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diff --git a/old/8shak10.txt b/old/8shak10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a9f8aa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8shak10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,26325 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere +Unfolded, by Delia Bacon +#2 in our series by Delia Bacon + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded + +Author: Delia Bacon + +Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8207] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 2, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKSPERE UNFOLDED *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, David King +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE + +PHILOSOPHY + +OF + +THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE + +UNFOLDED. + + +BY DELIA BACON. + + +WITH + +A PREFACE + +BY + +NATHANIAL HAWTHORNE +AUTHOR OF 'THE SCARLET LETTER,' ETC + + + Aphorisms representing A KNOWLEDGE _broken_ do invite men to + inquire further LORD BACON + +You find not the apostophes, and so miss the accent. + LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST + +Untie the spell.--PROSPERO + + +LONDON: +GROOMBRIDGE AND SONS +PATERNOSTER ROW. +1857 + +AMES PRESS +NEW YORK + + + + + +HARVARD +UNIVERSITY +LIBRARY +DEC 6, 1972 + +Reprinted from a copy in the collection +of the Harvard College Library +Reprinted from the edition of 1857, London +First AMS EDITION published 1970 +Manufactured in the United States of America + +International Standard Book Number: 0-404-00443-1 + +Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 73-113547 + +AMS PRESS, INC. +NEW YORK, N.Y. 10003 + +TABLE OF CONTENTS. + + +PREFACE + +INTRODUCTION. + +I. The Proposition + +II. The Age of Elizabeth, and the Elizabethan Men of Letters + +III. Extracts from the Life of Raleigh.--Raleigh's School + +IV. Raleigh's School, continued.--The New Academy + + * * * * * + +BOOK I + +[The HISTORICAL KEY to the ELIZABETHAN ART of TRADITION, which formed +the FIRST BOOK of this Work as it was originally prepared for the +Press, is reserved for separate publication.] + +THE ELIZABETHAN ART OF DELIVERY AND TRADITION. + +PART I. + +MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE'S 'PRIVATE AND RETIRED ARTS.' + +I. Ascent from Particulars to the 'Highest Parts of Sciences,' by the +Enigmatic Method illustrated + +II. Further Illustration of 'Particular Methods of +Tradition.'--Embarrassments of Literary Statesmen + +III. The Possibility of great anonymous Works,--or Works published +under an _assumed name_,--conveying under rhetorical Disguises the +Principal Sciences,--re-suggested and illustrated + +PART II. + +THE BACONIAN RHETORIC, OR THE METHOD OF PROGRESSION. + +I. THE 'BEGINNERS.'--['Particular Methods of Tradition.'-- + The Double Method of 'Illustration' and 'Concealment'] + +II. INDEX to the 'Illustrated' and 'Concealed Tradition' of + the Principal and Supreme Sciences.--THE SCIENCE OF + POLICY + +III. THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. Section I. The Exemplar of Good + +IV. THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. Section II. The Husbandry thereunto, + or the Cure and Culture of + the Mind.--APPLICATION + +V. THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY.--ALTERATION + +VI. Method of Convoying the Wisdom of the Moderns + + * * * * * + +BOOK II. + +ELIZABETHAN 'SECRETS OF MORALITY AND POLICY'; OR, THE FABLES OF THE +NEW LEARNING. + +INTRODUCTORY. + +I. The Design +II. The Missing Books of the Great Instauration or 'Philosophy + itself' + +PART I. + +LEAR'S PHILOSOPHER; + +[OR, THE LAW OF THE 'SPECIAL AND RESPECTIVE DUTIES,' DEFINED AND +'ILLUSTRATED' IN TABLES OF 'PRESENCE' AND 'ABSENCE.'] + +I. Philosophy in the Palace +II. Unaccommodated Man +III. The King and the Beggar +IV. The Use of Eyes +V. The Statesman's Note-Book--and the Play + +PART II. + +JULIUS CAESAR AND CORIOLANUS. + +THE SCIENTIFIC CURE OF THE COMMON-WEAL; + +OR, + +'THE COMMON DUTY OF EVERY MAN AS A MAN, OR MEMBER OF A STATE,' DEFINED +AND ILLUSTRATED IN 'NEGATIVE INSTANCES' AND 'INSTANCES OF PRESENCE.' + +JULIUS CAESAR; + +OR, THE EMPIRICAL TREATMENT IN DISEASES OF THE COMMON-WEAL EXAMINED. + +I. The Death of Tyranny; or, the Question of the Prerogative +II. Caesar's Spirit + +CORIOLANUS. + +THE QUESTION OF THE CONSULSHIP; OR, THE SCIENTIFIC CURE OF THE +COMMON-WEAL PROPOUNDED. + +I. The Elizabethan Heroism +II. Criticism of the Martial Government +III. 'Insurrections Arguing' +IV. Political Retrospect +V. The Popular Election +VI. The Scientific Method in Politics +VII. Volumnia and her Boy +VIII. Metaphysical Aid +IX. The Cure.--Plan of Innovation.--New Definitions. +X. The Cure.--Plan of Innovation.--New Constructions. +XI. The Cure.--Plan of Innovation.--'The Initiative' +XII. The Ignorant Election revoked.--A 'Wrestling Instance'. +XIII. Conclusion + +PREFACE. + +This Volume contains the argument, drawn from the Plays usually +attributed to Shakspere, in support of a theory which the author of it +has demonstrated by historical evidences in another work. Having never +read this historical demonstration (which remains still in manuscript, +with the exception of a preliminary chapter, published long ago in an +American periodical), I deem it necessary to cite the author's own +account of it:-- + +'The Historical Part of this work (which was originally the principal +part, and designed to furnish the historical key to the great +Elizabethan writings), though now for a long time completed and ready +for the press, and though repeated reference is made to it in this +volume, is, for the most part, omitted here. It contains a true and +before unwritten history, and it will yet, perhaps, be published as it +stands; but the vivid and accumulating historic detail, with which +more recent research tends to enrich the earlier statement, and +disclosures which no invention could anticipate, are waiting now to be +subjoined to it. + +'The INTERNAL EVIDENCE of the assumptions made at the outset is that +which is chiefly relied on in the work now first presented on this +subject to the public. The demonstration will be found complete on +that ground; and on that ground alone the author is willing, and +deliberately prefers, for the present, to rest it. + +'External evidence, of course, will not be wanting; there will be +enough and to spare, if the demonstration here be correct. But the +author of the discovery was not willing to rob the world of this great +question; but wished rather to share with it the benefit which the +true solution of the Problem offers--the solution prescribed by those +who propounded it to the future. It seemed better to save to the world +the power and beauty of this demonstration, its intellectual stimulus, +its demand on the judgment. It seemed better, that the world should +acquire it also in the form of criticism, instead of being stupified +and overpowered with the mere force of an irresistible, external, +historical proof. Persons incapable of appreciating any other kind of +proof,--those who are capable of nothing that does not 'directly fall +under and strike _the senses_' as Lord Bacon expresses it,--will have +their time also; but it was proposed to present the subject first to +minds of another order.' + +In the present volume, accordingly, the author applies herself to the +demonstration and development of a system of philosophy, which has +presented itself to her as underlying the superficial and ostensible +text of Shakspere's plays. Traces of the same philosophy, too, she +conceives herself to have found in the acknowledged works of Lord +Bacon, and in those of other writers contemporary with him. All agree +in one system; all these traces indicate a common understanding and +unity of purpose in men among whom no brotherhood has hitherto been +suspected, except as representatives of a grand and brilliant age, +when the human intellect made a marked step in advance. + +The author did not (as her own consciousness assures her) either +construct or originally seek this new philosophy. In many respects, if +I have rightly understood her, it was at variance with her +pre-conceived opinions, whether ethical, religious, or political. She +had been for years a student of Shakspere, looking for nothing in his +plays beyond what the world has agreed to find in them, when she began +to see, under the surface, the gleam of this hidden treasure. It was +carefully hidden, indeed, yet not less carefully indicated, as with a +pointed finger, by such marks and references as could not ultimately +escape the notice of a subsequent age, which should be capable of +profiting by the rich inheritance. So, too, in regard to Lord Bacon. +The author of this volume had not sought to put any but the ordinary +and obvious interpretation upon his works, nor to take any other view +of his character than what accorded with the unanimous judgment upon +it of all the generations since his epoch. But, as she penetrated more +and more deeply into the plays, and became aware of those inner +readings, she found herself compelled to turn back to the 'Advancement +of Learning' for information as to their plan and purport; and Lord +Bacon's Treatise failed not to give her what she sought; thus adding +to the immortal dramas, in her idea, a far higher value than their +warmest admirers had heretofore claimed for them. They filled out the +scientific scheme which Bacon had planned, and which needed only these +profound and vivid illustrations of human life and character to make +it perfect. Finally, the author's researches led her to a point where +she found the plays claimed for Lord Bacon and his associates,--not in +a way that was meant to be intelligible in their own perilous +times,--but in characters that only became legible, and illuminated, +as it were, in the light of a subsequent period. + +The reader will soon perceive that the new philosophy, as here +demonstrated, was of a kind that no professor could have ventured +openly to teach in the days of Elizabeth and James. The concluding +chapter of the present work makes a powerful statement of the position +which a man, conscious of great and noble aims, would then have +occupied; and shows, too, how familiar the age was with all methods of +secret communication, and of hiding thought beneath a masque of +conceit or folly. Applicably to this subject, I quote a paragraph from +a manuscript of the author's, not intended for present publication:-- + +'It was a time when authors, who treated of a scientific politics and +of a scientific ethics internally connected with it, naturally +preferred this more philosophic, symbolic method of indicating their +connection with their writings, which would limit the indication to +those who could pierce within the veil of a philosophic symbolism. It +was the time when the cipher, in which one could write '_omnia per +omnia_,' was in such request, and when 'wheel ciphers' and 'doubles' +were thought not unworthy of philosophic notice. It was a time, too, +when the phonographic art was cultivated, and put to other uses than +at present, and when a '_nom de plume_' was required for other +purposes than to serve as the refuge of an author's modesty, or +vanity, or caprice. It was a time when puns, and charades, and +enigmas, and anagrams, and monograms, and ciphers, and puzzles, were +not good for sport and child's play merely; when they had need to be +close; when they had need to be solvable, at least, only to those who +_should_ solve them. It was a time when all the latent capacities of +the English language were put in requisition, and it was flashing and +crackling, through all its lengths and breadths, with puns and quips, +and conceits, and jokes, and satires, and inlined with philosophic +secrets that opened down "into the bottom of a tomb"--that opened into +the Tower--that opened on the scaffold and the block.' + +I quote, likewise, another passage, because I think the reader will +see in it the noble earnestness of the author's character, and may +partly imagine the sacrifices which this research has cost her:-- + +'The great secret of the Elizabethan age did not lie where any +superficial research could ever have discovered it. It was not left +within the range of any accidental disclosure. It did not lie on the +surface of any Elizabethan document. The most diligent explorers of +these documents, in two centuries and a quarter, had not found it. No +faintest suspicion of it had ever crossed the mind of the most recent, +and clear-sighted, and able investigator of the Baconian remains. It +was buried in the lowest depths of the lowest deeps of the deep +Elizabethan Art; that Art which no plummet, till now, has ever +sounded. It was locked with its utmost reach of traditionary cunning. +It was buried in the inmost recesses of the esoteric Elizabethan +learning. It was tied with a knot that had passed the scrutiny and +baffled the sword of an old, suspicious, dying, military government--a +knot that none could cut--a knot that must be untied. + +'The great secret of the Elizabethan Age was inextricably reserved by +the founders of a new learning, the prophetic and more nobly gifted +minds of a new and nobler race of men, for a research that should test +the mind of the discoverer, and frame and subordinate it to that so +sleepless and indomitable purpose of the prophetic aspiration. It was +"the device" by which they undertook to live again in the ages in +which their achievements and triumphs were forecast, and to come forth +and rule again, not in one mind, not in the few, not in the many, but +in all. "For there is no throne like that throne in the thoughts of +men," which the ambition of these men climbed and compassed. + +'The principal works of the Elizabethan Philosophy, those in which the +new method of learning was practically applied to the noblest +subjects, were presented to the world in the form of AN ENIGMA. It was +a form well fitted to divert inquiry, and baffle even the research of +the scholar for a time; but one calculated to provoke the philosophic +curiosity, and one which would inevitably command a research that +could end only with the true solution. That solution was reserved for +one who would recognise, at last, in the disguise of the great +impersonal teacher, the disguise of a new learning. It waited for the +reader who would observe, at last, those thick-strewn scientific +clues, those thick-crowding enigmas, those perpetual beckonings from +the "theatre" into the judicial palace of the mind. It was reserved +for the student who would recognise, at last, the mind that was +seeking so perseveringly to whisper its tale of outrage, and "the +secrets it was forbid." It waited for one who would answer, at last, +that philosophic challenge, and say, "Go on, I'll follow thee!" It was +reserved for one who would count years as days, for the love of the +truth it hid; who would never turn back on the long road of +initiation, though all "THE IDOLS" must be left behind in its stages; +who would never stop until it