servation 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."

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 philosophy will tell
you that the world's thought was prevailingly deductive till the
days of Francis Bacon. Bacon was the first philosopher to insist that
induction, rather than deduction, was the most effective method of
searching for the truth. Science, which is based upon induction, was
in its infancy when Bacon taught: since then it has matured, largely
because he and his successors in philosophy pointed out the only
method through which it might develop. Deduction has of course
survived as a method of conducting thought; but it has lost the
undisputed empery which it held over the ancient and the medieval
mind. Now, if we turn to the history of fiction, we shall notice
the significant fact that realism is a strictly modern product.
All fiction was romantic till the days of Bacon. Realism is
contemporaneous with modern science and the other applications of
inductive thought. Romance survives, of course; but it has lost the
undisputed empery of fiction which it held in ancient and in medieval
times. If Bacon had written fiction, he would have been a realist--the
first realist in the history of literature; and this is the only reply
that is necessary to those who still maintain (if any do) that he was
capable of writing the romantic plays of Shakespeare.

If it be granted now that the realist, by induc