Pathway to Japanese Literature

Preface

If literary theory as a science is to be possible, then instead of beginning from formal definitions of literature, art, or beauty—as has been done by many scholars hitherto—one must first cast aside such attempts and begin purely from empirical, concrete phenomena.

This may strip traditional literary theories of their beauty, profundity, and mystical aura, imparting an exceedingly crude appearance; nevertheless, this constitutes an indispensable process and stage that must be passed through to establish literary science—and however crude such theories may be, we must declare them to represent clear progress. However immature and crude astronomy and chemistry may have been when they separated from astrology and alchemy, they were still, theoretically speaking, far more advanced than even the most refined astrology and alchemy.

All theories must start from experience.
Not only must they start from experience, but they must also return to experience.
Among all sciences, the most abstract science developed as celestial mechanics.
And celestial mechanics did not begin from abstract theories, but rather from observations of the stars' movements.
And even the smallest empirical fact—such as the perihelion motion of Mercury—was sufficient to compel a complete reform of the theory of universal gravitation.
For the reason that theories must not only begin with experience but also be capable of withstanding its verification.

Then, what are the empirical facts in literature?
Needless to say, they are individual literary works.
These literary works can become objects of various kinds of research.
In other words, they can be studied from diverse perspectives.
However, to provide them with the most comprehensive explanation possible, there remains no path other than examining them through a sociological lens.
That is to say, matters such as the psychological processes behind individual literary works' creation or technical issues manifested within them must be temporarily set aside—leaving no alternative but to treat literary works exclusively as social facts.
Though it must be noted that even these psychological processes and technical problems ultimately find their explanation within sociological methods.

Part I: Methodology

1.

In the creation of a literary work—be it poetry, fiction, or drama—so long as it is not entirely whimsical or arbitrary in origin, it is inevitably constrained by certain conditions.
If literary works were not constrained by anything, they could not become objects of theoretical study.
We would only be able to appreciate them whimsically.
Even today, there remain those who hold such views in extremely rare cases; however, it may be said that the methods of modern science, having achieved splendid results across many domains, have nearly eradicated any room for such skepticism.
Therefore, there is no need to question here the possibility of literary science as a discipline.

The first condition imposed upon literary works was the author.
The author’s talent, temperament, character, circumstances, tastes, thoughts, age—in short, the author’s individuality—constituted the primary condition determining literary works.
This remained a fact that no one could deny.
In every one of Shakespeare’s works, Shakespeare’s individuality had been deeply engraved, so that a careful observer would perceive it clearly.
In style, in technique, in expression, in thought, in terminology—one could discern the unmistakable imprint of individuality.
It proved impossible to discuss literary works while disregarding this individuality and originality.
Yet incredible as it seemed, there had recently emerged rare instances of literary theories refusing to acknowledge individuality in literary works.
Such was radical determinism—the notion that literary activity became entirely and directly determined by the social environment.
However, this determinism’s recent emergence held no particular strangeness.
For it formed a reaction against how conventional literary theories had regarded this individuality as an inviolable, unanalyzable entity—the sole absolute condition determining literary works.

Needless to say, individuality constitutes the most direct and perhaps most potent condition determining literary works, yet the factors determining literary works are by no means limited to this alone. As the second condition, we may identify literary schools. That is to say, individual writers gathered under specific literary doctrines and principles become influenced by their collective. For instance, Futurist works all share common characteristics, while Expressionist works similarly possess distinctive features distinguishing them from other schools' creations. We know that surrounding Shakespeare existed many minor Shakespeares erased by history, and around Dante existed numerous minor Dantes who shared his literary creed and produced comparable works. Even when examining Meiji literature, we discern clear distinctions between the Ken'yūsha faction, Bungakukai faction, and Min'yūsha faction. Between the Naturalist school and Parnassians or Subaru faction—as well as Waseda faction and Mita faction—we can demarcate reasonably distinct boundaries. The very coexistence of variously named schools within the literary world eloquently demonstrates how literary schools form one of the crucial conditions determining literary works.

