काव्यप्रकाश (आचार्य मम्मट - सम्पूर्ण १० उल्लास सटीक)

viii critical, appreciative, or descriptive, yet incidentally, enunciate directly, or indicate indirectly, very useful and instructive ideas on the basic questions of the subjects concerned. But scientific works, professedly confining themselves to the principles which underlie all literature (in the special sense of the term, viz. belles lettres), are few. Prof. Bain's works on Rhetoric and Composition and On Teaching English are what might have been expected from him, a clear thinker and philosopher and scholar of "encyclopedical learning" in the well-judged language of Mill But they stand almost by themselves, Prof. Bain himself says in his prefaces, with reference to the depart- ment of Figures of Speech, that "never before has that branch received so large a share of attention", and again, adverting to the emotional qualities of style, that his "is the first attempt at a methodical and exhaustive account of these qualities". And they are not final nor complete, as the Professor himself admits beforehand. Thus, though it would probably be presumptuous at this date, to hint that India had anything new to teach Europe, still it may per- haps be excusable to say that Indian books on Sāhitya might help to clear up ideas if only by affording the occasion for a further and deeper study of the subject. The first and most important question of the science is as to what constitutes the essence of poetry. The long accepted answer in India is that Emotion constitutes that essence—a conclusion which British investigators are only now approaching, and with still hesitating steps; as Dr. Bain tentatively says (On Teaching English, p. 214)— "to emotion we must come at last, in any precise definition" of poetry. Of course there are more or less slight differences in the details as discussed by different writers. The author of the work now translated has formulated his answer to the question in language which may appear at first sight to be even radically different from the accepted view; and students will find interesting points of re- semblance in his treatment of the subject and Prof. Bain's, who also, at least in the form of his book on Rhetoric, treats of all connected questions as subsidiary to Style. But this innovation of our author's too is only apparent; and is perhaps due to nothing else than an exagge- rated desire to be original. He tacitly reverts to the general position in his treatment of the auxiliary subjects,—herein again offering a point of resemblance to Dr. Bain. And this is the essence and the