THE CURE--PLAN OF INNOVATION--NEW DEFINITIONS.
'Swear by thy double self
And that's an oath of credit.'
'Having thus far proceeded
... Is it not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other conclusions?'
It is the trunk of the _prima philosophia_ then which puts forth these
new and wondrous boughs, into all the fields of human speculation and
practice, filling all our outdoor, penetrating all our indoor life,
with their beauty and fragrance; overhanging every roof, stooping to
every door, with their rich curtains and clusters of ornament and
delight, with their ripe underhanging clusters of axioms of
practice--brought down to particulars, ready for use--with their
dispersed directions overhanging every path,--with their aphorisms
made out of the pith and heart of sciences, 'representing a broken
knowledge, and, _therefore_, inviting the men of speculation to
inquire farther.'
It is from this trunk of a _scientific_ universality, of a useful,
practical, always-at-hand, all-inclusive, historical universality, to
which the tracking of the principles, operant in history, to their
simple forms and '_causes in nature_,' conducts the scientific
experimenter,--it is from this primal living trunk and heart of
sciences, to which the new method of learning conducts us, that this
great branch of scientific practice comes, which this drama with its
'transitory shows' has brought safely down to us;--this two-fold
branch of ethics and politics, which come to us--conjoined--as ethics
and politics came in other systems then not scientific,--making in
their junction, and through all their divergencies, 'the forbidden
questions' of science.
The _science_ of this essentially conjoined doctrine is that which
makes, in this case, the novelty. 'The nature _which is formed_ in
everything,' and not in man only, and the faculty, in man, of
comprehending that wider nature, is that which makes the higher
ground, from which a _science_ of his own specific nature, and the
explanation of its phenomenon, is possible to man. Except from this
height of a _common nature_, there is no such thing as a scientific
explanation of these phenomena possible. And this explanation is what
the specific nature in man, with its _speculative_ grasp of a larger
whole--with its speculative grasp of a universal whole,--with its
instinctive _moral_ reach and comprehension corresponding to
that,--constitutionally demands and 'anticipates.'
And the knowledge of this nature which is formed in everything, and
not in man only, is the beginning, not of a speculative science of the
human nature merely,--it is the beginning,--it is the indispensable
foundation of the arts in which a successful artistic advancement of
that nature, or an artistic cure or culture of it is propounded. The
fact that the 'human nature' is, indeed, what it is called, a
'_nature_,' the fact that the human species is _a species_,--the fact
that the human kind is but a _kind_, neighboured with many others from
which it is isolated by its native walls of ignorance,--neighboured
with many others, more or less known, known and unknown, more or less
_kind_-ly, more or less hostile,--species, kinds, whose dialects of
the universal laws, man has not found,--the fact that the universal,
historic principles are operant in all the specific modifications of
human nature, and control and determine them, the fact that the human
life admits of a scientific analysis, and that its phenomena require
to be traced to their true forms,--this is the fact which is the key
to the new philosophy,--the key which unlocks it,--the key to the part
speculative, and the part operative of it.
And this is the secret of the difference between this philosophy and
all other systems and theories of man's life on earth that had been
before it, or that have come after it. For this new and so solid
height of natural philosophy,--solid,--historical,--from its base in
the divergency of natural history, to its utmost peak of unity,--this
scientific height of a common nature, whose summit is 'prima
philosophia,' with its new universal terms and axioms,--this height
from which man, as a species, is also overlooked, and his spontaneous
notions and theories criticised, subjected to that same criticism with
which history itself is always flying in the face of them,--from which
the specific bias in them is everywhere detected,--this new 'pyramid'
of knowledge is the one on whose rock-hewn terraces the conflict of
_views_, the clash of man's _opinions_ shall not sound: this is the
system which has had, and shall have, no rival.
And this is the key to this philosophy, not where it touches human
nature only, but everywhere where it substitutes for abstract human
notions--specific human notions that are powerless in the arts, or
narrow observations that are restrained and uncertain in the rules of
practice they produce,--powers, true forms, original agencies in
nature, universal powers, sure as nature herself, and her universal
form.
To abase the specific human arrogance, to overthrow 'the idols of the
tribe,' is the ultimate condition of this learning. Man _as man_, is
not a primal, if he be an ultimate, fact in nature. Nature is elder
and greater than he, and requires him to learn of her, and makes
little of his mere conceits and dogmas.
From the height of that new simplicity which this philosophy has
gained--not as the elder philosophies had gained theirs, by pure
contemplation, by hasty abstraction and retreat to the _à priori_
sources of knowledge and belief in man,--which it has gained, too, by
a wider induction than the facts of the human nature can supply--with
the torch of these universal principles cleared of their historic
complexities, with the torch of the nature that is formed in
everything, it enters here this great, unenclosed field of human life
and practice, this Spenserian wilderness, where those old, gnarled
trunks, and tangled boughs, and wretched undergrowths of centuries,
stop the way, where those old monsters, which the action of this play
exposes, which this philosophy is bound to drag out to the day, are
hid.
