An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times: A Prize Essay, Read in the Theatre, Oxford, July 2nd, 1862 (Classic ... Oxford, July 2nd, 1862 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Excerpt from An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times: A Prize Essay, Read in the Theatre, Oxford, July 2nd, 1862

But though the world of nature is, in this sense, a world of man's own creation, it is so in a different way from the world of art and of philosophy. Thought is indeed its parent, but thought in its primary stage fails to recognize it as its own, fails to transfer to it its own attributes of universality, and identity in difference. It sees outward objects merely in their diversity and isolation. It seeks to penetrate nature by end less dichotomy, glorying in that dissection of unity which is the abdication of its own prerogative. It treats outward things as ministering to animal wants, as the sources of per sonal and particular pleasures and pains; and thus induces the sense of bondage, of collision with a world in which it has not yet learnt to find itself. It places the end of human life not in harmony with the law which is the highest form of itself, but in happiness, i. E. In the extraction of the greatest possible amount of enjoyment from a world to which it seems to be accidentally related. The View of things corresponding to this stage of thought is what we commonly call their out ward aspect. It is the aspect of matter-of-fact, of logic, of mere morality, as opposed to that of art, of philosophy and religion.

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