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 Baseline

Lean is about building and improving stable and predictable systems and processes to deliver to custom-
ers high-quality products/services on time by engaging everyone in the organization. Combined with
this, organizations need to create an environment of respect for people and continuous learning. It’s all
about people. People create the product or service, drive innovation, and create systems and processes,
and with leadership buy-in and accountability to ensure sustainment with this philosophy, employees
will be committed to the organization as they learn and grow personally and professionally.

Lean is a term that describes a way of thinking about and managing companies as an enterprise. Becom-
ing Lean requires the following: the continual pursuit to identify and eliminate waste; the establishment
of efficient flow of both information and process; and an unwavering top-level commitment. The con-
cept of continuous improvement applies to any process in any industry.

Based on the contents of The Lean Practitioners Field Book, the purpose of this series is to show, in
detail, how any process can be improved utilizing a combination of tasks and people tools and
introduces the BASICS Lean® concept. The books are designed for all levels of Lean practitioners and
introduces proven tools for analysis and implementation that go beyond the traditional point kaizen
event. Each book can be used as a stand-alone volume or used in combination with other titles based
on specific needs.

Each book is chock-full of case studies and stories from the authors’ own experiences in training
organizations that have started or are continuing their Lean journey of continuous improvement.
Contents include valuable lessons learned and each chapter concludes with questions pertaining to
the focus of the chapter. Numerous photographs enrich and illustrate specific tools used in Lean
methodology.

Baseline: Confronting Reality & Planning the Path for Success focuses on change management and
how to manage and accelerate change. The authors also outline how to get ready to implement lean,
how to baseline your processes prior to implementing Lean, and how to create a value stream map of
processes. This book also discusses Lean accounting.

BK-TandF-PROTZMAN_9781032029115-220480-FM.indd 1 16/09/22 5:37 PM

BASICS Lean® Implementation Series

Baseline: Confronting Reality & Planning the Path for Success

By Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton & Joyce Kerpchar
Assess and Analyze: Discovering the Waste Consuming Your Profits
By Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton & Joyce Kerpchar
Suggesting Solutions: Brainstorming Creative Ideas to Maximize Productivity
By Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton & Joyce Kerpchar
Implementing Lean: Converting Waste to Profit
By Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton & Joyce Kerpchar
Check: Identifying Gaps on the Path to Success
By Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton & Joyce Kerpchar
Sustaining Lean: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement
By Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton & Joyce Kerpchar
 Baseline
Confronting Reality & Planning the
Path for Success

Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton, and Joyce Kerpchar

First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2023 Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton and Joyce Kerpchar

The right of Charles Protzman, Fred Whiton and Joyce Kerpchar to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by
them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or h ereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or i n any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification
and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN: 978-1-032-02911-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-02910-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18577-2 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003185772

Typeset in Garamond
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
 This book series is dedicated to all the Lean practitioners in the world and to two of the
earliest, my friend Kenneth Hopper and my grandfather Charles W. Protzman Sr. Kenneth
was a close friend of Charles Sr. and is coauthor with his brother William of a book that
describes Charles Sr. and his work for General MacArthur in the Occupation of Japan in some
detail: The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream amidst Global Financial Chaos.

Charles W. Protzman Sr. Kenneth Hopper

Contents

Acknowledgments................................................................................................................... xiii
About the Authors.....................................................................................................................xv
Original Authors......................................................................................................................xix
Introduction ............................................................................................................................xxi

1 Lean Philosophy and Foundations................................................................................1

Brief History....................................................................................................................... 1
We Need a New System: The BASICS Lean® Business Delivery System!............................. 2
Dock to Stock–A Manager’s Experience......................................................................... 3
Carousels........................................................................................................................ 5
Slide Line....................................................................................................................... 6
Counter Bagger Story....................................................................................................10
Dealing Directly with Toyota........................................................................................11
Placing Orders with a Japanese Supplier........................................................................11
United States versus Japan: How They Deal with Quality with a Tier 2 Supplier......... 12
Lesson Learned............................................................................................................ 12
Toyota #1.......................................................................................................................... 12
Big Company Disease........................................................................................................13
Lifetime Employment........................................................................................................15
How Does Toyota Handle Downturns?.............................................................................16
Toyota Philosophy.............................................................................................................16
CEO and Lean Results......................................................................................................17
Supporting versus Leading............................................................................................18
Process-Focused Data....................................................................................................19
What Results Can You Expect?.....................................................................................19
Organizational Philosophy................................................................................................ 20
Team Leader and Group Leader versus Supervisor....................................................... 20
Trust and Respect for People........................................................................................ 20
Right Seat on the Bus....................................................................................................21
Why Implement Lean?...................................................................................................... 22
Don’t Let Government Requirements Be an Excuse..................................................... 23
Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste?......................................................................... 24
ROI and Implementing Lean....................................................................................... 24
Short Term versus Long Term...................................................................................... 27
Theory of Root Cause Analysis..................................................................................... 28
Summary.......................................................................................................................... 28

vii
viii ◾ Contents

Chapter Questions............................................................................................................ 29
Notes................................................................................................................................ 29
Additional Readings..........................................................................................................31

2 Lean Assessment and Health Check............................................................................33

Lean Assessments...............................................................................................................33
Take the Lean Assessment Quiz Below........................................................................ 34
The Showcase Company............................................................................................... 38
Why Assessments Are Needed.......................................................................................... 38
Top Ten Lean Questions for the CEO.............................................................................. 42
Evaluating or Assessing a Company.................................................................................. 43
Strategic (Philosophy)................................................................................................... 43
Core Operations (Tactical)........................................................................................... 43
Learning to See............................................................................................................ 44
Work Process Improvement.......................................................................................... 44
Knowledge Sharing and Performance (Building the Learning Organization)................... 44
Regarding Assessments: Do You Know What You Need to Know?.................................. 44
Chapter Questions............................................................................................................ 46
Notes................................................................................................................................ 46
Additional Readings......................................................................................................... 46

3 Our Misguided Allegiance to the Batching Paradigm................................................47

Process Definition..............................................................................................................47
Types of Processes..............................................................................................................47
Batching Processes and Systems........................................................................................ 48
What Is Batching?........................................................................................................ 49
Where Do We Find Batching?......................................................................................51
Batching in Volunteer Service.......................................................................................51
Why Do We Batch?......................................................................................................53
Elementary Batching.................................................................................................... 56
When Do We Batch?.................................................................................................... 56
Batching in Manufacturing...............................................................................................57
A Visit to Lean Factories...............................................................................................57
Prebuilding and Outsourcing Are Forms of Batching!..................................................59
Batch to Lean Results....................................................................................................59
How the Batch Process Occurs: Sometimes We Have
to Batch … Right?........................................................................................................59
Eight Reasons Leading Us to Batch.............................................................................. 60
Converting from Batch to Lean Is Not Easy................................................................ 71
When Batching, If One Is Bad, They Are All Normally Bad........................................ 73
Lean Indicator Quiz......................................................................................................74
Types of Batching............................................................................................................. 75
Pure Batch.................................................................................................................... 75
Segmented Batch.......................................................................................................... 75
Cashier Line: Segmented Batch.................................................................................... 75
Period Batch..................................................................................................................76
Location Batch: Kanbans..............................................................................................76
 Contents ◾ ix

Evils of Batching............................................................................................................... 77
Batching Is a Root Cause of the Eight Wastes and Drives Overproduction...................... 78
Batching Is a Hard Habit to Break............................................................................... 79
Batching Excuses.......................................................................................................... 79
Sometimes Batching Is a “Trust” Issue......................................................................... 80
One-Piece/Person Flow (OPF).......................................................................................... 80
Envelope Example.........................................................................................................81
Errors and Defects........................................................................................................ 82
One-Piece Flow Example............................................................................................. 82
One-Piece Flow and New Construction....................................................................... 83
Parallel Processing versus Batching.............................................................................. 84
Parallel Processing........................................................................................................ 84
Engineering Changes in a Batch System............................................................................85
Batching and Engineering Changes..............................................................................85
Hidden Gems............................................................................................................... 86
Why Do We Encourage Everyone to Check Out at the Same Time?........................... 86
Gray Area between Batch and Flow: Group Technology.............................................. 86
True Mixed Model Sequencing.................................................................................... 87
Homework: See for Yourself............................................................................................. 87
Chapter Questions............................................................................................................ 88
Notes................................................................................................................................ 88
Additional Readings......................................................................................................... 89

4 Leveraging the BASICS Lean® Business Delivery System for Continuous

Improvement...............................................................................................................91
What Is the BASICS Lean® Business Delivery (BLBDS) System?......................................91
BASICS Lean® Business Delivery System Has Its Roots
in the United States...................................................................................................... 92
BASICS Lean® Business Delivery System Vision.......................................................... 92
BASICS Lean® Business Delivery System Components (BLBDS)................................. 93
Lean Is a Journey.......................................................................................................... 93
It Is Really All about Making the Person’s Job Easier................................................... 94
Not Working Harder but Working Smarter................................................................. 95
BASICS® Model for Continuous Improvement............................................................ 95
Process-Focused Metrics.............................................................................................. 95
Summary.......................................................................................................................... 96
Chapter Questions............................................................................................................ 97
Notes................................................................................................................................ 97
Additional Readings......................................................................................................... 97

5 Getting Ready to Implement the BASICS Lean® Business System..............................99

Phase I: Pre-implementation—Planning for Success ........................................................ 99
Everything Starts with the Customer: Customer Value-Added Proposition
and Voice of the Customer.............................................................................................. 100
Easy to Do Business with (ETDBW)..........................................................................101
The Seven Flows..............................................................................................................101
Baseline: Data Collection/Training/Planning..................................................................102
x ◾ Contents

