certain opinions was necessary to salvation, and that the formation of opinions could be wholly regulated by the will. This belief, pushed to its extreme limits and embodied in legislation, led to the burning of heretics in nearly all 5 Christian countries. When B's failure to adopt A's conclusions was by A regarded as a sign of depravity of nature which would lead to B's damnation, nothing was

more nat

ural than that when they came into collision in pamphlets or sermons they should have attributed to each other the worst 10 motives. A man who was deliberately getting himself ready for perdition was not a person to whom anybody owed courtesy or consideration, or whose arguments, being probably supplied by Satan, deserved respectful examination. We accordingly find that as the list of "essential" opinions has become shortened, and as doubts as to men's responsibility for their opinions have made their way from the world into the church, theological controversy has lost its acrimony and indeed has almost ceased. No theologian of high standing or character now permits himself to show 20 bad temper in a doctrinal or hermeneutical discussion, and

15

25

a large and increasing proportion of theologians acknowledge that the road to heaven is so hard for us all that the less quarrelling and jostling there is in it, the better for everybody.

Nor does the odium scientificum, of which we have now happily but occasional manifestations, furnish us with any suggestions. Controversy between scientific men begins to be bitter and frequent, as the field of investigation grows wider and the investigation itself grows deeper. But then this is easily accounted for. All scientific men of the first rank are engaged in original research—that is, in attempts to discover laws and phenomena previously unknown. The workers in all departments are very numerous, and are scattered over various countries, and as one discovery, however 35 slight, is very apt to help in some degree in the making of

30

another, scientific men are constantly exposed to having their

claims to originality contested, either as regards priority in point of time or as regards completeness. Consequently, they may be said to stand in delicate relations to each other, and are more than usually sensitive about the recognition of their achievements by their brethren a state of things 5 which, while it cultivates a very nice sense of honor, leads occasionally to encounters in which free-will seems for the moment to get the better of law. The differences of the scientific world, too, are complicated by the theological bearing of a good deal of scientific discovery and discussion, and 10 many a scientific man finds himself either compelled to defend himself against theologians, or to aid theologians in bringing an erring brother to reason.

The true source of the odium philologicum is, we think, to be found in the fact that a man's speech is apt to be, or to 15 be considered, an indication of the manner in which he has been bred, and of the character of the company he keeps. Criticism of his mode of using words, or his pronunciation, or the manner in which he compounds his sentences, almost inevitably takes the character of an attack on his birth, 20 parentage, education, and social position; or, in other words, on everything which he feels most sensitive about or holds most dear. If you say that his pronunciation is bad, or that his language is slangy or ill-chosen, you insinuate that when he lived at home with his papa and mamma he was sur- 25 rounded by bad models, or, in plain English, that his parents were vulgar or ignorant people; when you say that he writes bad grammar, or is guilty of glaring solecisms, or displays want of etymological knowledge, you insinuate that his education was neglected, or that he has not associated with 30 correct speakers. Usually, too, you do all this in the most provoking way by selecting passages from his writings on which he probably prided himself, and separating them totally from the thought of which he was full when he produced them, and then examining them mechanically, as if 35 they were algebraic signs, which he used without knowing

what they meant or where they would bring him out. Nobody stands this process very long with equanimity, because nobody can be subjected to it without being presented to the public somewhat in the light of an ignorant, careless, and 5 pretentious donkey. Nor will it do to cite your examples from deceased authors. You cannot do so without assailing some form of expression which an eager, listening enemy is himself in the habit of using, and is waiting for you to take up, and through which he hopes to bring you to shame.

No man, moreover, can perform the process without taking on airs which rouse his victim to madness, because he assumes a position not only of grammatical, but, as we have said, of social superiority. He says plainly enough, no matter how polite or scientific he may try to seem, "I was 15 better born and bred than you, and acquired these correct turns of expression, of which you know nothing, from cultivated relatives;" or, "I live in cultivated circles, and am consequently familiar with the best usage, which you, poor 'fellow are not. I am therefore able to decide this matter 20 without argument or citations, and your best course is to take my corrections in silence or with thankfulness." It is easy to understand how all interest in orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody speedily disappears in a controversy of this sort, and how the disputants begin to burn with. 25 mutual dislike, and how each longs to inflict pain and anguish on his opponent, and make him, no matter by what means, an object of popular pity and contempt, and make his parts of speech odious and ridiculous. The influence of all good. men ought to be directed either to repressing verbal criticism, 30 or restricting indulgence in it to the family circle or to schools and colleges.

XV.

W. M. PAYNE.

The Critic and His Task.1

The Dial, Chicago.

'We read far too many poor things' said Goethe to Eckermann thus losing time and gaining nothing.' In similar vein and at greater length, Schopenhauer gave vent to this characteristic outburst:

'The amount of time and paper their own and other 5 people's- wasted by the swarm of mediocre poets, and the injurious influence they exercise, are matters deserving of serious consideration. For the public is ever ready to seize upon novelty, and has a natural proneness for the perverse and the dull as most akin to itself. Therefore the works of 10 the mediocre poets divert public attention, keeping it away from the true masterpieces and the education they offer; acting in direct antagonism to the benign influence of genius, they ruin taste more and more, retarding the progress of the age. Such poets should therefore receive the scourge of 15 criticism and satire without indulgence or sympathy, until led, for their own benefit, to apply their talents to reading what is good rather than to writing what is bad. For if the bungling of the incompetent so aroused the wrath of the gentle Apollo that he could flay Marsyas, I do not see upon what the 20 mediocre poet can base his claim to tolerance.'

In such comment as we have just quoted there is a vein of bitterness not altogether to the taste of our complacent and easy-going modern age, so zealous in bearing witness to its democratic faith that it grudges recognition of any aristocracy 25 at all, even of one as imprescriptible as that of genius.

Live

1 Reprinted by permission of W. M. Payne from Little Leaders.

A. C. McClurg & Co.

and let live, give every man his due and a little more, credit the intention rather than the performance, are some of the formulas in which the modern spirit of comfortable optimism finds expression. When literary production is the subject of 5 criticism there are many motives at work in the interest of leniency or excessive generosity. Leaving entirely out of the question the unabashed puffery, regulated by counting-room conditions, that parades as criticism in so many of our newspapers; taking into serious account only the critical writing. 10 that is, as far as conscious purpose goes, honest in its intent; this work is still often weakened by influences too insidious in their action to be distinctly felt, yet giving it a tendency which, in view of the larger interests of the reading public, is undoubtedly pernicious. The critic deficient merely in 15 knowledge heeds too closely the warning example of the early critics of Shelley and Keats, of Wordsworth and Tennyson, and casts his anchors to windward, hoping thereby to save his reputation from the scorn in which theirs stand pilloried. The critic whose defects are of the heart rather than of the 20 intellect, who is too amenable to social influences or of too kindly a disposition to give the work under examination the character he knows it to possess, softens the outlines of truth (often quite unconsciously) and produces a distinctly false impression. In either case the public is served to its detri25 ment rather than to its profit. The critic's paramount duty is, of course, his duty to the public, and every personal or private influence whatsoever must be resisted by him from the moment that its presence is felt.

All this is not easy, and yet it may be done by a writer who 30 has both knowledge and honesty. If a book has little or no value, the fact must be clearly and firmly stated, no matter what the author under discussion may feel. This assignment to its place of a new book need not be done with the traditional brutality of the Quarterly Reviewer, although even that 35 would be better than the insipidity of the twaddle that so

often passes for criticism, and that is obviously enough