results of thinking on whatever object. They are thus attri butes appertaining to all objects as thought or known. They so far possess a certain character entitling them to be designated in loose discourse as principles or first truths. Strictly they do not exist in the mind before actual thinking. They are not the ultimate grounds of knowledge; they are the fruits of knowledge; they are themselves grounded on knowledge.

If there be space, it cannot be known, under any attained laws of knowledge, except by being presented to the mind as object for knowledge. If it cannot be found as a mere attribute of the particular objects apprehended in experience, it must be recognized as independent object in itself, and of course as real. At all events only on condition of actual revelation of such object to the mind as a knowing nature can there be admitted to be any proof of its reality. In the same way, time can be known as real only by being presented to the mind as having this attribute. The idea of God as a real being is legitimate only as he reveals himself. The revelations of these objects-space, time, God—it is true are not immediately through the outer senses; they are not seen by the outward eye nor heard by the outward ear; they are not perceptions; they are intuitions. They are intuited just as the mind or conscious spirit is intuited by itself, being discerned in its own operations. The revelations may be gradual, dim at first, making but feeble and indistinct impressions. But in their accumulation these impressions may deepen and grow into clear and decisive convictions. There is a power, thus working in nature, impressing the soul through the mediums of the outer sense, working also in the bodily frame of man, working too in his very soul or spirit; a power that as attribute necessarily implies a being to which it appertains; that, moreover, evinces a richness, a greatness, a wisdom, and a sympathy, to which no bounds appear or can be conceived by the finite mind-a being truly infinite and incomprehensible, and so legitimately known as such. Such is the true genesis of the idea of God in the human mind. To suppose that the idea can spring up without the object already revealing itself is utterly preposterous. The idea is possible only on condition of the presence of its object.

Fourthly, The doctrine is most mischievous in its working and effect. As a doctrine that concerns the very foundations of our thinking on which the superstructures of science, of philosophy, and of theology must necessarily rest, if groundless and false, it may pervade and so vitiate speculation and discussion throughout. It is illusive and misleading, as it mistakes mere conditions for cognitions; accepts as antecedents to all experience the fruits of actual experience and as originating conditions of thought merely generalized forms of thought. It is a lure to indolence, as it seems to excuse from searching for the true grounds of knowledge. It is an available defense for any hallucination, however empty or false, and furnishes a secure retreat for skepticism and error when otherwise discomfited. It effectually hinders the final adjustment of controversies and the undisputed triumph of the truth.

Philosophic thought, we claim then, should utterly reject all these apriorisms-the so-called 'innate ideas,' 'native cognitions, apriori' truths, etc.-as the ultimate cognitive grounds of knowledge. A thinking nature and an object to be thought are the two sole factors in thought, and with the relation between them its only conditions, and these are not necessarily known before the particular act of knowing. This object, to be thought, must be apprehended; and on this function of intellectual apprehension-its essential nature, its laws, its forms, its media, its relationships to the real and also to human thought-on this apprehensive function, philosophy may now hopefully be summoned to expend its labor. It presents a wide, inviting field. But there is only one true ultimate ground of knowledge; it is the nature of knowledge itself. That being definitely understood, any thing that claims to be a knowledge-a truth-can at once be tested and so determined beyond all possible controversy. If it possess the essential character of a genuine knowledge, it must of necessity be accepted as such. This is the one ultimate test--the sole ultimate validating ground of knowledge. The assumption of

ideas or cognitions, original and prior to all knowledge, is to be reprobated as unwarrantable and groundless, as unphilosophical, and as hurtful to the best interests of truth.

ARTICLE V.-THE MODERN NOVEL.

THE novel is a fictitious narrative, constructed by the imag ination, depicting emotional activity as affecting the individual or the class. It may approach in the one direction the dignity and accuracy of history and become the historical novel, or it may in the other direction approach the fantastically fabulous and become the romance pure and simple; but it must deal with emotion and with human lives touched with it, or it is not a novel. It is constructed in accordance with the unities of time, place, and action, like the drama; and in its scope and treatment of action is made to harmonize with the traditions of centuries. The novel is a product of civilization and its fullest development is coincident with the development of the highest civilization. It is perhaps