Conduct a Company-Wide Baseline Assessment and an Informal Debrief

and Follow Up with a Formal Proposal and Statement of Work
(Baseline or Prior)............................................................................................................103
What Do We Look for during a Baseline Assessment?................................................103
Put a List of Data Requirements Together (Optional: Data May Be
Collected during the Assessment) (Baseline)....................................................................108
Gather Voice of the Customer Data, Feedback, and Requirements
(Baseline).........................................................................................................................109
Customer Feedback (VOC).........................................................................................109
Voice of the Customer Surveys/Interviews.................................................................. 111
Customer Perceived Results from Implementing Lean
Manufacturing............................................................................................................112
Get Aligned to the Vision................................................................................................112
Set the Target Condition.............................................................................................112
What Specific Outcome Is Required?..........................................................................112
Check with the Customer!...............................................................................................113
Conduct Leadership and Organization-Wide Training (Baseline)....................................114
Select the Pilot or Pilot within a Pilot Line (Baseline)......................................................114
Create the Team.............................................................................................................. 115
Assign Executive Sponsor or Steering Team................................................................ 115
Key Stakeholder’s Analysis..........................................................................................116
Scope of the Project.....................................................................................................116
Sample Charter Document Definitions.......................................................................118
Pilot Team...................................................................................................................118
Even Supervisors Need Training......................................................................................118
Attributes of Lean Pilot Team Members...................................................................... 119
Go Forward Person(s) (Optional)................................................................................ 119
List of Skills and Characteristics of Project Team Leaders
and Team Members.................................................................................................... 120
Lean Practitioner Levels............................................................................................. 120
Set Up a Training/War Room Facility Close to the Floor:
With Equipment List for the Team to Meet (Baseline)................................................121
Develop Key Plans: Communication Plan, Training
Plan, Resource Plan, Change Management Plan, Contract
for Change (Baseline)..................................................................................................121
Experience Counts-Especially in Lean............................................................................ 134
Five Keys for Successful Implementations...................................................................135
Hold Required Rollout Meetings and Propose an Implementation Plan..........................138
Types of Meetings.......................................................................................................138
Union Leadership Meetings Where Applicable...........................................................138
Has the Leadership Agree to a No-Layoff Strategy Regarding
Any Improvements Implemented (Does Not Refer to Layoffs
Necessitated Due to Business Conditions).......................................................................139
Conduct Lean Overview Training Sessions for the Lean Implementation
Team and Key Stakeholders.............................................................................................140
Document the Site in Video and Digital Pictures............................................................141
Summary.........................................................................................................................141
 Contents ◾ xi

Chapter Questions...........................................................................................................141
Notes...............................................................................................................................142
Additional Readings........................................................................................................143

6 BASICS® Model.........................................................................................................145
BASELINE the Process...................................................................................................145
Baseline the Process/Metrics.......................................................................................145
Typical Baseline Continuous Improvement Metrics....................................................146
Data and What People Think......................................................................................146
Collection and Analysis: Current State............................................................................147
Determine Current State and Future State
Customer Demand......................................................................................................147
The Lost Customer Premium Story..................................................................................148
A Project Plan May be Necessary................................................................................149
Progression from Baseline to Benchmark.........................................................................149
Available Time............................................................................................................149
Takt Time Calculation................................................................................................152
Cycle Time..................................................................................................................153
Cycle Time and Takt Time: What’s the Difference?....................................................153
Three Types of Inventory.............................................................................................156
Raw Material...............................................................................................................156
Work in Process Inventory..........................................................................................156
Finished Goods Inventory...........................................................................................157
Measuring Inventory and Cash Flow...............................................................................157
Throughput Time: A Key Metric................................................................................158
Throughput Time and +QDIP....................................................................................158
Financial Metrics.............................................................................................................159
EVA............................................................................................................................160
EVA Calculation.........................................................................................................160
Return on Net Assets..................................................................................................161
What Is MVA?............................................................................................................161
MVA Calculation........................................................................................................161
Using EVA and MVA within a Company...................................................................162
Benefits of EVA Incentive Plan....................................................................................162
Sales per Employees.....................................................................................................163
Contribution Margin by Employee.............................................................................163
Peak Demand..............................................................................................................163
Little’s Law and Queuing Theory................................................................................164
Weighted Average Demand Calculations....................................................................165
What Is a Second Worth?............................................................................................167
Value Stream Mapping....................................................................................................168
The On-Time Delivery Metric Story...........................................................................168
Value Stream Discussion.............................................................................................171
Value Stream Mapping................................................................................................173
The Hoshin Plan and VSM Story................................................................................173
Parts of a Value Stream Map.......................................................................................174
Value Stream Map Icons.............................................................................................174
xii ◾ Contents

Value Stream Map Definitions....................................................................................175

Drawing the Current State Value Stream Map............................................................176
Ideal State Value Stream Mapping..............................................................................178
Future State Value Stream Mapping............................................................................180
Value Stream Map Project Lists, Prioritization Matrix,
and Tracking...............................................................................................................180
Value Stream Layout Maps (Sometimes Referred to as
Skitumi Maps)............................................................................................................183
Chapter Questions...........................................................................................................185
Notes...............................................................................................................................185
Additional Readings........................................................................................................187
Appendix A - Study Guide......................................................................................................189
Appendix B - Acronyms......................................................................................................... 205
Appendix C - Glossary............................................................................................................211
Index........................................................................................................................................233
Acknowledgments

There are many individuals who have contributed to this book, both directly and indirectly, and
many others over the years, too many to list here, who have shared their knowledge and experi-
ences with us. We would like to thank all of those who have worked with us on Lean teams in
the past and the senior leadership whose support made them successful. This book would not
have been possible without your hard work, perseverance, and courage during our Lean journey
together. We hope you see this book as the culmination of our respect and appreciation. We apolo-
gize if we have overlooked anyone in the following acknowledgments. We would like to thank the
following for their contributions to coauthor or contribute to the chapters in this book:

◾◾ Special thanks to our Productivity Press editor, Kris Mednansky, who has been ter-
rific at guiding us through our writing project. Kris has been a great source of encour-
agement and kept us on track as we worked through what became an ever-expanding
six-year project.
◾◾ Special thanks to all our clients. Without you, this book would not have been possible.
◾◾ Russ Scaffede for his insight into the Toyota system and for his valuable contributions
through numerous e-mail correspondence and edits with various parts of the book.
◾◾ Joel Barker for his permission in referencing the paradigm material so important and inte-
gral to Lean implementations and change management.
◾◾ Many thanks to the “Hats” team (you know who you are).
◾◾ I would like to acknowledge Mark Jamrog of SMC Group. Mark was my first Sensei and
introduced me to this Kaikaku-style Lean System Implementation approach based on the
Ohno and Shingo teachings.
◾◾ Various chapter contributions by Joe and Ed Markiewicz of Ancon Gear.

For the complete list of acknowledgments, testimonials, dedication, etc. please see The Lean
Practitioner’s Field Book. The purpose of this series was to break down and enhance the original
Lean Practitioner’s Field Book into six books that are aligned with the BASICS® model.
Authors’ Note: Every attempt was made to source materials back to the original authors. In the
event we missed someone, please feel free to let us know so we may correct it in any future edition.
Many of the spreadsheets depicted were originally hand drawn by Mark Jamrog, SMC Group,
put into Excel by Dave O’Koren and Charlie Protzman, and since modified significantly. Most of
the base formatting for these spreadsheets can be found in the Shingo, Ohno, Monden, or other
industrial engineering handbooks.

xiii
About the Authors

Charles Protzman, MBA, CPM, formed Business Improvement

Group (B.I.G.), LLC, in November 1997. B.I.G. is in Sarasota
Florida. Charlie and his son, Dan along with Mike Meyers, spe-
cialize in implementing and training Lean thinking principles
and the BASICS® Lean business delivery system (LBDS) in small
to fortune 50 companies involved in Manufacturing, Healthcare,
Government, and Service Industries.
Charles has written 12 books to date and is the coauthor of
Leveraging Lean in Healthcare: Transforming Your Enterprise
into a High-Quality Patient Care Delivery System series and is
a two-time recipient of the Shingo Research and Professional
Publication Award. He has since published The BASICS® Lean Implementation Model and Lean
Leadership BASICS®. Charles has over 38 years of experience in materials and operations manage-
ment. He spent almost 14 years with AlliedSignal, now Honeywell, where he was an Aerospace
Strategic Operations Manager and the first AlliedSignal Lean master. He has received numer-
ous special-recognition and cost-reduction awards. Charles was an external consultant for the
Department of Business and Economic Development’s (DBED’s) Maryland Consortium during
and after his tenure with AlliedSignal. With the help of Joyce LaPadula and others, he had input
into the resulting DBED world-class criteria document and assisted in the first three initial DBED
world-class company assessments. B.I.G. was a Strategic Partner of ValuMetrix Services, a division
of Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company. He is an international Lean
consultant and has taught beginner to advanced students’ courses in Lean principles and total
quality all over the world.
Charlie Protzman states, “My grandfather started me down this path and has influenced my
life to this day. My grandfather made four trips to Japan from 1948 to the 1960s. He loved the
Japanese people and culture and was passionate and determined to see Japanese manufacturing
recover from World War II.”
Charles spent the last 24 years with Business Improvement Group, LLC, implementing suc-
cessful Lean product line conversions, kaizen events, and administrative business system improve-
ments (transactional Lean) worldwide. He is following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who
was part of the Civil Communications Section (CCS) of the American Occupation. Prior to
recommending Dr. Deming’s 1950 visit to Japan, C.W. Protzman Sr. surveyed over 70 Japanese
companies in 1948. Starting in late 1948, Homer Sarasohn and C.W. Protzman Sr. taught top
executives of prominent Japanese communications companies an eight-week course in American
participative management and quality techniques in Osaka and Tokyo. Over 5,100 top Japanese

xv
xvi ◾ About the Authors

executives had taken the course by 1956. The course continued until 1993. Many of the lessons
we t aught t he J apanese i n 1948 a re n ow b eing t aught t o A mericans a s “ Lean p rinciples.” The
Lean principles had their roots in the United States and date back to the early 1700s and later to
Taylor, Gilbreth, a nd Henry Ford. The principles were refined by Taiichi Ohno a nd e xpanded
by Dr. Shigeo Shingo. Modern-day champions were Norman Bodek (the Grandfather of Lean),
Jim Womack, and Dan Jones.
Charles participated in numerous benchmarking and site visits, including a two-week trip to
Japan in June 1996 and 2017. He is a master facilitator and trainer in TQM, total quality speed,
facilitation, career development, change management, benchmarking, leadership, systems think-
ing, high-performance work teams, team building, Myers-Briggs® Styles, Lean thinking, and sup-
ply chain management. He also participated in Baldrige Examiner and Six Sigma management
courses. He was an assistant program manager during “Desert Storm” for the Patriot missile-to-
missile fuse development and production program. Charles is a past member of SME, AME, IIE,
IEEE, APT, and the International Performance Alliance Group (IPAG), an international team of
expert Lean Practitioners (http://www.ipag-consulting.com).

