A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

view, that he continued. to occupy his sight and touch vrlth the objects
'Nhich had stirred" the depths not only of' memory, but of dread. tl 13 These
various examples leave us in no doubt as to the importance George Eliot
attributed to the power of sense data to build up lasting impr~oR:L.9ns.,
in our minds. They are dravm from people ,/Iho are in some state of physioal
and emotional extremity, all of whom have regressed to an earlier
stage in the learning process and illustrate Herbert Spencer's remark
that if, as he believed, ttthe fundamental condition of vitality, is
that the internal order shall be continually adjusted to the external
order," then, "necessarily ••• the order of the states of consciousness
14
is in correspondence with the order of phenomena in the environment. \I
If, as Locke believed, the mind was passive during the learning
process, this provides an explanation for men's individual differences.
These can be attributed to experience and therefore ultimately to the
environment. In his chapter on "The Association of Ideas", he says that
"this strong combination of' ideas ••• the mind makes in itself either
voluntarily or by chance; and hence it comes in different men to be
very different, according to their diff'erent inclinations, education,
interests, etc." 15 That George Eliot recognises this individual diff'erentiation
given by experienoe, we see from an early description of
Deronda. The suspicion that he is illegitimate, !~the sense of an entailed
16
disadvantage--the def'ormed f'oot doubtf'ully hidden by the shoe," is
an experience of suff'ering which greatly contributes to his moral
growth. tlDeronda's early-wakened susceptibility, charged at f'irst with
rea~ indignation and resistant pride, had raised in him a premature reflection
on certain questions of' lif'e; it had given a bias to his conscience,
a sympathy ~dth
certain ills, and a tension of' resolve in certain
directions, which marked him of'f' f'rom other youths much more than ulliY
.talents he possessed. II 17