stopped in that new cave of Apollo, +where the handwriting on the wall spells anew the old Delphic motto, +and publishes the word that "_unties_ the spell." + +On this object, which she conceives so loftily, the author has +bestowed the solitary and self-sustained toil of many years. The +volume now before the reader, together with the historical +demonstration which it pre-supposes, is the product of a most faithful +and conscientious labour, and a truly heroic devotion of intellect and +heart. No man or woman has ever thought or written more sincerely than +the author of this book. She has given nothing less than her life to +the work. And, as if for the greater trial of her constancy, her +theory was divulged, some time ago, in so partial and unsatisfactory a +manner--with so exceedingly imperfect a statement of its claims--as to +put her at great disadvantage before the world. A single article from +her pen, purporting to be the first of a series, appeared in an +American Magazine; but unexpected obstacles prevented the further +publication in that form, after enough had been done to assail the +prejudices of the public, but far too little to gain its sympathy. +Another evil followed. An English writer (in a 'Letter to the Earl of +Ellesmere,' published within a few months past) has thought it not +inconsistent with the fair-play, on which his country prides itself, +to take to himself this lady's theory, and favour the public with it +as his own original conception, without allusion to the author's prior +claim. In reference to this pamphlet, she generously says:-- + +'This has not been a selfish enterprise. It is not a personal concern. +It is a discovery which belongs not to an individual, and not to a +people. Its fields are wide enough and rich enough for us all; and he +that has no work, and whoso will, let him come and labour in them. The +field is the world's; and the world's work henceforth is in it. So +that it be known in its real comprehension, in its true relations to +the weal of the world, what matters it? So that the truth, which is +dearer than all the rest--which abides with us when all others leave +us, dearest then--so that the truth, which is neither yours nor mine, +but yours _and_ mine, be known, loved, honoured, emancipated, mitred, +crowned, adored--_who_ loses anything, that does not find it.' 'And +what matters it,' says the philosophic wisdom, speaking in the +abstract, 'what name it is proclaimed in, and what letters of the +alphabet we know it by?--what matter is it, so that they _spell_ the +name that is _good_ for ALL, and _good_ for _each_,'--for that is the +REAL name here? + +Speaking on the author's behalf, however, I am not entitled to imitate +her magnanimity; and, therefore, hope that the writer of the pamphlet +will disclaim any purpose of assuming to himself, on the ground of a +slight and superficial performance, the result which she has attained +at the cost of many toils and sacrifices. + +And now, at length, after many delays and discouragements, the work +comes forth. It had been the author's original purpose to publish it +in America; for she wished her own country to have the glory of +solving the enigma of those mighty dramas, and thus adding a new and +higher value to the loftiest productions of the English mind. It +seemed to her most fit and desirable, that America--having received so +much from England, and returned so little--should do what remained to +be done towards rendering this great legacy available, as its authors +meant it to be, to all future time. This purpose was frustrated; and +it will be seen in what spirit she acquiesces. + +'The author was forced to bring it back, and contribute it to the +literature of the country from which it was derived, and to which it +essentially and inseparably belongs. It was written, every word of it, +on English ground, in the midst of the old familiar scenes and +household names, that even in our nursery songs revive the dear +ancestral memories; those "royal pursuivants" with which our +mother-land still follows and retakes her own. It was written in the +land of our old kings and queens, and in the land of _our own_ +PHILOSOPHERS and POETS also. It was written on the spot where the +works it unlocks were written, and in the perpetual presence of the +English mind; the mind that spoke before in the cultured few, and that +speaks to-day in the cultured many. And it is now at last, after so +long a time--after all, as it should be--the English press that prints +it. It is the scientific English press, with those old gags (wherewith +our kings and queens sought to stop it, ere they knew what it was) +champed asunder, ground to powder, and with its last Elizabethan +shackle shaken off, that restores, "in a better hour," the torn and +garbled science committed to it, and gives back "the bread cast on its +sure waters."' + +There remains little more for me to say. I am not the editor of this +work; nor can I consider myself fairly entitled to the honor (which, +if I deserved it, I should feel to be a very high as well as a +perilous one) of seeing my name associated with the author's on the +title-page. My object has been merely to speak a few words, which +might, perhaps, serve the purpose of placing my countrywoman upon a +ground of amicable understanding with the public. She has a vast +preliminary difficulty to encounter. The first feeling of every reader +must be one of absolute repugnance towards a person who seeks to tear +out of the Anglo-Saxon heart the name which for ages it has held +dearest, and to substitute another name, or names, to which the +settled belief of the world has long assigned a very different +position. What I claim for this work is, that the ability employed in +its composition has been worthy of its great subject, and well +employed for our intellectual interests, whatever judgment the public +may pass upon the questions discussed. And, after listening to the +author's interpretation of the Plays, and seeing how wide a scope she +assigns to them, how high a purpose, and what richness of inner +meaning, the thoughtful reader will hardly return again--not wholly, +at all events--to the common view of them and of their author. It is +for the public to say whether my countrywoman has proved her theory. +In the worst event, if she has failed, her failure will be more +honorable than most people's triumphs; since it must fling upon the +old tombstone, at Stratford-on-Avon, the noblest tributary wreath that +has ever lain there. + +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. + + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE. + + * * * * * + +INTRODUCTION. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE PROPOSITION. + + +'One time will owe another.'--_Coriolanus_. + +This work is designed to propose to the consideration, not of the +learned world only, but of all ingenuous and practical minds, a new +development of that system of practical philosophy from which THE +SCIENTIFIC ARTS of the Modern Ages proceed, and which has already +become, just to the extent to which it has been hitherto opened, the +wisdom,--the universally approved, and practically adopted, Wisdom of +the _Moderns_. + +It is a development of this philosophy, which was deliberately +postponed by the great Scientific Discoverers and Reformers, in whose +Scientific Discoveries and Reformations our organised advancements in +speculation and practice have their origin;--Reformers, whose +scientific acquaintance with historic laws forbade the idea of any +immediate and sudden cures of the political and social evils which +their science searches to the root, and which it was designed to +eradicate. + +The proposition to be demonstrated in the ensuing pages is this: That +the new philosophy which strikes out from the Court--from _the Court_ +of that despotism that names and gives form to the Modern +Learning,--which comes to us from the Court of the last of the Tudors +and the first of the Stuarts,--that new philosophy which we have +received, and accepted, and adopted as a practical philosophy, not +merely in that grave department of learning in which it comes to us +professionally _as_ philosophy, but in that not less important +department of learning in which it comes to us in the disguise of +amusement,--in the form of fable and allegory and parable,--the +proposition is, that this Elizabethan philosophy is, in these two +forms of it,--not two philosophies,--not two Elizabethan philosophies, +not two new and wondrous philosophies of nature and practice, not two +new Inductive philosophies, but one,--one and the same: that it is +philosophy in both these forms, with its veil of allegory and parable, +and without it; that it is philosophy applied to much more important +subjects in the disguise of the parable, than it is in the open +statement; that it is philosophy in both these cases, and not +philosophy in one of them, and a brutish, low-lived, illiterate, +unconscious spontaneity in the other. + +The proposition is that it proceeds, in both cases, from a reflective +deliberative, eminently deliberative, eminently conscious, _designing_ +mind; and that the coincidence which is manifest not in the design +only, and in the structure, but in the detail to the minutest points +of execution, is _not_ accidental. + +It is a proposition which is demonstrated in this volume by means of +evidence derived principally from the books of this philosophy--books +in which the safe delivery and tradition of it to the future was +artistically contrived and triumphantly achieved:--the books of a new +'school' in philosophy; books in which the connection with the school +is not always openly asserted; books in which the true names of the +authors are not always found on the title-page;--the books of a +school, too, which was compelled to have recourse to translations in +some cases, for the safe delivery and tradition of its new learning. + +The facts which lie on the surface of this question, which are +involved in the bare statement of it, are sufficient of themselves to +justify and command this inquiry. + +The fact that these two great branches of the philosophy of +observation and practice, both already _virtually_ recognised as +that,--the one openly, subordinating the physical forces of nature to +the wants of man, changing the face of the earth under our eyes, +leaving behind it, with its new magic, the miracles of Oriental dreams +and fables;--the other, under its veil of wildness and spontaneity, +under its thick-woven veil of mirth and beauty, with its inducted +precepts and dispersed directions, insinuating itself into all our +practice, winding itself into every department of human affairs; +speaking from the legislator's lips, at the bar, from the +pulpit,--putting in its word every where, always at hand, always +sufficient, constituting itself, in virtue of its own irresistible +claims and in the face of what we are told of it, the oracle, the +great practical, mysterious, but universally acknowledged, oracle of +our modern life; the fact that these two great branches of the modern +philosophy make their appearance in history at the same moment, that +they make their appearance in the same company of men--in that same +little courtly company of Elizabethan Wits and Men of Letters that the +revival of the ancient learning brought out here--this is the fact +that strikes the eye at the first glance at this inquiry. + +But that this is none other than that same little clique of +disappointed and defeated politicians who undertook to head and +organize a popular opposition against the government, and were +compelled to retreat from that enterprise, the best of of them +effecting their retreat with some difficulty, others failing entirely +to accomplish it, is the next notable fact which the surface of the +inquiry exhibits. That these two so illustrious branches of the modern +learning were produced for the ostensible purpose of illustrating and +adorning the tyrannies which the men, under whose countenance and +protection they are produced, were vainly attempting, or had vainly +attempted to set bounds to or overthrow, is a fact which might seem of +itself to suggest inquiry. When insurrections are suppressed, when +'the monstrous enterprises of rebellious subjects are overthrown, then +FAME, who is _the posthumous sister of the giants_,--the sister of +_defeated_ giants springs up'; so a man who had made some political +experiments himself that were not very successful, tells us. + +The fact that the men under whose patronage and in whose service 'Will +the Jester' first showed himself, were men who were secretly +endeavouring to make political capital of that new and immense motive +power, that not yet available, and not very easily organised political +power which was already beginning to move the masses here then, and +already threatening, to the observant eye, with its portentous +movement, the foundations of tyranny, the fact, too, that these men +were understood to have made use of the stage unsuccessfully as a +means of immediate political effect, are facts which lie on the +surface of the history of these works, and unimportant as it may seem +to the superficial enquirer, it will be found to be anything but +irrelevant as this inquiry proceeds. The man who is said to have +contributed a thousand pounds towards the purchase of the theatre and +wardrobe and machinery, in which these philosophical plays were first +exhibited, was obliged to stay away from the first appearance of +Hamlet, in the perfected excellence of the poetic philosophic design, +in consequence of being immured in the Tower at that time for an +attempt to overthrow the government. This was the ostensible patron +and friend of the Poet; the partner of his treason was the ostensible +friend and patron of the Philosopher. So nearly did these philosophic +minds, that were 'not for an age but for all time,' approach each +other in _this_ point. But the _protégé_ and friend and well-nigh +adoring admirer of the _Poet_, was also the _protégé_ and friend and +well-nigh adoring admirer of the Philosopher. The fact that these two +philosophies, in this so close juxta-position, always in contact, +playing always into each other's hands, never once heard of each +other, know nothing of each other, is a fact which would seem at the +first blush to point to the secret of these 'Know-Nothings,' who are +men of science in an age of popular ignorance, and therefore have a +'secret'; who are men of science in an age in which the questions of +science are 'forbidden questions,' and are therefore of necessity +'Know-Nothings.' + +As to Ben Jonson, and the evidence of his avowed admiration for the +author of these plays, from the point of view here taken, it is +sufficient to say in passing, that this man, whose natural abilities +sufficed to raise him from a position hardly less mean and obscure +than that of his great rival, was so fortunate as to attract the +attention of some of the most illustrious personages of that time; men +whose observation of natures was quickened by their