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No human being has ever been able to find anything that could, even by courtesy, be called an argument for these unities, except that they have been deduced from the general practice of the Greeks.
Some are mental, as a "science," a code of laws, or an educational programme. But whether they be material or mental products, organic unities must accumulate; for every old one tends to conserve itself, and if successful new ones arise they also "come to stay." The human use of Spencer's adjectives "integrated," "definite," "coherent," here no longer shocks one.
I immediately read Corneille's "Treatise on the Three Unities," and learned from that how people would have it, but why they desired it so was by no means clear to me; and, what was worst of all, I fell at once into still greater confusion when I made myself acquainted with the disputes on the "Cid," and read the prefaces in which Corneille and Racine are obliged to defend themselves against the critics and public.
It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his violation of those laws which have been instituted and established by the joint authority of poets and of criticks.
We see how quickly the arbitrary distinction between the species of poetry vanishes before common sense and taste. No less easily one might demolish the alleged rule of the two unities. We say two and not three unities, because unity of plot or of ensemble, the only true and well founded one, was long ago removed from the sphere of discussion.
His classicism is always tempered, like Dryden's, by a humane and sensible dislike of pedantry; he sets no store by the unities; in his preface to Shakespeare he allows more than a "classic" could have been expected to admit, writing in it, in truth, some of the manliest and wisest things in Shakespearean literature.
It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities: his violation of those laws which have been instituted and established by the joint authority of poets and criticks.
Still be could not bear idleness, and was always going about with some castle in the air finely built in his mind, carrying on for weeks and years the same continuous story; binding himself down to certain laws, proprieties, and unities; always his own hero, excluding everything violently improbable.
On the other hand, divisions will speedily disappear as soon as these seven unities are restored. The Apostasy of the Church. The apostolic unity of the church was maintained for about three hundred years.
From this leisure class standard our ideals must be changed to the standard of work, and the man who has vision is he who shall see the economic, the industrial unities, and who with compelling voice, will call men together to worship in a new consciousness of kind. Ministers in the country are feeling this very deeply. The pastor who ministers to a whole community, boasts of it.
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