m to
certain general but distinct motives and faculties, which we do not
refer to any higher unity; or, on the other hand, by the light of our
own consciousness we may recognise that in man of which no observation
of his actions could tell us--something which is in him, but yet is not
his own; which combines with all his faculties, but is none of them;
which gives them a unity, to which their diversity is merely relative.
So again with regard to the phenomena of the world; we may look on these
either simply as phenomena, or as manifestations of destiny or divine
will. The former view of man and the world we may conveniently call
_natural_, because the only view that mere observation can give us; the
latter _ideal_, because making observation posterior to something given
in thought.

E. TRAGEDY AND THE NOVEL

16. The tragedian, then, idealises, because he starts from within. He
reaches, as it were, the central fire, in the heat of which every
separate faculty, every animal want, every fortuitous incident is
melted down and lost. We never could observe in actual experience
passion such as Lear's, or meditation such as Hamlet's, fusing
everything else into itself. Facts at every step would interfere to
prevent such a possibility. But let us place ourselves, by the poet's
help, within the soul of Lear or Hamlet, and we shall be able to follow
the process by which the spiritual power, taking the form of passion in
the one, and of thought in the other, and working outwards, draws
everything into its own unity, according to the same activity of which,
however impeded by the "imperfections of matter," we are conscious in
ourselves. The incidents of the tragedy are wholly subordinate, issuing
either from this spiritual energy of the actors on the one hand, or, on
the other, from destiny, to whose throne the poet penetrates. They thus
present an aspect entirely different from that of events which we
approach from without. The novel, on the contrary, starts from the
outside. Its main texture is a web of incidents through which the
motions of the spirit must be discerned, if discerned at all. These
incidents must be probable, must be such as are consistent with the
observed sequences of the world. The view of man, therefore, which we
attain through them, can only be that which is attainable by observation
of outward actions and events; or, in other words, according to the
distinction which we have attempted to establish,