necessities; men +who were compelled to employ 'living instruments' in the +accomplishment of their designs; who were skilful in detecting the +qualities they had need of, and skilful in adapting means to ends. +This dramatist's connection with the stage of course belongs to this +history. His connection with the author of these Plays, and with the +player himself, are points not to be overlooked. But the literary +history of this age is not yet fully developed. It is enough to say +here, that he chanced to be honored with the patronage of _three_ of +the most illustrious personages of the age in which he lived. He had +_three_ patrons. One was Sir Walter Raleigh, in whose service he was; +one was the Lord Bacon, whose well nigh idolatrous admirer he appears +also to have been; the other was _Shakspere_, to whose favor he +appears to have owed so much. With his passionate admiration of these +last two, stopping only 'this side of idolatry' in his admiration for +them both, and being under such deep personal obligations to them +both, why could he not have mentioned some day to the author of the +Advancement of Learning, the author of Hamlet--Hamlet who also 'lacked +advancement?' What more natural than to suppose that these two +philosophers, these men of a learning so exactly equal, might have +some sympathy with each other, might like to meet each other. Till he +has answered that question, any evidence which he may have to produce +in apparent opposition to the conclusions here stated will not be of +the least value. + +These are questions which any one might properly ask, who had only +glanced at the most superficial or easily accessible facts in this +case, and without any evidence from any other source to stimulate the +inquiry. These are facts which lie on the surface of this history, +which obtrude themselves on our notice, and demand inquiry. + +That which lies immediately below this surface, accessible to any +research worthy of the name is, that these two so new extraordinary +developments of the modern philosophy which come to us without any +_superficially_ avowed connexion, which come to us as _branches_ of +learning merely, do in fact meet and unite in one stem, 'which has a +quality of entireness and continuance throughout,' even to the most +delicate fibre of them both, even to the 'roots' of their trunk, 'and +the strings of those roots,' which trunk lies below the surface of +that age, buried, carefully buried, for reasons assigned; and that it +is the sap of this concealed trunk, this new trunk of sciences, which +makes both these branches so vigorous, which makes the flowers and the +fruit both so fine, and so unlike anything that we have had from any +other source in the way of literature or art. + +The question of the authorship of the great philosophic poems which +are the legacy of the Elizabethan Age to us, is an incidental question +in this inquiry, and is incidentally treated here. The discovery of +the authorship of these works was the necessary incident to that more +thorough inquiry into their nature and design, of which the views +contained in this volume are the result. At a certain stage of this +inquiry,--in the later stages of it,--that discovery became +inevitable. The primary question here is one of universal immediate +practical concern and interest. The solution of this literary problem, +happens to be involved in it. It was the necessary prescribed, +pre-ordered incident of the reproduction and reintegration of the +Inductive Philosophy in its application to its 'principal' and +'noblest subjects,' its 'more chosen subjects.' + +The HISTORICAL KEY to the Elizabethan Art of Tradition, which formed +the first book of this work as it was originally prepared for the +press, is not included in the present publication. It was the part of +the work first written, and the results of more recent research +require to be incorporated in it, in order that it should represent +adequately, in that particular aspect of it, the historical discovery +which it is the object of this work to produce. Moreover, the +demonstration which is contained in this volume appeared to constitute +properly a volume of itself. + +Those who examine the subject from this ground, will find the external +collateral evidence, the ample historical confirmation which is at +hand, not necessary for the support of the propositions advanced here, +though it will, of course, be inquired for, when once this ground is +made. + +The embarrassing circumstances under which this great system of +scientific practice makes its appearance in history, have not yet been +taken into the account in our interpretation of it. We have already +the documents which contain the theory and rule of the modern +civilisation, which is the civilisation of science in our hands. We +have in our hands also, newly lit, newly trimmed, lustrous with the +genius of our own time, that very lamp with which we are instructed to +make this inquiry, that very light which we are told we must bring to +bear upon the obscurities of these documents, that very light in which +we are told, we must unroll them; for they come to us, as the +interpreter takes pains to tell us, with an 'infolded' science in +them. That light of '_times_,' that knowledge of the conditions under +which these works were published, which is essential to the true +interpretation of them, thanks to our contemporary historians, is +already in our hands. What we need now is to explore the secrets of +this philosophy with it,--necessarily secrets at the time it was +issued--what we need now is to open these books of a new learning in +it, and read them by it. + +In that part of the work above referred to, from which some extracts +are subjoined for the purpose of introducing intelligibly the +demonstration contained in this volume, it was the position of the +Elizabethan Men of Letters that was exhibited, and the conditions +which prescribed to the founders of a new school in philosophy, which +was none other than the philosophy of practice, the form of their +works and the concealment of their connection with them--conditions +which made the secret of an Association of 'Naturalists' applying +science in that age to the noblest subjects of speculative inquiry, +and to the highest departments of practice, a life and death secret. +The _physical_ impossibility of publishing at that time, anything +openly relating to the questions in which the weal of men is most +concerned, and which are the primary questions of the science of man's +relief, the opposition which stood at that time prepared to crush any +enterprise proposing openly for its end, the common interests of man +as man, is the point which it was the object of that part of the work +to exhibit. It was presented, not in the form of general statement +merely, but in those memorable particulars which the falsified, +suppressed, garbled history of the great founder of this school +betrays to us; not as it is exhibited in contemporary documents +merely, but as it is carefully collected from these, and from the +_traditions_ of 'the next ages.' + +That the suppressed Elizabethan Reformers and Innovators were men so +far in advance of their time, that they were compelled to have +recourse to literature for the purpose of instituting a gradual +encroachment on popular opinions, a gradual encroachment on the +prejudices, the ignorance, the stupidity of the oppressed and +suffering masses of the human kind, and for the purpose of making over +the practical development of the higher parts of their science, to +ages in which the advancements they instituted had brought the common +mind within hearing of these higher truths; that these were men whose +aims were so opposed to the power that was still predominant +then,--though the 'wrestling' that would shake that predominance, was +already on foot,--that it became necessary for them to conceal their +lives as well as their works,--to veil the true worth and nobility of +them, to suffer those ends which they sought as means, means which +they subordinated to the noblest uses, to be regarded in their own age +as their _ends_; that they were compelled to play this great game in +secret, in their own time, referring themselves to posthumous effects +for the explanation of their designs; postponing their honour to ages +able to discover their worth; this is the proposition which is derived +here from the works in which the tradition of this learning is +conveyed to us. + +But in the part of this work referred to, from which the ensuing +extracts are made, it was the life, and not merely the writings of the +founders of this school which was produced in evidence of this claim. +It was the life in which these disguised ulterior aims show themselves +from the first on the historic surface, in the form of great +contemporaneous events, events which have determined and shaped the +course of the world's history since then; it was the life in which +these intents show themselves too boldly on the surface, in which they +penetrate the artistic disguise, and betray themselves to the +antagonisms which were waiting to crush them; it was the life which +combined these antagonisms for its suppression; it was the life and +death of the projector and founder of the liberties of the New World, +and the obnoxious historian and critic of the tyrannies of the Old, it +was the life and death of Sir Walter Raleigh that was produced as the +Historical Key to the Elizabethan Art of Tradition. It was the Man of +the Globe Theatre, it was the Man in the Tower with his two +Hemispheres, it was the modern 'Hercules and his load too,' that made +in the original design of it, the Frontispiece of this volume. + + 'But stay I see thee in the hemisphere + Advanced and made a _constellation_ there. + Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with _rage + Or influence_, chide or cheer the drooping stage, + Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like night, + And despairs day, but for thy Volume's light. + + ['To draw no envy _Shake-spear_ on thy name, + Am I _thus ample_ to thy book and fame.'--BEN JONSON.] + +The machinery that was necessarily put in operation for the purpose of +conducting successfully, under those conditions, any honourable or +decent enterprise, presupposes a forethought and skill, a faculty for +dramatic arrangement and successful plotting in historic materials, +happily so remote from anything which the exigencies of our time have +ever suggested to us, that we are not in a position to read at a +glance the history of such an age; the history which lies on the +surface of such an age when such men--men who are men--are at work in +it. These are the _Elizabethan_ men that we have to interpret here, +because, though they rest from their labours, their works do follow +them--the Elizabethan _Men_ of _Letters_; and we must know what that +title means before we can read them or their works, before we can +'_untie_ their _spell_.' + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE AGE OF ELIZABETH, AND THE ELIZABETHAN MEN OF LETTERS. + + + 'The times, in many cases, give great light to _true_ + interpretations.' + _Advancement of Learning_. + + 'On fair ground + I could beat forty of them.' + + 'I could myself + Take up a brace of the best of them, yea _the two tribunes_.' + + 'But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic, + And _manhood_ is called _foolery_ when it stands + Against a falling fabric.'--_Coriolanus_. + +The fact that the immemorial liberties of the English PEOPLE, and that +idea of human government and society which they brought with them to +this island, had been a second time violently overborne and suppressed +by a military chieftainship,--one for which the unorganised popular +resistance was no match,--that the English People had been a second +time 'conquered'--for that is the word which the Elizabethan historian +suggests--less than a hundred years before the beginning of the +Elizabethan Age, is a fact in history which the great Elizabethan +philosopher has contrived to send down to us, along with his +philosophical works, as the key to the reading of them. It is a fact +with which we are all now more or less familiar, but it is one which +the Elizabethan Poet and Philosopher became acquainted with under +circumstances calculated to make a much more vivid impression on the +sensibilities than the most accurate and vivacious narratives and +expositions of it which our time can furnish us. + +That this second conquest was unspeakably more degrading than the +first had been, inasmuch as it was the conquest of a chartered, +constitutional liberty, recovered and established in acts that had +made the English history, recovered on battle-fields that were fresh, +not in oral tradition only; inasmuch as it was effected in violation +of that which made the name of Englishmen, that which made the +universally recognised principle of the national life; inasmuch, too, +as it was an _undivided_ conquest, the conquest of _the single +will_--the will of the 'one only man'--not unchecked of commons only, +unchecked by barons, unchecked by the church, unchecked by _council_ +of any kind, the pure arbitrary absolute will, the pure idiosyncrasy, +the crowned demon of the _lawless_, irrational will, unchained and +armed with the sword of the common might, and clothed with the +divinity of the common right; that _this_ was a conquest unspeakably +more debasing than the conquest 'commonly so called,'--this, which +left no nobility,--which clasped its collar in open day on the +proudest Norman neck, and not on the Saxon only, which left only one +nation of slaves and bondmen--that _this_ was a _subjugation_--that +this was a government which the English nation had not before been +familiar with, the men whose great life-acts were performed under it +did not lack the sensibility and the judgment to perceive. + +A more _hopeless_ conquest than the Norman conquest had been, it might +also have seemed, regarded in some of the aspects which it presented +to the eye of the statesman then; for it was in the division of the +former that the element of freedom stole in, it was in the parliaments +of that division that the limitation of the feudal monarchy had begun. + +But still more fatal was the aspect of it which its effects on the +national character were continually obtruding then on the observant +eye,--that debasing, deteriorating, demoralising effect which such a +government must needs exert on _such_ a nation, a nation of +Englishmen, a nation with such memories. The Poet who writes under +this government, with an appreciation of the subject quite as lively +as that of any more recent historian, speaks of 'the face of men' as a +'motive'--a _motive_ power, a revolutionary force, which ought to be +sufficient of itself to raise, if need be, an armed opposition to such +a government, and sustain it, too, without the compulsion of an oath +to reinforce it; at least, this is one of the three motives which he +produces in his conspiracy as motives that ought to suffice to supply +the power wanting