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Nothing forbids the adoption of one of these views as governing in the distribution of the principal heads and of another in the subordinate development; as a simple history or a philosophical history may very properly adopt purely chronological divisions as its leading divisions.

The life of invention in writing narrative, and the interest in reading it will depend essentially on the firm grasp of the theme proposed by the writer, as the one theme to be developed. Even in chronological and in philosophical narrative, there is a subject of change that must never be lost sight of. It must be a chronology or a philosophy of changes in that one subject. The importance of this principle is illustrated in the wearisome effect of those general histories which take us in successive chapters to different countries, without keeping before our minds any one subject or theme of narrative. history of the world's progress, which should firmly grasp the one race of men and present the successive changes they have undergone in their common relations, keeping the unity of the theme ever in sight, would be as attractive and as fascinating as most universal histories, so called, that have as yet appeared, are repulsive and wearisome. Such a universal history is a desideratum in our literature.

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It will be observed that the comprehensiveness of the theme will not affect the unity. The theme may be the life or the transaction of an individual, the history of a community or nation through the whole or particular stages of its existence; it may be a cause producing its effects on a single individual, a community or state, or the race generally, through greater or less periods of time; it may be an effect experienced over the world, as that of the Christianization of the earth or of a single continent, as the civilization of Europe or of an individual, as the moral greatness of Howard.

Further, as the highest and ultimate aim in all human action is a moral one, and as all discourse has an ultimate end which is moral in its character, although in narration the commanding end is the information of the understand

ing and thus purely intellectual, still it cannot be regarded as a violation of unity if incidentally the truths thus brought before the understanding be applied to a moral end. The historian, thus, by no means infringes on the law of unity, when he breaks from the strict course of his narration to apply the moral lessons which his narration teaches. This, however, in all proper narration, must never appear as the immediate and commanding, or even as a coördinate aim. If the inculcation of a moral lesson be made the controlling end, the discourse loses its proper character as narration. It then obeys other laws, and narration acts only a subordinate part.

§ 78. The Law of Selection requires that such chronological periods, such stages in the change of the object which constitutes the theme, and such causes that work out the change, be taken as will best secure the end of the narration.

In chronological narrative, the selection is comparatively easy. The earliest exercises in narrative composition should therefore be in this species of narration.

In purely historical narrative the selection is more difficult, for we cannot represent the object which forms the theme as actually changing. All that we can do is to assume successive points of time and mark the particular phases which the object presents at these points respectively, and leave it then to the mind of the reader to fill up the intervening period and imagine the actual progress of the change from one phase to another. The skill of the narrator will be shown in selecting such changes, or more exactly, in selecting such phases of the changing theme as will enable the reader to imagine how the whole change went on. In the history of a nation, thus, the changes that culminate in some great epoch of the nation's life, some great intestine or foreign war, some critical change in the administration, some new era of domestic industry, or the like, are changes that

the skillful historian will seize upon as those commanding phases in which its whole progress and growth may be seen. He will, of course, ever be careful to exhibit these not as isolated and independent, but as connected and in vital relation to each other.

In philosophical narrative a like difficulty in selection is to be encountered. Here the stages to be selected are the outworkings of the causal influence in producing the changes in the subject.

In abstract and spiritual themes, a still higher tact and skill is requisite in the selection of those particular stages in the progress of the object represented which shall most happily exhibit to the reader the actual progress, than is necessary in the narration of merely outward events. It is not with much difficulty that the naturalist seizes upon those stages of vegetable growth which shall give a clear idea of the entire continuous process. Although the tree is ever growing and the eye cannot trace from moment to moment the actual change that is going on, still the representation of the seed, the germinating state, the woody stage, the condition of decay or of the periodical changes, the ascent of the sap, the periods of foliage, of flowering, of fruit and the like is easy, because the successive stages or conditions of growth are definitely marked to the eye. In abstract subjects, however, these successive stages are with difficulty discovered; and the mere representation of the successive development of a vice, a virtue, a mental habit of any kind, in respect to time alone, demands nice discernment and sound judgment. When the causal influence is conjoined with this, the difficulty becomes still greater. For the causes that influence here are not only multiform, but are also not easy of detection. Their influence is silent and hidden. Hence, histories of the progress of civilization, of the progress of science, of opinion in every field of knowledge, appear only in the more mature developments of mind. Hence, too, moral painting, one variety of this species of narration, in

dicates at once, when only free from obvious faults, the hand of a master.

§ 79. The Law of Method in narration requires that the order of time be ever observed.

This is the one principle of arrangement in all narration. All explanation proceeds by steps, by exhibition of the

theme in its parts,
part by part. The parts in narrative
must be given in order of time. This general principle has a
slightly varying application to the several species. In chron-
ological narrative, the parts are periods of time, and the
order is the order merely of successive time. The notion of
time as continuous is dropped, as here there is neither an in-
terior subject, nor a cause working in the subject prom-
inently presented.

In proper historical narrative, the subject of change itself is prominently represented; the parts are the successive phases of the changing subject in the successive stages of time; and here, so far as is practicable, through the exhibition of the successive stages, the principle of time as continuous, as connected in its periodical successions, must be observed. As has been remarked, skill and tact are requisite here in order that the narrative may rise above a dry chronological detail to a proper history. It becomes necessary to apprehend the subject of the change and carry it along through all the successive phases of the changes, never dropping that from view.

In philosophical narrative the causal influence working in the subject of the change is the proper theme. The parts are the outworkings of the cause as seen in the changes of the subject. The cause, however, ever reveals itself to us only as working in successive and continuous time. As before, the subject changing, so now the cause working the change in the subject must be kept steadily and constantly in view. Here not chronological periods nor successive stages of the changing theme, but these stages as best re

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vealing the cause, or as best appearing to be effects of a cause, not as mere events, constitute the grand landmarks of the narration.

§ 80. The Law of Completeness requires that in chronological narrative all the events that mark the period chosen, in proper historical narrative all the changes in the subject, and in philosophical narrative the entire cause in all its workings, so far as the design of the narrative proposes, be presented.

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EXERCISES IN NARRATION.

1. Narrate chronologically by suitable distribution of periods the subjoined themes: (It should be remarked here that the exercise should be carefully criticized by the application of each of the laws of narration separately.) Aristotle; Galileo; Raphael; Louis Philippe; Hortense; Benjamin Franklin: the human race; the Jews; the French; the growth of a vine; the glacier; the crust of the earth; the growth of intelligence.

2. Narrate historically the following themes: Zenobia; Dante; Columbus; Richter; Shelly; Robert Bruce; Ledyard; Percival; Sparta; Alexandria; Gibraltar; Mohammedanism; the Papacy; Hungary; Poland; the slave-trade; paper money; English literature.

3. Narrate philosophically the following themes: The rise of chivalry; the progress of free institutions; the growth of art; the culture of the taste; the early spread of idolatry; the extinction of the aboriginal tribes of America; the decay of classical learning.

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