Fred Whiton, MBA, PMP, PE, has 30 years of experience in the

aerospace and defense industry, which includes engineering, oper-
ations, program and portfolio management, and strategy devel-
opment. He i s e mployed a s a C hief E ngineer w ithin R aytheon
Intelligence & Space at the time of this book’s publication.
Fred has both domestic and international expertise within
homeland s ecurity, c ommunications c ommand a nd c ontrol
intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance sensors and ser-
vices, military and commercial aerospace systems, and defense
systems s upporting t he U S N avy, U S A ir F orce, U S A rmy,
US Department of Homeland Security, and the US Intelligence
Community across a full range of functions from marketing, concept development, engineer-
ing, and production into life cycle sustainment and logistics. Fred began his career as a design
engineer at General Dynamics, was promoted to a g roup engineer at L ockheed Martin, a nd
was a director at Northrop Grumman within the Homeland Defense Government Systems
team. A s vice president of engineering and operations at Smiths Aerospace, he was the Lean
champion for a L ean enterprise journey, working closely with Protzman as the Lean consul-
tant, for a v ery successful Lean implementation within a u nion plant, including a n ew plant
designed u sing L ean principles. Prior t o j oining R aytheon, Fred w as a s enior v ice president
within C 4ISR business u nit a t C ACI I nternational a nd prior to joining C ACI w as t he v ice
president and general manager of the Tactical Communications and Network Solutions Line
of Business within DRS Technologies.
Fred h as a B S i n m echanical en gineering f rom t he U niversity o f M aryland, a n M S i n
mechanical en gineering f rom R ensselaer P olytechnic I nstitute, a m aster’s i n en gineering
administration from The George Washington University, and an MBA from The University of
Chicago. He is a professional engineer (PE) in Maryland, a certified project management pro-
fessional (PMP), served as a commissioner on the Maryland Commission for Manufacturing
Competitiveness under Governor Ehrlich, as a c ommissioner on the Maryland Commission
on A utism u nder G overnor O ’Malley, a nd a s a m ember o f t he b oards o f d irectors f or t he
Regional M anufacturing I nstitute h eadquartered i n M aryland a nd t he F irst M aryland
Disability Trust.
 About the Authors ◾ xvii

Joyce Kerpchar has over 35 years of experience in the healthcare

industry t hat i ncludes k ey leadership roles i n healthcare opera-
tions, IT, h ealth plan m anagement, a nd innovative program
development and strategy. As a Lean champion, mentor, and
Six S igma b lack b elt, s he i s e xperienced i n o rganizational l ean
strategy and leading large-scale healthcare lean initiatives, change
management, a nd I T i mplementations. J oyce i s a c oauthor o f
Leveraging L ean i n H ealthcare: Transforming Your E nterprise
into a H igh-Quality Patient Care Delivery System, Recipient of
the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award.
She began her career as a board-certified physician’s assistant
in c ardiovascular a nd t horacic s urgery a nd primary c are m edi-
cine and received her master’s degree i n Management. Joyce is
passionate a bout l everaging L ean i n healthcare processes t o e liminate w aste a nd r educe e rrors,
improve overall quality, and reduce the cost of providing healthcare.

BK-TandF-PROTZMAN_9781032029115-220480-FM.indd 17 28/09/22 10:39 AM

Original Authors

We would like to acknowledge Chris Lewandowski, Steve Stenberg, and Patrick Grounds as
original authors of The Lean Practitioner’s Field Book.

xix
Introduction

This book is the first of the six books BASICS Lean® Implementation Series and was adapted
from The Lean Practitioner’s Field Book1: Proven, Practical, Profitable, and Powerful Techniques
for Making Lean Really Work. In Book 1, we discuss the Lean philosophy and provide a Lean
Overview where we explore batching, the BASICS Lean® Business Delivery System, how to con-
duct Lean assessments, and preparing for a Lean Implementation (Kaikaku). We then begin with
the B in the BASICS Lean® Implementation Model, which is BASELINE.
The books in this BASICS Lean® Implementation Series take the reader on a journey begin-
ning with an overview of Lean principles, culminating with employees developing professionally
through the BASICS Lean® Leadership Development Path. Each book has something for everyone
from the novice to the seasoned Lean practitioner. A refresher for some at times, it provides soul-
searching and thought-provoking questions with examples that will stimulate learning opportuni-
ties. Many of us take advantage of these learning opportunities daily. We, the authors, as Lean
practitioners, are students still thirsting for knowledge and experiences to assist organizations in
their transformations.
This series is designed to be a guide and resource to help you with the ongoing struggle to
improve manufacturing, government, and service industries throughout the world. This series
embodies true stories, results, and lessons, which we and others have learned during our Lean
journeys. The concept of continuous improvement applies to any process in any industry.
The purpose of this series is to show, in detail, how any process can be improved by utilizing a
combination of tasks and people tools. We will introduce proven tools for analysis and implemen-
tation that go far beyond the traditional point kaizen event training. Several CEOs have shared
with us; had they not implemented Lean, they would not have survived the Recession in 2008 and
subsequent downturns.
Many companies prefer we not use their names in this book as they consider Lean a strategic
competitive advantage in their industry, and some of these companies have now moved into a lead-
ership position in their respective markets; thus, we may refer to them as Company X throughout
the series. We explain to companies that Lean is a five-year commitment that never ends. Eighty
to ninety percent of the companies with whom we have worked have sustained their Lean journeys
based on implementing our BASICS® Lean approach that we will share with you in this book.
The BASICS Lean® Implementation Series discusses the principles and tools in detail as well as
the components of the House of Lean. It is a “how to” book that presents an integrated, structured
approach identified by the acronym BASICS®, which when combined with an effective business
strategy can help ensure the successful transformation of an organization. The Lean concepts
described in each book are supported by a plethora of examples drawn from the personal experi-
ences of its many well-known and respected contributors, which range from very small machine
shops to Fortune 50 companies.

xxi
xxii ◾ Introduction

The BASICS Lean® Implementation Series has both practical applications as well as applica-
tions in academia. It can be used for motivating students to learn many of the Lean concepts and
at the end of each chapter there are thought-provoking questions for the reader to help digest the
material. The investment in people in terms of training, engagement, empowerment, and personal
and professional growth is the key to sustaining Lean and an organization’s success. For more on
this topic, please see our book Lean Leadership BASICS®. Lean practitioners follow a natural flow,
building continually on previous information and experiences. There is a bit of the Lean practitio-
ner in all of us. Hopefully, as you read these books to pursue additional knowledge, as a refresher
or for reference, or for academia, it can help expand your knowledge, skills, and abilities on your
never-ending Lean journey.

Note
1. The Lean Practitioner’s Field Book 1st Edition by Charles Protzman (Author), Fred Whiton (Author),
Joyce Kerpchar (Author), Christopher Lewandowski (Author), Steve Stenberg (Author), Patrick
Grounds (Author), Productivity Press; 1st edition (April 4, 2016).
Chapter 1

Lean Philosophy
and Foundations

No one has more trouble than the person who claims to have no trouble.
Taiichi Ohno
Father of the Toyota Production System (TPS)

Brief History
There are literally hundreds of books that address Lean thinking and the Lean production system.
However, very few explain how to implement the tools we will share with you. Lean is a term that
describes a way of thinking about and managing companies as an enterprise. Becoming Lean
requires the following:

◾ The continual pursuit to identify and eliminate waste

◾ The establishment of efficient flow of both information and process
◾ Unwavering senior leadership team commitment
◾ The continual development and engagement of your team members

The term Lean was coined by John Krafcik in his paper “Triumph of the Lean Production
System” for his master’s thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of
Management in 1988.1 It was introduced by James Womack and Dan Jones in their book titled
Lean Thinking2 after a five-year MIT study of the automotive industry described in a book titled
The Machine That Changed the World.3 In the book and on the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI)
website,4 Lean is described as the five-step process for guiding the implementation of Lean tech-
niques as easy to remember, but not always easy to achieve:

1. Specify value from the standpoint of the end customer by product family.
2. Identify all the steps in the value stream for each product family, eliminating whenever pos-
sible those steps that do not create value.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003185772-1 1
2 ◾ Baseline

3. Make the value-creating steps occur in tight sequence to ensure the product flows smoothly
toward the customer.
4. As flow is introduced, let customers pull value from the next upstream activity.
5. As value is specified, value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and
pull are introduced. Begin the process again and continue it until a state of perfection is
reached in which a perfect value is created with no waste.