to effect a change in such a government. + + 'If not _the face_ of _men_, + The sufferance of our _souls, the time's abuse_,-- + _If these be motives weak, break of betimes._' + +There is no use in attempting a change where such motives are weak. + + 'Break off _betimes_, + And every man hence to his idle bed.' + +That this political degradation, and its deteriorating and corrupting +influence on the national character, was that which presented itself +to the politician's eye at that time as the most fatal aspect of the +question, or as the thing most to be deprecated in the continuance of +such a state of things, no one who studies carefully the best writings +of that time can doubt. + +And it must be confessed, that this is an influence which shows itself +very palpably, not in the degrading hourly detail only of which the +noble mind is, in such circumstances, the suffering witness, and the +secretly protesting suffering participator, but in those large events +which make the historic record. The England of the Plantagenets, that +sturdy England which Henry the Seventh had to conquer, and not its +pertinacious choice of colours only, not its fixed determination to +have the choosing of the colour of its own 'Roses' merely, but its +inveterate idea of the sanctity of '_law_' permeating all the +masses--that was a very different England from the England which Henry +the Seventh willed to his children; it was a very different England, +at least, from the England which Henry the Eighth willed to _his_. + +That some sparks of the old fire were not wanting, however,--that the +nation which had kept alive in the common mind through so many +generations, without the aid of books, the memory of that 'ancestor' +that 'made its laws,' was not after all, perhaps, without a +future--began to be evident about the time that the history of 'that +last king of England who was the ancestor' of the English Stuart, was +dedicated by the author of the Novum Organum to the Prince of Wales, +afterwards Charles I., not without a glance at these portents. + +Circumstances tending to throw doubt upon the durability of this +institution--circumstances which seemed to portend that this monstrous +innovation was destined on the whole to be a much shorter-lived one +than the usurpation it had displaced--had not been wanting, indeed, +from the first, in spite of those discouraging aspects of the question +which were more immediately urged upon the contemporary observer. + +It was in the eleventh century; it was in the middle of the Dark Ages, +that the Norman and his followers effected their successful landing +and lodgement here; it was in the later years of the fifteenth +century,--it was when the bell that tolled through Europe for a +century and a half the closing hour of the Middle Ages, had already +begun its peals, that the Tudor 'came in by battle.' + +That magnificent chain of events which begins in the middle of the +fifteenth century to rear the dividing line between the Middle Ages +and the Modern, had been slow in reaching England with its +convulsions: it had originated on the continent. The great work of the +restoration of the learning of antiquity had been accomplished there: +Italy, Germany, and France had taken the lead in it by turns; Spain +had contributed to it. The scientific discoveries which the genius of +Modern Europe had already effected under that stimulus, without +waiting for the New Organum, had all originated on the continent. The +criticism on the institutions which the decaying Roman Empire had +given to its Northern conquerors,--that criticism which necessarily +accompanied the revival of _learning_ began there. Not yet recovered +from the disastrous wars of the fifteenth century, suffering from the +diabolical tyranny that had overtaken her at that fatal crisis, +England could make but a feeble response as yet to these movements. +They had been going on for a century before the influence of them +began to be visible here. But they were at work here, notwithstanding: +they were germinating and taking root here, in that frozen winter of a +nation's discontent; and when they did begin to show themselves on the +historic surface,--here in this ancient soil of freedom,--in this +natural retreat of it, from the extending, absorbing, consolidating +feudal tyrannies,--here in this 'little world by itself'--this nursery +of the genius of the North--with its chief races, with its union of +races, its 'happy breed of men,' as our Poet has it, who notes all +these points, and defines its position, regarding it, not with a +narrow English partiality, but looking at it on his Map of the World, +which he always carries with him,--looking at it from his 'Globe,' +which has the Old World and the New on it, and the Past and the +Future,--'a precious stone set in the silver sea,' he calls it, 'in a +great pool, a _swan's nest_':--when that seed of all ages did at last +show itself above the ground here, here in this nursery of hope for +man, it would be with quite another kind of fruit on its boughs, from +any that the continent had been able to mature from it. + +It was in the later years of the sixteenth century, in the latter half +of the reign of Elizabeth, that the Printing press, and the revived +Learning of Antiquity, and the Reformation, and the discovery of +America, the new revival of the genius of the North in art and +literature, and the Scientific Discoveries which accompanied this +movement on the continent, began to combine their effects here; and it +was about that time that the political horizon began to exhibit to the +statesman's eye, those portents which both the poet and the +philosopher of that time, have described with so much iteration and +amplitude. These new social elements did not appear to promise in +their combination here, stability to the institutions which Henry the +Seventh, and Henry the Eighth had established in this island. + +The genius of Elizabeth conspired with the anomaly of her position to +make her the steadfast patron and promoter of these movements,--worthy +grand-daughter of Henry the seventh as she was, and opposed on +principle, as she was, to the ultimatum to which they were visibly and +stedfastly tending; but, at the same time, her sagacity and prudence +enabled her to ward off the immediate result. She secured her +throne,--she was able to maintain, in the rocking of those movements, +her own political and spiritual supremacy,--she made gain and capital +for absolutism out of them,--the inevitable reformation she herself +assumed, and set bounds to: whatever new freedom there was, was still +the freedom of her will; she could even secure the throne of her +successor: it was mischief for Charles I. that she was nursing. The +consequence of _all_ this was--_the Age of Elisabeth_. + +That was what this Queen meant it should be literally, and that was +what it was apparently. But it so happened, that her will and humours +on some great questions jumped with the time, and her dire necessities +compelled her to lead the nation on its own track; or else it would +have been too late, perhaps, for that exhibition of the monarchical +institution,--that revival of the heroic, and _ante_-heroic ages, +which her reign exhibits, to come off here as it did at that time. + +It is this that makes the point in this literary history. This is the +key that unlocks the secret of the Elizabethan Art of Delivery and +Tradition. Without any material resources to sustain it--strong in the +national sentiments,--strong in the moral forces with which the past +controls the present,--strong in that natural abhorrence of change +with which nature protects her larger growths,--that principle which +tyranny can test so long with impunity--which it can test with +impunity, till it forgets that this also has in nature its +limits,--strong in the absence of any combination of opposition, to +the young awakening England of that age, that now hollow image of the +past, that phantom of the military force that had been, which seemed +to be waiting only the first breath of the popular will to dissolve +it, was as yet an armed and terrific reality; its iron was on every +neck, its fetter was on every step, and all the new forces, and +world-grasping aims and aspirations which that age was generating were +held down and cramped, and tortured in its chains, dashing their eagle +wings in vain against its iron limits. + +As yet all England cowered and crouched, in blind servility, at the +foot of that terrible, but unrecognised embodiment of its own power, +armed out of its own armoury, with the weapons that were turned +against it. So long as any yet extant national sentiment, or +prejudice, was not yet directly assailed--so long as that arbitrary +power was yet wise, or fortunate enough to withhold the blow which +should make the individual sense of outrage, or the feeling of a class +the common one--so long as those peaceful, social elements, yet waited +the spark that was wanting to unite them--so long 'the laws of +England' might be, indeed, at a Falstaff's or a Nym's or a Bardolph's +'commandment,' for the Poet has but put into 'honest Jack's' mouth, a +boast that worse men than he, made good in his time--so long, the +faith, the lives, the liberties, the dearest earthly hopes, of +England's proudest subjects, her noblest, her bravest, her best, her +most learned, her most accomplished, her most inspired, might be at +the mercy of a woman's caprices, or the sport of a fool's sheer will +and obstinacy, or conditioned on some low-lived 'favorites' whims. _So +long_: And how long was that?--who does not know how long it +was?--that was long enough for the whole Elizabethan Age to happen in. +In the reign of Elizabeth, and in the reign of her successor, and +longer still, that was the condition of it--till its last act was +finished--till its last word was spoken and penned--till its last mute +sign was made--till all its celestial inspiration had returned to the +God who gave it--till all its Promethean clay was cold again. + +This was the combination of conditions of which the Elizabethan +Literature was the result. The Elizabethan Men of Letters, the +organisers and chiefs of the modern civilization were the result of +it. + +These were men in whom the genius of the North in its happiest union +of developments, under its choicest and most favourable conditions of +culture, in its yet fresh, untamed, unbroken, northern vigour, was at +last subjected to the stimulus and provocation which the ancient +learning brings with it to the northern mind--to the now unimaginable +stimulus which, the revival of the ancient art and learning brought +with it to the mind of Europe in that age,--already secure, in its own +indigenous development, already advancing to its own great maturity +under the scholastic culture--the meagre Scholastic, and the rich +Romantic culture--of the Mediaeval Era. The Elizabethan Men of Letters +are men who found in those new and dazzling stores of art and +literature which the movements of their age brought in all their +freshly restored perfection to them, only the summons to their own +slumbering intellectual activities,--fed with fires that old Eastern +and Southern civilizations never knew, nurtured in the depths of a +nature whose depths the northern antiquity had made; they were men who +found in the learning of the South and the East--in the art and +speculation that had satisfied the classic antiquity--only the +definition of their own nobler want. + +The first result of the revival of the ancient learning in this island +was, a report of its 'defects.' The first result of that revival here +was a map--a universal map of the learning and the arts which the +conditions of man's life require--a new map or globe of learning on +which lands and worlds, undreamed of by the ancients, are traced. 'A +map or globe' on which 'the principal and supreme sciences,' the +sciences that are _essential_ to the human kind, are put down among +'the parts that lie fresh and waste, and not converted by the industry +of man.' The first result of the revival of learning here was 'a plot' +for the supply of these deficiencies. + +The Elizabethan Men of Letters were men, in whom the revival of 'the +Wisdom of the Ancients,' which in its last results, in its most select +and boasted conservations had combined in vain to save antiquity, +found the genius of a happier race, able to point out at a glance the +defect in it; men who saw with a glance at those old books what was +the matter with them; men prepared already to overlook from the new +height of criticism which this sturdy insular development of the +practical genius of the North created, the remains of that lost +civilization--the splendours rescued from the wreck of empires,--the +wisdom which had failed so fatally in practice that it must needs +cross from a lost world of learning to the barbarian's new one, to +find pupils--that it must needs cross the gulf of a thousand years in +learning--such work had it made of it--ere it could revive,--the +wisdom rescued from the wreck it had piloted to ruin, _not_ to +enslave, and ensnare, and doom new ages, and better races, with its +futilities, but to be hung up with its immortal beacon-light, to shew +the track of a new learning, to shew to the contrivers of the chart of +new ages, the breakers of that old ignorance, that old arrogant wordy +barren speculation. For these men were men who would not fish up the +chart of a drowned world for the purpose of seeing how nearly they +could conduct another under different conditions of time and races to +the same conclusion. And they were men of a different turn of mind +entirely from those who lay themselves out on enterprises having that +tendency. The result of this English survey of learning was the +sanctioned and organised determination of the modern speculation to +those new fields which it has already occupied, and its organised, but +secret determination, to that end of a true learning which the need of +man, in its whole comprehension in _this_ theory of it, constitutes. + +But the men with whom this proceeding originates, the Elizabethan Men +of Letters, were, in their own time, 'the Few.' They were the chosen +men, not of an age only, but of a race, 'the noblest that ever lived +in the tide of times;' men enriched with the choicest culture of their +age, when that culture involved not the acquisition of the learning of +the ancients only, but the most intimate acquaintance with all those +recent and contemporaneous developments with which its restoration on +the Continent had been attended. Was it strange that these men should +find themselves without sympathy in an age like that?