The radical universal fact--the radical universal distinction of the
_double_ nature of GOOD which is formed in everything, and not in man
only, and the two universal motions which correspond to that, the one,
as everything, is a total or substantive in itself, with its
corresponding motion; for this is the principle of selfishness and war
in nature--the principle which struggles everywhere towards decay and
the dissolution of the larger wholes, and not in man only, though the
foolish, unscientific man, who does not know how to track the
phenomena of his own nature to their _causes_,--who has no bridge from
the natural internal phenomena of his own consciousness into the
continent of nature, may think that it is, and reason of it as if it
were;--this double nature of good, 'the one, as a thing, is a total or
substantive in itself, the other as it is, _a part_ or _member_ of a
greater body, whereof the latter is in degree _the greater_ and _the
worthier_, as it tends to the conservation of a more general
form'--this distinction, which the philosopher of this school has laid
down in his work on the scientific advancement of the human species,
with a recommendation that it should be _strongly planted_, which he
has planted there, openly, as the root of a new science of ethics and
policy, will be found at the heart of all this new history of the
human nature; but in this play of the true nobility, and the
scientific cure of the commonweal, it is tracked openly to its most
immediate, obvious, practical application. In all these great
'illustrated' scientific works, which this new school of learning,
with the genius of science for its master, contrived to issue, all the
universally actual and active principles are tracked to their _proper_
specific modifications in man, and not to their development in his
actual history merely; and the distinctive essential law of the human
kind--the law whereby man is man, as distinguished from the baser
kinds, is brought up, and worked out, and unfolded in all its detail,
from the bosom of the universal law--is brought down from its barren
height of isolation, and planted in the universal rule of being, in
the universal law of kinds and essence. This double nature of good, as
it is specifically developed in man, not as humanity only, for man is
not limited to his kind in his intelligence, or in his will, or in his
affections,--this double nature of good, as it is developed in man,
with his contemplative, and moral, and religious grasp of a larger
whole than his particular and private nature can comprehend--with his
large discourse looking before and after, on the one hand, and his
blind instincts, and his narrow isolating senses on the other--with
that distinctive human nature on the one hand, whereby he does, in
some sort, comprehend the world, and not intellectually only--that
nature whereby 'the world is set in his heart,' and not in his mind
only--that nature which by the law of advancement to the perfection of
his form, he struggles to ascend to--that, on the one hand, and that
whereby he is kindred with the lower natures on the other, swayed by a
gosling's instinct, held down to the level of the pettiest, basest
kinds, forbidden to ascend to his own distinctive excellence, allied
with species who have no such intelligent outgoing from particulars,
who cannot grasp the common, whose sphere nature herself has narrowed
and walled in,--these two universal natures of good, and all the
passion and affection which lie on that tempestuous border line where
they blend in the human, and fill the earth with the tragedy of their
confusion,--this two-fold nature, and its tragic blending, and its
true specific human development, whereby man is man, and not
degenerate, lies discriminated in all these plays, tracked through all
their wealth of observation, through all their characterization,
through all their mirth, through all their tempests of passion, with a
line so firm, that only the instrument of the New Science could have
graven it.
Of all the sciences, Policy is the most immersed in matter, and the
hardliest reduced to axiom'; but setting out from that which is
constant and universal in nature, this philosopher is not afraid to
undertake it; and, indeed, that is what he is bent on; for unless
those universal, historical principles, which he has taken so much
pains to exhibit to us clearly in their abstract form, 'terminate in
_matter_ and _construction according_ to _the true_ definitions, they
are speculative and of little use.' The termination of them in matter,
and the new construction according to true definitions, is the
business here. This, which is the hardliest reduced to axiom of any,
is that which lies collected on the Inductive Tables here, cleared of
all that interferes with the result; and the axiom of practice, which
is the 'second vintage' of the New Machine, is expressed before our
eyes. 'For that which in speculative philosophy corresponds to the
cause, in practical philosophy becomes the rule.'
He starts here, with this grand advantage which no other political
philosopher or reformer had ever had before; he has _the true
definition_ in his hands to begin with; not the specific and futile
notions with which the human mind, shut up within itself, seeks to
comprehend and predict and order all, but the solid actual universals
that the mind of man, by the combination and scientific balance of its
faculties, is able to ascend to. He has in his hands, to begin with,
the causes that are universal and constant in nature, with which all
the historical phenomena are convertible,--the motives from which all
movement proceeds, the true original simple powers,--the unknown, into
which all the variety of the known is resolvable, or rather the known
into which all the variety of the unknown is resolvable; the forms
'which are always present _when the particular nature_ is present, and
universally attest that presence; which are always absent when the
particular nature is absent, and universally attest that absence;
which always increase as the particular nature increases; which always
decrease as the particular nature decreases;' that is the kind of
definitions which this philosopher will undertake his moral reform
with; that is the kind of idea which the English philosopher lays down
for the basis of his politics. Nothing less solid than that will suit
the turn of his genius, either in speculation or practice. He does
full justice to the discoveries of the old Greek philosophers, whose
speculation had controlled, not the speculation only, but all the
practical doctrine of the world, from their time to his. He saw from
what height of _genius_ they achieved their command; but that was two
thousand years before, and that was in the south east corner of
Europe; and when the Modern Europe began to think for itself, it was
found that the Greeks could not give the law any longer. It was found
that the _English_ notions at least, and the _Greek_ notions of things
in general differed very materially--essentially--when they came to be
put on paper. When the 'representative men' of those two corners of
Europe, and of those two so widely separated ages of the human
advancement, came to discourse together from their 'cliffs' and
compare notes, across that sea of lesser minds, the most remarkable
differences, indeed, began to be _perceptible_ at once, though the
world has not yet begun to _appreciate_ them. It was a difference that
was expected to tell on the common mind, for a time, principally in
its '_effects_.' Everybody, the learned and the unlearned, understands
now, that after the modern survey was taken, new practical directions
were issued at once. Orders came down for an immediate suspension of
those former rules of philosophy, and the ship was laid on a new
course. 'Plato,' says the new philosopher, 'as one that had a wit of
elevation _situate upon a cliff_, did descry that _forms_ are the true
object of knowledge,' that was his discovery,--'_but_ lost the fruit
of that opinion by'--shutting himself up, in short, in his own
abstract contemplations, in his little world of man, and getting out
his theory of the universe, before hand, from these; instead of
applying himself practically and modestly to the observation of that
universe, in which man's part is _so_ humble. 'Vain man,' says our
oldest Poet, 'vain man would be wise, who is born like a wild ass's
colt.'
