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CONTBIBUTIONS TO BHETOBICAL THEOJtY 
 Edited by Fred Newton Scott, Ph. D. 
 
 Professor of Rhetorte in the Urdvemity of Michigan ' 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 N64.L63 B91 
 On the limits of descriprtiye writing apr 
 
 oiin 
 
 3 1924 030 652 543 
 
 Overs 
 
 VI 
 
 On the Limits of Descriptive Writing 
 
 Apropos of Lessing's Laocoon 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK EGBERT BRYANT, A. M. 
 
 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGUSR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS 
 
 TQE ANN ARBOR FBBSS 
 
 AUK ARBOB, HICB. 
 
 1906 
 
 3) 
 
 -\A 
 
A^:^o"2-3 lb 
 
 COPTBIOHT 
 
 1906 
 Bt Fbank Egbbbt Bbtamt 
 
 yi^ 
 
 For sale by Sheehan & Co., booksellers, Ann Arbor, Michigan, at 50 
 cents, net. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Many of the objections that this monograph urges against the theories 
 of the Laocoon first occurred to me in the spring of 1901 while I was a 
 graduate student at the University of Michigan. It was not until the next 
 year, however, while a fellow in English at Yale, that the ideas were put 
 into written form. They were at that time embodied in a paper read before 
 the Yale English Club. Since then I have given considerable attention to 
 the subject, have enlarged the scope of the inquiry, and have collected much 
 new material. 
 
 In spite of my apparently hostile attitude to the Laocoon in the begin- 
 ning of the paper, the ultimate purpose of my work has been much the same 
 as Lessing's. It is an attempt to get past the mere externals of criticism 
 to the fundamental principle, and by means of this principle to discover 
 the aesthetic and linguistic limitations of descriptive literature. In carry- 
 ing out this programme I hope that everywhere I have used scientific cau- 
 tion. Though some of the theories advanced are new, I have tried to base 
 them on adequate psychologfical foundations. If I have made mistakes I 
 shall be glad to rectify them. 
 
 I take pleasure in thanking all who have assisted me in preparing this 
 monograph. My greatest obligation is to Professor Scott, who not only 
 first interested me in the study of rhetorical problems, but who has ever 
 since kept alive this interest with frequent encouragement, and who now, 
 in editing this work, has done me the great service of pruning it of much 
 extraneous material. I also wish to thank Professors Pillsbury, Rebec, 
 and Hempl of the University of Michigan, Professor Cook of Yale, and 
 the members of the English department in the University of Kansas. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. F. E. B. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. — Lessing's Laocoon i 
 
 II. — Homer's Descriptions 5 
 
 III. — ^Lessing's Psychology of Vision lo 
 
 IV. — rLcssing's "Chain of Conclusions" and the Missing Prinqple i6 
 
 V. — Boundaries of Description as a Type of Discourse 20 
 
 VI. — The Nature of Mental Imagery 26 
 
 VII. — ^Limitations and Possibilities of Description Due to its Instru- 
 ment of Expression ■ • 31 
 
 Appendix 37 
 
LESStNG'S LAOCOON 
 
 Bosanquet, in his History of Aesthetic, has pointed out a vefy curiotis 
 and surprising fact with reference to the occasion that brought forth 
 Lessing's Laocoon. He says: 
 
 "The occasion of the Laocoon was such as to show with a force amounting: to 
 irony, the superior importance of ideas as compared with particular facts. Winckel- 
 mann had said, in his treatise On the Imitation of Greek Works of Painting and 
 Sculpture, that the expression in Greek statues always revealed a great and composed 
 soul, and that this was illustrated by the famous Laocoon group, in which Laocooh's 
 features expressed no such extremity of suffering as would be realistically in accord- 
 ance with the situation, and more particularly, did not indicate him to be crying out, 
 as Virgil describes him. Lessing, aroused, as he admits, by the implied censure on 
 .Virgil, maintains that the absence of agonized expression in Laocoon's features, and 
 of all sign of outcry — which he completely accepts as a fact — is to be accounted for 
 not by the demands of Greek character, but by the laws of Greek sculpture; in other 
 words, that portrayal of extreme suffering and its expression, legitimate in poetry, 
 was prohibited by the law and aim of beauty, which he alleged to be supreme in 
 formative art. 
 
 "Now the tendency of skilled criticism ever since Lessing's day has been to deny 
 the alleged fact that Laocoon is represented in the marble group as silent or nearly 
 so, and with an expression far removed from that of extreme bodily suffering. The 
 truth appears to be that the group is a work of the Rhodian sbhobl, which retained 
 little of the great Greek style, and was chiefly distinguished by technical skill and 
 forcible presentation of ideas. The expression of pain is violent, and the abstinence 
 from crying out is exceedingly doubtful. It is remarkable that the observation with 
 reference to which such influential theories were propounded, should be of questionable 
 accuracy.'" 
 
 This is indeed remarkable, but these later opinions concerning the 
 Laocoon group do not at all affect the validity of Lessing's theory as a 
 theory of perfect art. For, according to Bosanquet, not only is it held 
 that the priest, Laocoon, utters cries, but it is also held that this group 
 belongs to an -inferior period of sculpture; the one conclusion, therefore, 
 neutralizes the other, and perhaps the only effect of the investigations is 
 to throw the Laocoon group out of the discussion. Lessing's theory may 
 still be correct, though this group can no longer be used as an illustration 
 of it. 
 
 But the point just made by Bosanquet is not the only surprising thing 
 that has been noticed about the Laocoon. The book has two titles : Lao- 
 koon; oder, V^bef die Grcnzek der Malerei tihd Poesie.' The first of 
 these titles would lead us to expect a work oh sculpture, while the second 
 one tells us that it is to deal with painting and poetry. That is, these 
 
 ' B. Bosanquet, A History of Aesthetic, pp. 221-2. 
 
 ' Laocoon; or, Concerning the Limits of Planting and Poetry. 
 
— 2 
 
 titles betray an inconsistency, — and one that is also to be found within the 
 pages of the book. It is due to the fact that Lessing has not distinguished 
 between the different formative arts. To him, apparently, the same laws 
 apply to painting that apply to sculpture. He has thus made the same 
 mistake in his treatment of the formative arts that he criticises other 
 persons for nlaking in their treatment of the limits of painting and poetry. 
 This being true, the very argument that he develops regarding this latter 
 subject may be turned back against himself to discredit what he says con- 
 cerning the formative arts. But this second discrepancy is again one upon 
 which it is unnecessary to dwell. It is admitted that some of the things 
 that Lessing said about formative art are not true. His defenders tell 
 us that "art" after all was not his forte. It is to the science of literary 
 criticism that the Laocqon makes its most brilliant contribution. 
 
 We may therefore narrow our inquiry to the single question: What 
 is the value of Lessing's contribution to the theory of literary art? or 
 more specifically, How far was he right in his delimitation of descriptive 
 literature? Let us first take a rapid survey of his argument. 
 
 We have already learned, in the passage from Bosanquet, what occas- 
 ioned the LcLocoon. It was the fact that Winckelmann had tried to pre- 
 scribe the same laws for the poet that he had given to the sculptor. Les- 
 sing saw very clearly that this would not do. The priest made no outcry 
 not because of the demands of Greek character but because of the laws 
 of Greek sculpture. Lessing pointed out more than one example in which 
 Greek poets had made their heroes cry out and show other evidences of 
 violent pain or grief. He showed that "art" has certain limitations; for 
 instance, since in any one representation it can present its object from but' 
 one point of view, the object can be shown in but a single stage of develop- 
 ment, and this stage remains before us as long as we view the repre- 
 sensation. It was such limitations as these that probably influenced the artist 
 in his treatment of the Laocoon group. Scarcely any of these limitations, 
 however, could influence the work of the poet. Poetry does not appeal 
 to the eye alone. Furthermore, nothing obliges the poet to concentrate his 
 picture into a single moment. He can take up every action, if he will, from 
 its origin, and carry it through all possible changes to its issue. This 
 suggested that the difference in the treatment of the Laocoon story by the 
 poet and by the sculptor should be explained as arising out of a difference 
 in the media through which the representation is effected. But it will not 
 be necessary for us to follow Lessing's argument throughout all the turns 
 of its sinuous course. Suffice it to say that after much apparent wandering 
 he is finally able to gather up all the threads of his exposition into the 
 famous group of arguments on the limits of painting and poetry. The im- 
 portant part that they play in this study, as well as their own interest, jus- 
 tifies me in quoting them almost in full. 
 
 Lessing says :' 
 
 • Laocoon, XVI, Translation by Ellen Ff othingham, Boston : 1887. 
 
— 3 — 
 
 "I will try to prove my conclusions by starting from first principles. 
 
 "I argue thus. If it be true that painting employs wholly different signs or 
 means of imitation from poetry, — ^the one using forms and colors in space, the other 
 articulate sounds in time, — and if signs must unquestionably stand in convenient rela- 
 ■ tion with the thing signified, then signs, arranged side by side can represent only 
 objects existing side by side, or whose parts so exist, while consecutive signs can 
 express only objects which succeed each other, or whose parts succeed each other, 
 in time. 
 
 "Objects which exist side by side, or whose parts so exist, are called bodies. 
 Consequently bodies with their visible properties are the peculiar subjects of painting. 
 
 "Objects which succeed each other, or whose parts succeed each other in time, 
 are actions. Consequently actions are the peculiar subjects of poetry. 
 
 "All bodies, however, exist not only in space, but also in time. They continue, 
 and, at any moment of their continuance, may assume a different appearance and 
 stand in different relations. Every one of these momentary appearances and group- 
 ings was the result of a preceding, may become the cause of a following, and is 
 therefore the centre of a present, action. Consequently painting can imitate actions 
 also, but only as they are suggested through forms. 
 
 "Actions, on the other hand, cannot exist independently, but must always 
 be joined to certain agents. In so far as those agents are bodies or are regarded as 
 such, poetry describes also bodies, but only indirectly through actions. 
 
 "Painting, in its coexistent compositions, can use but a single moment of an 
 j action, and must therefore choose the most pregnant one, the one most suggestive 
 of what has gone before and what is to follow. 
 
 "Poetry, in its progressive, imitations, can use but a single attribute of bodies, 
 and must choose that one which gives the most vivid picture of the body as exercised 
 in this particular action. 
 
 "Hence the rule for the employment of a single descriptive epithet, and the 
 cause of the rare occurrence of descriptions of physical objects. 
 
 "I should place less confidence in this dry chain of conclusions, did I not find 
 them fully confirmed by Homer, or, rather, had they not been first suggested to me 
 by Homer's method. These principles alone furnish a key to the noble style of the 
 Greek, and enable us to pass just judgment on the opposite method of many modern 
 poets who insist upon emulating the artist in a point where they must of necessity 
 remain inferior to him. 
 
 "I find that Homer paints nothing but progressive actions. AH bodies, all sepa- 
 rate objects, are painted only as they take part in such actions, and generally with 
 
 a single touch If Homer, for instance, wants us to see the chariot of Juno, 
 
 Hebe must put it. together piece by piece before our eyes When Homer wishes 
 
 to tell us how Agamemnon was dressed, he makes the king put on every article of 
 raiment in our presence: the soft tunic, the great mantle, the beautiful sandals, and 
 the sword. When he is thus fully equipped he grasps his sceptre. We see the 
 clothes while the poet is describing the act of dressing. An inferior writer would 
 have described the clothes down to the minutest fringe, and of the action we should 
 have seen nothing." 
 
 When Homer describes the sceptre, instead of presenting us with a 
 copy of it, he gives a history. "And so at last," says Lessing, "I know 
 this sceptre better than if a painter should put it before my eyes, or a 
 second Vulcan give it into my hands." If it is Homer's sole object to give 
 
— 4 — 
 
 us a picture, lie will yet break this up into a sprt of history in order that the 
 coexistent parts may follow each other in the time order. 
 
 "But,"* continues Lessing, "it may be urged, the signs employed in 
 poetry not only follow each other, but are also arbitrary ; and, as arbitrary 
 signs, they are certainly capable of expressing things as they exist in space," 
 — witness Homer's description of the shield of Achilles. Lessing says that 
 he will proceed to answer this double objection — double, because a just 
 conclusion must hold, though unsupported by examples, and on the other 
 hand the example of Honier has great weight witji him, even when he is 
 unable to justify it by rules. At this point we might expect him to meet 
 the first of the objections by denying that the signs of language are ,arbi- 
 trary. This plain and simple solution of the difficulty does not, however, 
 occur to him. Accepting as a fact the alleged arbitrariness of language, 
 he tries to escape the dilemma by affirming that while it is true that this 
 property of language does help the prose- writer to make objects plain and 
 intelligible, it does not enable the poet to paint, a thing that the poet must 
 always aim to do. Then he asks the question, "How do we obtain a clear 
 idea of a thing in space?" 
 
 He answers, "First we observe its separate parts, then the union of 
 these parts,, and fina,lly the whole. Our senses perfortn these various 
 operations with such amazing rapidity as to make them seem but one. This 
 rapidity is absolutely essential to our obtaining an idea of the whole, which 
 is nothing more than the result of the conception of the parts and of their 
 connection with each other. Suppose now that the poet should lead us in 
 proper order from one part of the object to the other; suppose he should 
 succeed in making the connection of these parts perfectly clear to us ; how 
 much time will he have consumed? 
 
 "The details, which the eye takes in at a glance, he enumerates slowly 
 one by one, and it often happens that, by the time he has brpught us to the 
 last, we have forgotten the first. Yet from these details we are to form 
 a picture. When we look at an object the various parts are alwjays present 
 to the eye. It can run over them again and again. The ear, however, 
 loses the details it has heard, unless memory retain them. And if they be 
 so retained, what, pains and effort it costs to recall their impressions in the 
 proper order and with even the moderate degree of rapidity necessary to 
 the obtaining of a tolerable idea of the whole." Lessing then quotes two 
 stanzas from Von Haller's Alps to illustrate the point that he has just been 
 making. 
 
 We may iieglect for our purpose that which follows in the next few 
 pages of his book but in hig statements with reference to the shield of 
 Achilles we take up again the main thread of the argument. He begins 
 thus' : 
 
 "But I atn lingering over trifles and seem to have forgotten the shield of, Achilles, 
 that famous picture, which more than all else, caused Homer to be regarded among 
 
 ' Laocom, XVII. 
 " Laocoon. XVIII. 
 
the ancients as a master of paintings But surely a shield, it may be said, is a single 
 corporeal object, the description of which according to , its coexistent parts cannot 
 come within the province of poetry, Yet this shield, its material, its form, and all the 
 figures , which occupied its enormous surface, Homer has , described, in more than a 
 hundred magnificent lines, so circumstantially and precisely that modern artists have 
 found no difiiculty in making a drawing of it exact in every detail." 
 
 Lessing's answer to this objection is that "Homer does not paint the 
 shield finished, but in the process of creation. Here again he has made 
 use of the happy device of substituting progression for coe?cistence, and 
 thus converted the tiresome description of an object into a graphic picture 
 of an action. We see not the shield, but the divine master-workman em- 
 ployed upon it Not till the whole is finished do we lose sight of him. 
 