--an age in which +the masses were still unlettered, callous with wrongs, manacled with +blind traditions, or swaying hither and thither, with the breath of a +common prejudice or passion, or swayed hither and thither by the +changeful humours and passions, or the conflicting dogmas and conceits +of their rulers. That is the reason why the development of that age +comes to us as a _Literature_. That is why it is on the surface of it +_Elizabethan_. That is the reason why the leadership of the modern +ages, when it was already here in the persons of its chief +interpreters and prophets, could get as yet no recognition of its +right to teach and rule--could get as yet nothing but _paper_ to print +itself on, nothing but a _pen_ to hew its way with, nor that, without +death and danger dogging it at the heels, and threatening it, at every +turn, so that it could only wave, in mute gesticulation, its signals +to the future. It had to affect, in that time, bookishness and wiry +scholasticism. It had to put on sedulously the harmless old monkish +gown, or the jester's cap and bells, or any kind of a tatterdemalion +robe that would hide, from head to heel, the waving of its purple. +'_Motley's_ the only wear,' whispers the philosopher, peering through +his privileged garb for a moment. King Charles II. had not more to do +in reserving _himself_ in an evil time, and getting safely over to the +year of his dominion. + +Letters were the only ships that could pass those seas. But it makes a +new style in literature, when such men as these, excluded from their +natural sphere of activity, get driven into books, cornered into +paragraphs, and compelled to unpack their hearts in letters. There is +a new tone to the words spoken under such compression. It is a tone +that the school and the cloister never rang with,--it is one that the +fancy dealers in letters are not able to deal in. They are such words +as Caesar speaks, when he puts his legions in battle array,--they are +such words as were heard at Salamis one morning, when the breeze began +to stiffen in the bay; and though they be many, never so many, and +though they be musical, as is Apollo's lute, that Lacedemonian ring is +in each one of them. There is great business to be done in them, and +their haste looks through their eyes. In the sighing of the lover, in +the jest of the fool, in the raving of the madman, and not in +Horatio's philosophy only, you hear it. + +The founders of the new science of nature and practice were men +unspeakably too far above and beyond their time, to take its bone and +muscle with them. There was no language in which their doctrines could +have been openly conveyed to an English public at that time without +fatal misconception. The truth, which was to them arrayed with the +force of a universal obligation,--the truth, which was to them +religion, would have been, of course, in an age in which a single, +narrow-minded, prejudiced Englishwoman's opinions were accepted as the +ultimate rule of faith and practice, 'flat atheism.' What was with +them loyalty to the supremacy of reason and conscience, would have +been in their time madness and rebellion, and the majority would have +started at it in amazement; and all men would have joined hands, in +the name of truth and justice, to suppress it. The only thing that +could be done in such circumstances was, to _translate_ their doctrine +into the language of their time. They must take the current terms--the +vague popular terms--as they found them, and restrict and enlarge +them, and inform them with their new meanings, with a hint to 'men of +understanding' as to the sense in which they use them. That is the key +to the language in which their books for the future were written. + +But who supposes that these men were so wholly super-human, so devoid +of mortal affections and passions, so made up of 'dry light,' that +they could retreat, with all those regal faculties, from the natural +sphere of _their_ activity to the scholar's cell, to make themselves +over in books to a future in which their mortal natures could have no +share,--a future which could not begin till all the breathers of their +world were dead? Who supposes that the 'staff' of Prospero was the +first choice of these chiefs?--these 'heads of the State,' appointed +of nature to the Cure of the Common-Weal. + +The leading minds of that age are not minds which owed their +intellectual superiority to a disproportionate development of certain +intellectual tendencies, or to a dwarfed or inferior endowment of +those natural affections and personal qualifications which tend to +limit men to the sphere of their particular sensuous existence. The +mind of this school is the representative mind, and all men recognise +it as that, because, in its products, that nature which is in all men, +which philosophy had, till then, scorned to recognise, which the +abstractionists had missed in their abstractions,--that nature of +will, and sense, and passion, and inanity, is brought out in its true +historical proportions, not as it exists in books, not as it exists in +speech, but as it exists in the actual human life. It is the mind in +which this historical principle, this motivity which is not reason, is +brought in contact with the opposing and controlling element as it had +not been before. In all its earth-born Titanic strength and fulness, +it _is_ dragged up from its secret lurking-places, and confronted with +its celestial antagonist. In all its self-contradiction and cowering +unreason, it is set face to face with its celestial umpire, and +subjected to her unrelenting criticism. There are depths in this +microcosm which _this_ torch only has entered, silences which this +speaker only has broken, cries which he only knows how to articulate. + +'The soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by their _natures_ +and _ends_,' so the one who is best qualified to give us information +on this question tells us,--by their natures _and_ ends; 'the weaker +sort by their natures, and the _wisest_ by their ends'; and '_the +distance_' of this wisest sort 'from the _ends_ to which they aspire,' +is that 'from which one may take measure and scale of the rest of +their actions and desires.' + +The first end which these Elizabethan Men of Letters grasped at, the +thing which they pursued with all the intensity and concentration of a +master passion, was--_power_, political power. They wanted to rule +their own time, and not the future only. 'You are hurt, because you do +not reign,' is the inuendo which they permit us to apply to them as +the key to their proceedings. 'Such men as this are never at heart's +ease,' Caesar remarks in confidence to a friend, 'whiles they behold a +greater than themselves.' 'Come on my right hand, for this ear is +deaf,' he adds, 'and tell me truly what thou think'st of him.' These +are the kind of men that seek instinctively 'predominance,' not in a +clique or neighbourhood only,--they are not content with a domestic +reflection of their image, they seek to stamp it on the state and on +the world. These Elizabethan Men of Letters were men who sought from +the first, with inveterate determination, to rule their own time, and +they never gave up that point entirely. In one way or another, +directly or indirectly, they were determined to make their influence +felt in that age, in spite of the want of encouragement which the +conditions of that time offered to such an enterprise. But they sought +that end not instinctively only, but with the stedfastness of a +rational, scientifically enlightened purpose. It was an enterprise in +which the intense motivity of that new and so 'conspicuous' +development of the particular and private nature, which lies at the +root of such a genius, was sustained by the determination of that not +less superior development of the nobler nature in man, by the motivity +of the intellect, by the sentiment which waits on _that_, by the +motive of 'the larger whole,' which is, in this science of it, 'the +worthier.' + +We do not need to apply the key of times to those indirectly +historical remains in which the real history, the life and soul of a +time, is always best found, and in which the history of such a time, +if written at all, must necessarily be inclosed; we do not need to +unlock these works to perceive the indications of suppressed movements +in that age, in which the most illustrious men of the age were +primarily concerned, the history of which has not yet fully +transpired. We do not need to find the key to the cipher in which the +history of that time is written, to perceive that there was to have +been a change in the government here at one time, very different from +the one which afterwards occurred, if the original plans of these men +had succeeded. It is not the Plays only that are full of that +frustrated enterprise. + +These were the kind of men who are not easily baffled. They changed +their tactics, but not their ends; and the enterprises which were +conducted with so much secresy under the surveillance of the Tudor, +began already to crown themselves as certainties, and compare their +'olives of endless age' with the spent tombs of brass' and 'tyrant's +crests,' at that sure prospect which, a change of dynasties at that +moment seemed to open,--at least, to men who were in a position then +to estimate its consequences. + +That _this_, at all events, was a state of things that was not going +to endure, became palpable about that time to the philosophic mind. +The transition from the rule of a sovereign who was mistress of 'the +situation,' who understood that it was a popular power which she was +wielding--the transition from the rule of a Queen instructed in the +policy of a tyranny, inducted by nature into its arts, to the policy +of that monarch who had succeeded to her throne, and whose 'CREST' +began to be reared here then in the face of the insulted reviving +English nationality,--this transition appeared upon the whole, upon +calmer reflection, at least to the more patient minds of that age, all +that could reasonably at that time be asked for. No better instrument +for stimulating and strengthening the growing popular sentiment, and +rousing the latent spirit of the nation, could have been desired by +the Elizabethan politicians at that crisis, 'for the great labour was +with the people'--that uninstructed power, which makes the sure basis +of tyrannies--that power which Mark Antony takes with him so +easily--the ignorant, tyrannical, humour-led masses--the masses that +still roar their Elizabethan stupidities from the immortal groups of +Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. We ourselves have not yet overtaken the +chief minds of this age; and the gulf that separated them from those +overpowering numbers in their own time, to whose edicts they were +compelled to pay an external submission, was broad indeed. The +difficulty of establishing an understanding with this power was the +difficulty. They wanted that 'pulpit' from which Brutus and Mark +Antony swayed it by turns so easily--that pulpit from which Mark +Antony showed it Caesar's mantle. They wanted some organ of +communication with these so potent and resistless rulers--some 'chair' +from which they could repeat to them in their own tongue the story of +their lost institutions, and revive in them the memory of '_the kings_ +their ancestors'--some school in which they could collect them and +instruct them in the scientific doctrine of the _commons_, the +doctrine of the common-_weal_ and its divine supremacy. They wanted a +school in which they could tell them stories--stories of various +kinds--such stories as they loved best to hear--Midsummer stories, or +Winter's tales, and stories of their own battle-fields--they wanted a +school in which they could teach the common people _History_ (and not +English history only), with illustrations, large as life, and a magic +lantern to aid them,--'visible history.' + +But to wait till these slow methods had taken effect, would be, +perhaps, to wait, not merely till their estate in the earth was done, +but till the mischief they wished to avert was accomplished. And thus +it was, that the proposal 'to go the beaten track of getting arms into +their hands under colour of Caesar's designs, and _because the people +understood them not_,' came to be considered. To permit the new +dynasty to come in without making any terms with it, without insisting +upon a definition of that indefinite power which the Tudors had +wielded with impunity, and without challenge, would be to make +needless work for the future, and to ignore criminally the +responsibilities of their own position, so at least some English +statesmen of that time, fatally for their favour with the new monarch, +were known to have thought. 'To proceed by process,' to check by +gradual constitutional measures that overgrown and monstrous power in +the state, was the project which these statesmen had most at heart. +But that was a movement which required a firm and enlightened popular +support. Charters and statutes were dead letters till that could be +had. It was fatal to attempt it till that was secured. Failing in that +popular support, if the statesman who had attempted that movement, if +the illustrious chief, and chief man of his time, who headed it, did +secretly meditate other means for accomplishing the same end--which +was to limit the prerogative--such means as the time offered, and if +the evidence which was wanting on his trial _had been_ produced in +proof of it, who that knows what that crisis was would undertake to +convict him on it now? He was arrested on suspicion. He was a man who +had undertaken to set bounds to the absolute will of the monarch, and +therefore he was a dangerous man. [He (Sir Walter Raleigh), together +with the Lord Chobham, Sir J. Fortescue, and _others_, would have +obliged the king to _articles_ before he was admitted to the throne, +and thought the number of his countrymen should be +limited.--_Osborne's Memorials of King James_.] The charges that were +made against him on that shameless trial were indignantly repelled. +'Do you mix, me up with these spiders?' (alluding, perhaps, more +particularly to the Jesuit associated with him in this charge). 