How many stories of the century past have been marred by the
author's too ready application of Darwinism to social life! When we
can separate the story from its intellectual background, the inadequacy
of the latter matters little; for we can apply metaphysical and
political criticism to the theory and enjoy the story aesthetically;
but many of our writers come to life with preconceived ideas deeply
affecting their delineation of it. The picture no longer seems true
because we feel that a false theory has prevented the artist from
viewing life concretely and clearly. We could, for example, accept as
natural and inevitable the ending of _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_,
if Hardy had not presented it as an illustration of the cruel sport
of the gods. As it stands with the author's commentary, we suspect
that the girl's fate might have been different,--that perhaps he gave
it this turn in order to prove his theory of life.
This fault is especially flagrant in the theory-ridden fiction of
to-day. Determination through the past is overemphasized as against
the influence of present, novel factors in a growing experience;
heredity is given undue weight as against the inborn originality of
personality and the uniqueness acquired through unique experiences;
the influence of sensual motives is stressed at the expense of the
moral; and so on through all the other abstractions and insufficiencies
of "scientific" novel writing. The writer may well profit by everything
he can learn from science; but he should not let his knowledge prevent
him from seeing life concretely and as a whole.
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