But let us take a specimen of the manner in which the propounder of
the New Ideal Philosophy 'comes to particulars,' with this quite new
kind of IDEAS, and we shall find that they were designed to take in
some of those things in heaven and earth that were omitted, or not
dreampt of in the others,--which were not included in the 'idols.' He
tells us plainly that these are the ideas with which he is going to
unravel the most delicate questions; but he is willing to entertain
his immediate audience, and propitiate the world generally, by trying
them, or rather giving orders to have them tried, on other things
first. He does not pride himself very much on anything which he has
done, or is able to do in these departments of inquiry from which his
instances are here taken, and he says, in this connection:--'We do
not, however, deny that other instances _can perhaps be added_.' In
order to arrive at his doctrine of practice in general, he begins
after the scientific method, not with the study of any one kind of
actions only, he begins by collecting the rules of action in general.
By observation of species he seeks to ascend to the principles common
to them. And he comes to us with a carefully prepared scheme of the
'elementary motions,'--outlined, and enriched with such observations
as he and his school have been able to make under the disadvantages of
that beginning. 'The motions of bodies,' he observes, 'are compounded,
decomposed and combined, no less than the bodies themselves,' and he
directs the attention of the student, who has his eye on practice,
with great emphasis, to those instances which he calls 'instances of
predominance,'--'instances which point out the predominance and
submission of powers, compared' [not in abstract contemplation but in
action,] 'compared with each other, and which,' [not in books but in
action,]--'which is the more _energetic_ and _superior_, or more weak
and inferior.'
'These "elementary notions" direct and are directed by each other,
according to their strength,--quantity, _excitement, concussion_, or
the assistance, or impediments they meet with. For instance, _some
magnets_ support iron sixty times their own weight; _so far_ does the
motion of _lesser congregation_ predominate over _the greater_, but if
the weight be increased _it yields_.'
[We must observe, that he is speaking here of 'the motions,
tendencies, and active powers which are most universal in nature,' for
the purpose of suggesting rules of practice which apply _as widely_;
though he keeps, with the intimation above quoted, principally to this
class of instances.] 'A lever of a certain strength will raise a given
weight, and _so far_ the notion of _liberty_ predominates over that of
_the greater congregation_; but if the weight be _greater_, the former
motion _yields_. A piece of leather, stretched _to a certain point_,
does not break, and _so far_ the motion of continuity _predominates_'
[for it is the question of predominance, and dominance, and
domineering, and lordships, and liberties, of one kind and another,
that he is handling]--'_so far_ the motion of continuity
_predominates_ over that of tension; but if the tension be _greater_,
the leather breaks, and the motion of continuity _yields_. _A certain
quantity_ of water flows through a chink, and _so far_ the motion of
greater congregation _predominates_ over that of continuity; but if
the chink be _smaller, it yields_. If a musket be charged with ball
and powdered sulphur only, and the fire be applied, the ball is not
discharged, in which case the motion of greater congregation overcomes
that of matter; but when gunpowder is used, the motion of matter in
the sulphur _predominates_, being _assisted_ by that motion, and the
motion of avoidance in the nitre; and _so of the rest_.'
Our more recent chemists would, of course, be inclined to criticise
that explanation; but, in some respects, it is better than theirs; and
it answers well enough the purpose for which it was introduced there,
and for which it is introduced here also. For this is the initiative
of the great inquiry into 'the WRESTLING INSTANCES,' and the
'instances of PREDOMINANCE' in general, 'such as point out the
predominance of _powers, compared with each other_, and which of them
is _the more energetic and_ SUPERIOR, or more _weak_ and INFERIOR';
and though this class of instances is valued chiefly for its
illustration of another in this system of learning, where things are
valued in proportion to their usefulness, they are not sought for as
similitudes merely; they are produced by one who regards them as 'the
same footsteps of nature, treading in different substances,' and
leaving the foot-print of universal axioms; and this is a _class_ of
instances which he particularly recommends to inquiry. 'For wrestling
instances, which show _the predominance of powers_, and in _what
manner_ and _proportion_ they predominate and yield, must be searched
for with active and industrious diligence.'