However, we must not forget the third condition—one that is more indirect yet far more extensive in scope. That is the general public surrounding the author. The general public’s thoughts, ideas, and emotions—in a word, ideology—determines literary schools themselves, determines the ideological tendencies of literary works’ authors, and thereby determines the works themselves as the final condition. For example, let us take Victor Hugo’s *Les Misérables* as an instance. We first observe in this work a strong manifestation of Hugo’s individuality. Next, we observe there the characteristics of the Romantic school, of which Hugo was one of its most brilliant leaders. And finally, we observe there the ideology of the general public at the time—that is, the ideology of the bourgeoisie during its ascendant period—within which Romantic literature developed.

If one wishes to examine a literary work sociologically, we must first undergo the aforementioned processes of analysis and synthesis.
Only after undergoing such processes of analysis and synthesis does a literary work emerge as a social fact; even if one were to abruptly attempt to socially contextualize a literary work without undergoing these processes, it might result in superficially clever impressions but would never attain the status of science or theory.

2.

However, this did not by any means conclude the analysis.
What had been discussed above merely established literary works as social facts and connected them to society.
We had merely organized literature to make it an object of sociological research.
Ahead still remained a series of processes involving analysis and synthesis; moreover, it had to be said that what was truly important lay in this forthcoming process.

We had now explained that literary works were determined by the author’s individuality, the literary school to which the author belonged, and finally, the ideology of the general public.
However, this ideology of the general public did not exist independently, evolve, or develop on its own.
There existed a more fundamental element that conditioned this.

First and foremost, it was proper procedure to list natural conditions.
Humans were born within certain natural environments.
For instance, one might be born Japanese while another was born Russian.
Those born Japanese belonged inherently to the yellow race.
Japan's climate was largely temperate yet subject to violent seasonal extremes.
Winters brought arid air; summers arrived thick with humidity and stifling heat.
The Japanese skeletal frame generally proved smaller than Europeans', resulting in comparatively weaker physical constitutions.
Japan contained numerous volcanoes where earthquakes occurred with frequency.
Island-bound on all sides by sea, its interior terrain stood thick with mountains.
These natural conditions inevitably exerted direct and indirect influences upon Japan's institutions, cultural artifacts, and national character—the temperament, disposition,and thought patterns of its people.
No—these very conditions determined human social life itself unfolding upon their stage,and by extension,the whole of society.
Thus we were compelled to recognize nature as society's most foundational condition.
Without adaptation to imposed natural circumstances,societies could not be built.
And so differences in natural conditions bred corresponding variations among societies developing under them.
Just as agricultural communities could never take root across Arctic ice plains,nor industrial civilizations thrive within Africa's desert wastes.

To consider that these natural conditions exerted no influence whatsoever on human society was of course a superficial view. Whether contemporary science could precisely analyze this influence remained another matter; the fact that natural influences existed had been amply demonstrated by recent developments in human geography, ethnology, folklore studies, and related fields. However, overestimating this influence proved equally mistaken. While I held Buckle’s histories of civilization and Taine’s art studies in high regard, we had to recognize that each of these works overestimated natural forces’ societal impact. There lay omitted indispensable analyses, crude direct equations established between natural forces and society. When Taine discussed Flemish paintings’ relationship to their geology, what initially appeared scientific revealed itself through our examination as argumentation advancing via expedient dogmatism. Moreover, his excessive emphasis on race, period, and geographical environment while narrating English literary history displayed profound dogmatism—literary transformations being by no means directly determined by such meager conditions alone.

Moreover, while natural conditions determined the characteristics of a given society, natural conditions themselves changed only extremely gradually.
The history of geological development came into being only by encompassing periods of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years, and one could say there was almost no instance where fixed natural conditions underwent significant change within the brief span of mere hundreds or thousands of years.
Even when comparing the fifteenth year of Taisho with the era of Emperor Jimmu, almost no change could be observed in Japan’s climate.
Between the ancient Greeks and twentieth-century Europeans, there was almost no discernible difference in skeletal structure.
The fact that the lands along the Yangtze River were fertile and Tibet remained a barren region showed almost no difference between the era of Qin Shi Huang and the present day.