two centuries since its influence was sufficiently wide to make it a power. The present paper will consider the novel in the English language only, and the novel of the present day mainly. It is probably true that the novel in relation to the habits of thought of the people represents the ideal of the emotional rather than the actual of life. The people as a rule probably prefer the novel that describes what they do not, but would talk about, and what they do not, but would see in the actual. The novel demands a background; it is essentially a record of a phase of emotion and makes its point by suggestion rather than by exhaustive elaboration; hence, it demands for its appreciation a following from among a people who have a perspective; in whom experience has crystallized, among whom the struggle for existence has passed its material stage; whose footing is sure, and whose footsteps are recorded. Hence, America has never had a distinct school of novelists. For the same reason, England has. The French school is distinct from the German, but no less real. The Spanish school is dead because its civilization is dead; because, the cradle and the crutch demand the actual, not the potential.

In its author, the novel seeks at least, five qualities.

First: The writer must have trained powers of observation and reflection, that he may have something to say.

Secondly: He must have broad culture; and, if we take culture to mean the knowledge of the best that has been said in all time on any given subject, he will learn how the world has been given to saying that which he would say.

Thirdly: He must possess a content with a reward in complacency of soul. The best work is never the work that pays. He must depict the ideal however it may scourge the actual. If he be never so far behind the foremost of his age; still, if he thinks, he will be far before his audience. The originator in mechanics, in religion, in literature is rarely rewarded.

Fourthly: He must possess the altruistic sense: the sense which tells its possessor when to bore deeply and when to skim the surface.

Fifthly He must have the tact which tells practically how to say that which would find utterance. Of these five qualities the most important is the altruistic sense. It is the theory of which tact is the practice. It is called magnetism in the teacher. It is called the journalistic sense in the editorial profession. It is the basis of the quality of leadership in the general. The apostle Paul possessed it. For lack of it the puritan failed. In itself it is of little avail; but armed with it, to the well-endowed, all things are possible.

A quality of life is movement. It is one of the more obvi ous qualities so that we see constant change in ourselves and in our surroundings without surprise. Society and societies change with the individuals. To the observer from within. there seems no movement. To the observer from without there seems no rest. The movement is so rapid that if we contrast one decade with another, civilization and even spiritual truths seem to us in a transition state, though if we contrast one century with another the greater perspective distance makes the proportional progress much less. Now, the novel is a picture of life and though it is related to it much as the vision of the dreamer is related to the subjective experience which forms its basis, still the movement is no less marked in the shadow than in the substance, and the novel also is always in a transition Hence we can with exactness speak of the "modern"

state.

36

novel though we must grasp it in its passing if we would catch
its meaning before it has become archaic.
The novel of yes-
terday was written by Charles Reade or Dickens or Thackeray
or Walter Scott. The novel of to-day is written by George
Eliot, Henry James, Jr., Mrs. Burnett, or Howells. The dif
ference between them is vast, is a difference seemingly as much
of kind as of degree, and yet is very like a step in an evolu-
tion.

What then, are the devergencies? First: The foundation. difference is the tendency toward the delineation of the potential rather than the actual. In its aim, in its purport, in its tone, in its scope, it points toward that which is beyond experience but within belief. Rather than a transcript of the actual it may be called a drawing of the desirable. The thoughts that men hint to themselves only, are the thoughts of the modern novel. The "light we almost had" shines in it, and the men we almost were breathe in its air. And this is true not in spite of, but, because of, the realism of the treatment. The deftness and delicacy of the drawing, the cautious clearness of the coloring, the faultless finish of the frame-work are the basis of the novel, no doubt. They are not the novel-the realist as a realist simply is a failure to-day as he has always been. Zola made his sensation and failed, not because he was a realist, but because he was nothing more than a realist-his vision never passed the actual. Draw it never so deftly, color it never so clearly, finish it never so fully, if to the author it is simply a primrose by the river's brim, to the world it will be simply a yellow primrose. And the world does not care for yellow primroses. The novelist's audience demands accuracy, demands delicate distinctions, demands photographic fidelity, and it gets it; but much more does it demand in the novelist, some apprehension of what Matthew Arnold might call sweetness and light, of what Emerson would call the oversoul, and of what Paul would call that which is beyond the veil.

Second: A second divergence is in the direction of earnestness. The novel of purpose as a distinctive appellation is passed-all novels worthy the name are novels of purpose. It is not the decorous dullness of the unthoughtful, nor the ponderous egoism of the reformer, nor the sober-mindedness of