al. In other words, is unprogressive. The great
imaginative creations have not been superseded. We go to the last new
authorities for our science and our history, but the essential thoughts
and emotions of human beings were incarnated long ago with unsurpassable
clearness. When FitzGerald published his _Omar Khayyam_, readers were
surprised to find that an ancient Persian had given utterance to
thoughts which we considered to be characteristic of our own day. They
had no call to be surprised. The writer of the Book of Job had long
before given the most forcible expression to thought which still moves
our deepest feelings; and Greek poets had created unsurpassable
utterance for moods common to all men in all ages.

'Still green with bays each ancient altar stands
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands,'

as Pope puts it; and when one remembers how through all the centuries
the masters of thought and expression have appealed to men who knew
nothing of criticism, higher or lower, one is tempted to doubt whether
the critic be not an altogether superfluous phenomenon.

The critic, however, has become a necessity; and has, I fancy, his
justification in his own sphere. Every great writer may be regarded in
various aspects. He is, of course, an individual, and the critic may
endeavour to give a psychological analysis of him; and to describe his
intellectual and moral constitution and detect the secrets of his
permanent influence without reference to the particular time and place
of his appearance. That is an interesting problem when the materials are
accessible. But every man is also an organ of the society in which he
has been brought up. The material upon which he works is the whole
complex of conceptions, religious, imaginative and ethical, which forms
his mental atmosphere. That suggests problems for the historian of
philosophy. He is also dependent upon what in modern phrase we call his
'environment'--the social structure of which he forms a part, and which
gives a special direction to his passions and aspirations. That suggests
problems for the historian of political and social institutions. Fully
to appreciate any great writer, therefore, it is necessary to
distinguish between the characteristics due to the individual with
certain idiosyncrasies and the characteristics due to his special
modification by the existing stage of social and intellectual
development. In the earliest period the discrimination is