However, the entire history of literature spans merely a few thousand years.
And yet during that period, it underwent remarkably significant transformations.
If natural conditions were indeed the sole cause determining literary changes, we would face a situation where the cause remained nearly unchanged while only the effect underwent rapid alterations, thereby necessitating abandonment of the principle of causality.
Moreover, humans conquer nature; they do not merely remain subjected to conditions imposed by nature.
This fact was proven by modern science's astonishing progress and that of industry.
Therefore, for a society's ideology—and through it literature—to undergo diverse transformations, there must exist conditions beyond natural ones that act more directly within shorter time spans.

3.

We are born into a fixed natural environment and are subjected to natural conditions independent of our will, as previously discussed.
However, what exists prior to our birth and independently of our will is not limited to natural conditions alone.
In addition, there are certain economic relations.
When we are born, we are unavoidably thrust into certain economic relations and must by all means adapt to them to survive.
For example, those who were born in Edo during the Genroku period and those born in Tokyo during the Taisho period must live under entirely different economic relations despite sharing the same natural environment.

Thus, it was understood that the fundamental force causing economic relations to change over time was society's productive forces.
When productive forces advanced to a certain limit, the existing economic relations could no longer be maintained, giving rise to new economic relations adapted to more advanced productive forces.
For example, during the primitive era when humankind lived by hunting, productive forces were extremely rudimentary, and the prey obtained through hunting was highly unstable.
In such an era, each individual could not regularly take responsibility for their own food, clothing, and shelter.
Thereupon, the residents of a tribe formed a communistic community—what came to be called primitive communism.
Moreover, when machinery and factories emerged and society's productive forces advanced significantly, such machinery and factories became both impossible and unnecessary for all producers to individually own.
Thus did these means of production come to be held in the hands of a small minority; conversely, the majority of producers—possessing no means of production themselves—lived by providing their labor to the owners of these means in exchange for wages.
This was none other than capitalism.

Such changes in economic relations inevitably determined changes in the political structure of that society.
That is, the political structure of a society had inevitably come to be one adapted to that society’s economic relations.
For example, the economic relations based on medieval handicrafts, rudimentary transportation systems, land productivity, and agriculture inevitably gave rise to feudal politics, while the development of industry, advancements in transportation, the rise of capital, and the expansion of commerce gradually necessitated national unification, followed by democratic politics.
Progressing further, the development of international commerce and the concentration and internationalization of capital gave rise to imperialism on one hand while necessitating the internationalization of politics on the other.
And the latter would likely only be fully realized when the era of socialism arrived.

The changes in economic relations and political structure evidently compelled alterations in the legal system as well.
For example, when a capitalist economy established democratic politics, laws prohibiting assembly and association or supporting political inequality lost their basis and were replaced by new democratic laws.

It was undeniable that changes in the economy, politics, and legal system further conditioned transformations in that society’s morality, customs, thought, emotions, and so forth.
Morality was nothing but the legal system in its perpetuated form.
For instance, during the era of slavery, using slaves as tools had not contravened morality in any way.
Even a great philosopher like Aristotle had not recognized slaves as persons.
However, when politics became democratic and an era arrived where slave trading was prohibited, it became moral for slaves to demand recognition as full persons.
Furthermore, during the feudal era, everyone had believed townspeople and peasants were inherently inferior compared to nobles and clergy; yet when society turned bourgeois, such perceptions underwent complete transformation, and privileged classes saw their status significantly diminished.
To put it simply, one could say the economic relations, political structure, legal system and similar elements of an era conditioned both social life and all cultural aspects within that society.

What must be noted here is that one must not interpret what I have stated above in a mechanical and rigid manner.
That is to say, one must not conceive of productive forces first influencing production relations, production relations then influencing other economic conditions, economic conditions influencing political structures, political structures influencing legal systems, and legal systems in turn influencing morality, customs, thoughts, emotions, and so forth in a rigidly sequential manner.
Social phenomena are not that simple.
I have merely listed the relatively fundamental elements first; the aforementioned conditions both act upon one another and receive reactions from each other.
The force exerted by these conditions is not unilateral but correlative in nature.
For instance, while it is true that a political organization conditions the political thought of its era, it is simultaneously true that the political thought of that era also actively acts upon the political organization.
Bukharin termed this phenomenon the equilibrium among various social elements.