'The _method and nature_ of this yielding' [of _this
yielding_--SUBJECTION is the question] 'must also be diligently
examined; as, _for instance_, whether the motions' ['of liberty']
'completely cease, or exert themselves, but are constrained; for in
all bodies with which we are acquainted, _there is no real, but an
apparent rest, either in the whole, or in the parts_. This apparent
rest is occasioned either by equilibrium' [as in the case of Hamlet,
as well as in that of some others whose acts were suspended, and whose
wills were arrested then, by considerations not less comprehensive
than his]--'either by equilibrium, _or by the absolute predominance_
of motions. By equilibrium, as in the scales of the balance, which
_rest if the weight be equal_. By predominance, as in perforated jars,
in which the water rests, and is prevented from falling by the
predominance of the motion of CONNECTION.'
'It is, however, to be observed (as we have said before), _how far the
yielding motions exert themselves_. _For_, if _a man_ be held
stretched out on the ground _against his_ WILL, with arms and legs
bound down, _or_ otherwise confined'--[as the Duke of Kent's were, for
instance]--'and yet strive with all his power to get up, the struggle
is not the less, though ineffectual. The _real state of the case_'
[namely, whether the yielding motion be, as it were, annihilated _by
the predominance_, or there be rather a continued, though an invisible
effort] '_will perhaps appear_ in the CONCURRENCE of MOTIONS, although
it escape our notice in _their conflict_.' So delicately must
philosophy needs be conveyed in a certain stage of a certain class of
wrestling instances, where _a combination_ of powers hostile to
science produces an '_absolute predominance_' of powers, and it is
necessary that the yielding motion should at least appear to be 'as it
were, annihilated'; though, of course, that need not hinder the
invisible effort at all. 'For on account of the rawness and
unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass,' there is no
difficulty in inserting such intimations as to the latitude of the
axioms which these particular instances adduced here, and 'others
which might perhaps be added,' are expected to yield. This is an
instance of the freedom with which philosophical views on certain
subjects are continually addressed in these times, to that immediate
audience of the few 'who will perhaps see farther into them than the
common reader,' and to those who shall hereafter apply to the
philosophy issued under such conditions--the conditions above
described, that key of 'Times,' which the author of it has taken pains
to leave for that purpose. But the question of 'predominance, which
makes our present subject,' is not yet sufficiently indicated. There
are more and less powerful motives concerned in _this_ wrestling
instance, as he goes on to demonstrate.
'THE RULES of _such instances_ of _predominance as occur_ should be
_collected, such as_ the following'--and the rule which he gives, by
way of a specimen of these _rules_, is a very important one for a
statesman to have, and it is one which the philosopher has himself
'_collected_' from _such_ instances as occurred--'The more _general_
the desired advantage is, the _stronger_ will be _the motive_. The
motion of _connection_, for instance, which relates to _the
intercourse of the parts of the universe_, is more powerful than that
of _gravity_, which relates to the intercourse of _dense_ bodies.
Again; the desire of a private good does not, _in general_, prevail
against that of a public one, except where the _quantities are small_'
[it is the general _law_ he is propounding here; and the exception,
the anomaly, is that which he has to note]; 'would that such were the
case in civil matters.'
But that application to 'civil matters,' which the statesman,
propounding in his own person this newly-collected knowledge of the
actual historic forces, as a new and immeasurable source of relief to
the human estate,--that application, which he could only make here in
these side-long glances, is made in the Play without any difficulty at
all. These instances, which he produces here in his professed work of
science, are produced as illustrations of the kind of inquiry which he
is going to bring to bear, with all the force and subtlety of his
genius, on the powers of nature, as manifested in the individual human
nature, and in those unions and aggregations to which it tends--those
larger wholes and greater congregations, which parliaments, and
pulpits, and play-houses, and books, were forbidden then, on pain of
death and torture and ignominy, to meddle with. _Here_, he tells us,
he finds it to the purpose to select '_suggestive_ instances, such as
_point out_ that which is advantageous to mankind'; 'and it is a part
of science to make _judicious_ inquiries and wishes.'
These instances, which he produces here, are searching; but they are
none too searching for his purpose. They do not come any nearer to
nature than those others which he is prepared to add to them. The
treatment is not any more radical and subtle here than it is in those
instances in which 'he comes to particulars,' under the pretence of
play and pastime, in other departments,--those in which the judicious
inquiry into the laws of the actual forces promises to yield rules
'the most generally useful to mankind.'
