. She lays much stress on the subconscious mental
life, the domain of vague emotion and rapidly fugitive thought.

The aim of the psychologic method is to interpret man from within, in his
motives and impulses. It endeavors to show why he acts, and it unfolds the
subtler elements of his character. This method George Eliot uses in
connection with her evolutionary philosophy, and uses it for the purpose of
showing that man is a product of hereditary conditions, that he has been
shaped into his life of the emotions and sentiments by the influence of
tradition. The psychologic method may be applied, however, without
connection with the positive or evolutionary philosophy. The mind may be
regarded as a distinct force and power, exercised within social and
material limits, and capable of being studied in all its inner motives and
impulses. Yet in her mental inquiries George Eliot did not regard man as an
eternal soul in the process of development by divine methods, but as the
inheritor of the past, moulded by every surrounding circumstance, and as
the creature of the present. Instead of regarding man as _sub specie
eternitatis_, she regarded him as an animal who has through feeling and
social development come to know that he cannot exist beyond the present.
This limitation of his nature affected her work throughout.

The psychologic method in literature has also been that of Robert Browning,
and he has been as faithful to it as any other. He, too, analyzes his
characters, penetrates all the hidden causes of motive and deed, lays bare
the soul. No other poet has surpassed him in power to unveil the inner
workings of the mind, to discover all the influences affecting it or in
revealing how motives are created and how motives lead up to deeds. In two
important particulars Robert Browning differs from George Eliot. His
characters speak for themselves, reveal the secrets of their own minds. He
does not talk about them, does not criticise their words and conduct, does
not stand off from them as a spectator. He differs from her also in his
conception of man as a being who is here developing an eternal existence
under the laws of an Infinite Spirit. He, too, believes in the natural, and
believes that the highest law of the soul is, to be true to every pure
impulse arising within us. To calculate, to philosophize, he holds to be
always to man's injury, that nature when perfectly obeyed is the only
guide. He studies man as affected by a