which time and God will develop. It is only the man who has faith in
man who can really interpret man. It is faith in man that gives us all
true human insight. The difference between a photograph and a portrait
is this: the photograph gives the outward feature, and stops there;
and most of us, when we stand in a photograph saloon to have our
picture taken, hide our soul away. The artist sees the soul behind the
man, knows him, understands something of his nature, and paints the
soul that looks out through the eyes. He sees in the man something
which the sun does not exhibit, and makes that something shine on
the canvas. The artist in literature sees an ideal humanity, and
interprets it. Realism in literature does not portray the real man.
Anthony Trollope pictures the Englishman as he is to-day, and society
as any man may take it with a kodak; but Dickens gives Toby Veck and
Tiny Tim; George Eliot, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris. Men say that no
such boy ever lived as MacDonald has portrayed in Sir Gibbie. In every
street Arab is a possible Sir Gibbie; and MacDonald has seen the
possible and shown us what Christianity may make out of a street
Arab. In this perception of a possible in man lies the spirit of all
progress in science. The man of practical science laughs at the notion
of an iron railway on which steam cars shall travel faster than
English coaches. But the man of faith in men, who believes that it is
in the power of men to dominate the powers of nature, builds the road.
The man of practical science laughs at the notion that we can reach up
our hands into the clouds and draw down the lightning. But Franklin
does it. The man of faith is sometimes mistaken, but he is always
experimenting, because he always believes that man to-morrow will
be more than man is to-day or was yesterday. And all progress in
civilization has its secret in this great faith in man as a being
that has a mastery, not yet interpreted, not yet understood, not yet
comprehended in its fulness, over all the powers of nature.