This is the philosophy precisely which underlies all this Play,--this
Play, in which the great question, not yet ready for the handling of
the unlearned, but ripe already for scientific treatment,--the
question of the wrestling forces,--the question of the subjection and
predominance of powers,--the question of the combination and
opposition of forces in those _arrested motions_ which make _states_,
is so boldly handled. Those arrested motions, where the rest is only
apparent, not real--where the 'yielding' forces are only, _as it
were_, annihilated, whether by equilibrium of forces, or an absolute
predominance, but biding their time, ready to burst their bonds and
renew their wrestling, ready to show themselves, not as 'subjects,'
but predominators--not as states, but revolutions. The science 'that
ends in matter and new constructions'--new construction, 'according to
true definitions,' is what these citizens, whom this Poet has called
up from their horizontal position by way of anticipation, are already,
under his instructions, boldly clamouring for. Constructions in which
these very rules and axioms, these scientific certainties, are taken
into the account, are what these men, whom this Magician has set upon
their feet here, whose lips he has opened and whose arms he has
unbound with the magic of his art, are going to have before they lie
down again, or, at least, before they make a comfortable state for any
one to trample on, though they _may_, perhaps, for a time seem, 'as it
were, annihilated.'
These true _forms_, these _real_ definitions, this new kind of
_ideas_, these new motions, new in philosophy, new in _human_ speech,
old in natures,--written in her book ere man was,--these universal,
elementary, original motions, which he is exhibiting here in the
philosophic treatise, under cover of a certain class of instances, are
the very ones which he is tracking _here_ in the Play, into all the
business of the state. This is that same new thread which we saw there
in the grave philosophic warp, with here and there a little space
filled in, not with the most brilliant filling; enough, however, to
show that it was meant to be filled, and, to the careful eye,--how.
But here it is the more chosen substance; and every point of this
illustrious web is made of its involutions,--is a point of
'illustration.'
Yes, here he is again. Here he is at last, in that promised field of
his labours,--that field of 'noblest subjects,' for the culture of
which he will have all nature put under contribution; here he is at
large, 'making what work he pleases.' He who is content to talk from
his chair of professional learning of 'pieces of leather,' and _their_
unions, and bid his pupil note and 'consider well' that mysterious,
unknown, unexplored power in nature, which holds their particles
together, in its wrestling with its opposite; and where it _ceases_,
or _seems to cease_; where that obstinate freedom and predominance is
vanquished, and by what rules and means; he who finds in 'water,'
arrested 'in perforated jars,' or 'flowing through a chink,' or
resisting gravity, _if_ the chink be smaller, or in the balanced
'scales,' with their apparent rest, the wrestling forces of all
nature,--the weaker enslaved, but _there_,--_not_ annihilated; he who
saw in the little magnet, beckoning and holding those dense palpable
masses, or in the lever, assisted by human hands, vanquishing its
mighty opposite, things that old philosophies had not dreamt
of,--reports of mysteries,--revelations for those who have the
key,--words from that book of creative power, words from that living
Word, which _he_ must study who would have his vision of God
fulfilled, who would make of his 'good news' something more than a
Poet's prophecy. He who found in the peaceful nitre, in the harmless
sulphur, in the saltpetre, 'villanous' not yet, in the impotence of
fire and sulphur, combining in vain against the motion of the
resisting ball,--not less real to his eye, because not apparent,--or
in the _villanous_ compound itself, while yet the spark is
wanting,--'rules' for other 'wrestling instances,' for _other_
combinations, where the motion of inertia was also to be overcome;
requiring organized movements, analyses, and combinations of forces,
not less but _more_ scientifically artistic,--rules for the
enlargement of forces, waiting but _their_ spark, then, to
demonstrate, with more fearful explosions, _their_ expansibility,
threatening 'to lay all flat.'
For here, too, the mystic, unknown, occult powers, the unreported
actualities, are working still, in obedience to their orders, which
they had not from man, and taking no note of his. 'For man, as the
_interpreter_ of nature, _does_, and _understands_ as much as his
observations ON THE ORDER OF THINGS, _or_ THE MIND, _permits_ him, and
neither _knows_ nor _is capable_ of more.' 'Man, while _operating_,
can only apply or withdraw natural bodies. NATURE INTERNALLY PERFORMS
THE REST'; and 'the syllogism forces _assent_, but _not_ things.'
Great things this Interpreter promises to man from these observations
and interpretations, which he and his company are ordering; great
things he promises from the application of this new method of learning
to _this_ department of man's want; because those vague popular
notions--those spontaneous but deep-rooted beliefs in man--those
confused, perplexed terms, with which he seeks to articulate them, and
not those acts which make up his life only--are out of nature, and all
resolvable into higher terms, and require to be returned into _these_
before man can work with them to purpose.
Great _news_ for man he brings; the powers which are working in the
human life, and _not_ those which are working without it only, are
working in obedience _to laws_. Great things he promises, because the
facts of human life are determined by forces which admit of scientific
definition, and are capable of being reduced to axioms. Great things
he promises, for these distinctive phenomena of human life, to their
most artificial complication, are all out of the universal nature, and
struggling already of themselves instinctively towards the scientific
solution, already 'anticipating' science, and invoking her, and
waiting and watching for her coming.
Good news the scientific reporter, in his turn, brings in also; good
news for the state, good news for man; confirmations of reports
indited beforehand; confirmations, from the universal scriptures, of
the revelation of the divine in the human. Good news, because that law
of the greater whole, which is the worthier--that law of the
common-weal, which is the human law--that law which in man is reason
and conscience, is in the nature of things, and not in man only--nay,
_not_ in man as yet, but prefigured only--his ideal; his true
form--not in man, who 'IS' not, but '_becoming_.'