Lean has its roots in the United States. Such notables as Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Frederick
Taylor, and Henry Ford all practiced principles that make up Lean today. The 1970s oil crisis
and then New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI), the California-based joint venture
between General Manager and Toyota, put Lean on the map. The Toyota Production System
(TPS) has become synonymous with Lean; however, Lean is not just for automotive companies.
This system will work for any company, healthcare organization, service industry, or government/
military entity. Since many of our processes are unique and every company’s culture is distinctive,
one must adapt the principles and tools to the environment in which one implements. This meth-
odology has produced significant results for many companies.
Lean will sustain, but only if implemented properly and with ongoing training and people
development. Lean must be rolled out enterprise-wide (not just shop floor) requiring an overall
transformational change within the company. It must be championed and driven from the top of
the organization. It must include all functional areas (i.e., finance, sales, marketing, HR, informa-
tion systems [IS], operations), at all levels, from the board of directors to the person on the front
line on the shop floor or in the office. It must include all value streams from the supply chain to
the customers to recycling within the overall enterprise system framework.
Lean will not be successful if it is directed only at the frontline staff, promoted by someone
within middle management, or if it is measured by the number of point kaizen events conducted
each year. Today we find most companies have pockets of excellence5 or what we call Lean lite and
have struggled to sustain or had to relaunch Lean multiple times. Some feel they have completed
their Lean implementations or have improved enough.
Implementing Lean requires a counterintuitive paradigm shift in thinking to offset the ever-
prevalent resistance to batching inherent in the current system. This includes the need to adopt new
accounting techniques and potentially instituting significant structural organizational changes. In
short, developing a new way of thinking.
A consistent theme throughout this series (see Figure 1.1) is the balance and integration
required between philosophy and tools. Learning to implement the task portion of is often not
difficult; however, the people and philosophy piece which is emergent and always the most chal-
lenging. We cannot overstate the importance of separating these two pieces and implementing
and integrating them together to achieve a complete Lean implementation. All the chapters in
this series have been reviewed or written by leading experts in their fields and practicing internal
company and external consulting Lean practitioners.

We Need a New System: The BASICS Lean® Business

Delivery System!
When you finally make the decision to embark on a Lean journey or you decide to restart your
Lean journey, you must realize and be willing to admit how little you may know about your
processes or how to improve those processes. Remember, all the problems you have today are the
 Lean Philosophy and Foundations ◾ 3

Figure 1.1 Lean journey enablers.

result of changes you or someone prior to you made in the past and these are the most difficult to
change. Listed below are stories and anecdotes associated with our Lean journey.

Dock to Stock6—A Manager’s Experience7

While I didn’t know it at the time, my business experience with Lean began with at that time
a new general manager (GM) named Dave Passeri at our Bendix Communications Plant. I had
recently been promoted to dock-to-stock manager, which meant I managed all supplies and mate-
rials shipped to the plant. I was responsible for receiving, overseeing inspection, the stockroom
and issuing parts kits to the manufacturing floor. At the time we could not ship our product due
to significant material shortages. When I first toured the department, I found, in a large storage
area, boxes of materials piled literally to the ceiling of the receiving holding area, averaging three
to four months with some having birthdays, bottlenecking the production on the shop floor.
Dave invited some of us to meet with him and brought in a change agent named Jonno
Hannifin8 to work with us for several months, working on brainstorming ideas and process
changes to start our production system moving again. We became known as the “hats” team.
With this new assignment to the dock-to-stock process, Dave gave me specific instructions to
issue only one box at a time to the inspection department. I didn’t understand how this would help
our severe backlog; if anything, it seemed counterintuitive and would only slow things down fur-
ther. Another new manager of quality assurance, Curtis McTeer, his staff, and I worked together
along with many others to barcode and create a simple access database to log every item which was
log jammed in the dock-to-stock process.
When we first entered the inspection department, there were boxes of parts everywhere and lit-
erally no room to walk. Each inspector had grabbed the easiest to inspect boxes and stashed them
at their station (Figure 1.2). Meanwhile, the harder to inspect boxes sat, piled high in shelves in
the storeroom. Prior management was considering expanding the incoming (receiving) inspection
area due to the constant complaints about the lack of space.
We proceeded to remove every box from the inspection area and move it back into the holding
area. We then, as directed by our GM, issued one box at a time (some already having been partially
inspected) to each inspector to process individually. Once they completed the work, they could
come back for another box. As each box was issued, we logged it into the database we created.
4 ◾ Baseline

Figure 1.2 Inspection department—Working in batches.

When we cleaned out the inspection area, each station was full of various lots of materials
the inspectors were working on. Instead of finishing one lot, they would take each lot and run
it through one of the inspection operations, then run all the lots through the second operation,
etc., until they were all completed. As a result, all the delinquent lots would sit until the last
operation was completed for the lot. A significant amount of time was lost moving boxes of
parts around the inspection area due to lack of space. It was difficult to find where a particu-
lar lot was located as there was so much material in inspection. Every day, this led to greater
amounts of expediting and searching by supervisors and managers trying to track down and
expedite this material. The management staff turned into day-to-day firefighters and high-paid
expediters
Suddenly, something amazing started to happen. Over a two-week period, we cut our backlog
from an average of 16 weeks to 6 weeks! In addition, we found there was plenty of space in the
inspection department once we removed the excess inventory. During this effort, since parts were
assumed to be lost by the planning department, we realized that we had double or even triple
ordered much of the same material waiting for inspection. No one bothered to get up from their
comfortable office chairs to look for the material, and if they did, there was so much material; it
was just easier to order more than to look for it in the disorganized holding area.
Within four weeks, we were down to a two-week backlog and within six weeks, we caught up.
Once we caught up, everyone tried to go back to the old way of doing it; however, we wouldn’t let
them. We freed up a tremendous amount of space not only in inspection but also in the holding
area as well. Everything now smoothly flowed through the dock-to-stock process. This is when we
first learned the true power of one-piece flow (now called Lean); however, we still didn’t under-
stand the breadth or true vision of it at the time.
When we went back to analyze the root cause of the problem, we discovered the reason we
were so far behind was because we were batching the items through inspection. Batching, in this
case, meant the inspectors would go into the receiving holding area filled and take four or five lots
 Lean Philosophy and Foundations ◾ 5

of material. Since they could pick and choose which boxes to work on, they would naturally look
for the easiest things to work on first and leave the harder items for someone else.
Lesson learned: Batching environments are fraught with waste, lack of space, and delays. Batch
environments always create the perception of the need for more space. In a batch environment,
people usually take the easiest piece to work on first instead of using FIFO, the first in first out or
EDD earliest due date principle. We also find it easier to reorder something instead of having to
conduct an endless search for it. You cannot always depend on what others tell you. You must get
up out of your chair and “go see” for yourself to identify the problems.
Once you “Lean out” an area, the supervision of the area becomes much easier, thus creating
time to work on small improvements. Space which seems initially to be at a premium turns out
to be “excess” space. Results can be obtained quickly within a specific area or process. Root cause
analysis and management-by-fact may initially solve the problem, but you cannot switch back to
the old ways of doing things if one wants to avoid reoccurrence of the problem.

Carousels9
As part of my new position in the dock-to-stock process, I inherited a capital request from the prior
director to install two brand-new carousels (like the system shown in Figure 1.3) on the second
floor of our stockroom to replace all the shelves of material. We already had two robotic retrieval
systems on the first floor with which we always had problems. For example, if the power went out,
we couldn’t pick parts and would shut down assembly. We always had to have someone trained

Figure 1.3 Carousel material handling system.

6 ◾ Baseline

and available to operate them. Parts would get lost and servicing them was expensive. It was going
to be several hundred thousands of dollars (not including installation and ongoing maintenance)
and justified with a rather large return on investment (ROI) analysis. I was told to finish up inter-
viewing the various suppliers and provide a recommendation. It occurred to me after some Lean
training that we were going to spend all this money to manage a bunch of inventory that was now
considered evil. So, my recommendation was to cancel the capital appropriation request.
My eventual goal became to eliminate the need for my job, and within three years of my
assignment which I achieved. We had successfully vacated the separate two-story stockroom
building and moved the material to the production floor at the point of use where it belonged.
Not only did we save hundreds of thousands of capital expenditure dollars, but we also eliminated
picking, counting, and kitting parts to the floor. When we cleaned out the old robotic system in
the stockroom, we found hundreds of previously lost parts that were misallocated and reordered.
Lesson Learned: Installing carousels and automated material storage equipment makes it
much harder to implement Lean. Once it is purchased, accounting wants it used so they can
depreciate it. The goal should be to eliminate stockrooms along with all the waste they create. The
next time you look at an automated material storage device, make sure it is not just adding cost to
store material you don’t want in storage. We also learned and embraced the idea of removing waste
by always working to eliminate our own jobs.

Slide Line10
The next experience with Lean involved the use of slide lines. Our division manufactured electronic
circuit boards and systems equipment primarily for the military. We invested significant capital
in machines that sequenced transistors and diodes (Figure 1.4), so they could be put onto another

Figure 1.4 Diode and transistor sequencing machine.