4.

With this, I have now roughly completed analyzing the various forces affecting literary works.
Even what I have enumerated above is already quite complex, but we must understand that in reality it remains far more complex than this.
Just as it would be mistaken to discuss a literary work solely through its originating geographical environment or directly via its society’s economic conditions alone, so too does it become evident from our preceding discussion that assessing a work’s value purely through an author’s innate talent proves equally reckless.

To scientifically determine the significance and value of a literary work, it becomes necessary to study its author, the literary school to which the author belongs, and the general ideology of that era; furthermore, to fully understand this ideology, one must clarify the legal, political, economic, and other conditions of that period’s society, and additionally explore the natural environment upon which that society stands.
Thus, we can say that we have arrived at a scientific understanding of a literary work.

For the sake of comprehension, when we depict this as a diagram, it takes the form shown above.

In eras when social life was simple, this relationship remained equally straightforward.
For instance, among ancient hunting peoples, the mode of production called hunting directly conditioned artistic content, as evidenced by such cases.

The eminent Russian Marxist scholar Plekhanov has cited Vančura’s notable theory regarding this issue.

Vančura summarized his own views on the origin of theater among primitive peoples as follows:
"The objects of these performances are as follows:
(1) Hunting, war, fishing, rowing boats (hunting peoples, nomads), and the life and habits of animals.
Animal pantomimes and masked dances (likewise expressing animals; Plekhanov).
(2) The life and habits of livestock (pastoralists).
(3) Labor (agriculturalists): rice pounding, flour milling, threshing, harvesting, grape picking... What is performed are facts of daily life absolutely essential to the struggle for existence."
(Tsuneto Kyo trans., *The Fundamental Problems of Marxism: Supplemented Edition*, pp. 92–93)

However, when social life grew complex, this relationship also became complex.
We could not simply explain the various literary works of modern times from the economic relations of contemporary society.
For there existed countless elements that determined the conditions under which literary works were produced, and a complex web of actions and reactions was formed among them.
Regarding this point as well, I would cite Plekhanov’s views as they were.
He stated as follows.

"In primitive societies without class distinctions, human productive labor directly influenced their worldview and aesthetic sense."
The motive of decorative art lay in technique, and dance—the most important art in this society—was largely restricted to artistic reproductions of labor processes.
This fact is particularly evident among hunting peoples at the most recent developmental stage we can know.
Precisely for this reason, when proving that the psychology of primitive people was dependent on their economic activities, we primarily cited hunting peoples as examples.
In contrast, in societies divided into classes, the direct influence of this activity was not as pronounced as in the previous case.
The reason for this was also evident.
For example, among Australian Aboriginal women, dance was a reproduction of the movements of gathering roots; however, one could not presume that any of the elegant dances of eighteenth-century French noblewomen expressed some form of productive activity.
Women of this class generally did not engage in productive labor at all and were solely engrossed in "the gentle science of love."
To understand the dance of Australian Aborigines, it sufficed to know what role root gathering by women played in the life of this people.
However, to understand the minuet, merely knowing the economic conditions of eighteenth-century France was insufficient.
In this case, it was the dance that expressed the psychology of the non-producing class which was at issue.
The majority of what were termed the “conventions and etiquette” of upper-class society could likely be explained by this type of psychology.
Therefore, here, alongside economic factors, psychological factors were granted their due position.
However, we must not forget that the non-producing class itself was a product of society’s economic development.
That is to say, even when economic factors yielded their position to psychological factors, it had to be noted that they did not lose their preeminent importance.
"In this case, it could be perceived in that it defined the possibility and limits of the influence of other factors."
(*The aforementioned work*, pp. 113–114)

What Plekhanov stated here regarding dance applied completely to literature as well (though it must be considered that hunting peoples did not possess literature). However, what Plekhanov discussed here was of course insufficient to explain the correlation between literature and society in complex societies. Contemporary literature—no, even ancient literature—that is to say, art works in societies developed enough to possess literature not only did not directly reproduce productive activities but generally received the influence of economic relations or other singular conditions only in an extremely highly refined form. There existed countless factors therein.