 At last it is done; and we wonder at the work, but with the believing 
 wonder of an eye-witness who has seen it a-making. The same cannot be 
 said of the shield of Aeneas in Virgil." 
 
 After reading Lessing's glowing account of Homer's description we 
 ought certainly to have no doubt about the effect that the work should have 
 upon us. It seems clear that this description of the shield must perforin 
 the miracle denied to the enumerative description. But a few pages farther 
 on Lessing discloses the fact that, after all, Homer's description is not so 
 clear to everybody as we might suppose. Since we shall have occasion in 
 a later part of this study to mention objections that he admits have been 
 urged against it, it will not be necessary for us to quote them here. Nor 
 will it be necessary at present to quote other passages from the Laocoon. 
 We have now before us ejiough material to begin the discussion. Let us 
 take up the parts we have just presented and subject them to a careful 
 criticism. 
 
 II 
 
 homer's descriptions 
 
 In the extracts just quoted, it will be recalled that Lessing has admitted 
 that the example of Homer has great weight with him even when not jus- 
 tified by argument. He has told us that he would place less confidence 
 in his dry chain of conclusions, did he not find them fully confirmed by 
 Homer, or, rather, had they not been first suggested to him by Homer's 
 method. These principles alone, he says, furnish a key to the noble style 
 of the Greek. Homer paints nothing but progressive actions. All bodies, 
 all separate objects, are painted only as they take part in such actions and 
 generally with a single touch. It will be remembered also that Lessing 
 draws practically all his examples of good descriptions from Homer. Con- 
 sequently before we shall be in a position to discuss Lessing's theory criti- 
 cally, we must go to his great source, and learn, at first hand, the facts 
 concerning Homer's descriptions. 
 
— 6 — 
 
 I think that Lessing was very fortunate in choosing Homer as model 
 and guide. The Iliad and Odyssey were wrought into their present form 
 under peculiar conditions. They were recited, and those who did the recit- 
 ing made this work their profession. The bards spoke the poems time 
 and time again with an audience before them. They could therefore tell 
 from daily experience what was interesting and what was not. If they 
 found any weak or ineffective parts, it is only natural to suppose that 
 they would either drop them or (if they could) improve upon them. So 
 I think we may safely conclude that from Homer's poems the ineffective 
 descriptions have been eliminated, and those that we find there have been 
 proved thoroughly effective. But in saying this I do not mean to iniply 
 that any type of description not found in Homer is probably ineffective. 
 These poems were recited, and recited from memory, hence they had to be 
 of 'a form easy for the listener to understand and easy for the bard to 
 remember. From this we might expect more simplicity and directness, a 
 more frequent use of repetition and of fixed epithets, than in works written 
 to meet certain other conditions. Nevertheless Homer does not appear to 
 us very restricted, and when Lessing makes the unqualified assertion that 
 all of Homer's descriptions are progressive, that none of them are presented 
 as static pictures, we must confess the German critic appears rather sweep- 
 ing. Can his statement be justified? 
 
 Perhaps the first possible exception is the detailed description of Ther- 
 sites in Book H of the Iliad. I shall quote it in part, calling attention to 
 the fact that it is a description by enumeration. Homer says: "And he 
 was ill-favoured beyond all men that came to Ilios. Bandy-legged was 
 he, and lame of one foot, and his two shoulders rounded, arched down 
 upon his chest ; and over them his head was warped, and a scanty stubble 
 sprouted on it."° Lessing himself mentions this example in his treatment 
 of the ugly in art. The point he there makes is that the impression of 
 ugliness produced by the description is softened by the details being given 
 one after the other. That is a point we need not discuss for the present. 
 But there is one question about the description that we must not fail to ask. 
 It is a qustion that Lessing did not answer nor even try to, although 
 it was essential to his argument, and that is. Does this description of Ther- 
 sites give us a unified picture? For myself, I will say that this descrip- 
 tion as given in the Iliad makes one unified impression on me, though the 
 details are giverj one after the other. Several others with whom I have 
 spoken, acknowledge that my experience is also theirs. Here then, in a 
 passage from Homer, we have some reason to suppose, is an exception 
 to Lessing's theory. Here we have a description, told by enumeration, 
 which nevertheless produces a unified impression. Is this the only exception 
 in Homer? 
 
 Lessing has had niuch to say about the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, 
 Book XVIII. In fact he lays more stress upon this particular description 
 than on any other. So let us give it a due amount of attention. It is 
 
 ' Iliad; Book II. Lang, Leaf, and Meyers' translation, p. 28. 
 
— 7 — 
 
 curious to note that in spite of one statement to the contrary; Lessing admits 
 that there is no unanimity of opinion as to what this shield must have 
 looked like as a whole. It will be remembered that Homer's method was 
 to tell us how this shield was constructed and adorned. We see the whole 
 process step by step. Lessing thinks this an admirable illustration of his 
 theory. When Homer finishes he thinks we know all about the shield, — 
 and yet, alas, there have been people, he admits, who have questioned the 
 very possibility of such a shield. The stoutest defenders of Homer's literary 
 art do not seem at all agreed as to its appearance. Putting aside the prob- 
 lem. How is it possible to bring all this wealth of ornament into one picture 
 in the mind's eye ? the question has even been asked. How is it conceivable 
 that all of these details should be presented on a single shield ? There have 
 been several hypotheses. Lessing very ingeniously says that he thinks the 
 pictures were divided between the front and the back of the shield. This 
 divergence of opinion suggests the point that I now wish to present. 
 Homer has told us all about the shield except how it looks as a whole; 
 that he has not tried to do. Apparently Lessing has not thought of this, 
 though it is essential if the example of the shield is to illustrate his argu- 
 ment. He has told us that we cannot describe successfully by the method 
 of enumeration — ^the method Homer used in the description of Thersites — 
 but that we can describe progressively. But now, the progressive descrip- 
 tion of the shield of Achilles does not give me, at least, as unified a picture 
 as the enumerative description of Thersites — in fact, it does not give me 
 any unified picture at all, and Lessing admits that I am not the only one 
 affected in that way. It would seem then, as far as examples are con- 
 cerned, that Lessing has failed in 'both instances. With reference to the 
 shield of Achilles he has confused knowing with seeing. This same con- 
 fusion is further illustrated by his statements about the sceptre of Agam- 
 emnon. In the description of the latter there is to be found hardly a word 
 to suggest the actual appearance of the object. Homer merely tells us the 
 various gods and men who have owned it. He says : "Then stood up lord 
 Agamemnon bearing his sceptre, that Hephaistos had wrought curiously. 
 Hephaistos gave it to king Zeus, son of Kronos, and then Zeus gave it to 
 the messenger-god the slayer of Argus, and king Hermes gave it to Pelops 
 the charioteer, and Pelops again gave it to Atreus shepherd of the host. 
 And Atreus dying left it to Thyestes rich in flocks, and Thyestes in his 
 turn left it to Agamemnon to bear, that over many islands and all Argos 
 he should be lord.'" Yet Lessing says with reference to it: "At last I 
 know this sceptre better than if a painter should put it before my eyes, 
 or a second Vulcan give it into my hands." But such a statement is not 
 to the point. There is no question that Homer's account does add dignity 
 and interest to the sceptre. We obtain much information about it just 
 as we did about the shield; but not for that reason have we the right to 
 say that we know it visually. Nothing has been said about how the 
 sceptre looks. 
 
 ' Iliad, Book II. Lang, Leaf, and Myers' translation, p. 24. 
 
_ 8 — 
 
 -But now let us continue our study of the shield of Achilles. The 
 shield is adorned by numerous pictures, the descriptions of which Homer 
 has given us in some detail. How are these scenes presented to us? Is 
 the emphasis thrown upon the process of the making? Are we more 
 conscious of Vulcan in his workshop than we are of the scenes themselves? 
 Do we find any enumeration of details, and if so do we obtain therefrom 
 completed pictures? Before trying to answer such questions, let us read 
 one or two of the descriptions. We may begin with the account of the 
 ploughers in the field. Homer says: 
 
 "Furthermore he set in the shield a soft fresh-ploughed field, rich tilth and wide, 
 the third time ploughed; and many ploughers therein drave their yokes to and fro 
 as they wheeled about. Whensoever they came to the boundary of the field and 
 turned, then would a man come to each and give into his hand's a goblet of sweet 
 wine, while others would be turning back along the furrows, fain to reach the boundary 
 of the deep tilth. And the field grew black behind and seemed as it were a ploughing, 
 albeit of gold, for this was the great marvel of the work. 
 
 "Furthermore he set therein the demesne land of a king, where hinds were 
 reaping with sharp sickles in their hands. Some armfuls along the swathe were 
 falling in rows to the earth, whilst others the sheaf-binders were binding in twisted 
 bands of straw. Three sheaf-binders stood over them, while behind boys gathering 
 corn and bearing it in their arms gave it constantly to the binders; and among 
 them the king in silence was standing at the swathe with his staff, rejoicing in his 
 heart. And henchmen apart beneath an oak were making ready a feast, and pre- 
 paring a great ox they had sacrificed; while the women were strewing much white 
 barley to be supper for the hinds.'" 
 
 These two descriptions have a very different effect upon me from the 
 account of Agamemnon's sceptre, a very different effect also from that 
 of the whole description of the shield. I can see the ploughed field and the 
 men and oxen at work in it — all in one picture. I can see the demesne 
 land in one picture, too, the several parts coexisting side by side. The 
 fact that the details are given one after the other does not interfere with 
 my conception of their coexistence, and in these descriptions I am not 
 helped by the knowledge that Hephaistos is constructing the pictures on 
 a shield. For me the scenes simply grow by the accumulation of facts. 
 And there are others who admit that my experience is theirs. For us these 
 scenes are practically enumerations, — they are almost exactly what Lessing 
 has said cannot be done successfully; and yet here we have this method 
 used, in Homer, and in the very example that Lessing has cited to illustrate 
 its contrary. 
 
 But the Iliad is not the Homeric poem that one would naturally refer 
 to in illustrating the possibilities of description. For such work the 
 Odyssey, the traveler's book, is far superior, and I am more than sur- 
 prised that Lessing does not mention the Odyssey in support of his con- 
 tention. It would seem that he had not thought of it in this connection. 
 Lessing says: "I find that Homer paints nothing but progressive actions. 
 
 ' Iliad, Book XVIII. Lang, Leaf, and Myers' translation, p. 383. 
 
— 9 -- 
 
 All bodies, all separate objects, are painted only as they take part in such 
 actions, and generally with a single touch." Will the Odyssey bear him out 
 in this statement? Let us answer by quoting a few descriptions from 
 the Odyssey. 
 
 Here is a description of an axe: "She gave him a great axe. which 
 fitted well his hands ; it was an axe of bronze, sharp on both sides, and had 
 a beautiful olive handle, ^trongly fastened; . . . ." 
 
 Here is a descriptioii of a chair: "She led me in and placed me on 
 a silver-studded chair, beautiful, richly wrought,; — upon its lower part there 
 was a rest for feet. . . .'" 
 
 Here is a description of a harbor : "Now in the land of Ithaca there 
 is a certain harbor sacred to Phorcys, the old man of the sea. Here two 
 projecting jagged cKffs slope inward toward the harbor and break the 
 heavy waves raised by wild winds without. Inside, without a cable ride 
 the well-benched ships when once they reach the road.stead. Just at the 
 * harbor's head~a leafy olive stands, and near it a pleasant darksome cave 
 sacred to nymphs, called Naiads. Within the cave are bowls and jars of 
 stone, and here bees hive their honey. Long looms of stone are liere, where 
 nymphs weave purple robes, a marvel to behold. Here are ever-flowing 
 springs. The cave has double doors : one to the north, accessible to men ; 
 one to the south for gods. By this, men do not pass ; ft is the imm-jrtals' 
 entrance.'"" 
 
 Here is a description of Athene : "Near him Athene drew, in form of 
 a young shepherd, yet delicate as are the sons of kings. Doubled about 
 her shoulders she wore a fine-wrought mantle; under her shining feet her 
 sandals, and in her hand a spear." Also : "As he thus spoke, the goddess, 
 clear-eyed Athene, smiled and patted him with hfir hands; her form grew 
 like a woman's, — one fair and tall and skilled in dainty work. . . ."" 
 
 Here is a description of Calypso's grotto : "He (Hermes) found she 
 was within. Upon the hearth a great fire blazed, and far along the island 
 the fragrance of cleft cedar and of sandal-wood sent perfiime as they 
 burned. Indoors, and singing with a sweet voice, she tended her loom 
 and wove with golden shuttle. Around the grotto, trees grew luxuriantly, 
 alder and poplar and sweet-scented Cyprus, where long-winged birds have 
 nests, — owls, hawks, and sea-crows ready-tongued, that ply their business 
 in the waters. Here too was trained over the hollow grotto a thrifty v?.ne, 
 luxuriant with clusters; and four springs in a row were running with clear 
 water, making their way from one another here and there. On every side 
 soft meadows of violet and parsley bloomed. Here, therefore, even an 
 immortal who should come might gaze at what he saw, and in his heart 
 be glad. Here stood and gazed the guide, the Speedy-comer."" 
 
 Next I will quote a part of the descriptioii of the palace of A'cinous : 
 
 ,* Odyssey, Book V. Palmer's translation, p. 79. Ibid., Book X, p. 156. 
 " Odyssey, BookXIII. Palmer'si translation, p. 202. 
 " .Ibid., p. 205. 
 " Ibid.. Book v., p. 74- 
 
lO — 
 
 '"Meanwhile Odysseus neared the lordly palace of Alcinous, and his heart was 
 deeply stirred so that he paused before he crossed the brazen threshold; for a sheen 
 as of the sun or moon played through the high-roofed house of generous Alcinous. On 
 either hand ran walls of bronze from threshold to recess, and round about the ceiling 
 was a cornice of dark metal. Doors made of gold closed in the solid building. The 
 doorposts were of silver and stood on a bronze threshold, silver the lintel overhead, 
 and gold the handle. On the two sides were gold and silver dogs ; these had Hephais- 
 tos wrought with subtle craft to guard the house of generous Alcinous, creatures 
 immortal, young forever. Withiri were seats planted against the wall on this side 
 and on that, from threshold to recess, in long array; and over these were strewn light 
 ifine-spun robes, the work of women. Here the Phaeacian leaders used to sit, drinking 
 and eating, holding constant cheer. And golden youths on massive pedestals stood 
 and held flaming torches in their hands to light by night the palace for the feasters . . . 
 
 "Without the court and close beside its gate is a large garden, covering four 
 acres; around it runs a hedge on either side. Here grow tall trees — pears, pomegran- 
 ates, apples with shining fruit, sweet figs, and thrifty olives. On them fruit never 
 fails; it is not gone in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; for con- 
 stantly the wind's breath brings some to bud and mellows others. Pear ripens upoo 
 pear, apple on apple, cluster on cluster, fig on fig. Here too the teeming vineyard 
 has been planted, one part of which, the drying place, lying on level ground, is heating 
 in the sun; elsewhere men gather grapes; and elsewhere still they tread them. In 
 front the grapes are green and shed their flower, but a second row are now just 
 turning dark. And here trim garden beds, along the outer line, spring up in every 
 kind and all the year are gay. Near by, two fountains rise, one scattering its streams 
 throughout the garden, one bounding by another course beneath the court-yard gate 
 toward the high house; from this the townsfolk draw their water. Such at the 
 palace of Alcinous were the gods' splendid gifts. Here long-tried royal Odysseus 
 stood and gazed. Then after he had gazed to his heart's fill on all, he quickly 
 crossed the threshold and came within the house."" 
 