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the Ideal. The beau ideal is not in the reason—its only existence is in
the imagination. To create in the reader’s mind images which do not
exist in the world, and leave them there, imperishable as the
memories of friends with whom he has lived, and of scenes in which
he has had his home, obviously necessitates a much ampler and
much subtler Art than that which is required to make a positive fact
clear to the comprehension. The highest quality of Art, as applied to
literature, is therefore called “the Creative.” Nor do I attach any
importance to the cavil of some over ingenious critics, who have
denied that genius in reality creates; inasmuch as the forms it
presents are only new combinations of ideas already existent. New
combinations are, to all plain intents and purposes, creations. It is
not in the power of man to create something out of nothing. And
though the Deity no doubt can do so now—as those who acknowledge
that the Divine Creator preceded all created things, must suppose
that He did before there was even a Chaos—yet, so far as it is
vouchsafed to us to trace Him through Nature, all that we see in
created Nature is combined out of what before existed. Art,
therefore, may be said to create when it combines existent details
into new wholes. No man can say that the watch which lies before
me, or the table on which I write, were not created (that is, made) by
the watchmaker or cabinetmaker, because the materials which
compose a watch or a table have been on the earth, so far as we know
of it, since the earth was a world fit for men to dwell in. Therefore,
neither in Nature nor in Art can it be truly said that that power is not
creative which brings into the world a new form, though all which
compose a form, as all which compose a flower, a tree, a mite, an
elephant, a man, are, if taken in detail, as old as the gases in the air
we breathe, or the elements of the earth we tread. But the Creative
Faculty in Art requires a higher power than it asks in Nature; for
Nature may create things without life and mind—Nature may create
dust and stones which have no other life and mind than are
possessed by the animalcules that inhabit them. But the moment Art
creates, it puts into its creations life and intellect; and it is only in
proportion as the life thus bestowed endures beyond the life of man,
and the intellect thus expressed exceeds that which millions of men
can embody in one form, that we acknowledge a really great work of
Art—that we say of the Artist, centuries after he is dead, “He was
indeed a Poet,” that is, a creator: He has created a form of life which
the world did not know before, and breathed into that form a spirit
which preserves it from the decay to which all of man himself except
his soul is subjected. Achilles is killed by Paris; Homer re-creates
Achilles—and the Achilles of Homer is alive to-day.
By the common consent of all educated nations, the highest order
of Art in Literature is the Narrative, that is the Epic; and the next to
it in eminence is the Dramatic. We are, therefore, compelled to allow
that the objective faculty—which is the imperative essential of
excellence in either of these two summits of the ‘forked Parnassus’—
attains to a sublimer reach of art than the subjective—that is, in
order to make my scholastic adjectives familiar to common
apprehension, the artist who reflects vividly and truthfully, in the
impartial mirror of his mind, other circumstances, other lives, other
characters than his own, belongs to a higher order than he who,
subjecting all that he contemplates to his own idiosyncrasy, reflects
but himself in his various images of nature and mankind. We admit
this when we come to examples. We admit that Homer is of a higher
order of art than Sappho; that Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ is of a higher
order of art than Shakespeare’s Sonnets; ‘Macbeth’ being purely
objective—the Sonnets being the most subjective poems which the
Elizabethan age can exhibit.
But it is not his choice of the highest order of art that makes a
great artist. If one man says “I will write an epic,” and writes but a
mediocre epic, and another man says “I will write a song,” and writes
an admirable song—the man who writes what is admirable is
superior to him who writes what is mediocre. There is no doubt that
Horace is inferior to Homer—so inferior that we cannot apportion
the difference. The one is epic, the other lyrical. But there is no doubt
also that Horace is incalculably superior to Tryphiodorus or Sir
Richard Blackmore, though they are epical and he is lyrical. In a
word, it is perfectly obvious, that in proportion to the height of the
art attempted must be the powers of the artist, so that there is the
requisite harmony between his subject and his genius; and that he
who commands a signal success in one of the less elevated spheres of
art must be considered a greater artist than he who obtains but
indifferent success in the most arduous.
Nevertheless, Narrative necessitates so high a stretch of
imagination, and so wide a range of intellect, that it will always
obtain, if tolerably well told, a precedence of immediate popularity
over the most exquisite productions of an inferior order of the solid
and staple qualities of imagination—so much so that, even where the
first has resort to what may be called the brick and mortar of prose,
as compared with the ivory, marble, and cedar of verse, a really great
work of Narrative in prose will generally obtain a wider audience,
even among the most fastidious readers, than poems, however good,
in which the imagination is less creative, and the author rather
describes or moralises over what is, than invents and vivifies what
never existed. The advantage of the verse lies in its durability. Prose,
when appealing to the imagination, has not the same characteristics
of enduring longevity as verse;—first and chiefly, it is not so easily
remembered. Who remembers twenty lines in ‘Ivanhoe’? Who does
not remember twenty lines in the ‘Deserted Village’? Verse chains a
closer and more minute survey to all beauties of thought expressed
by it than prose, however elaborately completed, can do. And that
survey is carried on and perpetuated by successive generations. So
that in a great prose fiction, one hundred years after its date, there
are innumerable beauties of thought and fancy which lie wholly
unobserved; and in a poem, also surveyed one hundred years after its
publication, there is probably not a single beauty undetected. This
holds even in the most popular and imperishable prose fictions, read
at a time of life when our memory is most tenacious, such as ‘Don
Quixote’ or ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ or the ‘Arabian
Nights.’ We retain, indeed, a lively impression of the pleasure
derived from the perusal of those masterpieces; of the salient
incidents in story; the broad strokes of character, wit, or fancy; but
quotations of striking passages do not rise to our lips as do the verses
of poets immeasurably inferior, in the grand creative gifts of Poetry,
to those fictionists of prose. And hence the Verse Poet is a more
intimate companion throughout time than the Prose Poet can hope
to be. In our moments of aspiration or of despondency, his musical
thoughts well up from our remembrance. By a couple of lines he
kindles the ambition of our boyhood, or soothes into calm the
melancholy contemplations of our age.
Cæteris paribus, there can be no doubt of the advantage of verse
over prose in all works of the imagination. But an artist does not
select his own department of art with deliberate calculation of the
best chances of posthumous renown. His choice is determined partly
by his own organisation, and partly also by the circumstances of his
time. For these last may control and tyrannise over his own more
special bias. For instance, in our country, at present, it is scarcely an
exaggeration to say that there is no tragic drama—scarcely any living
drama at all; whether from the want of competent actors, or from
some disposition on the part of our public and our critics not to
accord to a successful drama the rank which it holds in other nations,
and once held in this, I do not care to examine; but the fact itself is so
clear, that the Drama, though in reality it is, in itself, the highest
order of poem, next to the Epic, seems to have wholly dropped out of
our consideration as belonging to any form of poetry whatsoever. If
any Englishman were asked by a foreigner to name even the minor
poets of his country who have achieved reputation since the death of
Lord Byron, it would not occur to him to name Sheridan Knowles—
though perhaps no poet since Shakespeare has written so many
successful dramas; nay, if he were asked to quote the principal poets
whom England has produced, I doubt very much whether Ben
Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, or Otway, would occur to his mind as
readily as Collins or Cowper. We have forgotten, in short, somehow
or other, except in the single instance of Shakespeare, that dramas in
verse are poems, and that where we have a great dramatist, who can
hold the hearts of an audience spell-bound, we have a poet
immeasurably superior, in all the great qualities of poetry, to three-
fourths of the lyrical, and still more of the didactic versifiers who,
lettered and bound as British poets, occupy so showy a range on our
shelves. It is not thus anywhere except in our country. Ask a
Frenchman who are the greatest poets of France, he names her
dramatists immediately—Corneille, Racine, Molière. Ask a German,
he names Goethe and Schiller; and if you inquire which of the works
of those great masters in all variety of song he considers their
greatest poems, he at once names their dramas. But to return; with
us, therefore, the circumstances of the time would divert an author,
whose natural bias might otherwise lead him towards dramatic
composition, from a career so discouraged; and as the largest
emoluments and the loudest reputation are at this time bestowed
upon prose fiction, so he who would otherwise have been a dramatist
becomes a novelist. I speak here, indeed, from some personal
experience, for I can remember well, that when Mr Macready
undertook the management of one of those two great national
theatres, which are now lost to the national drama, many literary
men turned their thoughts towards writing for the stage, sure that in
Mr Macready they could find an actor to embody their conceptions; a
critic who could not only appreciate, but advise and guide; and a
gentleman with whom a man of letters could establish frank and
pleasant understanding. But when Mr Macready withdrew from an
experiment which probably required more capital than he deemed it
prudent to risk in the mere rental of a theatre, which in other
countries would be defrayed by the State, the literary flow towards
the drama again ebbed back, and many a play, felicitously begun,
remains to this day a fragment in the limbo of neglected pigeon-
holes.
The circumstances of the time, therefore, though they do not arrest
the steps of genius, alter its direction. Those departments of art in
which the doors are the most liberally thrown open, will necessarily
most attract the throng of artists, and it is the more natural that
there should be a rush toward novel-writing, because no man and no
woman who can scribble at all, ever doubt that they can scribble a
novel. Certainly, it seems that the kinds of writing most difficult to
write well, are the easiest to write ill. Where are the little children
who cannot write what they call poetry, or the big children who
cannot write what they call novels?—
“Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim,”