'Do +you think I am a Jack Cade or a Robin Hood?' he said. But though the +evidence on this trial is not only in itself illegal, and by +confession perjured, but the _report_ of it comes to us with a +falsehood on the face of it, and is therefore not to be taken without +criticism; that there was a movement of some kind meditated about that +time, by persons occupying chief places of trust and responsibility in +the nation--a movement not favourable to the continuance of 'the +standing departments' in the precise form in which they then +stood--that the project of an administrative reform had not, at least, +been wholly laid aside--that there was something which did not fully +come out on that trial, any one who looks at this report of it will be +apt to infer. + +It was a project which had not yet proceeded to any overt act; there +was no legal evidence of its existence produced on the trial; but +suppose there were here, then, already, men 'who loved the +_fundamental part of state_,' more than in such a crisis 'they +_doubted_ the change of it'--men 'who preferred a noble life before a +long'--men, too, '_who were more discreet_' than they were +'_fearful_,' who thought it good practice to 'jump a body with a +dangerous medicine _that was sure of death_ without it;' suppose there +_was_ a movement of that kind arrested here then, and the evidence of +it were produced, what Englishman, or who that boasts the English +lineage to-day, can have a word to say about it? Who had a better +right than those men themselves, those statesmen, those heroes, who +had waked and watched for their country's weal so long, who had fought +her battles on land and sea, and planned them too, not in the tented +field and on the rocking deck only, but in the more 'deadly breach' of +civil office, whose _scaling_-ladders had entered even the tyrant's +council chamber,--who had a better right than those men themselves to +say whether they would be governed by a government of laws, or by the +will of the most despicable 'one-only-man power,' armed with sword and +lash, that ever a nation of Oriental slaves in their political +imbecility cowered under? Who were better qualified than those men +themselves, instructed in detail in all the peril of that crisis,--men +who had comprehended and weighed with a judgment which has left no +successor to its seat, all the conflicting considerations and claims +which that crisis brought with it,--who better qualified than these to +decide on the measures by which the hideous nuisances of that time +should be abated; by which that axe, that sword, that rack, that +stake, and all those burglar's tools, and highwayman's weapons, should +be taken out of the hands of the mad licentious crew with which an +evil time had armed them against the common-weal--those weapons of +lawless power, which the people had vainly, for want of leaders, +refused before-hand to put into their hands. Who better qualified than +these natural chiefs and elected leaders of the nation, to decide on +the dangerous measures for suppressing the innovation, which the Tudor +and his descendants had accomplished in that ancient sovereignty of +laws, which was the sovereignty of this people, which even the Norman +and the Plantagenet had been taught to acknowledge? Who better +qualified than they to call to an account--'the thief,' the 'cut-purse +of the empire and the rule,' who 'found the precious diadem _on a +shelf_, and stole and put it in his pocket'? + +['Shall the blessed _Sun_ of _Heaven_ prove a micher, and _eat +blackberries_'? A question _not_ to be asked! Shall the blessed 'Son +of England' prove a thief, and take purses? A question _to be asked_. +'The _poor_ abuses of the time want _countenance_.' + + _Lear_. Take that from me, my friend, + who have the power to _seal the accuser's_ lips.] + +Who better qualified could be found to head the dangerous enterprise +for the deliverance of England from that shame, than the chief in whom +her Alfred arose again to break from her neck a baser than the Danish +yoke, to restore her kingdom and found her new empire, to give her +domains, that the sun never sets on,--her Poet, her Philosopher, her +Soldier, her Legislator, the builder of her Empire of the Sea, her +founder of new 'States.' + +But then, of course, it is only by the rarest conjunction of +circumstances, that the movements and plans which such a state of +things gives rise to, can get any other than the most opprobrious name +and place in history. Success is their only certificate of legitimacy. +To attempt to overthrow a government still so strongly planted in the +endurance and passivity of the people, might seem, perhaps, to some +minds in these circumstances, a hopeless, and, _therefore_, a criminal +undertaking. + +'That _opportunity_ which then they had to take from us, to resume, we +have again,' might well have seemed a sufficient plea, so it could +have been made good. But it is not strange that some few, even then, +should find it difficult to believe that the national ruin was yet so +entire, that the ashes of the ancient nobility and commons of England +were yet so cold, as that a system of despotism like that which was +exercised here then, could be permanently and securely fastened over +them. It is not strange that it should seem to these impossible that +there should not be enough of that old English spirit which, only a +hundred years before, had ranged the people in armed thousands, in +defence of LAW, against absolutism, enough of it, at least, to welcome +and sustain the overthrow of tyranny, when once it should present +itself as a fact accomplished, instead of appealing beforehand to a +courage, which so many instances of vain and disastrous resistance had +at last subdued, and to a spirit which seemed reduced at last, to the +mere quality of the master's will. + +That was a narrow dominion apparently to which King James consigned +his great rival in the arts of government, but that rival of his +contrived to rear a 'crest' there which will outlast 'the tyrants,' +and 'look fresh still' when tombs that artists were at work on then +'are spent.' 'And when a soldier was his theme, my name--my _name_ +[namme de plume] was nor far off.' King James forgot how many weapons +this man carried. He took one sword from him, he did not know that +that pen, that harmless goose-quill, carried in its sheath another. He +did not know what strategical operations the scholar, who was 'an old +soldier' and a politician also, was capable of conducting under such +conditions. Those were narrow quarters for 'the Shepherd of the +Ocean,' for the hero of the two hemispheres, to occupy so long; but it +proved no bad retreat for the chief of this movement, as he managed +it. It was in that school of Elizabethan statesmanship which had its +centre in the Tower, that many a scholarly English gentleman came +forth prepared to play his part in the political movements that +succeeded. It was out of that school of statesmanship that John +Hampden came, accomplished for his part in them. + +The papers that the chief of the Protestant cause prepared in that +literary retreat to which the Monarch had consigned him, by means of +those secret channels of communication among the better minds which he +had established in the reign of Elizabeth, became the secret manual of +the revolutionary chiefs; they made the first blast of the trumpet +that summoned at last the nation to its feet. 'The famous Mr. Hamden' +(says an author, who writes in those 'next ages' in which so many +traditions of this time are still rife) '_a little before_ the civil +wars was at the charge of transcribing three thousand four hundred and +fifty-two sheets of Sir Walter Raleigh's MSS., as the amanuensis +himself _told me_, who had his _close chamber_, his fire and _candle_, +with an _attendant to deliver him the originals_ and _take his copies +as fast as he could write them_.' That of itself is a pretty little +glimpse of the kind of machinery which the Elizabethan literature +required for its 'delivery and tradition' at the time, or near the +times, in which it was produced. That is a view of 'an Interior' +'before the civil wars.' It was John Milton who concluded, on looking +over, a long time afterwards, one of the unpublished papers of this +statesman, that it was his duty to give it to the public. 'Having +had,' he says, 'the MS. of this treatise ["The Cabinet Council"] +written by Sir Walter Raleigh, many years in my hands, and finding it +lately by chance among other books and papers, upon reading thereof, I +thought it _a kind of injury to withhold longer_ the work of so +eminent an author from the public; it being both answerable in style +to other works of his already extant, as far as _the subject_ would +permit, and given me for a true copy by a learned man at his death, +who had collected several such pieces.' + +'_A kind of injury_.'--That is the thought which would naturally take +possession of any mind, charged with the responsibility of keeping +back for years this man's writings, especially his choicest +ones--papers that could not be published then on account of the +subject, or that came out with the leaves uncut, labouring with the +restrictions which the press opposed then to the issues of such a +mind. + +That great result which the chief minds of the Modern Ages, under the +influence of the new culture, in that secret association of them were +able to achieve, that new and all comprehending science of life and +practice which they made it their business to perfect and transmit, +could not, indeed, as yet be communicated directly to the many. The +scientific doctrines of the new time were necessarily limited in that +age to the few. But another movement corresponding to that, +simultaneous in its origin, related to it in its source, was also in +progress here then, proceeding hand in hand with this, playing its +game for it, opening the way to its future triumph. This was that +movement of the new time,--this was that consequence, not of the +revival of learning only, but of the growth of the northern mind which +touched everywhere and directly the springs of government, and made +'bold power look pale,' for this was the movement in 'the many.' + +This was the movement which had already convulsed the continent; this +was the movement of which Raleigh was from the first the soldier; this +was 'the cause' of which he became the chief. It was as a youth of +seventeen, bursting from those old fastnesses of the Middle Ages that +could not hold him any longer, shaking off the films of Aristotle and +his commentators, that he girded on his sword for the great +world-battle that was raging already in Europe then. It was into the +thickest of it, that his first step plunged him. For he was one of +that company of a hundred English gentlemen who were waiting but for +the first word of permission from Elizabeth to go as volunteers to the +aid of the Huguenots. This was the movement which had at last reached +England. And like these other continental events which were so slow in +taking effect in England when it did begin to unfold here at last; +there was a taste of 'the island' in it, in this also. + +It was not on the continent only, that Raleigh and other English +statesmen were disposed to sustain this movement. It was not possible +as yet to bring the common mind openly to the heights of those great +doctrines of life and practice which the Wisdom of the Moderns also +embodies, but the new teachers of that age knew how to appreciate, as +the man of science only can fully appreciate, the worth of those +motives that were then beginning to agitate so portentously so large a +portion of the English people. The Elizabethan politicians nourished +and patronised in secret that growing faction. The scientific +politician hailed with secret delight, hailed as the partner of his +own enterprise, that new element of political power which the changing +time began to reveal here then, that power which was already beginning +to unclasp on the necks of the masses, the collar of the absolute +will--that was already proclaiming, in the stifled undertones of 'that +greater part which carries it,' another supremacy. They gave in secret +the right hand of a joyful fellowship to it. At home and abroad the +great soldier and statesman, who was the first founder of the Modern +Science, headed that faction. He fought its battles by land and sea; +he opened the New World to it, and sent it there to work out its +problem. + +It was the first stage of an advancement that would not rest till it +found its true consummation. That infinity which was speaking in its +confused tones, as with the voice of many waters, was resolved into +music and triumphal marches in the ear of the Interpreter. It gave +token that the nobler nature had not died out under the rod of +tyranny; it gave token of the earnestness that would not be appeased +until the ends that were declared in it were found. + +But at the same time, this was a power which the wise men of that age +were far from being willing to let loose upon society then in that +stage of its development; very far were they from being willing to put +the reins into its hands. To balance the dangers that were threatening +the world at that crisis was always the problem. It was a very narrow +line that the policy which was to save the state had to keep to then. +There were evils on both sides. But to the scientific mind there +appeared to be a choice in them. The measure on one side had been +taken, and it was in all men's hearts, but the abysses on the other no +man had sounded. 'The danger of stirring things,'--the dangers, too, +of that unscanned swiftness that too late _ties leaden pounds to his +heels_ were the dangers that were always threatening the Elizabethan +movement, and defining and curbing it. The wisest men of that time +leaned towards the monarchy, the monarchy that was, rather than the +anarchy that was threatening them. The _will_ of the one rather than +the _wills_ of the many, the head of the one rather than 'the +many-headed.' To effect the change which the time required without +'wrenching all'--without undoing the work of ages--without setting at +large from the restraints of reverence and custom the chained tiger of +an unenlightened popular will, this was the problem. The wisest +statesmen, the most judicious that the world has ever known were here, +with their new science, weighing in exactest scales those issues. We +must not quarrel with their concessions to tyranny on the one hand, +nor with their determination to effect changes on the other, until we +are able to command entirely the position they occupied, and the +opposing dangers they had always to consider. We must not judge them +till they have had their hearing. What freedom and what hope there is +of it upon the earth to-day, is the legacy of their perseverance and +endurance. + +They experienced many defeats. The hopes of youth, the hopes of +manhood in turn grew cold. That the 'glorious day' which 'flattered +the mountain tops' of their immortal morning with its sovereign eye +would never shine on them; that their own, with all its unimagined +splendours obscured so long, would go down hid in those same 'base +clouds,' that for them the consummation was to 'peep about to find +themselves dishonourable graves' was the conviction under which their +later tasks were achieved. It did not abate their ardour. They did not +strain one nerve the less for that. + +Driven from one field, they showed themselves in another. Driven from +the open field, they fought in secret. 