o
consider not merely the ostensible logic but all the motives which led
men to investigate the most pressing difficulties suggested by the
social development. Obvious principles are always ready, like germs, to
come to life when the congenial soil is provided. And what is true of
the philosophy is equally, and perhaps more conspicuously, true of the
artistic and literary embodiment of the dominant ideas which are
correlated with the social movement.

A recognition of the general principle is implied in the change which
has come over the methods of criticism. It has more and more adopted the
historical attitude. Critics in an earlier day conceived their function
to be judicial. They were administering a fixed code of laws applicable
in all times and places. The true canons for dramatic or epic poetry,
they held, had been laid down once for all by Aristotle or his
commentators; and the duty of the critic was to consider whether the
author had infringed or conformed to the established rules, and to pass
sentence accordingly. I will not say that the modern critic has
abandoned altogether that conception of his duty. He seems to me not
infrequently to place himself on the judgment-seat with a touch of his
old confidence, and to sentence poor authors with sufficient airs of
infallibility. Sometimes, indeed, the reflection that he is representing
not an invariable tradition but the last new aesthetic doctrine, seems
even to give additional keenness to his opinions and to suggest no
doubts of his infallibility. And yet there is a change in his position.
He admits, or at any rate is logically bound to admit, the code which he
administers requires modification in different times and places. The old
critic spoke like the organ of an infallible Church, regarding all forms
of art except his own as simply heretical. The modern critic speaks like
the liberal theologian, who sees in heretical and heathen creeds an
approximation to the truth, and admits that they may have a relative
value, and even be the best fitted for the existing conditions. There
are, undoubtedly, some principles of universal application; and the old
critics often expounded them with admirable common-sense and force. But
like general tenets of morality, they are apt to be commonplaces, whose
specific application requires knowledge of concrete facts. When the
critics assumed that the forms familiar to themselves were the only
possible embodiments of those principle