 Now, surely, I have quoted enough. Each of these examples refutes 
 Lessing's statement about Homer, each stands as an argument against his 
 theory. After reading such descriptions I cannot resist quoting against 
 Ivcssing a statement he himself made in an early part of the Laocoon: 
 "Much would in theory appear unanswerable if the achievements of genius 
 had not proved the contrary." 
 
 Ill 
 
 lessing's psychology of vision 
 
 But now, is it necessary to go to the achievements of genius in order 
 to disprove the arguments for Lessing's theory? May there not be some 
 flaw in his reasoning? I think we have a right to suppose that there is. 
 It would be passing strange if sound argument could contradict the facts 
 proved by example. And yet Lessing has presented a strong case. His 
 
 " Ibid., Book VH. 
 
— II — 
 
 arguments seem logical, consistent, and fairly conclusive. Let us, how- 
 ever, investigate his premises. Almost everything he says is based, directly , 
 or indirectly, on his theory of vision. He asks the question : "How do we 
 obtain a clear idea of a thing in space ?" and he answers : "First we 
 observe its separate parts, then the union of these parts, and finally the 
 whole. Our senses perform these various operations with such amazing 
 rapidity as to make them seem but one. This rapidity is absolutely essential 
 to our obtaining an idea of the whole, which is nothing more than the 
 result of the conception of the parts and of their connection with each other." 
 
 Lessing's idea, then, is that in vision we see the separate particulars 
 before we see the whole object, and that the mind does its work of synthesis 
 almost instantaneously. But can this be accepted as a true theory of vision? 
 No, I think we may answer with confidence, modern psychology will not 
 accept any such theory as that. As all experiments tend to show, in seeing 
 we go from the vague to the definite, and the process is often very far 
 from being instantaneous. 
 
 For the purpose of illustration let us suppose that you and I go to 
 the top of a hill and there suddenly catch sight of an unfamiliar landscape 
 on beyond. How will it appear to us at the first glance ? Will it flash itself 
 upon us as a wealth of details? Shall we see the woodlands and meadows, 
 the river, the farm-houses, the barns and the sheds, all distinctly in this 
 first glance? No, if you have ever introspected under such conditions you 
 will say at once. Not at all. Your experience will be something like mine. 
 First of all, I am conscious of nothing more than that I see a landscape, with 
 the addition, perhaps, of one or two vague details that my attention has 
 been focused upon. Gradually these become clearer and other details begin 
 to come into view as my attention shifts from place to place. At first I can 
 distinguish nothing but crude lines and blotches. These resolve themselves 
 presently into the woods and meadows, or into the row of trees that follow 
 the river, or into roads and fences. I notice, next, a number of farm 
 buildings, though I am, not conscious at first which is the house and which 
 is the barn, these later details coming to me after I focus my attention 
 upon them. Thus, by a comparatively slow process of analysis, in the same 
 way that Odysseus observed the palace of Alcinous, the scene before me 
 grows, bit by bit, all the time becoming more and more distinct. 
 
 But, you may say, this is an unfair example. When I meet my friend, 
 Mr. Smith, on the street, I do not have to go through all this long process 
 to recognize him. I can tell him at the first glance. Certainly, but that is 
 because most of our seeing is not perception but apperception. We always 
 see by the help of former experience. The ease with which you recognize 
 Mr. Smith depends very largely on the degree of your acquaintance with 
 him. Strange as it may seem to one who is not familiar with the results 
 of modern psychological inquiry, your visual image of Mr. Smith, that 
 you recognize so readily, is not a picture of the moment that the outer 
 world, so to speak, thrusts upon you, but rather it is the resultant of all 
 your previous views and analyses of the man-^it is a complex mental pro- 
 
— 12 — 
 
 eess. Suppose that the man does not lode like anyone with whom you 
 are at present familiar, but that he does somewhat resemble a person you 
 knew ten years ago. The details now — and with them the recc^nition — 
 will not come so quickly as in the other caise. Now you will have ta 
 analyze out the details slowly, one by one, until the picture is complete. 
 Our visual conceptions, then, are matters of growth, often of slow growth. 
 
 Let us take another example. Go, if you please, to the art gallery and 
 choose there some great painting that you halve never lodced at before. 
 Now certainly neither you nor anyone else would care to assert that you 
 can see all there is in the picture at the first glance. Your view of it will 
 become clearer and more definite the longer you lot*:. Study will alwayss 
 bring out new details and new meaning. Or suppose that you see a beauti- 
 ful man or woman. Are you conscious at once of what it is that makes 
 the person beautiful ? Perhaps it is some particular part that most impresses 
 yeiu, — let us say it is the eyes. Are you then conscious of what it is about 
 the eyes that makes them so beautiful? If you are like most persons you 
 have not even noticed the color. You simply know vaguely that they are 
 very beautiful:. Barrie's Little Minister was not at all exceptional in failing 
 to notice the color of his sweetheart's eyes. 
 
 The truth is that most of the things we see in this world are necessarily 
 no more than abstractions. True, we rarely think of them in that way : 
 to us they appear very real, and we treat them with familiarity and ease, 
 just as a mathemetician treats his abstract quantities. When we lode at 
 an object we think we see all that lies exposed to us, and yet, while we 
 are looking, someone else may be able to point out details that we have 
 not seen. We may live in a house several months and feel perfectly at 
 home there, and yet perhaps not be able to answer such simple questions 
 as whether it has blinds or not, or whether it has four windows or five in 
 front. We meet men day after day and do not know whether they have 
 blue eyes or black. For ordinary purposes we do not need to know such 
 things. I have classes in composition. Recently I asked them to' describe 
 some of the buildings that they go to every day. If Lessing's theory of 
 vision were true, the task of finding things to say ought to be easy. Though 
 perhaps the students might not be able to write effective descriptions, they 
 ought themselves to see a great wealth of details. But instead of that they 
 had great trouble in finding anything to say. It was difficult for them to 
 analyze out the details. Though they had gone to the places every day, 
 the buildings had remained abstractions for them. They had never before 
 had occasion to note the characteristic features. And they simply knew 
 those things about the buildings which the necessities or accidents of experi- 
 ence had taught them. 
 
 In this ignorance of details the students were perfectly normal. When 
 we consider the matter, it becomes clear at once that every object, if it be 
 analyzed deeply enough, is exceedingly complex. In fact there seems to be 
 no limit to the minuteness of analysis. But suppose there were, then if all 
 these details should crowd themselves into the mental image at the first 
 
— 13 — 
 
 glance, the mind would necessarily be overwhelmed by its very wealth. 
 When we looked for one thing we should see a hundred or a thousand, 
 equally distinct. What a great waste of effort that would involve ! Clearly 
 on the ground of mental economy alone we should be safe in judging that 
 the eye does not see in that way. 
 
 But if one will study the structure of the eye, one may find much 
 stronger reasons for rejecting Lessing's theory of vision. All parts of the 
 retina do not receive impressions with equal distinctness. There is in each 
 eye a certain place, called the blind spot, which receives no impressions at 
 all from the field of vision. And there is another place, called the yellow 
 spot, on which the impressions are received most strongy and vividly. The 
 eye, therefore, cannot by its very structure see all parts of the field of vision 
 with the same definiteness. When we look at an object, there is always one 
 part, called the focus of attention, which stands out more clearly than all 
 the rest. The rays of light from this part are received by the eye on its 
 yellow spot. The rest of the field is not so plain in vision, and it forms, 
 as it were, a more or less vague background or fringe for the central part. 
 If we wish to see the background more distinctly we are obliged to shift 
 our attention. Though we may see the whole of a large field at once, 
 there is only a small portion of it that is perceived with any degree of 
 vividness and even that part is dependent on past experience for its inter- 
 pretation. The less we know the less we see. The first glance, then, that 
 we give to an object does not afford us a wealth of details. Analysis is 
 necessary to bring out the details, and this analysis requires time. 
 
 To re-enforce the preceding statements I will give the results of an 
 experiment that I have tried on perhaps a score of people. Wherever 
 possible I tried to select as my subjects persons who are good visualizers, 
 that is, persons who remeriiber things in terms of visual images. I asked 
 these persons to study a picture of some complexity. In almost all cases 
 it was a little woodcut of Landseer's !'The Challenge."" My instructions 
 were generally that the person should look at the picture until he could 
 see the whole of it in his mind's eye. A good visualizer after looking at 
 the woodcut from a half-minute to two minutes would assure me that his 
 mental image contained everything that was in the picture. To him the 
 mental image was just as rich in detail as the picture itself. Then I took 
 the picture myself and began asking questions to discover what was really 
 in the subject's mental image. The result was exactly what I expected 
 it to be. Among all my subjects not one could answer two-thirds of my 
 questions. Of course the best visualizers made the fewest mistakes, but 
 even they did sometimes answer incorrectly, and were frequently obliged 
 to confess that they did not know whether certain parts were arranged in 
 one way or in another. For instance when I would ask. 
 
 Do you see the deer, plainly? 
 
 Yes, would be the answer. 
 
 " Perry Pictures, No. 914. 
 
— 14 — 
 
 But when I went farther and asked such questions as 
 
 Is the deer's mouth open or shut? 
 
 Can you see the deer's tail ? 
 
 Does the deer make a shadow ? etc., 
 the subject often found it impossible to answer. I asked how many tree- 
 trunks there are in the picture. The answer was generally two, but occas- 
 ionally it was one, and sometimes three. A few of my subjects thought 
 they saw the trunks plainly, but to my next question, 
 
 How many prongs are there on the trunk at the left of the picture? 
 I have never yet received a correct answer. Generally the subject would 
 say immediately, I did not notice that, or, I did not count the prongs, or 
 make some similar answer. That is, the mental images, though they seemed 
 complete, were after all not susceptible of minute analysis. They were 
 conceptual rather than perceptual : they contained the general notion of the 
 object without going much into detail. 
 
 The answers regarding the tree-trunk and the deer are fair repre- 
 sentatives of the results as a whole. And not only were the things them- 
 selves unanalyzed, but the relations of part to part were also unanalyzed. 
 Thus not very many could tell me whether the left tree-trunk is under the 
 deer, or before it, or behind it, and the three or four who could tell me 
 how many deer-tracks there are in the picture, were unable to give the 
 relative position of the tracks. So it was with the relationship of other 
 objects. This phase of the experiment suggests that relationships, too, 
 require analysis, if they are to be correctly reproduced in the mental image. 
 
 If this experiment shows that the ordinary observer has but vague 
 impressions in his percepts, it shows also that he' seldom realizes the fact. 
 Had I asked the subject to memorize all the details in the picture, he would 
 probably have said at once that he could not do it, for his past experience 
 would have guided him in the answer. But by giving my directions in the 
 way I did, — ^that is, by asking him simply to intensify his mental image 
 until it looked to him exactly like the picture, I drew the attention away 
 from the memorization of facts and made the task seem a comparatively 
 simple one. Though the process of intensification involved analysis and 
 memorization of separate facts he did not think of it in that way. He did 
 not realize that what he saw in the picture was not all that was there. 
 In many cases, therefore, the surprise grew with the questions, and when, 
 after I had finished, the subject was permitted to look at the picture again, 
 not infrequently he assured me that the picture he now saw was very 
 different from the one he thought he saw before. 
 
 So much then for Lessing's theory of vision. It is unquestionably 
 wrong. Nevertheless, in order to show conclusively that his theory of vision 
 invalidates his theory of description, it will be well for us to examine further 
 the question of the time involved in seeing. If the time required to 
 analyze out the details — to resolve them from the vague into the definite — 
 is instantaneous or nearly so, then of course it would make but little differ- 
 ence for description what might be the process of the operation. The 
 
— IS — 
 
 question to be answered, then, is whether language is rapid enough to keep 
 up with visual analysis. Let us consider this phase of the subject more in 
 detail. 
 
 In the examples hitherto presented — though the fact was not 
 emphasized — the operation of seeing was by no means instantaneous. The- 
 traveler looking over the valley might gaze for half an hour without seeing 
 all that was pleasing. The friend who recognized Mr. Smith so readily, 
 did so because he had learned to know his features through previous meet- 
 ings, but an artist in order to paint the same face would require many 
 sittings. The task of the composition student was a slow one. Even the 
 subjects on whom I experimented with Landseer's picture, after looking 
 at it from one-half minute to two minutes, did not then see nearly all that 
 was in it. So in all these examples — and it would seem that the ones 
 chosen are fairly representative — a very appreciable time is spent in the 
 act of perceiving. Now how fast can we present ideas by means of 
 language? I should like to answer this question by giving the results 
 obtained from one of the subjects of the Landseer experiment. 
 
 The subject was one of my students — a young woman who is an excel- 
 lent visualizer. After looking at the picture two-thirds of a minute she 
 said that she 'saw as much of the picture as she would ever see.' This is 
 what she saw : 
 
 A winter scene with snow and ice. 
 
 The deer; with a general impression of its pose biit nothing very 
 definite. She did not see the mouth, nor the tail, nor the shadow, nor 
 the ribs. 
 
 The mountains ; with one or two parts very distinct. 
 
 The dark sky with stars. 
 
 A smooth body of water; but she could not tell whether or not the 
 banks approach each other at the sides of the picture. 
 
 Two tree-trunks with an uncertain number of prongs, and the roots 
 of the tree-trunk at the right. 
 
 She may have seen other things indistinctly, but if so I could not find 
 them out. I am sure she did not see the stones near the bank, nor the 
 shadows in the picture, nor the footprints, nor the other deer. She was 
 also uncertain about the mist. She did not know much about the relative 
 positions of objects: for instance, she could not tell me where the left 
 tree-trunk is with reference to the deer and to the water's edge. 
 
 Now, although this young woman is an excellent observer and a good 
 visualizer, yet it took her two-thirds of a minute to see the few general 
 details that I have listed. What can descriptive language do in the same 
 interval? The question is easily answered. In less than one-half of that 
 time I can read aloud a description which contains all the details that she 
 saw, stated at least as definitely as she saw them. Let the following 
 description serve as the example: 
 
 It is a moonlight winter scene. In the foreground on the snow-cov- 
 ered shore of a quiet lake, stands a deer with head thrown back as if in 
 
— 16 — 
 
 the act of challenging to combat another deer. Across the lake to the 
 right rise snow-covered mountains, very distinct against the dark though 
 starlit sky. On this side of the water near the deer, lie two prongy tree- 
 trunks, the one at the right having gnarlly roots. 
 