says Horace of the writers of his day. In our day the saying applies in
most force to that class of poemata, which pretends to narrate the
epic of life in the form of prose. For the docti as well as the indocti—
men the most learned in all but the art of novel-writing—write
novels, no less than the most ignorant; and often with no better
success. One gentleman wishing to treat us with a sermon, puts it
into a novel; another gentleman, whose taste is for political
disquisition, puts it into a novel; High Church and Low Church and
no Church at all, Tories and Radicals, and speculators on Utopia,
fancy that they condescend to adapt truth to the ordinary
understanding, when they thrust into a novel that with which a novel
has no more to do than it has with astronomy. Certainly it is in the
power of any one to write a book in three volumes, divide it into
chapters, and call it a novel; but those processes no more make the
work a novel, than they make it a History of China. We thus see
many clever books by very clever writers, which, regarded as novels,
are detestable. They are written without the slightest study of the art
of narrative, and without the slightest natural gift to divine it. Those
critics who, in modern times, have the most thoughtfully analysed
the laws of æsthetic beauty, concur in maintaining that the real
truthfulness of all works of imagination—sculpture, painting, written
fiction—is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to
represent the positive truth, but the idealised image of a truth. As
Hegel well observes, “that which exists in nature is a something
purely individual and particular. Art, on the contrary, is essentially
destined to manifest the general.” A fiction, therefore, which is
designed to inculcate an object wholly alien to the imagination, sins
against the first law of art; and if a writer of fiction narrow his scope
to particulars so positive as polemical controversy in matters
ecclesiastical, political, or moral, his work may or not be an able
treatise, but it must be a very poor novel.
Religion and politics are not, indeed, banished from works of
imagination; but to be artistically treated, they must be of the most
general and the least sectarian description. In the record of the Fall
of Man, for instance, Milton takes the most general belief in which all
Christian nations concur,—nay, in which nations not Christian still
acknowledge a myth of reverential interest. Or again, to descend
from the highest rank of poetry to a third rank in novel-writing;
when Mr Ward, in his charming story of ‘Tremaine,’ makes his very
plot consist in the conversion of an infidel to a belief in the
immortality of the soul, he does not depart from the artistic principle
of dealing, not with particulars, but with generals. Had he exceeded
the point at which he very wisely and skilfully stops, and pushed his
argument beyond the doctrine on which all theologians concur, into
questions on which they dispute, he would have lost sight of art
altogether. So in politics—the general propositions from which
politics start—the value of liberty, order, civilisation, &c.—are not
only within the competent range of imaginative fiction, but form
some of its loftiest subjects; but descend lower into the practical
questions that divide the passions of a day, and you only waste all the
complicated machinery of fiction, to do what you could do much
better in a party pamphlet. For, in fact, as the same fine critic, whom
I have previously quoted, says, with admirable eloquence:—
 “Man, enclosed on all sides in the limits of the finite, and aspiring to get beyond
them, turns his looks towards a superior sphere, more pure and more true, where
all the oppositions and contradictions of the finite disappear—where his
intellectual liberty, spreading its wings, without obstacles and without limits,
attains to its supreme end. This region is that of art, and its reality is the ideal. The
necessity of the beau-ideal in art is derived from the imperfections of the real. The
mission of art is to represent, under sensible forms, the free development of life,
and especially of mind.”

