We need not insist on the obvious fact of there being more irritability than mastery, more imitation than creation, more echoes than voices in the world of Literature.  Good writers are of necessity rare.  But the ranks would be less crowded with incompetent writers if men of real ability were not so often misdirected in their aims.  My object is to decree, if possible, the Principles of Success—­not to supply recipes for absent power, but to expound the laws through which power is efficient, and to explain the causes which determine success in exact proportion to the native power on the one hand, and to the state of public opinion on the other.

The laws of Literature may be grouped under three heads.  Perhaps we might say they are three forms of one principle.  They are founded on our threefold nature—­intellectual, moral, and aesthetic.

The intellectual form is the principle of vision.

The moral form is the principle of sincerity.

The aesthetic form is the principle of beauty.

It will be my endeavour to give definite significance, in succeeding chapters, to these expressions, which, standing unexplained and unillustrated, probably convey very little meaning.  We shall then see that every work, no matter what its subject-matter, necessarily involves these three principles in varying degrees; and that its success is always strictly in accordance with its conformity to the guidance of these principles.

Unless a writer has what, for the sake of brevity, I have called Vision, enabling him to see clearly the facts or ideas, the objects or relations, which he places before us for our own instruction, his work must obviously be defective.  He must see clearly if we are to see clearly.  Unless a writer has Sincerity, urging him to place before us what he sees and believes as he sees and believes it, the defective earnestness of his presentation will cause an imperfect sympathy in us.  He must believe what he says, or we shall not believe it.  Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.  This is not so obvious a principle as the first; at any rate it is one more profoundly disregarded by writers.

Finally, unless the writer has grace—­the principle of Beauty I have named it—­enabling him to give some aesthetic charm to his presentation, were it only the charm of well-arranged material, and well-constructed sentences, a charm sensible through all the intricacies of composition and of style, he will not do justice to his powers, and will either fail to make his work acceptable, or will very seriously limit its success.  The amount of influence issuing from this principle of Beauty will, of course, be greatly determined by the more or less aesthetic nature of the work.

Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight, by their truth, their uprightness, and their art.  Truth is the aim of Literature.  Sincerity is moral truth.  Beauty is aesthetic truth.  How rigorously these three principles determine the success of all works whatever, and how rigorously every departure from them, no matter how slight, determines proportional failure, with the inexorable sequence of a physical law, it will be my endeavour to prove in the chapters which are to follow.