 Now, as I said aobve, I can rea^ through this description out loud in 
 less than one-half the time it took the subject to perceive the details, and the 
 subject was a better visualizer and a better observer than the average per- 
 son on whom I pxperimented. No one saw more details than she did in 
 the same length of time. As a matter of fact, I can read off more details 
 in two-thirds of a minute than any of my subjects were able to see in two 
 minutes of observation. And though I have not tried the experiment on 
 enough people to make a sweeping generalization, I can at least say this, 
 that I have yet to find a person who can take up the picture for the first 
 time and see details as rapidly as they can be expressed in language. If, 
 then, enumerative descriptions are generally unsuccessful, it surely cannot 
 be due to the slowness of language. Language seems to be ever so much 
 more rapid than is the work of analysis for the average person. Lessing's 
 argument, therefore, falls to the ground: language is more than rapid 
 enough for enumerative description. 
 
 IV 
 
 lessing's "chain Gf conclusions" and the missing principle 
 
 While, then, I do not wish for a moment to deny that there is truth 
 in Lessing's contention that literature and formative art have different 
 possibilities and dififerent methods, I am compelled to deny emphatically 
 that Lessing has found the true basis for this differentiation. The principle 
 upon which he bases all of his famous 'chain of conclusions'^" is wrong, 
 arid must invalidate all that rests upon it. The contrast between poetry 
 and painting is not that one is perceived temporally and the other spatially, 
 for both are perceived temporally and both may be perceived spatially ; 
 nor is it that one uses articulate sounds and the other uses forms and colors. 
 Some other principle must be found. But before we seek it let us examine 
 carefully some of the individual arguments in Lessing's "chain of con- 
 clusions.' I will begin with his fourth argument, the one that deals 
 with the description of bodies through actions. It is complementary to the 
 argument regarding the presentation of actions through bodies. 
 
 "Actions," says Lessing, "cannot exist independently, but must always 
 be joined to certain agents. In so far as those agents are bodies or are 
 regarded as such, poetry describes also bodies, but only indirectly through 
 actions." ' 
 
 This statement is perhaps true on its face, and no doubt Lessing meant 
 
 " Laocoon, XVI. 
 
— 17 — 
 
 to be entirely fair and honest when he made it. Nevertheless it is more 
 subtly fallacious than almost any other paragraph of Lessing's that I 
 know of. It is so subtle in fact that even so accomplished a logician as 
 Bosanquet, translating it for his History of Aesthetic, p. 224, makes of it 
 a complete fallacy. This is his translation : 
 
 "On the other hand actions cannot exist apart, but must be attached 
 to beings. In as far as these beings are bodies, or are regarded as bodies, 
 poetry cmt depict bodies too, but only by suggestion conveyed through 
 action." (The italics are mine.) 
 
 Now all that Lessing can truthfully mean is: 
 
 'Actions cannot exist apart from agents. Therefore, in so far as agents 
 are bodies, poetry must depict bodies, — at least in so far as it suggests 
 them in connection with actions.' 
 
 But if the least that can be said with reference to this paragraph from 
 the famous 'chain of conclusions' is that it is very misleading, what should 
 be said about the second paragraph following it ? As already stated, Lessing 
 pairs off the characteristics for painting and poetry in contrasting sets. 
 In the paragraph following the one we have just been discussing, Lessing 
 makes this statement: 
 
 "Painting, in its coexistent compositions, can use btit a single moment 
 of an action, and must therefore choose the most pregnant one, the one 
 most suggestive of what has gone before and what is to follow." 
 
 We shall not dispute his conclusion. He has argued this matter out 
 at some length in previous chapters. But now notice what he has to say 
 about poetry in the contrasting statement: 
 
 "Poetry, in its progressive imitations, can use but a single attribute 
 of bodies, and must choose that one which gives the most vivid picture of 
 the body as exercised in this particular action." 
 
 This statement does seem to balance with the other rather prettily, 
 but where are its antecedents to be found? Certainly not in any of the 
 earlier parts of the book, and certainly not in any other 'links' in his chain 
 of conclusions. Nowhere has he had anything to say about the number 
 of attributes that can be used in description. The preceding statement on 
 poetry — ^the one that we have just been criticising — should tell us that we 
 can describe without using any attributes whatever. Since the agent is 
 a body with certain characteristics, when we mention the mere name we 
 suggest these characteristics, and hence present potentially a certain amount 
 of description. Now if the cause for the failure of so many descriptions 
 is that which Lessing would have us believe, that is, that language is so 
 slow it cannot keep up with flie rapidity of perception, why not reduce 
 our description to its lewest terms? Why employ even a single epithet? 
 Clearly it would seem that if he were entirely consistent, Lessing should 
 have given us for his contrasting statement one something like this: Just 
 as painting in its unprogressiveness uses but a single moment of time, 
 poetry in its progressive development should use but a single symbol — 
 that is, the name of the object itself. Here indeed we have a consistent 
 
— i8 — 
 
 argument, though it is not one we should wish to follow. Art is too com- 
 plex to be encompassed by such simple rules. 
 
 But how did Lessing arrive at this idea? The explanation, as I see 
 it, is an interesting one. He had been giving his conclusions in con- 
 trasting pairs. He had shown at some length in previous chapters that 
 ' painting can use but a single moment of time, but he had nowhere developed 
 any idea about poetry that could serve as a balancing statement. Never- 
 theless he knew that Homer used single epithets, and since he wished his 
 argument to be in accordance with the example of Homer, he worked back 
 from the method followed in the epics to a generalization that would be in 
 accordance with it. This he boldly assumed as the true principle, just 
 as if he had proved it, and introduced it as the statement correlative to the 
 one about painting. Then having assumed it, he deduced from it the 
 rule that had at first suggested it, — "Hence the rule," he says, "for the 
 employment of a single descriptive epithet." Then last of all he canfirms 
 all this by referring to Homer: "I should place less confidence in this 
 dry chain of conclusions, did I not find them fully confirmed by Homer, 
 or, rather, had they not been first suggested to me by Hefner's method." 
 An interesting example of reasoning in a circle. 
 
 We have found, then, that there is more than one flaw in Lessing's 
 argument, and we are not through with it yet. But before we try to 
 destroy anything further in the Laocoon, let us seek that missing principle, 
 lately referred to, that can serve as the basis in the diflferentiation of litera- 
 ture and formative art. At the beginning of his 'chain of conclusions,' 
 Lessing speaks of the different signs (Zeichen) or means of imitation 
 used by painting and poetry. Until a short time ago I was for some reason 
 under the impression that Lessing meant by sign what is ordinarily meant 
 by symbol, and that, therefore, it was his idea that painting has a symbolism 
 of forms and colors which exactly corresponds to the sounds used by f>oetry. 
 In this I misunderstood Lessing. I now believe that he meant by the 
 word sign nothing more than the material out of which, or by means of 
 which, the respective arts represent their ideas. 
 
 But if he had really intended to say what I thought he said, he would 
 again have made a: mistake, for it is precisely in connection with the use 
 of symbolism that we find the true basis for the differentiation of the 
 sister arts. Poetry — or more broadly speaking, literature — has td use in 
 the presentation of most of its ideas an elaborate, artificial symbolism. 
 There is nothing in the form or the sound of the word knife, for instance, 
 which makes that symbol particularly fit to suggest to us a thing to eat 
 with. A person unacquainted with our language could no more tell the 
 meaning of the word from its form and sound than we could guess the 
 meaning of Messer or coutemt if we did not know German or French. 
 Knife means to us what it does, simply through previous associations of 
 the word with the object. The word by its own nature does not show us 
 the thing, it simply stands for it arbitrarily. That is, literature is obliged 
 to present its visual ideas indirectly through a word symbolism. Such is 
 
— 19 — 
 
 not the case with painting or with the formative arts in general. They 
 can present their objects directly in terms of the very sensations. A knife 
 in painting has, as far as possible, the same visual characteristics as the 
 real knife one uses at the table. To be sure, formative art may and 
 often does use symbolism with complete success, but this symbolism which 
 formative art employs is generally natural as opposed to artificial. There 
 is at any rate a very close relation between the sign and the thing signified. 
 Formative art, then, may be almost universal in its immediate appeal, 
 whereas no one can appreciate literary art until he understands the language 
 in which it is written. A painted landscape means a landscape to every- 
 body; not so the description of a landscape. This difiference of directness 
 and indirectness in presentation is the boundary between the two fields of 
 art, the principle determining for each its 'separate aims and methods. The 
 Sull importance of this difference will become clearer as we proceed. 
 
 Lessing has admitted more than once that language is arbitrary, and 
 we have agreed with him so far as to say that most words have no special 
 fitness to stand as the symbols for the particular ideas which they repre- 
 sent. But clearly this cannot be the meaning that Lessing had in mind 
 for the word arbitrary, because surely the fact that words are not fitted 
 to stand for their ideas cannot help them in the work of description, and 
 Lessing admits distinctly that language can describe to some extent just 
 because it is arbitrary. What Lessing must mean by the term, then, is that 
 the same word can suggest the same idea to each of us. Passing over the 
 question for the moment whether this is true or not, we can reply to 
 Lessing that if language is arbitrary in this sense, then it must be an ideal 
 medium for enumerative description. All that is necessary for adequate 
 description is to give first the general impression and then to follow this 
 by details in the order in which they naturally suggest themselves. But 
 there is another characteristic about language that Lessing apparently has 
 not thought of, and that is, that language is not made up of isolated frag- 
 ments — each word does not give us a distinct impression — ^but we think 
 in wprd-groups, and it is possible to read a periodic sentence almost to its 
 close before the contained idea flashes upon the mind. This of course is 
 a great help to description. 
 
 If language were arbitrary I see no reason why it could not compete 
 with a photograph. But here again the facts are against Lessing : language 
 is not arbitrary. Mental imagery is a very personal affair ; it must necessar- 
 ily rest upon individual experience. The life history of no two persons is 
 the same; not only do men differ in their temperaments and inclinations, 
 but no two are able to go through exactly the same experiences. There- 
 fore the concepts and notions of things, which are built up out of experi- 
 ence, must also differ, and since words but represent these concepts and 
 notions, they too must have for different persons different associations. 
 Herein, I believe, lies the hardest problem of description: How is it 
 possible to suggest the same picture to all when the words used may mean 
 different things for ea,ch? The difficulty, I fear, is at least in part insur- 
 
20 
 
 mountable, for not only do concepts differ in themselves but they may 
 also call up different backgrounds. It will be best to leave this subject, 
 however, for a later and fuller discussion. 
 
 I have had much fault to find with Lessing on my way so far. Indeed 
 the discussion may have suggested that with regard to everything he said 
 he was somewhat in the wrong. It has been shown that he was wrong 
 in his assertions about Homer's methods, and wrong in his opinion that 
 the method of enumerative description runs counter to the process of 
 acquiring visual ideas. The argument has again thrown open to discussion 
 the whole theory of the limits of description — boundaries which Lessing 
 thought he had fixed for all time. Not to do this eminent thinker injustice, 
 let us now say a few words in his favor. 
 
 One of the chief ideas presented in the Laocoon — perhaps the most 
 important of them all — is that literature and formative art, by the very 
 nature of things, have different possibilities and methods. This is a fam- 
 iliar thought now, but it was Lessing who first impressed the idea upon 
 the world. If he had done nothing more he would deserve respect for 
 having accomplished that. But Lessing not only showed that the two 
 fields are different, he also gave us proper methods to use in making this 
 differentiation. 
 
 Furthermore Lessing's very errors served in their time a useful pur- 
 pose. His rule that description ought always to be progressive, though 
 it does not state the whole truth and though he did not establish it legit- 
 imately, is not far in the wrong. It goes much beyond the older idea, 
 which he attacked, that the poet should imitate the painter in portraying 
 scenes and faces. Though I attempt to show that description is broader 
 in method than Lessing supposed, far be it from my purpose to encourage 
 the frequent use of static and enumerative description. I am with Lessing 
 in standing for life and movement, but my reasons ai-e different from his, 
 and different largely because men have been making discoveries in psychol- 
 ogy in the hundred and fifty years since Lessing's time. So then, though 
 we have disputed Lessing's views at almost every step, all honor to the 
 man for having broken the way. 
 
 BOUNDARIES OF DESCRIPTION AS A TYPE OF DISCOURSE 
 
 Hereafter we shall not have much to say about Lessing and his theory. 
 The latter has done us good service as an introduction to our work, and 
 while we have not yet determined as definitely as possible the boundaries 
 and methods of description, we have learned from the preceding chapters 
 that Lessing's ideas on the subject, though stimulating, are not very trust- 
 worthy. We need then feel no uneasiness if the ideas that we shall pres- 
 
■21- 
 
 ently work out are not in accordance with those expressed in the Laocoon. 
 Modern scholarship, especially in the field of psychology, has made 
 advances since the time of Lessing, and it is with these advances that we 
 shall be chiefly concerned in our further study. 
 
 As preliminary to determining the boundaries of descriptive writing, 
 it seems desirable to state with exactness what is meant by description. 
 This is not so easy as might be supposed. Even a brief study of literary 
 types will afford ample illustration of the statement made by Gardiner in 
 his Forms of Prose Literature that the present "divisions of rhetoric are 
 artificial and largely arbitrary."" As a result writers are not entirely 
 agreed in the matter of definition. To add to the confusion, the types 
 overlap, so that it is sometimes difficult to tell whether a selection is descrip- 
 tive, or expository, or narrative. And some specimens of discourse, of con- 
 siderable interest and importance, it is impossible to classify under any of 
 the recognized types. These are some of the diificulties that stand in 
 the way of scientific definition. 
 
 The disturbing element in any discussion of classification is the type 
 exposition. It is this type which overlaps the rest. Being especially 
 designed to convey instruction, it has brought together from the fields of 
 description, narration, and argument whatever may be of service in didactic 
 composition. Rhetoricians have been slow to recognize this fact, and have 
 persisted in trying to mark out for it a field coordinate with the other types. 
 
 The current rhetorical division of literature into description, narration, 
 exposition, and argument (or persuasion), has now become so well-nig'h 
 universal in text-books that many students assume it to be founded in, the 
 nature of things and to have existed from the beginning of rhetorical spec- 
 ulation. This idea is so far from the truth that it will be worth our while 
 to consider briefly the genesis of our modern classification, if for no other 
 reason than to show how entirely dependent on practical considerations 
 has been the evolution of the various types. 
 
 According to Jebb," the founder of rhetoric as an art was Corax of 
 Syracuse (c. 466 B. C). In 466 Thrasybulus the despot of Syracuse was 
 overthrown, and a democracy was established. One of the immediate 
 consequences was a mass of litigation on claims to property. Such claims, 
 often dating back many years, would frequently require that a complicated 
 series of details should be stated and arranged. They would also, in many 
 instances, lack documentary proof, and rely chiefly on inferential reasoning. 
 The facts known as to the "art" of Corax perfectly agree with these con- 
 ditions.' It sought to help the plain citizen who had to speak before a court 
 of law. Thus rhetoric originated in a practical way. At first the only 
 recognized rhetorical type was that of argument or persuasion. But the 
 law court was not the only place where men were required to address 
 public assemblies. Civic duties and various other functions called for the 
 
 " J. H. Gardiner, The Forms of Prose Literature, N. Y., 1900, p. i. 
 " Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XX, p. 508 f.. Article, Rhetoric. Also Jebb's 
 ■Attic Orators. 
 
