Excerpt from The Evolution of Literature
The object of this treatise is to try to account for the origin and successive changes of literature as a social phenomenon. This is essentially an anthropological study, different in several respects from any of its predecessors. The selection and the arrangement of the data, many of the interpretations, and all of the provisional laws are believed to be new.
The empire of letters is extensive and extending. It must be conceded that to write a complete account of literary evolution is a task too great for any one person during a lifetime. It seemed better, therefore, to accomplish a limited work with relative thoroughness rather than to attempt a stupendous undertaking that might never be more than a torso of criticism.
At the outset two plans suggested themselves - to trace the evolution of a single literary type, so far as that is possible with the data at command, or to trace in less detail the successive phases of literature as a whole. After no little hesitation the latter plan commended itself as preferable. Even if much more intricate, it seemed to hold out greater hope of discerning with reasonable clearness the organic unity of literary evolution, for the internal process is exceedingly complex. It makes the rough places smoother, however, if the general trend of literary processes be indicated without undue intrusion of the inner entanglements of the problem.
Addressed both to scholars and to the general public, this book may be said to contain a presentation of what is usually termed Comparative Literature.
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