'I will bandy with thee in +faction, I will o'errun thee with policy, I will kill thee a hundred +and fifty ways,' the Jester who brought their challenge said. The +Elizabethan England rejected the Elizabethan Man. She would have none +of his meddling with her affairs. She sent him to the Tower, and to +the block, if ever she caught him meddling with them. She buried him +alive in the heart of his time. She took the seals of office, she took +the sword, from his hands and put a pen in it. She would have of him a +Man of Letters. And a Man of Letters he became. A Man of Runes. He +invented new letters in his need, letters that would go farther than +the sword, that carried more execution in them than the great seal. +Banished from the state in that isle to which he was banished, he +found not the base-born Caliban only, to _instruct_, and train, and +subdue to his ends, but an Ariel, an imprisoned Ariel, waiting to be +released, able to conduct his masques, able to put his girdles round +the earth, and to 'perform and point' to his Tempest. + +'Go bring the RABBLE, o'er whom I give thee _power_, here to this +place,' was the New Magician's word. + +[Here is another version of it. + +'When Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper, lived, every room in +Gorhambury was served with a pipe of water from the pond distant about +a mile off. In the lifetime of Mr. Anthony Bacon the water ceased, and +his lordship coming to the inheritance could not recover the water +without infinite charge. When he was Lord Chancellor, he built Verulam +House _close by the pond yard, for a place of privacy_ when he was +called upon to dispatch any urgent business. And being asked why he +built there, his lordship answered that, seeing _he could not carry +the water to_ his House, he _would carry his House_ to the water.] + +This is not the place for the particulars of this history or for the +barest outline of them. They make a volume of themselves. But this +glimpse of the circumstances under which the works were composed which +it is the object of this volume to open, appeared at the last moment +to be required, in the absence of the Historical Key which the proper +development of them makes, to that Art of Delivery and Tradition by +means of which the secrets of the Elizabethan Age have been conveyed +to us. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +EXTRACTS FROM THE LIFE OF RALEIGH.--RALEIGH'S SCHOOL + + + 'Our court shall be a little Academe, + Still and contemplative in _living_ Art.' + 'What is the _end_ of study? let me know.' + + _Love's Labour's Lost_. + +But it was not on the New World wholly, that this man of many toils +could afford to lavish the revenues which the Queen's favour brought +him. It was not to that enterprise alone that he was willing to +dedicate the _eclat_ and influence of his rising name. There was work +at home which concerned him more nearly, not less deeply, to which +that new influence was made at once subservient; and in that there +were enemies to be encountered more formidable than the Spaniard on +his own deck, or on his own coast, with all his war-weapons and +defences. It was an enemy which required a strategy more subtle than +any which the exigencies of camp and field had called for. + +The fact that this hero throughout all his great public career--so +full of all kinds of excitement and action--enough, one would say, to +absorb the energies of a mind of any ordinary human capacity--that +this soldier whose name had become, on the Spanish coasts, what the +name of '_Coeur de Lion_' was in the Saracen nursery, that this +foreign adventurer who had a fleet of twenty-three ships sailing at +one time on his errands--this legislator, for he sat in Parliament as +representative of his native shire--this magnificent courtier, who had +raised himself, without any vantage-ground at all, from a position +wholly obscure, by his personal achievements and merits, to a place in +the social ranks so exalted; to a place in the state so _near_ +that--which was chief and absolute--the fact that this many-sided man +of deeds, was all the time a literary man, not a scholar merely, but +himself an Originator, a Teacher, the Founder of a School--this is the +explanatory point in this history--this is the point in it which +throws light on all the rest of it, and imparts to it its true +dignity. + +For he was not a mere blind historical agent, driven by fierce +instincts, intending only their own narrow ends, without any faculty +of comprehensive survey and choice of intentions; impelled by thirst +of adventure, or thirst of power, or thirst of gold, to the execution +of his part in the great human struggle for conservation and +advancement; working like other useful agencies in the Providential +Scheme--like 'the stormy wind fulfilling his pleasure.' + +There is, indeed, no lack of the instinctive element in this heroic +'composition;' there is no stronger and more various and complete +development of it. That '_lumen siccum_' which his great contemporary +is so fond of referring to in his philosophy, that _dry light_ which +is so apt, he tells us, in most men's minds, to get 'drenched' a +little sometimes, in 'the humours and affections,' and distorted and +refracted in their mediums, did not always, perhaps, in its practical +determinations, escape from that accident even in the philosopher's +own; but in this stormy, world-hero, there was a latent volcano of +will and passion; there was, in his constitution, 'a complexion' which +might even seem to the bystanders to threaten at times, by its +'o'ergrowth,' the 'very pales and forts of reason'; but the intellect +was, notwithstanding, in its due proportion in him; and it was the +majestic intellect that triumphed in the end. It was the large and +manly comprehension, 'the large discourse looking before and after,' +it was the overseeing and active principle of 'the larger whole,' that +predominated and had the steering of his course. It is the common +human form which shines out in him and makes that manly demonstration, +which commands our common respect, in spite of those particular +defects and o'ergrowths which are apt to mar its outline in the best +historical types and patterns of it, we have been able to get as yet. +It was the intellect, and the sense which belongs to _that_ in its +integrity--it was the truth and the feeling of its obligation, which +was sovereign with him. For this is a man who appears to have been +occupied with the care of the common-weal more than with anything +else; and that, too, under great disadvantages and impediments, and +when there was no honour in caring for it truly, but that kind of +honour which he had so much of; for this was the time precisely which +the poet speaks of in that play in which he tells us that the end of +playing is 'to give to the very age and body of the time _its form and +pressure_.' This was the time when 'virtue of vice _must pardon beg_, +and curb and beck for leave to do it good.' It was the relief of man's +estate, or the Creator's glory, that he busied himself about; that was +the end of his ends; or if not, then was he, indeed, no hero at all. +For it was the doctrine of his own school, and 'the first human +principle' taught in it, that men who act without reference to that +distinctly _human_ aim, without that _manly_ consideration and +_kind_-liness of purpose, can lay no claim either to divine or human +honours; that they are not, in fact, men, but failures; specimens of +an unsuccessful attempt in nature, at an advancement; or, as his great +contemporary states it more clearly, 'only a nobler kind of vermin.' + +During all the vicissitudes of his long and eventful public life, +Raleigh was still persistently a scholar. He carried his books--his +'trunk of books' with him in all his adventurous voyages; and they +were his 'companions' in the toil and excitement of his campaigns on +land. He studied them in the ocean-storm; he studied them in his tent, +as Brutus studied in his. He studied them year after year, in the dim +light which pierced the deep embrasure of those walls with which +tyranny had thought to shut in at last his world-grasping energies. + +He had had some chance to study 'men and manners' in that strange and +various life of his, and he did not lack the skill to make the most of +it; but he was not content with that narrow, one-sided aspect of life +and human nature, to which his own individual personal experience, +however varied, must necessarily limit him. He would see it under +greater varieties, under all varieties of conditions. He would know +the history of it; he would 'delve it to the root.' He would know how +that particular form of it, which he found on the surface in his time, +had come to be the thing he found it. He would know what it had been +in other times, in the beginning, or in that stage of its development +in which the historic light first finds it. He was a man who wished +even to know what it had been in _the Assyrian_, in _the Phenician_, +in _the Hebrew_, in _the Egyptian_; he would see what it had been in +_the Greek_, and in _the Roman_. He was, indeed, one of that clique of +Elizabethan Naturalists, who thought that there was no more curious +thing in nature; and instead of taking a Jack Cade view of the +subject, and inferring that an adequate knowledge of it comes by +nature, as reading and writing do in that worthy's theory of +education, it was the private opinion of this school, that there was +no department of learning which a scholar could turn his attention to, +that required a more severe and thorough study and experiment, and +none that a man of a truly _scientific_ turn of mind would find better +worth his leisure. And the study of antiquity had not yet come to be +then what it is now; at least, with men of this stamp. Such men did +not study it to discipline their minds, or to get a classic finish to +their style. The books that such a man as this could take the trouble +to carry about with him on such errands as those that he travelled on, +were books that had in them, for the eager eyes that then o'er-ran +them, the world's 'news'--the world's story. They were full of the +fresh living data of his conclusions. They were notes that the master +minds of all the ages had made for him; invaluable aid and sympathy +they had contrived to send to him. The man who had been arrested in +his career, more ignominiously than the magnificent Tully had been in +_his_,--in a career, too, a thousand times more noble,--by a Caesar, +indeed, but _such_ a Caesar;--the man who had sat for years with the +executioner's block in his yard, waiting only for a scratch of the +royal pen, to bring down upon him that same edge which the poor +Cicero, with all his truckling, must feel at last,--such a one would +look over the old philosopher's papers with an apprehension of their +meaning, somewhat more lively than that of the boy who reads them for +a prize, or to get, perhaps, some classic elegancies transfused into +his mind. + +During the ten years which intervene between the date of Raleigh's +first departure for the Continent and that of his beginning favour at +home, already he had found means for ekeing out and perfecting that +liberal education which Oxford had only begun for him, so that it was +as a man of rarest literary accomplishments that he made his brilliant +_debűt_ at the English Court, where the new Elizabethan Age of Letters +was just then beginning. + +He became at once the centre of that little circle of highborn wits +and poets, the elder wits and poets of the Elizabethan age, that were +then in their meridian there. Sir Philip Sidney, Thomas Lord +Buckhurst, Henry Lord Paget, Edward Earl of Oxford, and some others, +are included in the contemporary list of this courtly company, whose +doings are somewhat mysteriously adverted to by a critic, who refers +to the condition of 'the Art of Poesy' at that time. '_The gentleman +who wrote the late Shepherds' Calendar_' was beginning then to attract +considerable attention in this literary aristocracy. + +The brave, bold genius of Raleigh flashed new life into that little +nucleus of the Elizabethan development. The new '_Round Table_,' which +that newly-beginning age of chivalry, with its new weapons and +devices, and its new and more heroic adventure had created, was not +yet 'full' till he came in. The Round Table grew rounder with this +knight's presence. Over those dainty stores of the classic ages, over +those quaint memorials of the elder chivalry, that were spread out on +it, over the dead letter of the past, the brave Atlantic breeze came +in, the breath of the great future blew, when the turn came for this +knight's adventure; whether opened in the prose of its statistics, or +set to its native music in the mystic melodies of the bard who was +there to sing it. The Round Table grew spheral, as he sat talking by +it; the Round Table dissolved, as he brought forth his lore, and +unrolled his maps upon it; and instead of it,--with all its fresh yet +living interests, tracked out by land and sea, with the great +battle-ground of the future outlined on it,--revolved the round world. +'_Universality_' was still the motto of these Paladins; but 'THE +GLOBE'--the Globe, with its TWO hemispheres, became henceforth their +device. + +The promotion of Raleigh at Court was all that was needed to make him +the centre and organiser of that new intellectual movement which was +then just beginning there. He addressed himself to the task as if he +had been a man of literary tastes and occupations merely, or as if +that particular crisis had been a time of literary leisure with him, +and there were nothing else to be thought of just then. The relation +of those illustrious literary partners of his, whom he found already +in the field when he first came to it, to that grand development of +the English genius in art and philosophy which follows, ought not +indeed to be overlooked or slightly treated in any thorough history of +it. For it has its first beginning here in this brilliant assemblage +of courtiers, and soldiers, and scholars,--this company of Poets, and +Patrons and Encouragers of Art and Learning. Least of all should the +relation which the illustrious founder of this order sustains to the +later development be omitted in any such history,--'the prince and +mirror of all chivalry,' the patron of the young English Muse, whose +untimely fate keeps its date for ever green, and fills the air of this +new 'Helicon' with immortal lamentations. The shining foundations of +that so splendid monument of the later Elizabethan genius, which has +paralyzed and confounded all our criticism, were laid here. The +extraordinary facilities which certain departments of literature +appeared to offer, for evading the restrictions which this new poetic +and philosophic development had to encounter from the first, already +began to attract the attention of men acquainted with the uses to +which it had been put in antiquity, and who knew what gravity of aim, +what height of execution, that then rude and childish English Play had +been made to exhibit under other conditions;--men fresh from the study +of those living and perpetual monuments of learning, which the genius +of antiquity has left in this department. But the first essays of the +new English scholarship in this untried field,--the first attempts at +original composition here, derive, it must be confessed, their chief +interest and value from that memorable association in which we find +them. It was the first essay, which had to be made before those +finished monuments of art, which command our admiration on their own +account wholly, could begin to appear. It was 'the tuning of the +instruments, that those who came afterwards might play the better.' We +see, of course, the