What is herein said of Art more especially applies to the art of

narrative fiction, whether it take the form of verse or prose. For,
when we come to that realm of fiction which, whether in verse or
prose, is rendered most alluring to us, either by the fashion of our
time or the genius of the artist, it is with a desire to escape, for the
moment, out of this hard and narrow positive world in which we live;
to forget, for a brief holiday, disputes between High and Low Church,
Tories and Radicals—in fine, to lose sight of particulars in the
contemplation of general truths. We can have our real life, in all its
harsh outlines, whenever we please it; we do not want to see that real
life, but its ideal image, in the fable land of art. There is another error
common enough in second-rate novelists, and made still more
common because it is praised by ordinary critics—viz., an attempt at
the exact imitation of what is called Nature; one writer will thus draw
a character in fiction as minutely as he can, from some individual he
has met in life—another perplexes us with the precise patois of
provincial mechanics—not as a mere relief to the substance of a
dialogue, but as a prevalent part of it. Now I hold all this to be
thoroughly antagonistic to art in fiction—it is the relinquishment of
generals for the servile copy of particulars.... It cannot be too often
repeated that art is not the imitation of nature; it is only in the very
lowest degree of poetry—viz., the Descriptive, that the imitation of
nature can be considered an artistic end. Even there, the true poet
brings forth from nature more than nature says to the common ear
or reveals to the common eye. The strict imitation of nature has
always in it a something trite and mean—a man who mimics the
cackle of the goose or the squeak of a pig, so truthfully, that for the
moment he deceives us—attains but a praise that debases him. Nor
this because there is something in the cackle of the goose, and the
squeak of pig, that in itself has a mean association; for as Kant says
truly, “Even a man’s exact imitation of the song of the nightingale
displeases us when we discover that it is a mimicry, and not the
nightingale.” Art does not imitate nature, but it founds itself on the
study of nature—takes from nature the selections which best accord
with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature
does not possess—viz., the mind and the soul of man.
Just as he is but a Chinese kind of painter, who seeks to give us, in
exact prosaic detail, every leaf in a tree, which, if we want to see only
a tree, we could see in a field much better than in a picture; so he is
but a prosaic and mechanical pretender to imagination who takes a
man out of real life, gives us his photograph, and says, “I have copied
nature.” If I want to see that kind of man I could see him better in
Oxford Street than in a novel. The great artist deals with large
generalities, broad types of life and character, and though he may
take flesh and blood for his model, he throws into the expression of
the figure a something which elevates the model into an idealised
image. A porter sate to Correggio for the representation of a saint;
but Correggio so painted the porter, that the porter, on the canvass,
was lost in the saint.
Some critics have contended that the delineation of character
artistically—viz., through the selection of broad generalities in the
complex nature of mankind, rather than in the observation of
particulars by the portraiture of an individual—fails of the
verisimilitude and reality—of the flesh-and-blood likeness to
humanity—which all vivid delineation of human character
necessarily requires. But this objection is sufficiently confuted by a
reference to the most sovereign masterpieces of imaginative
literature. The principal characters in Homer—viz., Achilles, Hector,
Ulysses, Nestor, Paris, Thersites, &c.—are so remarkably the types of
large and enduring generalities in human character, that, in spite of
all changes of time and manners, we still classify and designate
individuals under those antique representative names. We call such
or such a man the Ulysses, or Nestor, or Achilles, or Thersites of his
class or epoch. Virgil, on the contrary, has, in Æneas, but a feeble
shadow reflected from no bodily form with which we are familiar,
precisely because Æneas is not a type of any large and lasting
generality in human character, but a poetised and half-allegorical
silhouette of Augustus. There is, indeed, an antagonistic difference
between fictitious character and biographical character. In
biography, truth must be sought in the preference of particulars to
generals; in imaginative creations truth is found in the preference of
generals to particulars. We recognise this distinction more
immediately with respect to the former. In biography, and indeed in
genuine history, character appears faithful and vivid in proportion as
it stands clear from all æsthetic purposes in the mind of the
delineator. The moment the biographer or historian seeks to drape
his personages in the poetic mantle, to subject their lives and actions
to the poetic or idealising process, we are immediately and rightly
seized with distrust of his accuracy. When he would dramatise his
characters into types, they are unfaithful as likenesses. In like
manner, if we carefully examine, we shall see that when the Poet
takes on himself the task of the Biographer, and seeks to give minute
representations of living individuals, his characters become
conventional—only partially accurate—the accuracy being sought by
exaggerating trivial peculiarities into salient attributes, rather than
by the patient exposition of the concrete qualities which constitute
the interior nature of living men. Satire or eulogy obtrudes itself
unconsciously to the artist; and mars the catholic and enduring
truthfulness which, in works of imagination, belongs exclusively to
the invention of original images for æsthetic ends.
Goethe, treating of the drama, has said, that “to be theatrical a
piece must be symbolical; that is to say, every action must have an
importance of its own, and it must tend to one more important still.”
It is still more important, for dramatic effect, that the dramatis
personæ should embody attributes of passion, humour, sentiment,
character, with which large miscellaneous audiences can establish
sympathy; and sympathy can be only established by such a
recognition of a something familiar to our own natures, or to our
conception of our natures, as will allure us to transport ourselves for
the moment into the place of those who are passing through events
which are not familiar to our actual experience. None of us have gone
through the events which form the action of Othello or Phèdre; but
most of us recognise in our natures, or our conceptions of our
natures, sufficient elements for ardent love or agonising jealousy, to
establish a sympathy with the agencies by which, in Othello and
Phèdre, those passions are expressed. Thus, the more forcibly the
characters interest the generalities of mankind which compose an
audience, the more truthfully they must represent what such
generalities of mankind have in common—in short, the more they
will be types, and the less they will be portraits. Some critics have
supposed that, in the delineation of types, the artist would fall into
the frigid error of representing mere philosophical abstractions. This,
however, is a mistake which the poet who comprehends and acts
upon the first principle of his art—viz., the preference of generals to
particulars—will be the less likely to commit, in proportion as such
generals are vivified into types of humanity. For he is not seeking to
personate allegorically a passion; but to show the effects of the
passion upon certain given forms of character under certain given
situations: And he secures the individuality required, and avoids the
lifeless pedantry of an allegorised abstraction, by reconciling passion,
character, and situation with each other; so that it is always a living
being in whom we sympathise. And the rarer and more unfamiliar
the situation of life in which the poet places his imagined character,
the more in that character itself we must recognise relations akin to
our own flesh and blood, in order to feel interest in its fate. Thus, in
the hands of great masters of fiction, whether dramatists or
novelists, we become unconsciously reconciled, not only to
unfamiliar, but to improbable, nay, to impossible situations, by
recognising some marvellous truthfulness to human nature in the
thoughts, feelings, and actions of the character represented, granting
that such a character could be placed in such a situation. The finest
of Shakespeare’s imaginary characters are essentially typical. No one
could suppose that the poet was copying from individuals of his
acquaintance in the delineations of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Iago,
Angelo, Romeo. They are as remote from portraiture as are the
conceptions of Caliban and Ariel. In fine, the distinctive excellence of
Shakespeare’s highest characters is that, while they embody truths
the most subtle, delicate, and refining in the life and organisation of
men, those truths are so assorted as to combine with the elements
which humanity has most in common. And it is obvious to any reader
of ordinary reflection, that this could not be effected if the characters
themselves, despite all that is peculiar to each, were not, on the
whole, typical of broad and popular divisions in the human family.
Turning to prose fiction, if we look to the greatest novel which
Europe has yet produced (meaning by the word novel a
representation of familiar civilised life)—viz., ‘Gil Blas’—we find the
characters therein are vivid and substantial, capable of daily
application to the life around us, in proportion as they are types and
not portraits—such as Ambrose Lamela, Fabricio, the Archbishop of
Toledo, &c.; and the characters that really fail of truth and
completion are those which were intended to be portraits of
individuals—such as Olivares, the Duke de Lerma, the Infant of
Spain, &c. And if it be true that, in Sangrado, Le Sage designed the
portrait of the physician Hecquet (the ingenious author of the
“Système de la Trituration),” and, in the poetical charlatan
Triaquero, aimed at a likeness of Voltaire, all we can say is, that no
two portraits can be more unfaithful to the originals; and whatever
belongs to the characters worthy the genius of the author is to be
found in those strokes and touches by which the free play of humour
involuntarily destroys the exactitude of portraiture. Again, with that
masterpiece of prose romance or fantasy ‘Don Quixote,’ the character
of the hero, if it could be regarded as that of an individual whom
Cervantes found in life, would be only an abnormal and morbid
curiosity subjected to the caricature of a satirist. But regarded as a
type of certain qualities which are largely diffused throughout human
nature, the character is psychologically true, and artistically
completed; hence we borrow the word “Quixotic” whenever we
would convey the idea of that extravagant generosity of enthusiasm
for the redress of human wrongs, which, even in exciting ridicule,
compels admiration and conciliates love. The grandeur of the
conception of ‘Don Quixote’ is its fidelity to a certain nobleness of
sentiment, which, however latent or however modified, exists in
every genuinely noble nature. And hence, perhaps, of all works of
broad humour, ‘Don Quixote’ is that which most approximates the
humorous to the side of the sublime.
The reflective spirit of our age has strongly tended towards the
development of a purpose in fiction, symbolical in a much more
literal sense of the word than Goethe intended to convey in the
extract I have quoted on the symbolical nature of theatrical
composition. Besides the interest of plot and incident, another
interest is implied, more or less distinctly or more or less vaguely,
which is that of the process and working out of a symbolical purpose
interwoven with the popular action. Instead of appending to the fable
a formal moral, a moral signification runs throughout the whole
fable, but so little obtrusively, that, even at the close, it is to be
divined by the reader, not explained by the author. This has been a
striking characteristic of the art of our century. In the former century
it was but very partially cultivated, and probably grows out of that
reaction from materialism which distinguishes our age from the last.
Thus—to quote the most familiar illustrations I can think of—in
Goethe’s novel of ‘Wilhelm Meister,’ besides the mere interest of the
incidents, there is an interest in the inward signification of an artist’s
apprenticeship in art, of a man’s apprenticeship in life. In
‘Transformation,’ by Mr Hawthorne, the mere story of outward
incident can never be properly understood, unless the reader’s mind
goes along with the exquisite mysticism which is symbolised by the
characters. In that work, often very faulty in the execution,
exceedingly grand in the conception, are typified the classical
sensuous life, through Donato; the Jewish dispensation, through
Miriam; the Christian dispensation, through Hilda, who looks over
the ruins of Rome from her virgin chamber amidst the doves.
To our master novelists of a former age—to Defoe, Fielding,
Richardson, and Smollett—this double plot, if so I may call it, was
wholly unknown. Swift, indeed, apprehended it in ‘Gulliver’s
Travels,’ which I consider the greatest poem—that is, the greatest
work of pure imagination and original invention—of the age in which
he lived; and Johnson divined it in ‘Rasselas,’ which, but for the
interior signification, would be the faulty and untruthful novel which
Lord Macaulay has, I venture to opine, erroneously declared it to be.
Lord Macaulay censures ‘Rasselas’ because the Prince of Abyssinia
does not talk like an Abyssinian. Now, it seems to me that a colouring
faithful to the manners of Abyssinia, is a detail so trivial in reference
to the object of the author of a philosophical romance, that it is more
artistic to omit than to observe it. Rasselas starts at once, not from a
positive but from an imagined world—he starts from the Happy
Valley to be conducted (in his progress through actual life, to the
great results of his search after a happiness more perfect than that of
the Happy Valley) to the Catacombs. This is the interior poetical
signification of the tale of ‘Rasselas’—the final result of all departure
from the happy land of contented ignorance is to be found at the
grave. There, alone, a knowledge happier than ignorance awaits the
seeker beyond the catacombs. For a moral so broad, intended for
civilised readers, any attempt to suit colouring and manners to
Abyssinian savages would have been, not an adherence to, but a
violation of, Art. The artist here wisely disdains the particulars—he is
dealing with generals.
Thus Voltaire’s ‘Zadig’ is no more a Babylonian than Johnson’s
‘Rasselas’ is an Abyssinian. Voltaire’s object of philosophical satire
would have been perfectly lost if he had given us an accurate and
antiquarian transcript of the life of the Chaldees; and, indeed, the
worst parts in ‘Zadig’ (speaking artistically), are those in which the
author does, now and then, assume a quasi antique oriental air, sadly
at variance with meanings essentially modern, couched in irony
essentially French.
But the writer who takes this duality of purpose—who unites an
interior symbolical signification with an obvious popular interest in
character and incident—errs, firstly, in execution, if he render his
symbolical meaning so distinct and detailed as to become obviously
allegorical—unless, indeed, as in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ it is
avowedly an allegory; and, secondly, he errs in artistic execution of
his plan, whenever he admits a dialogue not closely bearing on one
or the other of his two purposes, and whenever he fails in merging
the two into an absolute unity at the end.
Now, the fault I find chiefly with novelists is their own contempt
for their craft. A clever and scholarlike man enters into it with a
dignified contempt. “I am not going to write,” he says, “a mere
novel.” What, then, is he going to write? What fish’s tail will he add
to the horse’s head? A tragic poet might as well say, “I am not going
to write a mere tragedy.” The first essential to success in the art you
practise is respect for the art itself. Who could ever become a good
shoemaker if he did not have a profound respect for the art of
making shoes? There is an ideal even in the humblest mechanical
craft. A shoemaker destined to excel his rivals will always have before
his eye the vision of a perfect shoe, which he is always striving to
realise, and never can. It was well said by Mr Hazlitt, “That the city
prentice who did not think the Lord Mayor in his gilded coach was
the greatest of human beings would come to be hanged.” Whatever
our calling be, we can never rise in it unless we exalt, even to an
exaggerated dignity, the elevation of the calling itself. We are noble
peasants or noble kings just in proportion as we form a lofty estimate
of the nobility that belongs to peasants or the nobility that belongs to
kings.
 We may despair of the novelist who does not look upon a novel as
a consummate work of art—who does not apply to it, as Fielding
theoretically, as Scott practically, did, the rules which belong to the
highest order of imagination. Of course he may fail of his standard,
