The Poetic Mind (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Poetic Mind

I have suggested for literary investigation a compromise method. Truths drawn from the poets, though entirely lacking in inductive evidence, may be checked by tests of a strictly scientific kind. If, for example, the statement of a poet on a matter of importance connected with the present subject, though standing unproved, is yet found to agree with the state ment of another, it is strengthened; if further this agreement is found among many poets, of different ages and countries, the consensus is an argument of the strongest kind - stronger indeed than any single inductive proof. Right conclusions also show an agreement of another kind; they have a way of agreeing with each other, of fitting into and explaining each other, and of readily forming part of a larger structure. The test of them is whether they will work, and this test is also entirely sci entific. Finally, wrong conclusions are sterile, right ones pro ductive; the former die when the book containing them is closed; the latter are alive and remain so, and soon gather to themselves other opinions. A little time applies the test, and however it may be in the practical sciences, in the investigation of poetry there is no hurry. One writing on the present subject, then, need not be too much afraid of promoting error.

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