The methodology for literary research I have outlined above is largely a restatement of Taine’s.
However, I have replaced the natural scientific visage of Taine’s art theory with a social scientific one.
This is owed principally to the method of historical materialism.
And while this method owes the most to Plekhanov up to the present day, I will refrain from delving deeply into Plekhanov’s methodology at this time.

Part II: Its Application

I

If we were to broadly categorize modern literature, it could be divided into three movements: Classicism, Romanticism, and Naturalism.
In this brief treatise, I must content myself with tracing how these three literary movements—constrained by what social conditions—emerged, developed, and declined.
It is true that significant literary schools have emerged even after Naturalism; however, these are too rich in diversity and complexity, and moreover, the era in which they arose is too close to the present to serve as suitable material for scientific study. Additionally, my current project aims solely to exemplify my research methodology rather than exhaustively investigate all facets of modern literature.

II

Under what social environments did classical literature arise and develop?
I believed that by quoting almost verbatim here Taine’s discussion of French classical tragedy in *The Philosophy of Art*, I could best answer this question.

After discussing the relationship between medieval civilization and architecture, he turned his attention to French classical tragedy and spoke roughly as follows.

From among the feudal lords who ruled and exploited the people during the medieval period, those who gradually emerged to conquer their peers were born, and they ultimately became national chieftains under the name of king.
By the fifteenth century, feudal lords who had once been peers had become mere generals under the king, and by the seventeenth century, they were reduced to nothing more than courtiers.
However, these courtiers were not mere retainers; their relationship with the king was extremely intimate. The king respected them, and they would dance and dine together with him within the palace walls.
Thus, court life (la vie de cour) first emerged in Italy and Spain, then in France, followed by England, Germany, and the Nordic countries, with France becoming its center and reaching its zenith under Louis XIV.

What impact did such changes in circumstances have on the minds of the people of that time?
The king's salon embodied the utmost refinement and beauty within the nation, where the most select nobles—those deemed worthy to serve as exemplars for all—came and went.
These nobles believed themselves to be innately noble beings.
They valued honor more than life itself and would not hesitate to risk their lives even over the slightest insult.
This became clear when we see that during the reign of Louis XIII, the number of warriors killed in duels reached four thousand.
In their eyes, disregarding the danger to one's life was the natural disposition of the nobility.
Moreover, they inherited the feudal spirit, revered the king as their natural lord, and considered their lives lighter than a goose feather for his sake.
When Louis XVI was executed, the fact that a considerable number of warriors volunteered to become his substitutes also proved this.

At the same time, these courtiers were elegant and refined.
The king himself set the example for them.
Louis XIV is said to have even doffed his hat to maidservants, and a certain duke is said to have always carried his hat in hand when passing through the Palace of Versailles.
As a result, they always spoke in refined and euphemistic language, mastering the art of avoiding anything that might cause discomfort to others.
Such aristocratic spirit was indeed perfected within the court of this era.

It was only natural that such people sought pleasures befitting them.
Their tastes were as noble as their character and equally refined.
All artworks of that period were created from this taste.
These included the solemn and dignified paintings of Poussin and Le Sueur; the ornate and resplendent architecture of Perrault and Mansart; and the grandiose gardens designed by Le Nôtre.
Furthermore, all these characteristics were evident in the furnishings, clothing, and interior decorations of the time.
The statues of deities adorning Versailles Palace, orderly tree-lined avenues, mythologically sculpted fountains, expansive water basins, and trees trimmed like architectural ornaments—all were masterpieces epitomizing contemporary taste.
Nevertheless, what expressed this most fully was the literature of that period.
There had never been an era when so many masters of French letters gathered as then.
Bossuet, Pascal, La Fontaine, Molière, Corneille, Racine, La Rochefoucauld, Madame de Sévigné, Boileau, La Bruyère, and Bourdaloue—all were renowned writers of that time.
Not only these masters alone—all people then excelled in writing.
At that time, models of fine prose existed everywhere.
Both dialogues and everyday letters were masterfully composed.
Courier remarked that court ladies wrote more skillfully than modern Academy members.
And it was in classical tragedies that this noble and refined prose radiated its most brilliant splendor.

