Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/93

 extent of individuality are concurrently developed can we feel confidence in the permanence of such growth; witness the rapid withering of Athenian literature. In a well-known canon Sir Henry Maine has expressed one aspect of this individual evolution when he says that the movement of progressive societies has been from status to contract, or, to translate the legal into everyday language, from the restraints of the communal group to personal freedom of action and thought. But the extent to which this free individuality prevails is an aspect of such evolution no less important than its degree or depth. If any one doubts this, let him remember that average character, on which the reasoning of sociological science is based, means simply the extent to which any given individuality prevails.

We accept, then, as the principle of literary growth, the progressive deepening and widening of personality. We shall find in the course of our inquiries that not only have the depth and extent of personality varied in different conditions of social life to an astonishing degree, not only have they left upon diverse literatures the most diverse marks, but that the animal and physical worlds have assumed new aspects under new phases of personal being. At present, however, we turn to a question which more immediately concerns us, viz.: What is the method by which the discovery and illustration of our principle may be best conducted?