universal element, the truth, as the substance of the artistic form. But
in the light of this preliminary description of the mental processes
involved, let us take a nearer view of their particular employment in
literature.

Human life, as represented in literature, consists of two main branches,
character and action. Of these, character, which is the realm of
personality, is generalized by means of type, which is ideal character;
action, which is the realm of experience, by plot, which is ideal
action. It is convenient to examine the nature of these separately. A
type, the example of a class, contains the characteristic qualities
which make an individual one of that class; it does not differ in this
elementary form from the bare idea of the species. The traits of a tree,
for instance, exist in every actual tree, however stunted or imperfect;
and in the type which condenses into itself what is common in all
specimens of the class, these traits only exist; they constitute the
type. Comic types, in literature, are often simple abstractions of some
single human quality, and hence easily afford illustrations. The
braggart, the miser, the hypocrite, contain that one trait which is
common to the class; and in their portrayal this characteristic only is
shown. In proportion as the traits are many in any character, the type
becomes complex. In simple types attention is directed to some one vice,
passion, or virtue, capable of absorbing a human life in to itself. This
is the method of Jonson, and, in tragedy, of Marlowe. As human energy
displays itself more variously in a life, in complex types, the mind
contemplates human nature in a more catholic way, with a less exclusive
identification of character with specific trait, a more free conception
of personality as only partially exhibited; thus, in becoming complex,
types gather breadth and depth, and share more in the mystery of
humanity as something incompletely known to us at the best. Such are the