The tragedies of that era were crafted to delight noble courtiers. Consequently, playwrights softened excessively brutal truths, abstained from staging murder scenes, and scrupulously avoided anything that might offend those accustomed to salon refinement—screams, violence, or barbaric acts. Simultaneously, they abhorred disorderliness. Unlike Shakespeare's unchecked flights of fancy, they shunned arbitrary imaginings and fantastical elements. Dramatic structures maintained rigorous orderliness, prohibiting the intrusion of unforeseen contingencies. Dialogues employed polished and elegant diction. Though characters remained Greek heroes in name, their costumes and accoutrements wholly conformed to French courtly preferences of the period. Even character temperaments were meticulously tailored to contemporary aristocratic sensibilities. Comparing Racine's Iphigénie with Euripides' Iphigenia, or Racine's Achille against Homer's Achilles, renders these circumstances luminously apparent. To paraphrase Taine: French theater of that age "revealed clearly delineated forms of the human spirit, akin to Gothic architecture; hence it proliferated throughout Europe as Gothic forms had done."

Taine did not analyze the economic conditions underlying the transition from feudalism to monarchical politics; however, since it was evident that this shift in political form had been determined by changes in economic relations—a fact requiring no further elaboration here—we omitted it.

III

How did Romantic literature arise?
That classical literature expressed the aristocracy's ideology centered on court life, whereas [it] expressed that of the emerging bourgeois class was a point uniformly acknowledged by many literary historians.

Romantic literature was characterized first and foremost by its destruction of cumbersome literary forms.
The liberalism that had existed in the economic realm transformed into political liberalism and triggered the French Revolution; this same liberalism manifested in literature as Romanticism, sweeping aside classical literature's conventions and traditions.
When comparing Racine's tragedies with Hugo's dramas, the former gave the impression of being order and symmetry incarnate, while the latter evoked a sense of sheer disorder.
The disorder in appearance was accompanied by disorder in content.
There, the unrestrained, liberated passion of the emerging class leapt forth without any constraints.

For the bourgeois class at that time, the “Promised Land” and “rosy-hued world” were unfolding just ahead in the immediate future. Economically, they seized the aristocracy’s position, and politically, they overthrew aristocratic rule to establish the Third Estate’s hegemony. Therefore, they had to conquer the aristocracy ideologically as well. Romantic literature can indeed be said to have been the expression of the bourgeois class’s struggle against the aristocracy on the literary front.

Needless to say, this struggle need not be interpreted in a strictly literal sense.
In Romantic literature, there are by no means few works that take sadness and melancholy as their themes.
On the contrary, Romantic literature is even said to be the literature of emotion.
However, expressing emotions—even if they be those of sadness—to one's heart's content and as one feels may be said without any reservation to constitute both rebellion against and struggle with the formalism of classical literature.
Despite Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s sewamono plays taking double suicide as their principal material almost without exception, this may rightly be viewed as demonstrating the triumph of the townspeople’s worldview of that time.
The phrase "conflict between duty and human feelings," when expressed sociologically, becomes a struggle between the ideology of the old ruling class and that of the emerging class.
Duty is nothing but the ossified remnants of a formalized old worldview, and the fact that it comes into conflict with human feelings signifies precisely that this old worldview has departed from people’s hearts.
Just as the French Revolution was a fight for political freedom, the Romantic literary movement—particularly the Romantic literary movement in France—was above all a fight for freedom in literature.
The preface to Hugo’s Cromwell was both the beacon of this literary revolution and its declaration of war.
Through him, tragedy was replaced by drama, and characters were replaced by flesh-and-blood humans.
The distinctions between epic poetry, lyric poetry, pastoral, elegy, epigrammatic poetry, and others that Boileau had meticulously defined in his Poetics were swept away.
These forms could now be freely mixed by authors as they pleased without constraint.
The moderation in diction and tone characteristic of classical literature was shattered, and impassioned phrases along with poetic irregularities were freely permitted.
Victor Hugo’s works give the impression of a torrential flood of words.
The literary genre most suited to such liberalism in literature is the novel.
The novel has none of those cumbersome conventions.
In bourgeois society, the fact that the novel suddenly came to occupy a mainstream position in literature is by no means accidental.

