tion from one type of passage to the other is often dis-
concertingly sudden. In reading these realistic passages
of Rousseau we are led to reflect that his "nature" is
not, in practice, so remote from Taine's nature as might
at first appear. "What we call nature," says Taine, "is
this brood of secret passions, often maleficent, generally
vulgar, always blind, which tremble and fret within us, ill-
covered by the cloak of decency and reason under which
we try to disguise them; we think we lead them and they
lead us; we think our actions our own, they are theirs." ¹

The transition from an optimistic to a pessimistic
naturalism can be followed with special clearness in the
stages by which the sentimental drama of the eighteenth
century passes over into the realistic drama of a later
period. Petit de Julleville contrasts the beginning and
the end of this development as follows: "[In the eight-
eenth century] to please the public you had to say to it:
'You are all at least at bottom good, virtuous, full of
feeling. Let yourselves go, follow your instincts; listen
to nature and you will do the right thing spontaneously.'
How changed times are! Nowadays ² any one who wishes
to please, to be read and petted and admired, to pass for
great and become very rich, should address men as fol-
lows: 'You are a vile pack of rogues, and profligates, you
have neither faith nor law; you are impelled by your
instincts alone and these instincts are ignoble. Do not try
though to mend matters, that would be of no use at all.'" ³

The connecting link between these different forms of
the drama is naturalistic fatalism, the suppression of
moral responsibility for either man's goodness or bad-
ness. Strictly speaking, the intrusion of the naturalistic

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