The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-01-25

to lay particular stress upon the life
and writings of those authors who
best subserye his purpose, and to pass
by almost unnoticed those whom he
cannot use to advantage.
He holds that there are three great
forces which determine the course and
character of a literature, These are
race, circumstances and epoch. Given
a literature, philosophy, society, art,
group OF arts, what is the moral condi-
ton which produced them? What the
conditions of race, epoch, circumstance,
the most favorable to this moral con-
IditiOn? He claims that men are born
with innate and hereditary dispositions,
and that those are united with marked
differences in the temperament and
structure of the body There is a
natural variety of men, as of oxen and
horses, some brave and intelligent,
some timid and dependent, some capa-
BILE of superior conceptions and crea-
tons, some reduced to rudimentary
ideas and inventions, some more speci-
ally fitted to special works, and gifted
more richly with particular Instincts
Different as are the various races, their
parentage is not obliterated; barbarism,
culture and grating, differences of
sky and soil, fortunes good and bad,
have labored in vain; the great marks
Of the original model have remained,
and we find again the two Or three
principal lineaments of the primitive
! Imprint underneath the secondary i'm
print underneath the secondary imprints
which time has stamped above them
TO climate he ascribes a most won
derful influence in forming the charac-
ter of a people. A cold-moist climate
or a stormy, rock-bound coast develops
drunkenness and gluttOny and fierce,
War-like spirit while lovely landscape,
a bright and laughing sea-c0asf develops
the art of oratory, the talent for enjoy
ment, the inventions of science, letters
and arts.
' The bright and brilliant eras in the
history Of literature, he attributes to
''lnternal concord Or contrarieties. y
. He thus sums up $50 much we can
a say with confidence, that the unknown
! creations toward which the current of
the centuries conducts us, will be rails.
: ed up and regulated altogether by the
: primordial forces that if these forces
/ could be measured and computed, one
might deduce from them as from a
formula the specialties of future ciyiliza
: ton. For in enumerating these
| forces we traverse the complete circle
! OF the agencies; and when we have
considered race, circumstance and
l epoch, which are the internal main
springs, the external pressure, and the
: acquired momentum, we have exhaust
ed not only the whole of the actual
causes, but also the whole of the possible
e causes of notion"
g We can readily admit that social
! surroundings, and the spirit of an age
produce marked effects upon its litera-
: ture, but we cannot allow that a literary
| work is transcript of contemporary
meanness. It is certainly not true
that, leach Of it's literary productions
, is picture in which we may contem-
plate the nation. itself" It cannot be
/ that the root Of all art products lies in
+ climate and soil influences. IF 50 how
/ account for those works which inculcatn
morals far IN advance Of their age /? A
pure age may produce much corrupt
literature, and a corrupt age much that
is pure, or both may grow up side by
side nourished by the same people.
fostered by the same social customs
There are other causes besides those
that Tame mentions at work in deter
mining the literature of a people: such
as innate tendencies, sensuality. skep-
tlclsm, love of applause, genius, necesi-
ty as means Of support, the love of
truth, or a desire to benefit humanity
These are not variable forces depend-
ent upon race, climate or condition but
are found in all ages and among all
classes of men.
But further, the impress OF literature
IS often stamped more deeply upon
society than that Of society upon liter
allure. Witness the effect of the writ
lngs OF Voltaire and his contempories
upon French society, or that Of Ben.
Jonson, Shakespeare, and Milton upon
the English people, or Luther and his
followers upon the Germans.
They made society instead of being
mace by 1t; and their words and influ-
ence are still echoing and re-echoine
along the shores Of time. With Bascom
we may conclude that. 'It is a poor
thing. to contemplate the forces that
now III On the mind, bowling it to the
! physical constitution of the world. to