Fortunately the new critic did not undertake to walk in the footsteps of Sainte-Beuve. In the art of presenting to the reader the marrow of a writer's work, of making the writer himself known by the description of his surroundings, the narrative of his life, the study of the forces by which he was influenced, the illustrious author of the 'Causeries du Lundi' remains to this day without a rival or a continuator. Ferdinand Brunetière had a different conception of the duties of a literary critic. The one fault with which thoughtful readers were apt to charge Sainte-Beuve was, that he failed to pass judgment upon the works and writers; and this failure was often, and not altogether unjustly, ascribed to a certain weakness in his grasp of principles, a certain faint-heartedness whenever it became necessary to take sides. Any one who studies Brunetière can easily see that from the start his chief concern was to make it impossible for any one to charge him with the same fault. He came in with a set of principles which he has since upheld with remarkable steadfastness and courage. In an age when nearly every one was turning to the future and advocating the doctrine and the necessity of progress, when the chief fear of most men was that they should appear too much afraid of change, Brunetière proclaimed time and again that there was no safety for any nation or set of men except in a staunch adherence to tradition. He bade his readers turn their minds away from the current literature of the day, and take hold of the exemplars of excellence handed down to us by the great men of the past. Together with tradition he upheld authority, and therefore preferred to all others the period in which French literature and society had most willingly submitted to authority, that is, the seventeenth century and the reign of Louis XIV. When compelled to speak of the literature of the day, he did it in no uncertain tones. His book 'The Naturalistic Novel' consists of a series of articles in which he studies Zola and his school, upholding the old doctrine that there are things in life which must be kept out of the domain of art and cannot be therein introduced without lowering the ideal of man. Between the naturalistic and the idealistic novel he unhesitatingly declares for the latter, and places George Sand far above the author of 'L'Assommoir.'