made a romance out of the materials of "Silas Marner." The whole
of human life, or any part of it, offers materials for romantic
and realist alike. Therefore no distinction between the schools is
possible upon the basis of subject-matter: the real distinction must
be one of method in setting subject-matter forth. The distinction is
not external, but internal; it dwells in the mind of the novelist; it
is a matter for philosophic, not for literary, investigation.

If we seek within the mental habits of the novelist for a philosophic
distinction between realism and romance, we shall have to return to
a consideration of that threefold process of the fiction-making mind
which was expounded in the preceding chapter of this book. Scientific
discovery, philosophic understanding, and artistic expression of the
truths of human life are phases of creation common to romantics and
realists alike; but though the writers of both schools meet equally
upon the central ground of philosophic understanding, is it not
evident that the realists are most interested in looking backward over
the antecedent ground of scientific discovery, and the romantics
are most interested in looking forward over the subsequent ground of
artistic expression? Suppose, for the purpose of illustration,
that two novelists of equal ability--the one a realist, the other
a romantic--have observed and studied carefully the same events and
characters of actual life; and suppose further that they agree in
their conception of the truth behind the facts. Suppose now that each
of them writes a novel to embody this conception of the truth, in
which they are agreed. Will not the realist regard as most important
the scientific process of discovery by means of which he arrived at
his conception; and will he not therefore strive to make that process
clear to the reader by turning back to the point at which he began
his observations and then leading the reader forward through a similar
scientific study of imagined facts until the reader joins him on the
ground of philosophic understanding? And on the other hand, will
not the romantic regard as most important the artistic process of
embodying his conception; and will he not therefore be satisfied with
any means of embodying it clearly and effectively, without caring
whether or not the imagined facts which he selects for this purpose
are similar to the actual facts from which he first induced his
philosophic understanding? This