d the
truth I have to tell you." He leads us step by step from the
particular to the general, until we gradually grow aware of the truths
he wishes to express. And in the end, we have not only grown
acquainted with these truths, but have also been made familiar with
every step in the process of thought by which the author himself
became aware of them. "Adam Bede" tells us not only what George Eliot
knew of life, but also how she came to learn it.

=The Deductive Method of the Romantic.=--But the romantic novelist
leads us in the contrary direction--namely, from the general to the
particular. He does not attempt to show us how he arrived at his
general conception. His only care is to convey his general idea
effectively by giving it a specific illustrative embodiment. He
feels no obligation to make the imagined facts of his story resemble
closely the details of actual life; he is anxious only that they
shall represent his idea adequately and consistently. Stevenson
knew that man has a dual nature, and that the evil in him, when
pampered, will gradually gain the upper hand over the good. In his
story of the "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," he did not
attempt to set forth this truth inductively, showing us the kind of
facts from the observation of which he had drawn this conclusion. He
merely gave his thought an illustrative embodiment, by conceiving
a dual character in which a man's uglier self should have a separate
incarnation. He constructed his tale deductively: beginning with a
general conception, he reduced it to particular terms. "Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde" is, of course, a thoroughly true story, even though its
incidents are contrary to the actual facts of life. It is just as real
as a realistic novel; but in order to make it so, its author, because
he was working deductively, was not obliged to imitate the details
of actual life which he had studied. "I have learned something in the
world," he says to us: "Here is a fable that will make it clear to
you."

=Realism, Like Inductive Science, a Strictly Modern Product.=--This
philosophic distinction between the methods of romance and realism
shows two manifest advantages over all the other attempts at a
distinction which have been examined in this chapter: first, it
really does distinguish; and secondly, it will be found in every
case to fit the facts. Furthermore, it is supported in an overwhelming
manner by the history of human thought. Every student of p