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 together. But, then, if the 'cake' be too solid, they will never get any further. They will crystallise into solid shapes which make progress impossible. How does the 'age of discussion' ever succeed to the age of custom? How does 'contract' succeed 'status'; or, in other words, how do men gain the right to settle their own lives instead of being wedged from birth into a rigid framework? 'One of the greatest pains to human nature,' he says characteristically, 'is the pain of a new idea': it is 'so upsetting.' How does so tender a shoot manage to pierce the soil hardened by sacred traditions? His answer suggests a doctrine which has been elaborately worked out (quite independently, I believe) in the singularly ingenious and suggestive writings of M. Tarde. Bagehot remarks that a force is at work in all times, which shows itself in savages and civilised races, in the greatest and smallest affairs, in making nations and starting fashions. That is the force of 'imitation.' He illustrates it by a literary instance. What, he asks, caused the rise of the Queen Anne literature? Steele—'a vigorous forward man'—struck out the essay; Addison elaborated it and gave it permanent value. Troops of other writers followed and