because
they have just been reading with interest some work of history or
science, and are impatient to impart to others the knowledge they have
just acquired for themselves. Generally it may be remarked that the
pride which follows the sudden emancipation of the mind from ignorance
of any subject, is accompanied by a feeling that all the world must be
in the state of darkness from which we have ourselves emerged. It is
the knowledge learned yesterday which is most freely imparted today.

We need not insist on the obvious fact of there being more irritability
than mastery, more imitation than creation, more echoes than voices in
the world of Literature. Good writers are of necessity rare. But the
ranks would be less crowded with incompetent writers if men of real
ability were not so often misdirected in their aims. My object is to
decree, if possible, the Principles of Success--not to supply recipes
for absent power, but to expound the laws through which power is
efficient, and to explain the causes which determine success in exact
proportion to the native power on the one hand, and to the state of
public opinion on the other.

The laws of Literature may be grouped under three heads. Perhaps we
might say they are three forms of one principle. They are founded on
our threefold nature--intellectual, moral, and aesthetic.

The intellectual form is the PRINCIPLE OF VISION.

The moral form is the PRINCIPLE OF SINCERITY.

The aesthetic form is the PRINCIPLE OF BEAUTY.

It will be my endeavour to give definite significance, in succeeding
chapters, to these expressions, which, standing unexplained and
unillustrated, probably convey very little meaning. We shall then see
that every work, no matter what its subject-matter, necessarily
involves these three principles in varying degrees; and that its
success is always strictly in accordance with its conformity to the
guidance of these principles.

Unless a writer has what, for the sake of brevity, I have called
Vision, enabling him to see clearly the facts or ideas, the objects or
relations, which he places before us for our own instruction, his work
must obviously be defective. He must see clearly if we are to see
clearly. Unless a writer has Sincerity, urging him to place before us
what he sees and believes as he sees and believes it, the defective
earnestness of his presentation will cause an imperfect sympathy in us.
He must believe what he says, or we shall not believe