SELECTION III

LITERATURE

JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN

[The second of Newman's Lectures and Essays on University Subjects comprises pages 268-294 in The Idea of a University (Longmans, Green & Co.). Its two opening sections, omitted from this reprint, set forth three fallacious views of literature: (1) Holy Writ being the greatest product of literature, therefore literature is measured by its subject matter; (2) Holy Writ being simple, literature of any real eminence cannot, like many classical compositions, be elaborate; (3) Holy Writ being readily translatable, the test of higher literary quality in other writings is how far they too can be translated.

From these as a point of departure Newman proceeds to the general considerations that follow. Two other omissions, which do not materially affect the general sequence, are noted in place.]

I. Here, then, in the first place, I observe, gentlemen, that literature from the derivation of the word 5 implies writing, not speaking. This, however, arises from the circumstance of the copiousness, variety, and public circulation of the matters of which it consists. What is spoken cannot outrun the range of the speaker's voice, and perishes in the uttering. When 10 words are in demand to express a long course of thought, when they have to be conveyed to the ends of the earth, or perpetuated for the benefit of posterity, they must be written down, that is reduced to the shape of literature. Still, properly speaking, the 15 terms by which we denote this characteristic gift of

man belong to its exhibition by means of the voice, not of handwriting. It addresses itself, in its primary idea, to the ear, not to the eye. We call it the power of speech; we call it language, that is, the use of the tongue; and even when we write we still keep in 5 mind what was its original instrument, for we use freely such terms in our books as "saying," "speaking," "telling," "talking," "calling"; we use the terms "phraseology" and "diction," as if we were still addressing ourselves to the ear.

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II. Now I insist on this because it shows that speech, and therefore literature, which is its permanent record, is essentially a personal work. It is not some production or result attained by the partnership of several persons, or by machinery, or by any 15 natural process; but in its very idea it proceeds, and must proceed, from some one given individual. Two persons cannot be the authors of the sounds which strike our ear; and, as they cannot be speaking one and the same speech, neither can they be writing one 20 and the same lecture or discourse, which must certainly belong to some one person or other, and is the expression of that one person's ideas and feelings, — ideas and feelings personal to himself, though others may have parallel and similar ones, — proper to him- 25 self in the same sense as his voice, his air, his countenance, his carriage, and his action, are personal. In other words, literature expresses, not objective truth, as it is called, but subjective; not things, but thoughts.

III. Now this doctrine will become clearer by considering another use of words, which does relate to objective truth, or to things; which relates to matters

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not personal, not subjective to the individual, but which, even were there no individual man in the whole world to know them or to talk about them, would exist still. Such objects become the matter of science, and words indeed are used to express them; 5 but such words are rather symbols than language, and however many we use, and however we may perpetuate them by writing, we never could make any kind of literature out of them, or call them by that name. Such, for instance, would be Euclid's 10 Elements. They relate to truths universal and eternal; they are not mere thoughts, but things; they exist in themselves, not by virtue of our understanding them, not in dependence upon our will, but in what is called the nature of things, or at least on conditions external 15 to us. The words, then, in which they are set forth are not language, speech, literature, but rather, as I have said, symbols. And, as a proof of it, you will recollect that it is possible, nay usual, to set forth the propositions of Euclid in algebraical notation, which, as all would admit, has nothing to do with literature. What is true of mathematics is true also of every study, so far forth as it is scientific; it makes use of words as the mere vehicle of things, and is thereby withdrawn from the province of literature. Thus 25 metaphysics, ethics, law, political economy, chemistry, theology, cease to be literature in the same degree as they are capable of a severe scientific treatment. And hence it is that Aristotle's works on the one hand, though at first sight literature, approach in 30 character, at least a great number of them, to mere science; for even though the things which he treats. of and exhibits may not always be real and true, yet

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he treats them as if they were, not as if they were the thoughts of his own mind; that is, he treats them scientifically. On the other hand, law or natural history has before now been treated by an author with so much of colouring derived from his own mind 5 as to become a sort of literature. This is especially seen in the instance of theology, when it takes the shape of pulpit eloquence. It is seen too in historical composition, which becomes a mere specimen of chronology, or a chronicle, when divested of the philosophy, the skill, or the party and personal feelings of the particular writer. Science, then, has to do with things, literature with thoughts; science is universal, literature is personal; science uses words merely as symbols, but literature uses language in its 15 full compass, as including phraseology, idiom, style, composition, rhythm, eloquence, and whatever other properties are included in it.

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IV. Let us then put aside the scientific use of words when we are to speak of language and litera- 20 ture. Literature is the personal use or exercise of language. That this is so is further proved from the fact that one author uses it so differently from another. Language itself in its very origination would seem to be traceable to individuals. Their 25 peculiarities have given it its character. We are often able in fact to trace particular phrases or idioms to individuals; we know the history of their rise. Slang surely, as it is called, comes of and breathes of the personal. The connection between the force of 30 words in particular languages and the habits and sentiments of the nations speaking them has often been pointed out.

And, while the many use language as

they find it, the man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects it withal to his own purposes, and moulds it according to his own peculiarities. The throng and succession of ideas, thoughts, feelings, imaginations, aspirations, which pass within him, the abstractions, 5 the juxtapositions, the comparisons, the discriminations, the conceptions, which are so original in him, his views of external things, his judgments upon life, manners, and history, the exercises of his wit, of his humour, of his depth, of his sagacity,-all these innu- 10 merable and incessant creations, the very pulsation and throbbing of his intellect, does he image forth, to all does he give utterance, in a corresponding language, which is as multiform as this inward mental action itself and analogous to it, the faithful expres- 15 sion of his intense personality, attending on his own inward world of thought as its very shadow; so that we might as well say that one man's shadow is another's as that the style of a really gifted mind can belong to any but himself. It follows him about as 20 a shadow. His thought and feeling are personal, and so his language is personal.

V. Thought and speech are inseparable from each other; matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language. This is what I have 25 been laying down, and this is literature; not things, not the verbal symbols of things; not, on the other hand mere words, but thoughts expressed in language. Call to mind, gentlemen, the meaning of the Greek word which expresses this special prerogative 30 of man over the feeble intelligence of the inferior animals. It is called Logos. What does Logos mean? It stands both for reason and for speech; and it is diffi