In the American Jungle by Waldo David Frank

(_A diagnosis through Joseph Wood Krutch and Bertrand Russell_) a. In the days when all men of a nation shared a view of life-worshiping Jehovah and obeying Torah, dwelling within the cosmos of the Catholic Church, accepting the divine right of their king or of their reason-it was possible for the author and critic to make his individual contribution without explicitly stating the philosophic ground on which he rested. The base of his point of view was common, and was commonly understood. The personal variation was what mattered. This, of course, is the contrary of our modern state. It is precisely the foundations of human vision-hence of human thought and of language-that have shifted. In place of essential harmony in the premises of intellectual action, there is chaos. But the American writer, despite this obvious fact, seldom honors his public with a clear-cut statement of what his philosophy and his religion are. He may even go so far as to deny that he possesses any, and make of his lack a virtue.

Yet, however negative and confused, each human being must possess an attitude toward life. Every thought is a judgment, every act is a judgment, the interpretation of every word is a judgment: and judgment implies a standard. If that standard is not stated, it may function contrary to the conscious will of its possessor. But it functions nevertheless. Current literary work is for the most part the expression of a philosophy and a religion that are not stated at all. The essential implications never come to light. The student could, of course, go to the complete works of each writer and discover the traits of his _Weltanschauung_; but most readers possess neither time nor power for such research. They are therefore constantly taking in, under cover of a stream of articles, biographies, poems, novels, plays, an attitude toward life of which they never become aware. And this hidden attitude works in them; shapes and nourishes, or corrupts them.