in figures the fatigue of the brain during this or that mental exercise, he may reduce the self-observation of the person whom he experiments upon to its simplest elements; but he also knows that he must appeal in most cases to that person itself; he learns from it what its sensations were during the experiment and by so doing he gets a precious guide in his researches. Self-observation thus continues to occupy a prominent position in all psychological researches; but its very methods have entirely been changed. In the thirty psycho-physiological laboratories which are now in existence, 28 the numerical relations which exist between the energy of the outward stimuli-light, sound, chemicals, and so on-and the energy of the sensations they provoke are measured, and the mathematical law of their relations is sought for. Both the conscious and the unconscious movements which are called forth in man by different sense impressions, under different states of self-consciousness, and under different mental states, are submitted to the same analysis; nay, the mechanism of the growth of ideas, different mental operations, and memory itself are subjects of experimental studies, or of such inquests as the inquest which was carried on by Mr. Galton, and was epochmaking in psychology. And although all these investigations are very young-the first psychological laboratory was opened only eighteen years ago experimental pyschology has already become a natural science in the true sense of the word, a science of which both the powers and the limits are known, and which has already thrown floods of light upon the mental phenomena which, under the old methods, seemed to lie beyond the limits of understanding. At the same time another branch of psychology has suddenly taken, within the last ten years or so, a new development. The ambition of psycho-physiology has always been to find for each psychical process its physiological equivalent-in other words, when a sense-impression has awakened in us certain mental images, what electrical or chemical processes, what transformations of energy and, if possible, what molecular movements took place at the same time in our nerve-channels and nerve-centres? That such changes take place every psychologist admits, to whatever school, dualist or monist, he belongs the difference between the two being that the dualist sees in the psychical and the physiological processes two sets of concomitant but utterly and substantially different phenomena, while the monist considers them as two different aspects of the same process. 29 The study of the physiological processes which go on in man during 23 Fourteen in the United States, four in Germany, two in this country, one in France, and seven in different countries of Europe (Alfred Binet, Introduction à la Psychologie Expérimentale, Paris, 1894). The difference between the two views is very well set out in Dr. Lloyd Morgan's Introduction to Comparative Psychology (Walter Scott's 'Science Series, 1884). each psychical process is, accordingly, one of the main objects of psychology. But until lately such investigations met with an almost insuperable obstacle in our very imperfect knowledge of the intimate structure of the nervous system and the brain. However, within the last few years, a profound modification has taken place in the views upon the minute structure of the nervous system altogether. Through the discovery of the microscopical units of which the nervous system is built up-the so-called neurons,' whose protoplasmic ramifications intimately penetrate into the tissues, where they seem to meet with the ramifications of the tissue-cells, and whose axial cylinders ramify themselves to meet the ramifications of other neurons-through this discovery the whole mechanism of the irritations which result in unconscious reflex movements has received a quite new interpretation. Then, the study of the inner structure of the brain, which was chiefly made by Rámon y Cajal,30 on the basis of the above discovery, has led the Spanish anatomist to attempt a most remarkable explanation of the anatomical mechanism of the formation of ideas and associations and of attention.31 And finally, the application of the same discoveries to the sympathetic nervous system has lately enabled the German anatomist, A. Kölliker, to make another important step. He has attempted to trace the mechanism by means of which our emotions and the irritations of our spinal cord result in such involuntary movements as affect the activity of the heart and the blood-vessels, and make one turn pale or red, shed tears or be covered with perspiration, have his hair stand on end or shiver, and so on, under the influence of various emotions. Such psychical phenomena and such intimate relations between emotion, thought and will, which it seemed hopeless to explain by means of self-observation on the introspective method, have thus had a flash of light suddenly thrown upon them since the above-mentioned transference of psychology to physiologists took place. At the same time, a third equally important branch of psychology was lately called into existence. As in all other sciences, the theory of evolution was accepted in psychology; and by accepting it, psychology was necessarily led to admit that just as we may trace in the animal series the slow progressive development of all organs, including those of the senses and of thought, out of the rudimentary cellelements, so also we may trace the gradual and uninterrupted evolution of the psychical faculties out of such rudiments of psychical life as are seen in the lowest organisms. Beginning with the irritability of 80 Les Nouvelles Idées sur la Structure du Système Nerveux chez l'Homme et chez les Vertébrés, traduit de l'espagnol, Paris (Reinwald), 1894. His views have been given in this country in a Croonian lecture, in 1894, before the Royal Society. His larger work waits still for an English translator. 