22 
 
 oration, nearly akin to the forensic speech. So in the course of time, and at 
 first as subordinate branches, two other kinds of rhetoric were added to 
 the forensic, — first, the deliberative, and later, the epideictic branch. 
 Aristotle, while he recognized the three types as coordinate, defined rhetoric 
 as the "faculty of discerning in every case the available means of per- 
 suasion;" though clearly in his own treatment the subject-matter had out- 
 grown this definition, for, as he pointed out, the epideictic branch is not 
 chiefly concerned with persuasion: it is the rhetoric of display. 
 
 Later, when the study of rhetoric was transferred to Rome, the point 
 of view was again considerably shifted. This, I believe, was due in large 
 part to fundamental differences in racial characteristics and in the taste of 
 the age. Since the Romans were not so analytical as the earlier Greeks, 
 they cared less for logical persuasion. The attainment of eloquence now 
 became the ideal of instruction in rhetoric. But eloquence is a broader 
 and looser term than persuasion and it has for its object to please quite 
 as much as to convince. Here, then, was a chance for an enlargement of 
 the field, and that is precisely what came about. 
 
 While these changes were taking place, however, there had grown up 
 another body of theory, which dealt with the aims and methods of the 
 literature of pleasure. This theory had at first nothing to do with rhetoric. 
 It was known as poetics and later as a part of grammar. But after 
 rhetoric broadened its horizon, parts of this theory began to find their way 
 into rhetorical teaching. The Romans and the later Greeks gave the 
 youth instruction in descriptive and narrative writing (fables) as a pre- 
 liminary to the more advanced and more important study of eloquence. 
 The reading and memorizing of poetry was also made a part of this 
 elementary instruction. These subordinate branches assuming a more and 
 more important place, the study of rhetoric, by the beginning of the modern 
 epoch, had come to embrace two distinct kinds of discourse: the literature 
 of eloquence or persuasion, and the literature of pleasure. It is in the 
 latter field that description and narration have achieved their development. 
 Many books in rhetoric have treated them solely in connection with poetry, 
 and even at the present day they are still almost entirely limited, though 
 perhaps unintentionally, to the literature of pleasure. They are still chiefly 
 concerned with an appeal to the imagination. 
 
 In modern times the scope of rhetoric has been extended still farther. 
 The name eloquence was applied to writing as well as to speaking, and rhet- 
 oric thus became the art of writing well. It also added to itself the 
 study of Belles Lettres. Any branch of literature about which it was 
 thought a student should know, whether for purposes of composition or 
 appreciation, was felt to be a fit subject for rhetorical instruction. Besides 
 orations, rhetoric already included poetry, and now it began to add such 
 other types of literature as sermons, essays, dissertations, histories, and 
 even letters. Reaching out into this new territory, rhetoric laid claim to 
 another field of literature, — a field that may be called the literature of 
 instruction. With the dissertation it approached the most modern of all 
 
— 23 — 
 
 our present types of discourse, that which we know as exposition. As 
 nearly as I can discover, exposition was first recognized in the rhetorics about 
 the middle of the nineteenth century, being forced upon the attention of stu- 
 dents of rhetoric by the growing interest in scientific instruction. 
 
 In late years rhetoric has continued to change. It has now limited its 
 work almost entirely to instruction in prose composition. And in this 
 field it has shifted the emphasis. Eloquence no longer holds the most 
 important place. Indeed this shift has been felt to be so great that writers 
 on the subject have often hesitated to call their text-books "rhetorics," pre- 
 ferring the name English Composition. I have suggested in the last few 
 pages that there are three purposes for which composition may be used, 
 that is, aesthetic pleasure, instruction, and conviction. Though these three 
 purposes have not as yet been consciously recognized in the matter of 
 classification, all three receive treatment in the present-day rhetoric, and 
 no one is given a preponderance of attention. Instruction in description 
 and narration deals mainly with the literature of pleasure, instruction in 
 exposition with the literature of instruction, and instruction in argument 
 with, the literature of conviction. 
 
 This brief and fragmentary account of the development of rhetorical 
 types will show why it is difficult to frame a satisfactory definition of 
 description. We can easily see, after such a review, that the theory and 
 aims of rhetoric have not remained stationary for the past two thousand 
 years. Contrary to the opinions of certain learned men,'' Aristotle has 
 not had the last word to say upon this subject.- It has been revolutionized 
 several times since his death. The numerous types that since then have 
 been adopted, have been added for practical reasons. Their subject-matter 
 has first grown up outside the rhetorics. Such conditions are not ideal 
 for obtaining a logical classification. 
 
 In the greater number of modern text-books the classification of types 
 of discourse is based on two conflicting principles : first, the nature of 
 the idea, that is, whether it is specific" or general; and secondly, the pur- 
 pose of the discourse, that is, whether it is to instruct, to convince, or to 
 arouse aesthetic pleasure. Though the second of these principles is, as 
 I have said, the less consciously employed, I think it is nevertheless the 
 more serviceable of the two. It is possible to show this in discussing the 
 relations of exposition to the other types. 
 
 Exposition is pre-eminently the type employed in scientific and other 
 similarly instructive discourse. In this field it presents material, it explains 
 and interprets it, and it argues about it if necessary. The last of these 
 uses may be considered first. It is usual to differentiate scientific argument 
 from exposition by limiting the former to questions in dispute and the 
 latter to material that is accepted by all. But as applied to writers that 
 are genuinely scientific this distinction has little value. So slight is the 
 difference in method between the two, that what is argument for one person 
 
 " Cf., for example, the Preface to Welldon's translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric. 
 " With the specific is ranked the concrete, with the general the abstract 
 
— 24 — 
 
 may be exposition for another. Mr. Gardiner" makes this point clear by 
 citing the case of Darwin's Origin of Species. Darwin spoke of his book 
 as an extended and difficult argument; we think of it nowadays as an ex- 
 position. That is, scientific argument"', as soon as it is generally accepted, 
 becomes sound exposition. 
 
 As regards the presentation of ideas, exposition is engaged in the 
 same kind of work as description and narration. It is customary to sep- 
 arate exposition from the other two kinds of writing on the ground that 
 it deals with abstract and general ideas, while description and narration 
 present ideas that are concrete and specific. It is possible to show, how- 
 ever, that this distinction is accidental rather than essential, and that the 
 principle of division will not hold absolutely for either of the members. 
 Exposition sometimes deals with the specific and conprete''°. For in- 
 stance, it may present and discuss the traits of one bird as, well as those 
 of a whole species, and a description of the former may be virtually, iden- 
 tical with a description of the latter. Not only in method but even in the 
 actual words employed, there may be no appreciable difference between the 
 accounts of how a stamping machine makes a particular coin, and how it 
 makes any coin. If, then, the purpose, the methods, and even the very 
 words used may be the same for the general as for the specific, what is the 
 logical value of the principle of division? 
 
 Furthermore, not every presentation of general or abstract ideas is 
 expository. Consider, for instance, the following from Robert Greene's 
 Content: 
 
 Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content, 
 The quiet mind is richer than a crown. 
 
 Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent. 
 The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown: 
 
 Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,. 
 
 Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. 
 
 What have we here except a presentation of general or abstract ideas? 
 Yet few persons would venture to call it exposition. In both spirit and 
 purpose it differs much from writings of the expository type. Its aim 
 is not so much instruction as self-expression. 
 
 I think I have shown that to posit the qualities of abstractness and 
 generality as necessary attributes of exposition, does violence to the type 
 as regards both method and subject-matter. But if this principle of divi- 
 sion is unfair to exposition, it also works no less injustice to description 
 and narration. If, for instance, we lay down the rule that description must 
 not deal with generalizations, we deny to it the right to present that which 
 is typical. This means that character descriptions and even personal de- 
 scriptions such as are found in biographies, must in theory be excluded from 
 
 " The Forms of Prose Literature, p. i6. 
 
 " This is less true for artistic argument, or persuasion, than for scientific argu- 
 ment, because in the former the emotional element betrays the purpose. 
 " Cf. A. S. Hill, The Principles of Rhetoric, 1895, p. 307 f. 
 
— 25 — 
 
 this category. Theoretically to limit descriptions, as we now generally do, 
 to specific objects or scenes, and then to allow to them in practice all sorts 
 of generalizations in the presentation of this limited subject-matter is the 
 height of illogicality. The fact is that in dealing with the essential character- 
 istics of single objects or scenes we require exactly as much generalization 
 as in expounding the essential characteristics of a genus of plants or 
 animals. 
 
 How shall we escape from this dilemma? I have already suggested 
 my answer. L,et us cease to regard exposition as coordinate with the other 
 types. Let us include under it all literature whose specific aim is instruc- 
 tion. We may then frankly concede that a part of its work lies in the field 
 of description. Coordinate with exposition is the literature of pleasure, 
 which also makes large use of description. These two main divisions rep- 
 resent the respective aims of science and art, and though science and art 
 sometimes mingle, the two are generally quite sharply differentiated both 
 in ideals and methods. 
 
 Further, in each of these main divisions there seem to be three possible 
 stages in conveying ideas. First of all there is simple presentation. That 
 is, some facts serve their intended purpose when they are merely stated, 
 their values and their relationships becoming at once apparent. A large 
 part of all artistic discourse belongs in this class. But oftentimes simple 
 presentation does not go as far as is necessary. Either the ideas are not 
 in that way made sufficiently clear, or the writer wishes to draw inferences 
 from them. This requires a second stage in presentation: the facts must 
 be explained and interpreted. But sometimes even this second stage is 
 not sufficient. The interpretation may be in dispute. In this case the 
 third and last stage becomes necessary : the writer must now resort to argu- 
 ment and persuasion. 
 
 The direct work of description is largely in the fifst of these three 
 divisions. According to this view, description and narration together cover 
 all the work done in simple presentation. Since their methods and purposes 
 are much the same, they frequently mingle one with the other. It is only 
 with the handling of action that the two fall apart, and even here the 
 difference is not so great as is often supposed. Description may present 
 action, if the action is duly subordinated and does not bring about a sig- 
 nificant change in the object. In narration, on the other hand, action is 
 essential. It is the organizing force in this kind of corhposition and brings 
 about significant changes in the object treated. But the two types are so 
 nearly allied that it is not always wise to attempt to differentiate them. 
 
 Hereafter, then, I shall consider description as being chiefly a kind of 
 presentation, though it is sometimes interpretative as well. The type's limits 
 will accordingly be somewhat broader than those usually assigned to it. It 
 will be held to include much that is at present thought of as exposition. It 
 is to contain unpicturesque as well as picturesque material; and it may be 
 used to convey matter-of-fact information as well as to cause objects, states, 
 and conditions to be vividly realized. Perhaps it may be thought that this 
 
— 26 — 
 
 is extending the limits too far, but if so, it is not because of the admission 
 of expository material but rather because some presentative material, artistic 
 as well as scientific, is so intangible and incorporeal that the presentation 
 of it lacks the sensuousness which we generally associate with the term 
 description. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE NATURE OF MENTAL IMAGERY 
 
 Thus far I have treated description as if it could make but one kind 
 of sensuous appeal, namely, to the organ of vision. I have been justified 
 in so doing, because that is the only type of description that Lessing treated. 
 But if the discussion had been entirely independent, I should still have been 
 justified in beginning with visual description. The reason is that the eye 
 is by far the most skillful of the sense organs. Impressions received in 
 other ways are comparatively crude. It is the eye that gives us the most 
 clearly defined and the most easily presented impressions. It goes so much 
 farther than any other sense that in general what is true of the others 
 is also true of it. It is, in a word, the most representative of all the sense 
 organs. 
 
 But we do not get all our sense impressions through the eye alone. 
 The normal man also hears, smells, feels, tastes, and moves. Each sense 
 gives him a share of his experience. Impressions obtained in any of these 
 ways are fit material for description, and description, if it is to do all of 
 which it is capable, must hold itself in readiness to make appeal to any of 
 the senses. For mstance, how ineffective would be a description of roast 
 beef that left out of account the savor! Why are we so much pleased 
 with the description of Calypso's grotto'" if it is not that it seems to make 
 all the senses tingle? Language can appeal to every sense, and the writer 
 fails to have a mastery of his instrument if he cannot suggest for his 
 reader the same wealth and variety of impressions that he finds in life. 
 Description, then, embraces all kinds of sensuous appeal. 
 
 But just in the number and extent of these possibilities are to be found 
 important limitations of which, I fear, many descriptive writers are totally 
 unaware. It is still not generally known, at least in a practical way, that 
 people differ very greatly in the sensuous nature of their mental imagery. 
 A person who is a good visualizer, — that is, one who sees the appropriate 
 picture arise in the mind's eye whenever he hears the name of an object, — 
 is naturally of the opinion that other people must be similarly constituted. 
 The good visualizer finds it hard to understand how those who are without 
 the faculty can think at all. Nevertheless there are many persons who 
 have no visual images worthy of the name. They perform all their mental 
 
 "■ Odyssey, Book V. ~ ~ 
 
— 27 — 
 
 processes— remembering, thinking, imagining— in other ways. The differ- 
 ences in this respect are so marked that men may be classified under various 
 types according to the nature of their mental imagery. Some persons 
 imagine chiefly in terms of sight, others in terms of sound, others in terms 
 of muscle sensations, etc. These differences are so important for the 
 understanding of descriptive effects, that a somewhat extended treatment 
 of them will be necessary at this point. 
 
 According to James, Galton was the first to develop this subject. His 
 method was to submit printed questions to a large number of persons." 
 
 "The first group related to the illumination, definition, and coloring of 
 
 the mental image, and were framed thus: 
 
 " 'Before addressing yourself to any of the Questions on the opposite page, think 
 of some definite object — suppose it is your breakfast-table as you sat down to it this 
 morning — and consider carefully the picture that rises before your mind's eye. 
 
 " 'l. Illumination. — Is the image dim or fairly clear? Is its brightness com- 
 "parable to that of the actual scene? 
 
 " '2. Definition. — Are all the objects pretty well defined at the same time, or is 
 the place of sharpest definition at any one moment more contracted than it is in a 
 real scene? 
 
 " '3. Coloring. — Are the colors of the china, of the toast, bread-crust, mustard, 
 meat, parsley, or whatever may have been on the table, quite distinct and natural?' 
 
 "The earliest results of my inquiry amazed me. I had begun by questioning 
 friends in the scientific world, as they were the most likely class of men to give 
 accurate answers concerning this faculty of visualizing, to which novelists and poets 
 
 continually allude To my astonishment, I found that a great majority of the 
 
 men of science to whom I first applied protested that mental imagery was unknown to 
 them, and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in supposing that the words 
 'mental imagery' really expressed what I believed everybody supposed them to mean. 
 They had no more notion of its true nature than a color-blind man, who has not 
 discerned his defect, has of the nature of color 
 
 "On the other hand, when I spoke to persons whom I met in general society, I 
 found an entirely different disposition to prevail. Many men and a yet larger number 
 of women, and many boys and girls, declared that they habitually saw mental imagery, 
 and that it was perfectly distinct to them and full of color " 
 
 Galton found that scientific men as a class have feeble powers of visual represen- 
 tation. "My own conclusion is," he says, "that an over-ready perception of sharp 
 mental pictures is antagonistic to the requirement of habits of highly generalized 
 and abstract thought, especially when the steps of reasoning are carried on by words 
 as symbols, and that if the faculty of seeing pictures was ever possessed by men who 
 
 think hard, it is very apt to be lost by disuse I am, however, bound to say 
 
 that the missing faculty seems to be replaced so serviceably by other modes of con- 
 ception, chiefly, I believe, connected with the incipient motor sense, not of the eye- 
 balls only but of the muscles generally, that men who declare themselves entirely 
 deficient in the power of seeing mental pictures can nevertheless give lifelike descrip- 
 tions of what they have seen, and can otherwise express themselves as if they were 
 
 " The paragraphs of fine print that follow are taken mainly from James's Prin- 
 ciples of Psychology. 
 