But in tracking these universal laws of being, this constitution of
things in general into the human constitution--in tracing these
universal definitions into the specific terms of human life--the
clearing up of the spontaneous notions and beliefs which the mind of
man shut up to itself yields--the criticism on the terms which
pre-occupy this ground is of course inevitable, whether expressed or
not, and is indeed no unimportant part of the result. For this is a
philosophy in which even 'the most vulgar and casual opinions are
something more than nothing in nature.'
This Play of the Common-weal and its scientific cure, in which the
question of the true NOBILITY is so deeply inwrought throughout, is
indeed but the filling up of that sketch of the constitution of man
which we find on another page--that constitution whereby man, as man,
is part and member of a common-weal--that constitution whereby his
relation to the common-weal is essential to the perfection of his
individual nature, and that highest good of it which is conservation
with advancement--that constitution whereby the highest good of the
particular and private nature, that which bids defiance to the blows
of fortune, comprehends necessarily the good of the whole in its
intention. ('For neither can a man understand VIRTUE without relation
to society, nor DUTY without an inward disposition.') And that is the
reason that the question of 'the government of every man over
himself,' and the predominance of powers, and the wrestling of them in
'the little state of man'--the question as to which is 'nobler'--comes
to be connected with the question of civil government so closely. That
is the reason that this doctrine of virtue and state comes to us
conjoined; that is the reason that we find this question of the
consulship, and the question of heroism and personal greatness, the
question of the true nobility, forming so prominent a feature in the
Play of the Common-weal, inwoven throughout with the question of its
cure.
'Constructions according to true definitions' make the end here. The
definition is, of course, the necessary preliminary to such
constructions: it does not in itself suffice. Mere science does not
avail here. Scientific ARTS, scientific INSTITUTIONS of regimen and
culture and cure, make the essential conditions of success in this
enterprise. But we want the light of 'the true definitions' to begin
with. There is no use in revolutions till we have it; and as for
empirical institutions, mankind has seen the best of them;--we are
perishing in their decay, dying piecemeal, going off into a race of
ostriches, or something of that nature--or threatened with becoming
mere petrifactions, mineral specimens of what we have been, preserved,
perhaps, to adorn the museums of some future species, gifted with
better faculties for maintaining itself. It is time for a change of
some sort, for the worse or the better, when we get habitually, and by
a social rule, water for milk, brickdust for chocolate, silex for
butter, and minerals of one kind and another for bread; when our drugs
give the lie to science; when mustard refuses to 'counter-irritate,'
and sugar has ceased to be sweet, and pepper, to say nothing of
'ginger' is no longer 'hot in the mouth.' The question in speculative
philosophy at present is--
'Why all these things change from their ordinance,
Their natures, and _pre_-formed faculties,
To monstrous quality.'
--'There's something in this _more_ than _natural_,
--if _philosophy could find it out_!
And what we want in practical philosophy when it comes to this, is a
new kind of enchantments, with capacities large enough to swallow up
these, as the rod of Moses swallowed up the rods of the Egyptians.
That was a good test of authority; and nothing short of that will
answer our present purpose; when not that which makes life desirable
only, but life itself is assailed, and in so comprehensive a manner,
the revolutionary point of sufferance and stolidity is reached. We
cannot stay to reason it thus and thus with 'the garotte' about our
throats: the scientific enchantments will have to be tried now, tried
here also. Now that we have 'found out' oxygen and hydrogen, and do
not expect to alter their ways of proceeding by any epithets that we
may apply to them, or any kind of hocus-pocus that we may practise on
them, it is time to see what _gen_, or _genus_ it is, that proceeds in
these departments in so successful a manner, and with so little regard
to our exorcisms; and the mere calling of names, which indicate in a
general way the unquestionable fact of a degeneracy, is of no use, for
that has been thoroughly tried already.
The experiment in the 'common logic,' as Lord Bacon calls it, has been
a very long and patient one; the historical result is, that it forces
assent, and _not_ things.
The question here is _not_ of divinity, as some might suppose. There
is no question about that. Nobody need be troubled about that. It does
not depend on this, or that man's arguments, happily. The true
divinity, the true inspiration, is of that which was and shall be. Its
foundations are laid,--its perennial source is found, not in the soul
of man, not in the constitution of the mind of man only, but in the
nature of things, and in the universal laws of being. The true
divinity strikes its foundations to the universal granite; it is built
on 'that rock where philosophy and divinity join close;' and heaven
and earth may pass, but not that.
The question here is of logic. The question is between Lord Bacon and
Aristotle, and which of these two thrones and dominions in speculation
and practice the moderns are disposed on the whole to give their
suffrages to, in this most vital department of human practice, in this
most vital common human concern and interest. The question is of these
demoniacal agencies that are at large now upon this planet--on both
sides of it--going about with 'tickets of _leave_,' of one kind and
another; for the logic that we employ in this department still, though
it has been driven, with hooting, out of every other, and the rude
systems of metaphysics which it sustains, do not take hold of these
things. They pay no attention to our present method of reasoning about
them. There is no objection to syllogisms, as Lord Bacon
concedes;--they are very useful in their proper place. The difficulty
is, that the subtlety of nature in general, as exhibited in that
result which we call fact, far surpasses the subtlety of nature, when
developed within that limited sphere, which the mind of man makes; and
nature is much more than a match for him, when he throws himself upon
his own internal gifts of ratiocination, and undertakes to dictate to
the universe. The difficulty is just this;--here we have it in a
nut-shell, as we are apt to get it in Lord Bacon's aphorisms.
