_Lafeu._ "They say miracles are past: and we have our philosophical
persons, to make modern and familiar, things, supernatural and
causeless."--Act ii. Scene 3.
So the passage is pointed in Johnson and Steevens, that is, with a comma
after the word "things;" and the same pointing is used in the recent
editions of Mr. Knight, Barry Cornwall, and Mr. Collier.
It occurred to me that this pointing gave a meaning quite out of harmony
with what directly follows, and also with the spirit in which Lafeu speaks.
Let the comma be placed after "familiar", and the whole passage be read
thus:
_Lafeu._ "They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical
persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless.
Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into
seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."
Lafeu apparently is speaking somewhat sarcastically of those who say
miracles are past, and who endeavour to _explain away_ the wonderful into
something common and well-known. Subsequently I found that Mr. Coleridge,
in his _Literary Remains_ (vol. ii. p. 121.), had adduced the
above-mentioned passage, placing the comma after "familiar." He does not,
however, make any observation on the other pointing; but remarking, that
Shakspeare often uses "modern" for "common," proceeds thus:
"Shakspeare, inspired, as it might seem, with all knowledge, here uses
the word _causeless_ in its strict philosophical sense; cause being
truly predicable only of _phenomena_,--that is, things natural, and not
of _noumena_, or things supernatural."
It is, perhaps, rather curious, that although Mr. Collier, in his note on
Lafeu's speech, has quoted the above from Mr. Coleridge, the improved
pointing should have escaped that gentleman's notice.
Looking into Theobald's _Shakspeare_, I find that he also had placed the
comma as Mr. Coleridge has. Mr. Theobald adds this note:
"This, as it has hitherto been printed, is directly opposite to our
poet's and his speaker's meaning. As I have stopped it, the sense
quadrates with the context: and surely it is one unalterable property
of philosophy to make seeming strange and preternatural phenomena
familiar and reducible to cause and reason."
Does not Mr. Theobald, in his closing remark, turn what in Lafeu is really
an ironical outburst on _would-be_ philosophers, into something like a
serious common-place?