— 28 — 
 
 gifted with a vivid visual imagination"'. They can also become painters of the rank 
 of Royal Aciademicans 
 
 "It is a mistake to suppose that sharp sight is accompanied by clear visual 
 memory. I have not a few instances in which the independence of the two faculties 
 
 is emphatically commented on The visualizing and identifying powers are by 
 
 no means necessarily combined. A distinguished writer on metaphysical topics 
 assures me that he is exceptionally quick at recognizing a face that he has* seen before, 
 but that he cannot call up a mental image of any face with clearness. 
 
 "Som? persons have the power of combining in a single perception more than 
 
 can be seen at any one moment by the two eyes I find that a few persons can, 
 
 by what they often describe as a kind of touch-sight, visualize at the same moment 
 
 all round the image of a solid body Some persons have the habit of viewing 
 
 objects as though they were partly transparent They can also perceive all the 
 
 rooms of an imaginary house by a single mental glance, the walls and floors being 
 as if made of glass. A fourth class of persons have the habit of recalling scenes, not 
 from the point of view whence they were observed, but from a distance, and they 
 visualize their own selves as actors on the mental stage. By one or other of these 
 ways, the power of seeing the whole of an object, and not merely one aspect of it, 
 is possessed by many persons. 
 
 "Images usually do not become stronger by dwelling on them"; the iirst idea 
 is commonly the most vigorous, but this is not always the case. Sometimes the mental 
 view of the locality is inseparably connected with the sense of its position as regards 
 the points of the compass, real or imaginary " 
 
 We see, then, that people differ much in the nature of their mental 
 imagery. Even those of the visual type imagine in several different ways. 
 But all are not visualists. Those who are not, that is, those who do not 
 think and remember in terms of images of sight, use other mental material. 
 They belong to other types of which the two most important are the audi- 
 tory and the motor or motile. 
 
 "The auditory type," says M. A. Binet, "appears to be rarer than the visual. 
 Persons of this type imagine what they think of in the language of sound. In order 
 to remember a lesson they impress upon their mind, not the look of the page, but 
 the sound of the words. They reason, as well as remember, by ear Imagina- 
 tion also takes the auditory form. 'When I write a scene,' said Legouve to Scribe, 
 
 " Cf. the following description by Mr. jRobert Holliday. This writer, as I know 
 from personal acquaintance, is not of the visual type, — he is largely motor, — ^yet not 
 only can he write descriptions like the following but he also has skill as an artist. 
 
 "The penmanship completely surpassed my highest expectation. It was a reve- 
 lation That a human creature could create such illuminations with simple pen 
 
 and ink was marvelous. It was the gentleman of the old school style of penmanship 
 carried to excess. The upstrokes were amazingly fine, and the down strokes as 
 amazingly heavy; the capitals were dreams of flourishes, flourishes that went round 
 and round, like pin-wheels, and intertwined and encircled each other : in some places 
 they were as thin as a hair, and in some places as broad as the eighth of an inch. 
 They mixed up with small letters and lost themselves among them, and reappeared 
 further on down the line. 'It was made with the whole arm movement,' explained 
 Murphy, and I believe him. In a mental picture now I can see that talented and ac- 
 complished man push back his cuff and sway his whole arm from the shoulder, 
 around and around, preparing to begin." — R. C. Holliday, A Conspiracy. 
 
 " For a more detailed treatment of this question, cf. A Preliminary Study of the 
 Behavior of Mental Images, J. W. Slaughter, Am. Journal of Psychology, vol. XIII, 
 p. 526 f. 
 
— 29 — 
 
 'I hear; but you see. In each phrase which I write, the voice of the personage who 
 speaks strikes my ear. Vous, qui etes le theatre meme, your actors walk, gesticulate 
 before your eyes; I am a listener, you a spectator.' 'Nothing more true,' says 
 
 Scribe 
 
 "The motor type," continues Binet, "remains perhaps the most interesting of 
 all, and certainly the one of which least is known. Persons Who belong to this type 
 make use, in memory, reasoning, and all their intellectual operations, of images 
 derived from movement. In order to understand this important point, it is enough 
 to remember that 'all our perceptions, and in particular the important ones, those 
 of sight and touch, contain as integral elements the movements of pur eyes artd 
 limbs; and that, if movement is ever an essential factor in our really seeing an 
 object, it must be an equally essential factor when we see the same object in imagin- 
 ation' (Ribot). For example, the complex impressions of a ball, which is there, in 
 our hand, is the result of optical impressions of touch, of muscular adjustments of the 
 eye, of the movements of our fingers, and of the muscular sensations which these 
 yield. When we imagine the ball, its idea must include the images of these muscular 
 sensations, just as it includes those of the retinal and epidermal sensations. They 
 form so many motor images." 
 
 To quote from James: 
 
 "Professor Strieker of Vienna, who seems to have the motile form of imagina- 
 tion developed in unusual strength, has given a very careful analysis of his own case 
 
 in a couple of monographs His recollections both of his own movements and 
 
 of those of other things are accompanied invariably by distinct muscular feelings in 
 those parts of his body which would naturally be used in effecting or in following 
 the movement. In thinking of a soldier marching, for example, it is as if he were 
 helping the image to march by marching himself in his rear. And if he suppresses 
 this sympathetic feeling in his own legs, and concentrates all his attention on the 
 imagined soldier, the latter becomes, as it were, paralyzed. In general his imagined 
 movements, of whatsoever objects, seem paralyzed the moment no feelings of move- 
 ment either in his own eyes or in his own limbs accompany them." 
 
 One branch of this general motor form of imagination is of sufficient 
 importance to be thought of as a separate type. It is known as the verbal 
 type. Without visual, auditory, or tactile imagery, the subject simply 
 knows. He goes no farther in his efforts to imagine than the mere state- 
 ment of the words that act as symbols for his thought. When he thinks 
 of 'red/ for instance, he does not see the color, but his . speech organs feel 
 the impulse to say the word 'red.' If by any means they are entirely 
 prevented from going through this impulse, then the mind — ^like Professor 
 Strieker's soldier — seems paralyzed; it cannot think or imagine the idea 
 at all. 
 
 Probably the verbal type of imagery is used by almost everyone for 
 certain kinds of mental work, particularly for abstract thinking. For this 
 reason, if for no other, it must be reckoned with ; but from what has been 
 said it is evident that the verbal type stands somewhat apart from the others. 
 The visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and the part of the motor type not 
 verbal, — each of these presents its imagery in the very form in which the 
 .object is perceived by the senses. The verbal type, on the other hand, cor- 
 
— 30 — 
 
 responds, to, no special sense. Being ,ent;i,rej,jr .syrribpliq, it dops. nQ, pipf^ . 
 than to present infopjiation. , Althftpgh. it is,eff,ective,,for all of the senses, 
 in tujTi, it is not the immediate r.ep|•esentatip^ of any pne^ 
 
 We see from the foregoing that the audience which the descrip- 
 tiye writer addresses, is very heterogeneous in respect to its instruments 
 of appreciation. Some readers do a large part of their imagining in visual 
 concepts, others in auditory, others in motdr, and so on. This does, not . 
 mean that each person is restricted to jiist one type of mental imagery, . 
 bu,t tfiat most" are t6 a greater or less extent limited in the nuinher of types.. ^ 
 ofirnaginatipn at their seVyice. ' This^ limitation is important for pur theory,.^ 
 It makes clear to us that, no sensuous description wilj be realized, in the.,, 
 same form by all, and'that while one dass of details will arouse direct sense .. 
 impressions for one, class of readers,, for another class they will do no more 
 than to present inforniation. 
 
 L,et us illustrate.. Suppose a writer has described for us a fire-engine 
 rushing down the street. The description tells us first of the appearance > 
 of the scene, of the outward aspect of the firemen and the horses. Into 
 this picture there are then interwoven the various .ncBses,, that we^ know 
 are characteristic, such as the clatter, the shouts, the clanging of the gong, 
 etc. Finally the" writer tries to show us the strain and movement that 
 pervades the scene. Thus various senses are appealed to. What will be 
 the effect upon the reader? If his imagination is of the purely visual type, 
 all that appeals to the eye will be reproduced in his mind as yisual, imagery ; . 
 air else — that is the sounds, inovements, etc., will be merely. infprmatiQnj,, 
 to liim. _ It will not be . realized as sensuous, imag'eiy, , For the, auditory 
 reader, on the, "other hand^, it will be, the, various,, sounds ,whiGh. will be,„, 
 imagined in their. direct form, and all, else ,>vili be informatipn.,. Thus .fpr . 
 each class, of readers using. but, one type of mental- imagery,, there .will be- , 
 a certain part of the description which will be imagined sensuously and 
 another part which can hardly be thought of as imagined at all— it will 
 be mei'ely acquired as iriformatipn; and what will belong to one part and , 
 what to the'other "will depend largely upon the type of imagination the i^eader 
 uses.' If he can use several types,' he will find less in the description which 
 must be c6nsidei-ed as mere information, but, to take an extreme case,, if a 
 person were so restricted that he had to use the verbal type in all his mental 
 processes, then' for him the most sensuous of descriptipms, as well as the 
 mdst abstract,* could do no more than to present information. 
 
 "Perhaps there is ' no way of overcoming, entirely the difficulties we 
 have just brought to notice ; they must be considered as natural limitations 
 of the type. Nevertheless the descriptive writer may to an extent pb- 
 viate the incpnveniehce by making his wprk appeal tp as many senses as 
 ppssible. This methpd has the advantage pf giving at least a few sensupus 
 impressipns tp each class pf readers. It has alsp anpther advantage. Psy- 
 chplpgists knpw that the senses rautually strengthen each pther when used , . 
 simultaneously. James remarks" that patches pf cplpr held sp far off as 
 
 " Principles of Psyfholff^y, 'Vol. II, p. 29 f. 
 
— 31 — 
 
 not to be recognizable are immediately and correctly perceived when a 
 tuning-fork is sounded close to the ear, and that sounds which are on the 
 lirnits of audibility became audible when lights of various colors are exhib- 
 ited to the eye. I do not know of any experiments that have been tried with 
 the special purpose of determining the effect of one kind of mental image 
 upon another, but it would seem that the same principle ought to 'hold 
 here as in direct sensation. That is, if various senses are appealed to in 
 the reader, then those kinds of impressions which are most easily realized 
 will bring out other kinds naturally agsociated with them in experience. 
 Thus it is said"" that the mentioning of odors and perfumes oftentimes 
 seems to have' special power in calling out associated visual impressions. 
 In this connection it is interesting to note that the type of imagery 
 which is most often effective in bringing out these related sense impressions 
 is the motor type. Lessing, as we have seen, advocated the progressive 
 kind of description, which uses at least one kind of motor presentation, and 
 almost all theorists since his time have likewise advocated the use of motion, 
 in some form, in description. The reason generally assigned" has been that 
 language is better fitted to express action than to express rest. But this 
 reason, as I shall attempt to show later, is wrong, though the idea which 
 it is supposed to support is without question right. In my opinion the real 
 cause why motion is so effective in description is two-fold. First, motion 
 enters not only largely but almost inseparably into many forms of exper- 
 ience ; and secondly, though this needs confirmation, most persons seem to 
 be somewhat motor in imagination, and therefore ideas expressing motion 
 are almost universally realized in their own sensuous forms, and in this 
 realization bring up, at least faintly, other sensuous impressions with which 
 they are very closely connected. 
 
 VII 
 
 LIMITATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES OF DESCRIPTION DUE TO ITS INSTRUMENT 
 
 OF EXPRESSION 
 
 In Part IV we discussed the limitations imposed upon description by 
 its medium of expression. We learned that this medium differs essentially 
 from that employed by the formative arts in that it is symbolic while their 
 medium is directly presentative. Thus a painting gives us so nearly the 
 same sensations as the reality that under certain conditions the one may 
 be easily mistaken for the other. So too in music, we like the sequences 
 and combinations of sound, not because they stand for something apart 
 from what they are, but for their own inherent beauty. But poetry and 
 prose although they may have a music inherent in their spoken words, are 
 
 " Cf. C. S. Baldwin; Specimens of Prose Description, p. xii f. 
 
 " Cf. Royce, Some Recent Studies on Ideas of Motion, Science, Nov. 30, 1883. 
 
— 32 — 
 
 chiefly concerned with the expressing and transmitting of ideas by means 
 of a written and spoken symbolism. Their chief pecuHarity, as contrasted 
 with the formative arts, is that the words they use as a medium of expres- 
 sion are interesting not for what they are but for what they represent. 
 This characteristic gives to literature certain advantages and also certain 
 disadvantages. 
 
 We may say for each of the formative arts, such as painting or music, 
 that it has a special field imposed upon it by the sensuous medium it em- 
 ploys. Painting, for instance, should not aim to represent sounds, nor 
 music visual pictures, if each is to do the work for which it is best suited. 
 But if we seek the particular field in which literature can do its best, we 
 soon discover that literature has no special sensuous field in which it can 
 appeal to us directly. Everywhere it is symbolic, — doubly symbolic, we 
 may say, for it can use either a spoken or a written symbolism to express 
 exactly the same ideas. 
 
 As a result of the peculiar nature of its medium of expression, litera- 
 ture has at least one great advantage over any of the formative arts. Its 
 range is as broad as experience itself. It can express any kind of ideas, 
 true or imagined. It can set at naught time, space, and the recognized 
 facts of experience. It can present the sensuous and the non-sensuous with 
 like ease. It can analyze, synthesize, and generalize to any degree of which 
 the mind is capable. It can express equally well, movement or rest. It 
 can work rapidly or slowly. In its marvelous range and flexibility, lan- 
 guage afifords to literature the most perfect instrument of expression imag- 
 inable. 
 
 But symbolism is not without some disadvantages. At best it is an 
 indirect means of portrayal, and the signs it uses — at least in the case of 
 language — are made to stand very arbitrarily for the things they signify. 
 The direct sensations conveyed through words have to be translated into 
 thought-units of a quite different kind. This process cannot but bring 
 about a loss in the intensity of the impression. Suppose, for example, that 
 such a word as "knife" does call up in the mind of the reader a correct 
 visual picture, — and very often this does not happen, — even then there will 
 be a loss in effectiveness, because, as is well known, the remembered image 
 is never so vivid as the direct sensation. Thus we see that language cannot 
 compete with reality in intensity, and since the formative arts present their 
 impressions directly, using the same sensations as the reality, they have 
 literature at a great disadvantage in this respect. Literature cannot hope 
 to be as sensuously intense as the formative arts in their natural fields." 
 
