They
are like pieces of a puzzle, each of which has been symmetrically cut
and trimmed, till they lie side by side, un-fitting, and un-related.
And we have been pursuing this method for over fifty years, and are
still, apparently, content to go on, each devoting attention to the
symmetrical perfection of his own little section of the puzzle, quite
indifferent to the fact that our neighbour is in possession of an
equally neatly trimmed fragment, which entirely refuses to fit in with
our own!
Is it not time that we should frankly admit the unsatisfactory results
of these years of labour, and honestly face the fact that while we now
have at our disposal an immense mass of interesting and suggestive
material often of high value, we have failed, so far, to formulate a
conclusion which, by embracing and satisfying the manifold conditions
of the problem, will command general acceptance? And if this failure
be admitted, may not its cause be sought in the faulty method which
has failed to recognize in the Grail story an original whole, in which
the parts--the action, the actors, the Symbols, the result to be
obtained, incident, and intention--stood from the very first in
intimate relation the one to the other? That while in process of
utilization as a literary theme these various parts have suffered
modification and accretion from this, or that, side, the problem of
the ultimate source remains thereby unaffected?
Such a reversal of method as I suggest will, I submit, not only
provide us with a critical solution capable of general acceptance, but
it will also enable us to utilize, and appreciate at their due value,
the result of researches which at the present moment appear to be
mutually destructive the one of the other.
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