'The syllogism consists of propositions; these of words. Words are the
signs of notions: notions represent things:' [If these last then]--'if
_our notions_ are _fantastical_, the whole structure falls to the
ground. But [they _are_] they are, for the most part, _improperly
abstracted_, and deduced from things,' and that is the difficulty
which this new method of learning, propounded in connection with this
so radical criticism of the old one, undertakes to remedy. For there
are just _two_ methods of learning, as he goes on to tell us, with
increasing, but cautious, amplifications. The false method lays down
from the very outset some abstract and _useless_ generalities,--_the
other_, gradually rises to those principles which are really the most
common in nature. 'Axioms determined on in argument, can never assist
in the discovery of _new effects_, for the subtlety of nature is
vastly superior to that of argument. But axioms properly and regularly
abstracted from particulars, easily _point out and define_ NEW
PARTICULARS, and _impart activity to the sciences_.'
'We are wont to call _that human reasoning_ which we apply to nature,
THE ANTICIPATION OF NATURE (as being rash and premature), and that
which is properly _deduced from_ THINGS, THE INTERPRETATION OF
NATURE.'--(A radical distinction, which it is the first business of
the new machine of the mind to establish). '_Anticipations_ are
sufficiently powerful in producing _unanimity_; for if men were all to
become even _uniformly mad_, they might agree tolerably well _with
each other_,' (but not with nature; there's the trouble; that is _the
assent_ that is wanting).
'In sciences founded upon opinions and dogmas, it is right to make use
of anticipations and logic, if you wish to force assent, and _not_
things.'
The difference, then, between the first hasty conceptions and rude
theories of the nature of things,--the difference between the
preconceptions which make the first steps of the human mind towards
the attainment of truth, and those conceptions and axioms which are
properly abstracted from things, and which correspond to their
natures, is the difference in which science begins.
And we shall find that the truths of science in this department of it,
which makes our present subject are quite as new, quite as far out of
the road of common opinion, and quite as unattainable by the old
method of learning, as those truths with which science has already
overpowered the popular notions and theories in those departments in
which its powers have been already tested.
These rude natural products of the human understanding, while it is
yet undisciplined by the knowledge of nature in general, which in
their broadest range proceed from the human speciality, and are
therefore liable to an exterior criticism; these first words and
natural beliefs of men, through all their range, from the _a priori_
conceptions of the schools, down to the most narrow and vulgar
_preconceptions_ and _prejudices_ of the unlearned, the author of the
'Novum Organum,' and of the 'Advancement of Learning,' by a bold and
dexterous sweep, puts quietly into one category, under the seemingly
fanciful,--but, considering the time, none too fanciful,--designation
of 'the Idols';--(he knew, indeed, that the original of the term would
suggest to the scholar a more literal reading),--'the Idols of the
Tribe, of the Den, of the Market, and of the Theatre,' as he sees
reason--scientific, as well as rhetorical reason,--for dividing and
distinguishing them. But under that common designation of _images_,
and false ones too, he subjects them to a common criticism, in behalf
of that mighty hitherto unknown, unsought, universality, which is all
particulars--which is more universal than the notions of men, and
transcends the grasp of their beliefs and pre-judgments;--that
universal fact which men are brought in contact with, in all their
doing, and in all their suffering, whether pleasurable or painful.
That _universal_, actual fact, whose science philosophy has hitherto
set aside, in favour of its own pre-notions, as a thing not worth
taking into the account,--that mystic, occult, unfathomed fact, that
is able to assert itself in the face of our most authoritative
pre-notions, whose science, under the vulgar name of experience, all
the learning of the world had till then made over with a scorn
ineffable to the cultivation of the unlearned. Under that despised
name which the old philosophy had omitted in its chart, the new
perceived that the ground lay, and made all sail thither.
We cannot expect to find then any of those old terms and definitions
included in the trunk of the new system, which is science. None of
those airy fruits that grow on the branches which those old roots of a
false metaphysics must needs nurture,--none of those apples of Sodom
which these have mocked us with so long, shall the true seeker find on
these boughs. The man of science does not, indeed, care to displace
those terms in the popular dialect _here_, any more than the chemist
or the botanist will insist on reforming the ordinary speech of men
with _their_ truer language in the fields they occupy. The new
Logician and Metaphysician will himself, indeed, make use of these
same terms, with a hint to 'men of understanding,' perhaps, as to the
sense in which he uses them.
Incorporated into a system of learning on which much human labour has
been bestowed, they may even serve some good practical purposes under
certain conditions of social advancement. And besides, they are useful
for adorning discourse, and furnish abundance of rhetorical material.
Above all, they are invaluable to the scholastic controversialists,
and the new philosopher will not undertake to displace them in these
fields. He steadfastly refuses to come into any collision with them.