 But lack of sensuous vividness is not the only disadvantage at which 
 literature is placed because of its instrument of expression. We have noted 
 in a preceding part of this essay that words do not mean the same for all 
 hearers or readers, and that mental imagery is a very personal affair, rest- 
 
 '" I say 'sensuously intense,' because when it comes to conveying thoughts and 
 feelings, the case is different. Thoughts and feelings may go beyond what sensuous 
 imagery directly expresses. Thus for certain purposes literature may possess a more 
 effective instrument for intense expression than any of the formative arts. 
 
— 33 — 
 
 ing on a basis of individual aptitude and experience. Not only do persons 
 differ in the types of imagination they can use, but even for those of the 
 same type the imagery suggested by a given word is hardly ever identical 
 for all. That brings us again to the very hard problem: How is it 
 possible to suggest the same picture to all readers when the words used 
 may mean different things for each? We have confessed that the difficulty 
 seems at least in part insurmountable, but let us discuss this subject now 
 more in detail. 
 
 First of all there are cases in which the writer has some chance for 
 success. For instance, if it is his task simply to call to mind an object 
 already sensuously known to the reader, he ought not to have much diffi- 
 culty in achieving his purpose, for in this case writer and reader have a 
 common basis in experience. Thus in describing a portrait of Washington 
 a writer should be able to suggest, at least to every American, an almost 
 identical conception, because we have all seen portraits of Washington. 
 In this case the writer is not called upon to build up an entirely new image, 
 he has merely to recall to the reader material that is already stored in his 
 mind. 
 
 A more difficult case is that in which a writer attempts to describe 
 to an unknown reader an object which the latter has not seen. But here 
 again there is not always the same degree of difficulty. If the object 
 described is a very simple one, with the parts few and clearly related, there 
 will be more chance for success than if the object is complicated. Thus 
 it is easier to describe a door than a house. Suppose, for instance, I wish 
 to convey to a reader the exact appearance of the house that Mr. M. lives 
 in. What will be my difficulties ? In the first place everything I say will be 
 interpreted in the light of the reader's experience, not in that of my own. 
 He has seen innumerable varieties of houses, but perhaps the type most 
 readily suggested to him is very unlike the one of which I am thinking. 
 Now I can control his notions to some extent by saying that the house 
 is large, of red brick, etc. These added details help immensely by limiting 
 the range of selection, but they hardly make it possible for me to achieve 
 complete success, for there are so many kinds of large red-brick houses that 
 even the limited concepts may be almost as divergent as they were before. 
 Also when I begin to mention different parts of the house, I meet new 
 difficulties, because the reader will probably have his individual concept 
 for each new detail I add. For instance, I tell him the house has a porch. 
 Not only will he be likely to imagine the wrong kind of porch, but he 
 will also be likely to join it to the house at the wrong place. Thus the 
 trouble grows, until at last, if my description is very long, I may suggest 
 to my reader nothing but hopeless confusion. 
 
 Another source of difficulty in description is that the concepts sug- 
 gested are not only different in themselves from the idead tlie writer 
 intended, but they are also likely to bring along with them into the mental 
 picture irrelevant details that confuse the reader. Thus to say that a 
 building is of red brick may suggest many things that have nothing to 
 
-34 — 
 
 do with the materials, such as the shape, size, etc. In actual seeing, the 
 field of vision, as was explained in Part III, has of necessity a center or 
 focus of attention^ and around this there is a fringe or background that 
 is less distinct. Now since our mental imagery is made up of repro- 
 ductions of things we have actually seen, these reproductions, though they 
 may come back to us in modified forms, bring with them the accompani- 
 ments which they had in actual seeing. Each detail, therefore, as it is men- 
 tioned, may bring up with it a background that is entirely irrelevant. 
 
 These difficulties of description may be illustrated by a simple experi- 
 ment. Suppose that wishing to describe a friend I begin by stating that he 
 has an aquiline nose. What will be the effect of this statement on my 
 description? In the first place, since aquiline noses differ somevi^hat in 
 their shapes, I may not suggest exactly the same picture to all. But that 
 will not be my main difficulty. This will arise from the fact that we are 
 accustomed to seeing noses in connection with faces, and so when I men- 
 tion a particular kind of nose, if I call up any image at ali, I am more than 
 likely to suggest a face along with it, and this face may have no resemblance 
 whatever to the one I have in mind. 
 
 To discover how different the results might be for dift'erent readers, 
 I tried the following experiment on my students. I asked them whether 
 the sentence, 'This person has an aquiline nose,' suggested the particular 
 kind of nose by itself, or a nose as part of a face, and if the latter, what 
 kind of face was suggested. In answer to the question some stated that 
 they saw no visual image at all; but all who did see a nose saw also a 
 background of some familiar face. Here are some of their statements: 
 
 "He had an extremely masculine face — very long and thin, with a very prominent 
 ■long chin — light complexion — blue eyes." 
 
 "In my mind I see the face of a four-year-old girl friend — light curly hair — 
 ruddy complexion — prominent forehead." 
 
 , "The face of a man whose forehead is half circled with a mass of black hair — 
 small, sharp, piercing eyes — firm, medium-sized mouth." 
 
 "When aquiline nose is mentioned I think of a broad forehead, deep-set eyes, 
 and broad face with high cheek bones." 
 
 "The face I see is a broad, good-natured face with twinkling eyes— the face 
 of a man about forty years old." 
 
 "Sharp nose — long slim face — face not very full." 
 
 Now if. these are fair samples of the results that may be obtained by 
 using such a simple descriptive phrase as 'aquiline nose,' we can readily see 
 that photographic description is an impossibility. If every other detail 
 mentioned should in like manner bring up its own irrelevant background, 
 by the time one had presented a half-dozen ideas about the face, what a 
 confusion of bapkgrpunds the reader would have! 'Aquiline nose' might 
 sug'gest an old man; 'blue eyes,' a young girl; 'blonde mustache,' a face still 
 different ; and so on. How could prie fuse all this together into one picture ? 
 ,To be sure, the case is npt generally so bad as here presented. It is not 
 necessary that each word shpiild bring up a separate image. As I have 
 
—35 — 
 
 • -said "before, we read in word-groups, — a number may gotogether to produce 
 •'a sitigle irtikge. JSTeVerthetess' each "group, be it large' or' small, is' very 
 
 jikely t6 call up with it irrelfevant details^' and if we permit tod, many of these 
 ■ groups' to 'cover tlie same image-territory ."the result m^ay well be that the 
 
 irrel'eiant details will ihteWere' with' each other and obscure or confuse 
 
 'the' 'whole picture. 
 
 Fof'me'such is the effect of the followitig des'criptibn hy i' distinguished 
 ' rtl'ari of letters: 
 
 "He came into the room a quaint, stump figure of a man, whose eflfect of long 
 
 ; trunk and short limbs was heightened by his fashionless trousers being let down too 
 
 low. He h'ad a not'le face, with tossed haif, a distraught eye, and! a fine aquilinity of 
 
 profile, ' which made me think at once of Don Quixote and of C'ervarite? ; but his 
 
 iiose failM to'add that foot "to his stature which Lamb says a nose of that shape will 
 
 " always give' a man." 
 
 This description confuses me not so much by the number of details 
 as by the incongruity Of the things listed, I have material enough here; for 
 three or four pictures, and since my visual images are rather weak and also 
 under poor cotitrol, I am not" able to fuse these various^ pictures together. 
 The' separate details will not harmonize. , i 
 
 In actual observation no such difficulty exiists. When I look at a pic- 
 ture, the backgrduiid that I see is always relevant, that' is, it is made; 'up 
 of details of the one picture, and every part of it that I notice, serves only 
 to strengthen the total impression and to bind closer together the various 
 details. So here again, because of its use of symbolism, literature — -aijd 
 therefore, description — is pUt at a great disadvantage in comparison with 
 the formative arts,^so great in fdct that it cannot hope to compete with 
 the latter in the production of exact or universal images. I .liaye frequently 
 read short descriptions to people for them to- sketch or outline on paper. 
 For the same words ' I have never had ' two drawings thit looked in ariy 
 'Svay' alike. 
 
 But in this competition with reality description is no worse off than 
 any other branch of literature. Lessing was of the opinion that language, 
 by its very nature, was better fitted to express action'^ than rest, but I 
 cannot agree with him. If descriptions of objects are not equal to paint- 
 ings in intensity and universality of impression, neither are narratives in 
 the same respects equal to the drama when presented on the stage, nor 
 are descriptions of music equal to the actual performances. In each case 
 the reason for the weakness lies deeper than the fact that words follow 
 each other in time order. It is found' in the element of symbolism in 
 the instrument of expression.'" 
 
 ^ In a limited sense Lessing may be right. Since language does arouse incon- 
 gruous backgrounds, and since the latter have more chance to get in each other's 
 way in static than in progressive description, we may indeed argue that language 
 is better fitted to express progressive action than rest. This, however, is not Less- 
 ing's argument. See p. 3- . ■ r , ■ , , ■ 
 
 " However, literature has its compensations. Just because it uses symbols, it 
 has not only greater range but also greater quickness and ease, and just as algebra 
 
-36- 
 
 Description, because it uses symbolism, generally does no more than 
 to convey the essential truth of the object portrayed. It arouses in the 
 mind of the reader not the sensuous image that the writer saw, but another 
 image like the former only in that it has the same essential characteristics." 
 
 I think we have now determined the principal differences between 
 description and painting. The advantage of the latter is found in its power 
 of denotation. A few lines will give more exact sensuous information than a 
 page of description. But just because formative art uses direct sensations 
 it cannot rely on imagination to so great a degree to supply deficiencies 
 and omissions. A few bold strokes will give to all observers the same out- 
 line, but they are not likely to suggest for anyone a finished picture or much 
 more of picturesque detail than they really present. The reverse is true of 
 description. The power of the latter lies in connotation. Since every word 
 calls up associations, a few well-chosen descriptive epithets and phrases 
 may suggest a picture that seems as complete and lifelike as reality. 
 
 can do higher work than arithmetic, so literature can go beyond formative art in 
 delicacy, suggestiveness, and interpretation. A picture or a photograph, as a mere 
 object of perception, is a remarkably abstract and unsuggestive thing. We have to 
 regard it long and closely in order to analyze it completely. This is not true of 
 objects presented through description. The impressions of the latter may not have 
 unity or coherence, but they are certainly analyzed. A brief description may assemble 
 more details than an actual observer could discover in hours of study. I may assert 
 even more : a master of description may point out things that the ordinary man 
 would never see with his own unaided eye. 
 
 This suggests that the view afforded by description is personal. If the author 
 is a man of weak insight this is a disadvantage ; but a description written by a great 
 thinker may, through its suggestive and interpretative power, be of as much value 
 as the sight of the object itself. Having the object before us or having known it in 
 the past directly does not make the description useless, — ^nay, that may be the very 
 reason why it is interesting. We seldom care for long descriptions of pictures, for 
 instance, unless we can see the originals or copies of them. 
 
 " This, however, is not as great a disadvantage for description as one might 
 suppose. In works of the imagination it makes very little difference whether non- 
 essentials are perceived alike or not, and even in books dealing with real places and 
 real men, it is generally easy to supplement descriptions with appropriate drawings 
 or photographs. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 
 
 The best edition of the Laocoon is probably 
 
 Lessings Laokoon. Herausgegeben und erlautert von Hugo Bliimner. 
 Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Mit dfei Tafeln. Berlin, Weid- 
 mannsche Buchhandlung, 1880. S. xxv — 756. 
 
 For my own work, however, I have used the edition by Hugo Goring 
 in the Cotta'sche Bibliothek, Stuttgart, and the translation by Ellen Froth- 
 ingham, now published by Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 For previous criticisms of Lessing's theories see the following: 
 
 Herder. Kritische Walder. Erstes Waldchen. 
 
 Bollman. Ueber das Kunstprincip in Lessing's Laokoon und dessen 
 Begriindung. (Progr. d. Gym. z. grauen Kloster in Berlin, 1852.) 
 
 Buck and Woodbridge. A Course in Expository Writing. Henry Holt 
 and Company, 1901. The second chapter touches upon Lessing's psychology 
 of vision. 
 
 Edward L. Walter. On some points in Lessing's Laocoon. Ann Arbor, 
 1888. An admirable monograph on the boundaries of poetry and painting, 
 apropos of the Laocoon. 
 
 C. Rethwisch. Der bleibende Wert des Laokoon. Berlin, 1899. -^ 
 brief running commentary on the Laocoon. 
 
 Ph. Wegener. Grundfragen des Sprachlebens. Halle, 1885. See 
 especially chapter xxii. 
 
 The foregoing references relate to the parts of the Laocoon discussed 
 in this essay. For other Laocoon material the reader should consult 
 Bliimner, and 
 
 Gayley and Scott. An Introduction to the Methods and Materials of 
 Literary Criticism. Ginn and Company, 1899. 
 
 II 
 
 In his Commentar XVI, s. 6i2f., Blumner discusses Herder's and 
 BoUman's objections to Lessing's treatment of Homer. Bollman has pointed 
 out that the Palace and Garden of Alcinous, Odyssey, VII, are descriptions 
 that traverse Lessing's theory of Homer's method. Blumner says: 
 
 "Lessing hat diese Stellen keineswegs ubersehen. Er sagt in dem Entwurf zum 
 2. Theil des Laokoon, Frgt. A. S, No. XU : 'Neue Bestarkung, dass sich Homer nur 
 
-38- 
 
 auf successive Gemalde eingelassen, durch die Widerlegung einiger Einwiirfe, als 
 von der Beschreibung des Palastes in der Iliade (soil wohl heissen "Odyssee"). Er 
 wollte bloss den Begriff der Grosse dadurch erwecken. Beschreibung der Garten des 
 Alcinous; auch diese beschreibt er nicht als schone Gegenstande, die auf einmal in 
 die Augen fallen, welches sie in der- Natur selbst nicht sind.' Es ist zu bedauem, 
 dass Lessing diese Andeutung nicht weiter ausgefiihrt hat, vielleicht wurde seine 
 Ansicht dariiber noch deutlicher geworden sein. In der That scheint es namlich 
 nicht, als ob die Schilderung jenes Palastes den Begriff der Grosse erwecken soUe; 
 sondern Homer beabsichtigt? bei dieser Schilderung sOwohl wie bei der der Garten, 
 die beide ja ganz dicht beisammen stehn und daher 'eigentlieh' nur als ein' Beispiel 
 angef iihrt werden miissten, ■ den Begriff des Wunderbaren, Uebernatiirlichen zu 
 erwecken, wozu nicht nur die reichliche Vefwendung kostbarer Metalle beitragen soil, 
 sondern namentlich die kiiristlicheh Bildwerke von der hand des Hephaestos, und 
 die ewig bluhenden, immer Obst tragehden Garten." Blurnrier says that Homer 
 "schildert Coexistehtes, aber nicht umes dem Hofer als SolcHes zum Bewusstsein 
 zd bringen; sondern well er eine bestiihtnte Vorstellung — der Grosse older des Wunder- 
 baren — durch dieselbe' erwecken- will." 
 
