15. Much fruitless controversy between naturalism and idealism in art might have been saved by a consideration of the true character of the antithesis. It becomes unmeaning as soon as nature is expanded to the fulness of the idea. And so expanded it may be, for, according to the old formula, it is always in flux. It is never in being, always in becoming. As has been already pointed out, it is what we see; and we see according to higher and lower laws of vision. We may look at man and the world either from without or from within. We may observe man's actions like other phenomena, and from observation learn to ascribe them to certain general but distinct motives and faculties, which we do not refer to any higher unity; or, on the other hand, by the light of our own consciousness we may recognise that in man of which no observation of his actions could tell us--something which is in him, but yet is not his own; which combines with all his faculties, but is none of them; which gives them a unity, to which their diversity is merely relative. So again with regard to the phenomena of the world; we may look on these either simply as phenomena, or as manifestations of destiny or divine will. The former view of man and the world we may conveniently call _natural_, because the only view that mere observation can give us; the latter _ideal_, because making observation posterior to something given in thought. E. TRAGEDY AND THE NOVEL 16. The tragedian, then, idealises, because he starts from within. He reaches, as it were, the central fire, in the heat of which every separate faculty, every animal want, every fortuitous incident is melted down and lost. We never could observe in actual experience passion such as Lear's, or meditation such as Hamlet's, fusing everything else into itself. Facts at every step would interfere to prevent such a possibility. But let us place ourselves, by the poet's help, within the soul of Lear or Hamlet, and we shall be able to follow the process by which the spiritual power, taking the form of passion in the one, and of thought in the other, and working outwards, draws everything into its own unity, according to the same activity of which, however impeded by the "imperfections of matter," we are conscious in ourselves. The incidents of the tragedy are wholly subordinate, issuing either from this spiritual energy of the actors on the one hand, or, on the other, from destiny, to whose throne the poet penetrates. They thus present an aspect entirely different from that of events which we approach from without. The novel, on the contrary, starts from the outside. Its main texture is a web of incidents through which the motions of the spirit must be discerned, if discerned at all. These incidents must be probable, must be such as are consistent with the observed sequences of the world. The view of man, therefore, which we attain through them, can only be that which is attainable by observation