31 Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie, Anatomische Abtheilung, 1895, p. 367. ' protoplasm, psychologists now endeavour to trace out the gradual evolution of sensibility and perception, so as finally to reach the highest manifestations of perception, will, and thought, at the highest degrees of the scale. A third large branch of psychology, which may be described as comparative or evolutionary psychology, is thus in elaboration; and in this country we have the good fortune of possessing at least three original works (Romanes's, Sir John Lubbock's and Dr. Lloyd Morgan's) which may be considered as stepping-stones towards the work on the evolution of mind, which is now ripening in science. In the preceding paragraph the progress lately achieved as regards the evolution of senses in the animal world is briefly indicated; but countless researches have been made besides into the progressive evolution of the nervous system and the brain of different classes of animals, and these researches will evidently soon receive a new meaning from the above-mentioned discoveries in the anatomy of the nervous system. Then, and then only, the synthesis of sensation and conception will give us a new insight into the progressive development of the psychical faculties of animals, and throw a new light upon psychology altogether. This is the present standpoint of psychology. P. KROPOTKIN. LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL CONCEPTION 1 THERE is a certain irony in the relation between art and criticism. The artist under the impulse of imitation within him follows the lead of Nature, and brings his imaginative idea into being guided only by instinct and judgment. At a later stage in the history of society, perhaps after creative energy has ceased, comes the critic, and traces the idea backward as far as he can through the artist's mind, always stopping short, however, of the real sources of life. Then deeming that he has penetrated the secret of art, the critic begins to lay down the law for the artist, and his law is usually wrong. Wrong, indeed, he is almost bound to be, because he has followed the order not of Nature but of logic. Yet, so vast is the persuasive power of logic, that deductive criticism, a priori criticism, has had an appreciable influence on the course of literature-has, in fact, been the parent of all the Academies. And it is observable that this kind of criticism flourishes most in societies in which the spirit of political liberty has been, or is being, extinguished. Academies began to thrive in the Italian Republics after they had lost their freedom, in France when the nation was tending towards absolute monarchy. As regards the art of poetry, those who helped to found the Academies submitted themselves without reservation to the authority of Aristotle. Misconstruing the text of the Poetics, they deduced from their own misunderstanding of the philosopher a code of supposed artistic necessity, which had no basis in the nature of things. They succeeded in getting recognition for a set of rules which Corneille, while submitting to them in theory, was obliged to disregard in practice, and which were of such stringent logic as to convince Voltaire and Frederick the Great that Shakespeare was a barbarian and a bungler. Criticism, in my opinion, is only of value so long as it follows an inductive method. As I said in my inaugural lecture, the sole authorities in the art of poetry are the great living poets of the world : the business of the critic is to infer from their work the true means of producing lasting pleasure. I propose, therefore, in a series of lectures to discuss the question of life in poetry, regarding it in three aspects (1) Poetical Conception; (2) Poetical Expression; (3) Poetical Decadence. In my present lecture I shall endeavour to 1 A Lecture delivered in the University of Oxford, June 13, 1896. trace the course of an imaginative creation from the moment when a design first begins to shape itself in a poet's brain. I shall ask to be allowed to make but one assumption-one, indeed, which has been regarded as self-evidently true by all sound critics from the time of Aristotle-namely, that the end of the fine arts is to produce enduring pleasure for the imagination. With the help of this I shall then attempt to frame a working definition of poetry, and shall inquire from the nature of the art what must necessarily be its fundamental principles. These I shall verify by applying them to poems which are allowed to have attained the position of classics, as well as to others which, after enjoying a temporary popularity, have fallen into neglect. Finally, after establishing my conclusions, I shall consider what practical bearing they have on the production of poetry in our own day. Now, with respect to life in poetry, as distinguished from life in the other fine arts, it is plain, in the first place, that poetry takes a distinct way of its own to produce pleasure. It proceeds differently from music, because that is an art which appeals to the emotions through the ear, and, except when it is joined to words, cannot raise ideas and images in the mind. It differs again from painting and sculpture, for, though these can suggest ideas and images, they can do so only through the associations of sight. Painting and sculpture can represent movement and action, but their representation is limited to a single moment of time. For instance, in Raphael's great picture of the Fire in the Borgo, there is an extraordinary suggestion of life and passion. You see a mother just handing her child out of a window; a young man in the act of letting himself drop from a roof; other persons energetically striving to save their goods from the flames; and others again, whose property has been consumed, prostrated with despair. But the infant is never actually rescued; the young man remains suspended; we know not how much salvage is effected, or what becomes of the homeless refugees. Another aspect of this arrested life in painting and sculpture is expressed in Keats's fine Ode on a Grecian Urn: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone. Fair youth, beneath the trees thou canst not leave Though winning near the goal-yet do not grieve: She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss: Poetry, too, can represent ideal life of this kind, but it can do much more. It can call up before the mind, by a kind of inward painting, images of outward forms which the act of sight has stored |