but he will fail less in proportion as the height of his standard
elevates his eye and nerves his sinews.
The first object of a novelist is to interest his reader; the next
object is the quality of the interest. Interest in his story is essential,
or he will not be read; but if the quality of the interest be not high, he
will not be read a second time. And if he be not read a second time by
his own contemporaries, the chance is that he will not be read once
by posterity. The degree of interest is for the many—the quality of
interest for the few. But the many are proverbially fickle, the few are
constant. Steadfast minorities secure, at last, the success of great
measures, and confirm, at last, the fame of great writings.
I have said that many who, in a healthful condition of our stage,
would be dramatists, become novelists. But there are some material
distinctions between the dramatic art and the narrative—distinctions
as great as those between the oratorical style and the literary.
Theatrical effects displease in a novel. In a novel much more than in
a drama must be explained and accounted for. On the stage the actor
himself interprets the author; and a look, a gesture, saves pages of
writing. In a novel the author elevates his invention to a new and
original story; in a drama, I hold that the author does well to take at
least the broad outlines of a story already made. It is an immense
advantage to him to find the tale he is to dramatise previously told,
whether in a history, a legend, a romance, or in the play of another
age or another land; and the more the tale be popularly familiarised
to the audience, the higher will be the quality of the interest he
excites. Thus, in the Greek tragedy, the story and the characters were
selected from the popular myths. Thus Shakespeare takes his story
either from chronicles or novels. Thus Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire
take, from scenes of antiquity the most familiarly known, their fables
and their characters. Nor is it only an advantage to the dramatist that
the audience should come to the scene somewhat prepared by
previous association for the nature of the interest invoked; it is also
an advantage to the dramatist that his invention—being thus relieved
from the demand on its powers in what, for the necessities of the
dramatic art, is an unimportant if not erroneous direction of art—is
left more free to combine the desultory materials of the borrowed
story into the harmony of a progressive plot—to reconcile the actions
of characters, whose existence the audience take for granted, with
probable motives—and, in a word, to place the originality there
where alone it is essential to the drama—viz., in the analysis of the
heart, in the delineation of passion, in the artistic development of the
idea and purpose which the drama illustrates through the effects of
situation and the poetry of form.
But in the narrative of prose fiction an original story is not an
auxiliary or erroneous, but an essential, part of artistic invention;
and even where the author takes the germ of his subject and the
sketch of his more imposing characters from History, he will find
that he will be wanting in warmth of interest if the tale he tells be not
distinct from that of the history he presses into his service—more
prominently brought forward, more minutely wrought out—and the
character of the age represented, not only through the historical
characters introduced, but those other and more general types of life
which he will be compelled to imagine for himself. This truth is
recognised at once when we call to mind such masterpieces in
historical fiction as ‘Ivanhoe,’ ‘Kenilworth,’ ‘Quentin Durward,’ and ‘I
Promessi Sposi.’
In the tragic drama, however, historical subjects appear to
necessitate a different treatment from that which most conduces to
the interest of romantic narrative. There is a dignity in historical
characters which scarcely permits them to be transferred to the stage
without playing before the audience the important parts which they
played in life. When they enter on the scene they excite a
predominating interest, and we should not willingly see them
deposed into secondary agencies in the conduct of the story. They
ought not to be introduced at all, unless in fitting correspondence
with our notions of the station they occupied and the influence they
exercised in the actual world; and thus, whether they are made fated
victims through their sufferings, or fateful influences through their
power, still, in the drama, it is through them that the story moves:
them the incidents affect—them the catastrophe involves—whether
for their triumph or their fall.
 The drama not necessitating an original fable nor imaginary
characters, that which it does necessitate in selecting a historical
subject is, the art of so arranging and concentrating events in history
as to form a single action, terminating in a single end, wrought
through progressive incidents clearly linked together. It will be seen
that the dramatic treatment is, in this respect, opposed to the purely
historical treatment; for in genuine history there are innumerable
secondary causes tending to each marked effect, which the dramatist
must wholly eliminate or set aside. He must, in short, aim at generals
to the exclusion of particulars.
And thus, as his domain is the passions, he must seek a plot which
admits of situations for passion, and characters in harmony with
such situations. Great historical events in themselves are rarely
dramatic—they are made so on the stage by the appeal to emotions
with which, in private life, the audience are accustomed to
sympathise. The preservation of the Republic of Venice from a
conspiracy would have an interest in history from causes appealing
to political reasoning, that would be wholly without interest on the
stage. The dramatist, therefore, places the preservation of Venice in
the struggle of a woman’s heart between the conflicting passions,
with which, in private life, the audience could most readily
sympathise. According as Belvidera acts, as between her husband
and her father, Venice will be saved or lost. This is dramatic
treatment—it is not historical. All delineations of passion involve the
typical; because whoever paints a passion common to mankind
presents us with a human type of that passion, varied, indeed,
through the character of an individual and the situations in which he
is placed; but still, in the expression of the passion itself, sufficiently
germane to all in whom that passion exists, whether actively or
latently, to permit the spectator to transfer himself into the place and
person of him who represents it. Hence the passions of individuals,
though affecting only themselves, or a very confined range of persons
connected with them, command, in reality, a far wider scope in
artistic treatment than the political events affecting millions in
historical fact. For political events, accurately and dispassionately
described, are special to the time and agents—they are traced
through the logic of the reason, which only a comparative few
exercise, and even the few exercise it in the calm of their closets, they
do not come into the crowd of a theatre for its exercise. But the
passions of love, ambition, jealousy—the conflict between opposing
emotions of affection and duty—expressed in the breast of an
individual, are not special,—they are universal. And before a
dramatic audience the safety of a state is merged or ignored in the
superior interest felt in the personation of some emotion more
ardent than any state interest, and only more ardent because
universal amongst mankind in all states and all times. If the
domestic interest be the strongest of which the drama is capable, it is
because it is the interest in which the largest number of human
breasts can concur, and in which the poet who creates it can most
escape from particulars into generals. In the emancipation of
Switzerland from the Austrian yoke, history can excite our interest in
the question whether William Tell ever existed—and in showing the
large array of presumptive evidence against the popular story of his
shooting the apple placed on his son’s head. But in the drama
William Tell is the personator of the Swiss liberties; and the story of
the apple, in exciting the domestic interest of the relationship
between father and son, is that very portion of history which the
dramatic artist will the most religiously conserve,—obtaining therein
one incalculable advantage for his effect—viz., that it is not his own
invention, and therefore of disputable probability; but, whether fable
or truth in the eyes of the historical critic, so popularly received and
acknowledged as a truth, that the audience are prepared to enter into
the emotions of the father, and the peril of the son.
It is, then, not in the invention of a story, nor in the creation of
imaginary characters, that a dramatist proves his originality as an
artist, but in the adaptation of a story, found elsewhere, to a dramatic
purpose; and in the fidelity, not to historical detail, but to
psychological and metaphysical truth with which he reconciles the
motives and conduct of the characters he selects from history, to the
situations in which they are placed, so as to elicit for them, under all
that is peculiar to their nature or their fates, the necessary degree of
sympathy from emotions of which the generality of mankind are
susceptible.
But to the narrator of fiction—to the story-teller—the invention of
fable and of imaginary character is obviously among the legitimate
conditions of his art; and a fable purely original has in him a merit
which it does not possess in the tragic or comic poet.
 On the other hand, the skilful mechanism of plot, though not
without considerable value in the art of narrative, is much less
requisite in the Novelist than in the Dramatist. Many of the greatest
prose fictions are independent of plot altogether. It is only by
straining the word to a meaning foreign to the sense it generally
conveys, that we can recognise a plot in ‘Don Quixote,’ and scarcely
any torture of the word can make a plot out of ‘Gil Blas.’ It is for this
reason that the novel admits of what the drama never should admit—
viz., the operation of accident in the conduct of the story: the villain,
instead of coming to a tragic close through the inevitable sequences
of the fate he has provoked, may be carried off, at the convenient
time, by a stroke of apoplexy, or be run over by a railway train.
Nevertheless, in artistic narrative, accident, where it affects a
dénouement, should be very sparingly employed. Readers, as well as
critics, feel it to be a blot in the story of ‘Rob Roy’ when the elder
brothers of Rashleigh Osbaldistone are killed off by natural causes
unforeseen and unprepared for in the previous train of events
narrated, in order to throw Rashleigh into a position which the
author found convenient for his ultimate purpose.
A novel of high aim requires, of course, delineation of character,
and with more patient minuteness, than the drama; and some novels
live, indeed, solely through the delineation of character; whereas
there are some tragedies in which the characters, when stripped of
theatrical costume, are very trivial, but which, despite the poverty of
character, are immortal, partly from the skill of the plot, partly from
the passion which is wrought out of the situations, and principally,
perhaps, from the beauty of form—the strength and harmony of the
verse. This may be said of the French drama generally, and of Racine
in especial. The tragic drama imperatively requires passion—the
comic drama humour or wit; but a novel may be a very fine one
without humour, passion, or wit—it may be made great in its way
(though that way is not the very highest one) by delicacy of
sentiment, interest of story, playfulness of fancy, or even by the level
tenor of everyday life, not coarsely imitated, but pleasingly idealised.
Still mystery is one of the most popular and effective sources of
interest in a prose narrative, and sometimes the unravelling of it
constitutes the entire plot. Every one can remember the thrill with
which he first sought to fathom the dark secret in ‘Caleb Williams’ or
‘The Ghost-Seer.’ Even in the comic novel, the great founder of that
structure of art has obtained praise for perfection of plot almost
solely from the skill with which Tom Jones’s parentage is kept
concealed; the terror, towards the end, when the hero seems to have
become involved in one of the crimes from which the human mind
most revolts, and the pleased surprise with which that terror is
relieved by the final and unexpected discovery of his birth, with all
the sense of the many fine strokes of satire in the commencement of
the tale, which are not made clear to us till the close.
To prose fiction there must always be conceded an immense
variety in the modes of treatment—a bold licence of loose capricious
adaptation of infinite materials to some harmonious unity of
interest, which even the most liberal construction of dramatic licence
cannot afford to the drama. We need no lengthened examination of
this fact; we perceive at once that any story can be told, but
comparatively very few stories can be dramatised. And hence some of
the best novels in the world cannot be put upon the stage; while
some, that have very little merit as novels, have furnished subject-
matter for the greatest plays in the modern world. The interest in a
drama must be consecutive, sustained, progressive—it allows of no
longueurs. But the interest of a novel may be very gentle, very
irregular—may interpose long conversations in the very midst of
action—always provided, however, as I have before said, that they
bear upon the ulterior idea for which the action is invented. Thus we
have in ‘Wilhelm Meister’ long conversations on art or philosophy
just where we want most to get on with the story—yet, without those
conversations, the story would not have been worth the telling; and
its object could not, indeed, be comprehended—its object being the
accomplishment of a human mind in the very subjects on which the
conversations turn. So, in many of the most animated tales of Sir
Walter Scott, the story pauses for the sake of some historical
disquisition necessary to make us understand the altered situations
of the imagined characters. I need not say that all such delays to the
action would be inadmissible in the drama. Hence an intelligent
criticism must always allow a latitude to artistic prose fiction which it
does not accord to the dramatic, nor indeed to any other department
of imaginative representation of life and character. I often see in our
Reviews a charge against some novel, that this or that is “a defect of
art,” which is, when examined, really a beauty in art—or a positive
necessity which that department of art could not avoid—simply
because the Reviewer has been applying to the novel rules drawn
from the drama, and not only inapplicable, but adverse, to the
principles which regulate the freedom of the novel. Now, in reality,
where genius is present, art cannot be absent. Unquestionably,
genius may make many incidental mistakes in art, but if it compose a
work of genius, that work must be a work of art on the whole. For
just as virtue consists in a voluntary obedience to moral law, so
genius consists in a voluntary obedience to artistic law. And the
freedom of either is this, that the law is pleasing to it—has become its
second nature. Both human virtue and human genius must err from
time to time; but any prolonged disdain, or any violent rupture, of
the law by which it exists, would be death to either. There is this
difference to the advantage of virtue (for, happily, virtue is necessary
to all men, and genius is but the gift of few), that we can lay down
rules by the observance of which any one can become a virtuous
man; but we can lay down no rules by which any one can become a
man of genius. No technical rules can enable a student to become a
great dramatist or a great novelist; but there is in art an inherent
distinction between broad general principles and technical rules. In
all genuine art there is a sympathetic, affectionate, and often quite
unconscious adherence to certain general principles. The recognition
of these principles is obtained through the philosophy of criticism;
first, by a wide and patient observation of masterpieces of art, which
are to criticism what evidences of fact are to science; and next, by the
metaphysical deduction, from those facts, of the principles which
their concurrence serves to establish. By the putting forth of these
principles we cannot make bad writers good, nor mediocre writers
great; but we may enable the common reader to judge with more
correctness of the real quality of merit, or the real cause of defect, in
the writers he peruses; and by directing and elevating his taste,
rectify and raise the general standard of literature. We may do more
than that—we may much facilitate the self-tuition that all genius has
to undergo before it attains to its full development, in the harmony
between its freedom and those elements of truth and beauty which
constitute its law. As to mere technical rules, each great artist makes
them for himself; he does not despise technical rules, but he will not
servilely borrow them from other artists; he forms his own. They are
the by-laws which his acquaintance with his special powers lays
down as best adapted to their exercise and their sphere. Apelles is
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