 Apparently Lessing did not give the 'description' of the palace and 
 gardens of Alcinous very careful consideration. If he had he would hardly 
 have called it a' Neue'Bestdrhung. Bliimner does not seem to appreciate 
 fully the point at issue. Homer may' have tried' to produce the effect of 
 wonderfulness or of greatness or of both. The description certainly does 
 impress upon us the wonderfulness of the building, but that does not prevent 
 it from giving us also an idea of what the building looks like. The enumer- 
 ation of the coexistent parts gives us a. picture of coexistent parts. Some 
 of the details may be forgotten before the end is reached," but the total 
 effect is a unified impression of the whole building. I have lately read the 
 description of the palace to my mother, who iS a good visualizer. She is 
 very positive that she could see the whole palace as one picture. In fact she 
 was very much surprised to learn that some persons are unatle to visualize 
 , the description at all. She did not see how such, persons could understand 
 it or remember it; her thinking and her visual images generally went 
 together, and one seemed as essential as the other. If at ' any point the 
 , pictures came to her later than the ideas, the one seemed' necessary to com- 
 plete the other. For instance, 'when I read the word "bronze," she could 
 not at once see the exact shade of color. The nearest she could come to 
 it was a kind of brown, and her idea was no more exact that the color- 
 image. As she expressed it, she could not for a moment think exactly 
 what bronze was like. Her imagery was made up from things she had 
 seen, either in books or in actual experience. Before reading Homer's 
 account of the palace, I explained briefly the nature of the description and 
 iits setting. ^As I began, she saw first 'the outside 6f an "old castle and an 
 (oM man, Odysseus, approaching it. Thenithescetle shifted to the inside 
 <6f 'the same* building. 'As flew details wfife ttientidned, '^he added them 
 to her picture, ■ changing the original COnd^ptiSn ' as 'fer is 'tiec6ssary. She 
 ■ did this 'naturally -and easily, and- isnl-y -when she did not ilnderstand what 
 ta 'word meant 'did she 'feel any "Confusion, ^aiid then *the -ihiage '^as -^e^y 
 
— 39 — 
 
 < faint. She- saids that if at any time when she read a- description, she 
 
 ; found she had an entirely wrong conception of the object described, she 
 
 at once transferred her ideas to a new conception that seemed more nearly 
 
 right. A description made up of coexistent details gave her no trouble 
 
 whatever. For myself, I will say that I am not so strongly visual. My 
 
 imagery is usually located geographically, so to speak. Though I seldom 
 
 . see it. distinctly as a picture, I can map it out pretty accurately and tell the 
 
 size and position of the details. 
 
 Bliimner continues: 
 
 Nun bringt Bollman noch eine ganze Zahl anderer Homerstellen bei, die gegen 
 Lessing sprechen sollen. . . . SoIIten diese zahlreichen Beispiele, „deren Anzahl 
 sicht leicht vermehren liesse," alle Lessing entgangen sein? — Unmoglich! Lessing 
 muss sie gekannt, aber nicht als Einwiirfe betrachtet haben. Und das sind sie denn 
 naher betrachtet auch nicht. Nirgends ist todte Aufzahlung der Theile, iiberall ist 
 Leben und Bewegung; so bei der Grotto der Kalypso, Od. V, 59-73, wo diese selbst 
 geschildert ist, wie sie darin sitzt, singt und webt, wo Vogel hausen, die an der Kuste 
 des Meeres auf Raub spahen, etc.; .... Vielfach beschrankt sich die Schilderung 
 auf zwei bis drei Thatsachen : seiche kurze Besphreibungen zu verbieten, ist Lessing 
 natiirlich nicht eingefallen. . . Ich kann keine einzige der von Bollman angefiihrten 
 elf Stellen als Widerlegung von Lessing's Darlegung der Homerischen Methode 
 anerkennen. 
 
 I, have not. quoted all that Blumner has to say, but here, as in the 
 previous extract, Bliimner does not see clearly just how much Lessing 
 proves by his chain of conclusions. The latter argues that consecutive 
 signs can express only objects which succeed each other in time. This 
 is very different from saying that consecutive signs can or should express 
 only objects that have life or movement. In the description, of the grotto, 
 in the description of the ploughers and reapers on the shield, etc., Homer 
 introduces much life and movement. But that fact is not sufficient to make 
 these descriptions supports for Lessing's chain of conclusions. In order 
 to accomplish this it is necessary to show that there is progress, that the 
 consecutive signs represent things that stand in a like consecutive relation. 
 Therefore such a description as that of the grotto of Calypso is decidedly 
 opposed to Lessing's theory. All the things- mentioned — ^the fire, its frag- 
 rance,, the singing and weaving of Galypso-^though they may have action, 
 are contemporaneous. The various kinds of action are going on at the 
 same time. They belong to one picture. An enumerative description does 
 not Jhave^to be made up of dry, dead f.acts,..,as Bliimner would suggest, 
 .in Commentar XVIII, s. (527, in reply to, Herder's objection that the 
 
 ,description,of ; the, shield of .Achiljes, does. not give us a unified picture of 
 
 . the .completed shield, Blumner says: 
 
 Lessing will durchaus nicht. sagen, Homer erreiche bei seiner Beschreibung vom 
 Werden des Achillesschildes, dass wir ;de;n .)verdenden Schild am Schluss der 
 Beschreibung als gewordenen vor uns sehen; er betont nur, dass Homer die vielen 
 
 iBilder nicht nacheinan4er .erniiidend (besehreibt, .sondern sie .vor unsern Augen 
 
 .epsteljien lasst. 
 
— 40 — 
 
 If Bliimner is correct in his interpretation, it would appear that Lessing 
 meant to say that literature finds it impossible to portray artistically, by any 
 means, coexisting objects as coexistent. I think we have already shown 
 the absurdity of such a view. Not only is it possible to receive unified 
 pictures from descriptions, it is even possible to receive them from progres- 
 sive descriptions, though neither the example of the shield nor any other 
 example that Lessing mentions is very satisfactory. Perhaps the best 
 illustrations are to be found in mixed narrative and description. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Rethwisch, discussing section XVI, makes an interesting distinction. 
 He says : 
 
 "Das Korperliche ist der eigentliche Gegenstand der Malerei. 
 
 "Das Geistige ist der eigentliche Gegenstand der Poesie 
 
 "Von den Organen ausgehend mit denen wir Kunst- und Dichtwerke aufnehmen, 
 kann man sagen : Die bildende Kunst fiihrt ihre Darstellugen dem ausseren, die 
 Dichtung die ihrigen dem inneren Auge vor, jenes vermag nur Korperliches, dieses 
 nur Geistiges aufzunehmen. So ist das Korperliche das Bereich der Kunst, das 
 Geistige das der Dichtung. Da das aussere Auge aber seine Eindriicke als Vorstellun- 
 gen, also als etwas Geistiges, an das innere Auge abgiebt, so kann die Kunst auch 
 Geistiges darstellen, wenn auch nur mittelbar durch Korperliches. Und da das innere 
 Auge Vorstellungen durch das aussere Auge erhalt, so kann die Dichtung auch 
 Korperliches darstellen, wenn auch nur mittelbar durch Vorstellungen, also durch 
 etwas Geistiges." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Buck and Woolbridge mildly criticize Lessing's psychology of vision. 
 But though their account is interesting and helpful as an account of 
 mental processes, I do not think the method is one that will disprove 
 Lessing's theory. 
 
 "To a certain extent Lessing's view was right, inasmuch as words are slow 
 things compared with the senses, and language is slow in reproducing what the 
 senses have been quick in perceiving. But though there is this disparity in speed, it 
 ought to be recognized for what it is — a difference in degree, not in kind. For our 
 sense perceptions only appear instantaneous, they are not really so, but, as we shall 
 see, follow a discoverable order and sequence ; and it is this order and sequence which 
 we must observe, that we may reproduce it in the mind of our listener." 
 
 By reference to the effect of successive instantaneous exposures of a 
 bunch of leaves by means of a stereopticon or similar device, the authors 
 
— 41 — 
 
 show that our ordinary perceptions, which we think of as instantaneous, 
 really have stages. All our perceptions pass from the vague to the definite, 
 from the general to the detailed. In successive glimpses of the bunch of 
 leaves, first we see that the object is green, then that it is green leaves, then 
 that there are different kinds of leaves, etc. In a note we are told that 
 the mechanical difficulties in these experiments are greater than might be 
 supposed. The exposures to be of any value, must be managed with the 
 greatest care, they must be exceedingly short but complete, etc. 
 
 Now it seems clear that a method of this sort will not disprove Less- 
 ing's theory. If the process of perception is really so rapid that we have 
 to go to all this trouble to find out what it is, — ^that is, if the visual details 
 follow each other so rapidly as to appear instantaneous, language is certainly 
 not rapid enough to compete with the senses. Lessing in that case would 
 be correct in saying that language is not fitted to produce pictorial illusion 
 by the method of enumerated details. Unless we can show that language 
 unaided is commensurate in speed with unobstructed perception, we have 
 lost our case. But the authors have tried to prove something that it is not 
 necessary to prove so far as Lessing is concerned. Our concepts are often 
 complex ideas. The words green leaves suggest not a simple idea but a 
 complex idea of size, color, shape, etc. All these different notions follow 
 just as quickly upon the concept as upon the perception of the real object. 
 So the words may suggest just as complex a picture as we should obtain 
 from a glance at the green leaves. The process of description is the pre- 
 sentation of a further analysis, and, as we have already seen, this perceptual 
 analysis, obtained by looking at the real object, requires time that is com- 
 mensurate with the rapidity of language. 
 
 Wegener in his Grundfragen des Sprachlebens devotes Chapter xxii to 
 an attack upon Lessing's chain of conclusions {Laccoon, XVI). His main 
 points are the following: 
 
 Lessing said concerning the means (Mittel) of poetry i. (rightly) that 
 it uses articulated tones in a time order, 2. that these means are imitative, 
 3. that these means must unquestionably stand in a suitable relation to the 
 thing designated, and that, therefore 4. the thing designated, like the means 
 of imitation, must possess a chronological order. 
 
 With reference to 2. he asks : Is poetry really imitative of the things 
 it describes? He concludes it is not, for if it were, then the whole business 
 of poetry would be the imitating of articulated tones. He then asks : Is 
 poetry even an exact description of its materials? He says to describe 
 anything such as an action means to analyze it into its separate parts and 
 then to enumerate these parts one after the other. He concludes that 
 
— 42'— 
 
 poetry, is not even' a description, in a strict sense. "Alsoist nicht bios der' 
 von Lessing angfegebeneGrund' falsch, waram die Poesie nur HandliingieH' 
 darstellen konne, sonderti auch die Tha;tsaehe falsch,'*daSs Poesie' Hand' 
 lungen anschaulich zu besdhreiben vermochte." 
 
 VI' 
 
 With reference' to Les^ing-s theory of vision fcoiitpare the following 
 from' James's Prineifks of Psytholdgy-, II, p. 45 f. : 
 
 "Hume was the hero of the atomistic theory. Not only were ideas copies of 
 original impressions made on the sense-organs, but thcv were, according to him, 
 completely adequate copies, and were all so separate from each other as to possess 
 no manner of connection. Hume proves ideas in the imagination to be completely 
 adequate copies, not by appeal to observation, but by a priori rfeasoning . 'I'he 
 
 slightest introspective glance will show to anyone the falsity of this opinion. Hv.nie 
 surely had images of his own works without seeing distinctly every word and letter 
 upon the pages which floated before his mind's eye. His dictum is therefore an 
 exquisite example of the way in which a man will be blinded by a priori theories to 
 the most flagrant facts." 
 
 Hume lived from 17 1 1 to 1776; Lessing from 1729 to 1781. 
 
 VII 
 
 The objection has recently been urged before me that I have left out 
 of account the man of genius in my discussion of the rate and manner in 
 which people take in new scenes. It was admitted that I had stated the 
 facts with reference to the great majority of men and women, who indeed 
 perceive things slowly and by separate stages. But the point was made 
 that the genius has wonderful powers of taking in a whole scene at a 
 gl9.nce, and that therefore Lessing's theory would hold for the genius if 
 not for the ordinary man. I admit that I have not had the opportunity to 
 verify my theory in this particular. I have read of the wonderful visual- 
 izing powers of Macaulay and of painters who could reproduce scenes 
 exactly, after they had been away from them for a number of years, but 
 it has never yet been my good fortune to experiment on a person with 
 such extraordinary powers. However I do not believe that this fact vitiates 
 the argument. 
 
 That there is a great difference in people in their powers of perception 
 is true, but from the few experiments I have tried I believe it is a difference 
 of degree and not of kind. But suppose the difference is one of kind. 
 
— 43 — 
 
 Geniuses are few in number. Though they are the producers of great 
 Hterary works, they make up a very small percentage of the audience by 
 whom the works are read. Now Lessing argued — and rightly, too — from 
 the standpoint of the audience. It was because he believed that the reader 
 does not see things in the time order that he warned the writer not to use 
 enumerative description. But since most readers do see things in the time 
 order, we can say at least that Lessing failed to make good his position 
 in the way he intended. 
 
 Again supposing still that the genius sees things by a process essen- 
 tially different from that of the ordinary mind, why is he so well qualified 
 to act as the mouthpiece of the ordinary man? How can he make his 
 audience understand him? Such questions as these lead one, I believe, to 
 the view that the mental operations of the genius differ from those of other 
 men in degree rather than in kind. 
 
 Let us suppose that this is the diflference. Let us say that the genius 
 simply can do things more easily and quickly than the ordinary man. He 
 can see at a glance what it will take some little time for anyone else to see 
 equally well. Does then Lessing's theory hold good for the man of genius? 
 Is the latter so handicapped by his unusual powers that he is less fitted 
 than other men to appreciate the enumerative description? It would hardly 
 seem possible. It must not be forgotten that one word alone may be 
 sufficient to call up a complete picture, and the stronger a person's visual- 
 izing powers the more will he be able to call up with a single word. A 
 man with genius of this kind differs from the ordinary man in that he 
 has imagery much richer and more concrete. Because of these powers 
 it ought to be easier for him than for other men to deal with enumerative 
 description. He ought to be able to harmonize details and fuse them 
 together with a success which is beyond the reach of the ordinary main. 
 
 After I had finished this section of the appendix, my attention was 
 called to a note by W. C. Lawton and Russell Sturgis in the June number 
 of Scribner's Magazine (1904, p. 765), entitled "Poet and Artist." I quote 
 a few lines from the first part : 
 
 "In general, are not the best dramas, epics, romances, those which 
 leave impressed upon our souls one or two glorious pictures — a single group 
 at most, usually dominated by one heroic figure? .... And the dominant 
 central figure or group outlives in our memory all the incidents of the most 
 cleverly woven plot. . . . And conversely, a great picture is by no means 
 enjoyed at a single glance. . . . Such loving study still concentrates, not 
 distracts, our gaze: heightens, not lessens, the unity and pathetic meaning 
 
 of the picture the essential identity underlying all creative art, 
 
 literary and plastic, is infinitely more important than any diversity in 
 material and method." 
 

 DATE DUE 
 
 
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 PRINTED IN U.S A.