapters were given in Chapter I. In Silas Marner, unity of character is perhaps best represented in some of the minor dramatis personæ Mrs. Winthrop and Macey, for example. The marriage of Eppie is one of the most thoroughly unified events of the novel. Make a study comparing these and similar details with the details of a musical composition, a painting, and a cathedral.

It is in the general design that the most severe test of unity is found. In the novel this design is a larger value than plot, in the narrow sense of unified action. Whether it include details outside the illusion or not, is a matter of definition; but it is clear that in an important sense, every word in the novel belongs to a single composition. (Compare Sections 4 and 29.) A high standard of unity demands that all the author's comment, dramatic or nondramatic, brief or extended, should have clear and vital relation intellectual, imaginative, or emotional to the general design of the work.

Unity may be examined with reference to the author, the work itself, or the effect upon the reader. The short story is often very well-unified in the last particular. (See the glossary, under "impression.") In the work itself, the central unity may be found in incident, character (compare Smollett's definition of a novel, in the notes on novelistic criticism), or character group, setting, theme, or style; or it may be impossible to locate it in any one element. The novel proper is more likely to emphasize character, in this function; the romance often centralizes in incident; the short story is very variable.

Again, unity may be viewed as physical, intellectual, or moral. Physical unity is only indirectly represented in the novel; and can be best examined in the spatial arts. Intellectual unity belongs most clearly to a true philosophical interpretation, either in the author or the reader. Moral

unity, found in a free and fearless soul, that remembers the maxim, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," would be considered almost the supreme excellence of a novel by some ethical critics.

Unity may be called simple or complex, in reference to the amount and variety of material unified; and in art each of these types of unity has its peculiar interest. A very simple unity is studied to better advantage in the plastic arts or in the short story than in the novel. The unity of a novel, when attained, is comparable with that of a large scientific, historical, or philosophical generalization.

In connection with the last point, one may note as tendencies which endanger a satisfactory form of unity: the failure to exhibit a complexity sufficient to make the unification of it a real artistic achievement, a victory of imagination or character over the confusion of mere phenomena; the opposite error of accumulating more material than can be given vital unity; and the assumption of a superficial unity, that cannot endure careful investigation.

202. Contrast. As with unity, contrast may be considered as an element in the nature of things, or in the nature of the mind (compare Section 101, Royce); but in art there is special opportunity to express it in significant and attractive forms. Contrast is so easily conceived that the chief danger is often that of over-use of its resources. This opportunity and this danger are probably more obvious in the short story and the romance than in the novel proper; yet because contrast is so important a fact in life itself, it must have a considerable place in extended realistic fiction.

In the novel, contrast may be found within the limits of

a single element, as in a paradoxical character; or in the relations of two elements, as in contrast of incident and setting, of theme and character, etc. It may appear in the consecutive structure, in small or large units; or be embodied in more complex manner in the warp and woof of the "internal structure." Contrast in the novel cannot have that direct appeal to the senses which it may have in the spatial arts, and it is likely for that reason to be more intellectual or more moral in immediate quality. Again, the novel must study contrast as it appears in concrete incidents, persons, and places, warm with human association; and cannot make that direct appeal to the intellectual interest in abstract contrast, possible in music or architecture.

In plot-analysis, two large phases of contrast have already been noted that between the rise and the fall of the action, and that between play and counter-play.

In Silas Marner, an example of a broad contrast, which can be carried out into considerable detail, is found in the relations of Lantern Yard and Raveloe. Note the two congregations, the two churches, the two pastors, the two life-episodes in the hero himself, etc. Contrast in the life of Lantern Yard itself is found between the picture in the early part of the novel, and that of the visit in Chapter XXI.—The general contrast between the joyous and the sad in this novel has already been compared with the lights and shadows of architecture. (Section 194.)

203. Proportion. Of this quality, once more, fiction cannot give so direct and sensuous evidence as the spatial arts; but the general principle of proportion can be traced in a well-constructed novel, with the result of increased æsthetic delight. In music and the spatial arts, repetition, audible and visible, respectively, is a means of bringing out the value of proportion which is much less definitely used in the novel.