The above did not purport to exhaustively enumerate all characteristics of Romantic literature; it merely presented its essential features. In the Romantic literary movements that arose successively across various European nations, distinctive characteristics could be observed in each, shaped by ethnicity, national territories, and countless other conditions. I was neither denying nor neglecting those elements. However, in this context I had merely abstracted them away to exemplify what kind of changes the political and economic fluctuations of the time had determined in literature.

IV

Naturalist literature could be said to represent the literature of the mature bourgeoisie.
This holds true in precisely the same sense that Romantic literature is considered the literature of the emerging, youthful bourgeoisie during their revolutionary period.

When enumerating the distinctive characteristics of the social environment that gave rise to Naturalist literature, we may cite: the maturation of the bourgeois class; the expansion of society's material productive forces, with wealth and capital assuming paramount importance as social driving forces; and the rapid emergence of the natural sciences.

When the bourgeois class matures and their social position becomes secure, it is only natural that the passions of their youth fade away.
The fact that Naturalist literature is less passionate compared to Romantic literature has at least half its cause there.
For the bourgeois class, there being no more authorities or opponents left to fight; they consequently turn to observing and reflecting upon themselves.
This is likely why Naturalist literature has come to be regarded as the literature of individualism (or more accurately, self-criticism).

As already stated, for the rising bourgeois class, a rosy-hued world had been envisioned ahead.
Yet when they ascended to the position of ruling class, not a single one of their previous hopes materialized.
Freedom was monopolized by a portion of large capitalists.
For the majority, the dream of freedom vanished overnight, leaving before their eyes the bitter countenance of reality.
That Naturalist literature became devoid of ideals, dark, and exposé-driven was likely rooted in such social environments.

Next, the increase in social productive forces and the sudden rise of the class capable of owning them imbued all spiritual culture with monetarism.
The ideologies that had persisted vividly even in Romantic literature—aristocratic adulation, the valorization of ancient warrior ethos, sentimental martyrdom, and transcendental idealism—were eclipsed by Naturalism's tempest.
The raw, grotesque subjects that Romantic writers would likely never have dared to use in literary works were treated nonchalantly by Naturalist authors.
With the democratization of politics came journalism's rise, which influenced literary works as well; when matters reached this state, romance could no longer be found in life.
Love, friendship, loyalty—all came to be observed as ordinary phenomena.
The advocacy of the ordinary, one aspect of Naturalist literature’s characteristics, was conceived in such circumstances.

However, what exerted the most essential influence on Naturalist literature was the rise of the natural sciences.
The fact that this rise of the natural sciences was closely related to the economic conditions of the time—industrial mechanization—is something I will leave unexamined here.
I will merely limit myself to demonstrating through one or two examples how Naturalist literature arose under the stimulation of the natural sciences.

The natural sciences hold as their creed that all phenomena occurring in the natural world are determined by causal relationships.
And in the previous century, through the efforts of various scientists, the causal relationships of natural phenomena were successively proven.
The great achievements of the natural sciences not only transformed material civilization but were also sufficient to transform spiritual culture.

If natural phenomena were determined by causal relationships, then would human activities not also be determined by causal relationships?
Such ideas naturally occurred to anyone's mind.
And the Naturalist writers answered this question with "Yes."