He leaves them to take their way without. He makes them over to the
vulgar, and to those old-fashioned schools of logic and metaphysics,
whose endless web is spun out of them. But when the question is of
practice, that is another thing. It is the scientific word that is
wanting here. That is the word which in his school he will undertake
to teach.
When it comes to practice, professional practice, like the botanist
and the chemist, he will make his own terms. He has a machine
expressly for that purpose, by which new terms are framed and turned
out in exact accordance with the nature of things. He does not wish to
quarrel with any one, but in the way of his profession, he will have
none of those old confused terms thrust upon him. He will examine
them, and analyze them; and all,--_all_ that is in them,--all, and
more, will be in his; _but_ scientifically cleared, 'divided with the
mind, that divine fire,' and clothed with power.
And it is just as impossible that those changes for the human relief
which the propounder of the New Logic propounded as its chief end,
should ever be effected by means of the popular terms which our
metaphysicians are still allowed to retain in the highest fields of
professional practice, as it would have been to effect those lesser
reforms which this logic has already achieved, if those old elementary
terms, earth, fire, air, water,--terms which antiquity thought fine
enough; which passed the muster of the ancient schools without
suspicion, had never to this hour been analyzed.
It is just as easy to suppose that we could have had our magnetic
telegraphs, and daguerreotypes, and our new Materia Medica, and all
the new inventions of modern science for man's relief, if the terms
which were simple terms in the vocabulary of Aristotle and Pliny, had
never been tested with the edge of the New Machine, and divided with
its divine fire, if they had not ceased to be in the schools at least
elementary; it is just as easy to suppose this, as it is to suppose
that the true and nobler ends of science can ever be attained, so long
as the powers that are _actual_ in our human life, which are still at
large in all their blind instinctive demoniacal strength _there_,
which still go abroad free-footed, unfettered of science _there_,
while we chain the lightning, and send it on our errands,--so long as
these still slip through the ring of our airy 'words,' still riot in
the freedom of our large generalizations, our sublime abstractions,--
so long as a mere _human_ word-ology is suffered to remain here,
clogging all with its deadly impotence,--keeping out the true
generalizations with their grappling-hooks on the particulars,
--the creative word of art which man learns from the creating wisdom,
--the word to which rude nature bows anew,--the word which is Power.
But while the world is resounding with those new relations to the
powers of nature which the science of nature has established in other
fields, in that department of it, which its Founder tells us is 'the
end and term of Natural Science in the intention of man,' in that
department of it to which his labor was directed; we are still given
over to the inventions of Aristotle, applied to those rude conceptions
and theories of the nature of things which the unscientific ages have
left to us. Here we have still the loose generalization, the untested
affirmation, the arrogant pre-conception, the dogmatic assumption.
Here we have the mere phenomena of the human speciality put forward as
science, without any attempt to find their genera,--to trace them to
that which is more known to nature, so as to connect them practically
with the diversity and opposition, which the actual conditions of
practice present.
We have not, in short, the scientific language here yet. The vices and
the virtues do not understand the names by which we call them, and
undertake to command them. Those are not the names in that 'infinite
book of secrecy' which they were taught in. They find a more potent
order there.
And thus it is, that the demons of human life go abroad here still,
impervious alike to our banning and our blessing. The powers of nature
which are included in the human nature,--the powers which in this
_specific_ form of them we are undertaking to manage with these vulgar
generalizations, tacked together with the Aristotelian logic--these
powers are no more amenable to any such treatment in this form, than
they are in those other forms, in which we are learning to approach
them with another vocabulary.
The forces which are developed in the human life will not answer to
the names by which we call them _here_, any more than the lightning
would answer to the old Magician's incantation,--any more than it
would have come if the old Logician had called it by _his_
name,--which was just as good as the name--and no better, than the
name, which the priest of Baal gave it,--any more than it would have
come, if the old Logician had undertaken to fetch it, with the harness
of his syllogism.
But when the new Logician, who was the new Magician, came, with 'the
part operative' of his speculation; with his 'New Machine,' with the
rod of his new definition, with the staff of _his_ genera and
species,--when the right name was found for it, it heard, it heard
afar, it heard in its heaven and _came_. It came fast enough then. It
was 'asleep,' but it awaked. It was 'taking a journey' but it came.
There was no affectation of the graces of the gods when the new
interpreter and prophet of nature, who belonged to the new order of
Interpreters, sent up his little messenger, without any pomp or
ceremony, or 'windy suspiration of forced breath,' and fetched it.
But that was an Occidental philosopher, one of the race who like to
see effects of some kind, when there is nothing in the field to forbid
it. That was one of the Doctors who are called in this system
'Interpreters of nature,' to distinguish them from those who 'rashly
anticipate' it. He did not make faces, and cut himself with knives and
lances, after a prescribed manner, and prophesy until evening, though
there was no voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. He knew
that that god at least would not stop on his journey; or if,
peradventure, he slept, would not be wakened by any such process.
And the farther the world proceeds on that 'new road' it is travelling
at present, the more the demand will be heard in this quarter, for an
adaptation of instrumentalities to the advanced, and advancing ages of
modern learning and civilization, and to that more severe and exacting
genius of the occidental races, that keener and more subtle, and
practical genius, from whose larger requisitions and powers this
advancement proceeds.