Naturalist novels were said to have begun with Flaubert.
He argued that novels must be objective and impersonal, believing that novelists needed to remain unsentimental toward all phenomena of life.
This resonated exactly with the attitude scientists should take toward natural objects.
As Lanson stated, in this regard Naturalism represented an approach toward Classicism, and it could be said there was no small similarity between the reason (raison) of Classical literature and the impassibility (impassibilité) of Naturalist literature.
The work that embodied this creed was *Madame Bovary*, which radiated as one of modern literature's masterpieces.
This was precisely the masterpiece that concretized his theory that authors must—without sympathizing with or being emotionally moved by their characters—reflect them exactly as they were, like a mirror.

However, as Lanson states, Flaubert remained an artist.
But with Zola, he became a scientist who consciously assumed that role.
For him, novels needed to become a science of laws like other exact sciences.
He maintained that human social life could be analyzed into the psychological phenomena of its constituent individuals, believing psychological phenomena could be explained through physiology and physiological phenomena through physical chemistry.
He vigorously emphasized the necessity of prioritizing hereditary and environmental influences.
The *Rougon-Macquart* series—titled *The Natural History of a Family Under the Second Empire*—might well be called a monument in modern literature that sought to realize his aspirations.

The person who most systematically and comprehensively systematized the tenets of Naturalist literature was Taine.
Just as Zola called Naturalist novels "experimental novels," Taine called Naturalist art theory "experimental aesthetics."
He articulated the difference between traditional aesthetics and experimental aesthetics as follows.

“Old aesthetics first and foremost provides a definition of beauty—stating that beauty is the expression of moral ideals, or the manifestation of the invisible, or the representation of human passions—then enshrines this definition like legal statutes, proceeding from it to accept certain works, condemn others, admonish some, and guide others.”
...The modern method I shall attempt merely regards human creations—particularly artistic works—as facts or manufactured products, identifies their characteristics, and studies how such characteristics arose.
It does not permit or prohibit.
“It merely authenticates and explains.”

As this makes clear, the theory and method of Naturalist literature must be said to be exactly the same as those of the natural sciences.

Conclusion

Based on the overview provided above, I believe my attempt has been roughly understood by the readers.

Taking as my premise that literature can be studied scientifically and methodologically, I clarified what methods should be applied and attempted their application in broad strokes. However, I thought that I had been unable to present all the thoughts in my head, and that even the parts I did present might somewhat lack clarity. Above all, I had collected materials to substantiate my ideas but lacked the time to properly organize them. And I filled most of it with restatements of my predecessors’ theories—particularly those of Taine. I would consider it sufficient if I could have readers believe—even if only vaguely—that the study of literature should not remain confined to the mere expression of each individual’s haphazard opinions, but rather that it can become a science.

I think there are likely numerous misunderstandings and errors in the detailed parts, particularly in the application of methodology.
However, I hope these will be overlooked in light of the fact that this attempt remains in an extremely immature stage of development.

I did not believe in the omnipotence of science.
In acknowledging the limits of scientific understanding,I was second to none.
However,I could not find a single basis for considering that literature cannot become an object of scientific research.
There is no literature apart from literary works.
Literature is a concept created using individual literary works as material.
And literary works are concrete existences that can be directly read with our eyes and felt with our hearts.
If one claims that this cannot be studied scientifically，then one must deny the very possibility of all science.
Humanity once deified the phenomena of the heavens.
There is no myth of any people that does not take celestial and atmospheric phenomena as its subject matter.
Next，they feared simple chemical phenomena as magic.
I thought that the laws of the Kirishitan Bateren and such also contained no small amount of this kind of thing.
Next，they considered that life phenomena were indeed the last remaining inviolable realm of mystery.
However，physiology and psychology are gradually conquering the mysteries of life.
The claim that literature should be appreciated rather than scientifically studied is as much an absurd argument as saying sugar should be tasted rather than having its chemical components analyzed.
I could not even dream that literary research and literary appreciation are incompatible.
Just as sugar does not lose its value as a seasoning in the slightest，no matter what elements it is composed of.

(Taisho 15 [1926], Social Issues Lecture Series)