stiff, cramped hand of the beginner here, instead +of the grand touch of the master, who never comes till his art has +been prepared to his hands,--till the details of its execution have +been mastered for him by others. In some arts there must be +generations of essays before he can get his tools in a condition for +use. Ages of prophetic genius, generations of artists, who dimly saw +afar off, and struggled after his perfections, must patiently chip and +daub their lives away, before ever the star of his nativity can begin +to shine. + +Considering what a barbaric age it was that the English mind was +emerging from then; and the difficulties attending the first attempt +to create in the English literature, anything which should bear any +proportion to those finished models of skill which were then dazzling +the imagination of the English scholar in the unworn gloss of their +fresh revival here, and discouraging, rather than stimulating, the +rude poetic experiment;--considering what weary lengths of essay there +are always to be encountered, where the standard of excellence is so +far beyond the power of execution; we have no occasion to despise the +first bold attempts to overcome these difficulties which the good +taste of this company has preserved to us. They are just such works as +we might expect under those circumstances;--yet full of the pedantries +of the new acquisition, overflowing on the surface with the learning +of the school, sparkling with classic allusions, seizing boldly on the +classic original sometimes, and working their new fancies into it; +but, full already of the riant vigour and originality of the +Elizabethan inspiration; and never servilely copying a foreign +original. The English genius is already triumphant in them. Their very +crudeness is not without its historic charm, when once their true +place in the structure we find them in, is recognised. In the later +works, this crust of scholarship has disappeared, and gone below the +surface. It is all dissolved, and gone into the clear intelligence;-- +it has all gone to feed the majestic current of that new, all-subduing, +all-grasping originality. It is in these earlier performances that the +stumbling-blocks of our present criticism are strewn so thickly. +Nobody can write any kind of criticism of the 'Comedy of Errors,' +for instance, without recognizing the Poet's acquaintance with the +classic model, [See a recent criticism in 'The Times.']--without +recognizing the classic treatment. 'Love's Labour's Lost,' 'The +Taming of the Shrew,' the condemned parts of 'Henry the VI.,' and +generally the Poems which are put down in our criticism as doubtful, +or as the earlier Poems, are just those Poems in which the Poet's +studies are so flatly betrayed on the surface. Among these are plays +which were anonymously produced by the company performing at the +Rose Theatre, and other companies which English noblemen found +occasion to employ in their service then. These were not so much as +produced at the theatre which has had the honor of giving its name to +other productions, bound up with them. We shall find nothing to object +to in that somewhat heterogeneous collection of styles, which even a +single Play sometimes exhibits, when once the history of this +phenomenon accompanies it. The Cathedrals that were built, or re-built +throughout, just at the moment in which the Cathedral Architecture had +attained its ultimate perfection, are more beautiful to the eye, +perhaps, than those in which the story of its growth is told from the +rude, massive Anglo-Saxon of the crypt or the chancel, to the last +refinement of the mullion, and groin, and tracery. But the antiquary, +at least, does not regret the preservation. And these crude beginnings +here have only to be put in their place, to command from the critic, +at least, a similar respect. For here, too, the history reports itself +to the eye, and not less palpably. + +It may seem surprising, and even incredible, to the modern critic, +that men in this position should find any occasion to conceal their +relation to those quite respectable contributions to the literature of +the time, which they found themselves impelled to make. The fact that +they did so, is one that we must accept, however, on uncontradicted +cotemporary testimony, and account for it as we can. The critic who +published his criticisms when 'the gentleman who wrote the late +Shepherd's Calendar' was just coming into notice, however inferior to +our modern critics in other respects, had certainly a better +opportunity of informing himself on this point, than they can have at +present. 'They have writ excellently well,' _he_ says of this company +of Poets,--this 'courtly company,' as he calls them,--' they have writ +excellently well, _if their doings could be found out and made public +with the rest_.' _Sir Philip Sidney, Raleigh,_ and the gentleman who +wrote the late Shepherd's Calendar, are included in the list of Poets +to whom this remark is applied. It is Raleigh's verse which is +distinguished, however, in this commendation as the most 'lofty, +insolent, and passionate;' a description which applies to the +anonymous poems alluded to, but is not particularly applicable to +those artificial and tame performances which he was willing to +acknowledge. And this so commanding Poet, who was at the same time an +aspiring courtier and meddler in affairs of state, and who chose, for +some mysterious reason or other, to forego the honours which those who +were in the secret of his literary abilities and successes,--the very +best judges of poetry in that time, too, were disposed to accord +him,--and we are not without references to cases in antiquity +corresponding very nearly to this; and which seemed to furnish, at +least, a sufficient precedent for this proceeding;--this so successful +poet, and courtier, and great man of his time, was already in a +position to succeed at once to that chair of literary patronage which +the death of Sir Philip Sidney had left vacant. Instinctively +generous, he was ready to serve the literary friends whom he attracted +to him, not less lavishly than he had served the proud Queen herself, +when he threw his gay cloak in her obstructed path,--at least, he was +not afraid of risking those sudden splendours which her favour was +then showering upon him, by wearying her with petitions on their +behalf. He would have risked his new favour, at least with his +'Cynthia,'--that twin sister of Phoebus Apollo,--to make her the +patron, if not the inspirer of the Elizabethan genius. 'When will you +cease to be a beggar, Raleigh?' she said to him one day, on one of +these not infrequent occasions. 'When your Majesty ceases to be a most +gracious mistress,' was this courtier's reply. It is recorded of her, +that 'she loved to hear his reasons to her demands.' + +But though, with all his wit and eloquence, he could not contrive to +make of the grand-daughter of Henry the Seventh, a Pericles, or an +Alexander, or a Ptolemy, or an Augustus, or an encourager of anything +that did not appear to be directly connected with her own particular +ends, he did succeed in making her indirectly a patron of the literary +and scientific development which was then beginning to add to her +reign its new lustre,--which was then suing for leave to lay at her +feet its new crowns and garlands. Indirectly, he did convert her into +a patron,--a second-hand patron of those deeper and more subtle +movements of the new spirit of the time, whose bolder demonstrations +she herself had been forced openly to head. Seated on the throne of +Henry the Seventh, she was already the armed advocate of European +freedom;--Raleigh had contrived to make her the legal sponsor for the +New World's liberties; it only needed that her patronage should be +systematically extended to that new enterprise for the emancipation of +the human life from the bondage of ignorance, from the tyranny of +unlearning,--that enterprise which the gay, insidious Elizabethan +literature was already beginning to flower over and cover with its +devices,--it only needed _that_, to complete the anomaly of her +position. And that through Raleigh's means was accomplished. + +He became himself the head of a little _Alexandrian_ establishment. +His house was a home for men of learning. He employed men in literary +and scientific researches on his account, whose business it was to +report to him their results. He had salaried scholars at his table, to +impart to him their acquisitions, Antiquities, History, Poetry, +Chemistry, Mathematics, scientific research of all kinds, came under +his active and persevering patronage. Returning from one of his visits +to Ireland, whither he had gone on this occasion to inspect a +_seignorie_ which his 'sovereign goddess' had then lately conferred +upon him, he makes his re-appearance at court with that so obscure +personage, the poet of the 'Faery Queene,' under his wing;--that same +gentleman, as the court is informed, whose bucolics had already +attracted so much attention in that brilliant circle. By a happy +coincidence, Raleigh, it seems, had discovered this Author in the +obscurity of his clerkship in Ireland, and had determined to make use +of his own influence at court to push his brother poet's fortunes +there; but his efforts to benefit this poor bard _personally_, do not +appear to have been attended at any time with much success. The +mysterious literary partnership between these two, however, which +dates apparently from an earlier period, continues to bring forth +fruit of the most successful kind; and the 'Faery Queene' is not the +only product of it. + +All kinds of books began now to be dedicated to this new and so +munificent patron of arts and letters. His biographers collect his +public history, not from political records only, but from the eulogies +of these manifold dedications. _Ladonnier_, the artist, publishes his +Sketches of the New World through his aid. Hooker dedicates his +History of Ireland to him; Hakluyt, his Voyages to Florida. A work 'On +_Friendship_' is dedicated to him; another 'On Music,' in which art he +had found leisure, it seems, to make himself a proficient; and as to +the poetic tributes to him,--some of them at least are familiar to us +already. In that gay court, where Raleigh and his haughty rivals were +then playing their deep games,--where there was no room for Spenser's +muse, and the worth of his 'Old Song' was grudgingly reckoned,--the +'rustling in silks' is long since over, but the courtier's place in +the pageant of the 'Faery Queene' remains, and grows clearer with the +lapse of ages. That time, against which he built so perseveringly, and +fortified himself on so many sides, will not be able to diminish there +'one dowle that's in his plume.' [He was also a patron of Plays and +Players in this stage of his career, and entertained private parties +at his house with very _recherché_ performances of that kind +sometimes.] + +In the Lord Timon of the Shakspere piece, which was rewritten from an +_Academic_ original after Raleigh's consignment to the Tower,--in that +fierce satire into which so much Elizabethan bitterness is condensed, +under the difference of the reckless prodigality which is stereotyped +in the fable, we get, in the earlier scenes, some glimpses of this +'Athenian' also, in this stage of his career. + +But it was not as a _Patron_ only, or chiefly, that he aided the new +literary development. A scholar, a scholar so earnest, so +indefatigable, it followed of course that he must be, in one form or +another, an Instructor also; for that is still, under all conditions, +the scholar's destiny--it is still, in one form or another, his +business on the earth. But with that temperament which was included +among the particular conditions of his genius, and with those special +and particular endowments of his for another kind of intellectual +mastery, he could not be content with the pen--with the Poet's, or the +Historian's, or the Philosopher's pen--as the instrument of his mental +dictation. A Teacher thus furnished and ordained, seeks, indeed, +naturally and instinctively, a more direct and living and effective +medium of communication with the audience which his time is able to +furnish him, whether 'few' or many, whether 'fit' or unfit, than the +book can give him. He must have another means of 'delivery and +tradition,' when the delivery or tradition is addressed to those whom +he would associate with him in his age, to work with him as one man, +or those to whom he would transmit it in other ages, to carry it on to +its perfection--those to whom he would communicate his own highest +view, those whom he would inform with his patiently-gathered lore, +those whom he would _instruct_ and move with his new inspirations. For +the truth has become a personality with him--it is his nobler self. He +will live on with it. He will live or die with it. + +For such a one there is, perhaps, no institution ready in his time to +accept his ministry. No chair at Oxford or Cambridge is waiting for +him. For they are, of course, and must needs be, the strong-holds of +the past--those ancient and venerable seats of learning, 'the +fountains and nurseries of all the humanities,' as a Cambridge +Professor calls them, in a letter addressed to Raleigh. The principle +of these larger wholes is, of course, instinctively conservative. +Their business is to know nothing of the new. The new intellectual +movement must fight its battles through without, and come off +conqueror there, or ever those old Gothic doors will creak on their +reluctant hinges to give it ever so pinched an entrance. When it has +once fought its way, and forced itself within--when it has got at last +some marks of age and custom on its brow--then, indeed, it will stand +as the last outwork of that fortuitous conglomeration, to be defended +in its turn against all comers. Already the revived classics had been +able to push from their chairs, and drive into corners, and shut up +finally and put to silence, the old Aristotelian Doctors--the Seraphic +and Cherubic Doctors of their day--in their own ancient halls. It +would be sometime yet, perhaps, however, before that study of the dead +languages, which was of course one prominent incident of the first +revival of a dead learning, would come to take precisely the same +place in those institutions, with their one instinct of conservation +and 'abhorrence of change,' which the old monastic philosophy had +taken in its day; but that change once accomplished, the old monastic +philosophy itself, religious as it was, was never held more sacred +than this profane innovation would come to be. It would be some time +before those new observations and experiments, which Raleigh and his +school were then beginning to institute, experiments and inquiries +which the universities would have laughed to scorn in their day, would +come to be promoted to the Professor's chair; but when they did, it +would perhaps be difficult to convince a young gentleman liberally +educated, at least, under the wings of one of those 'ancient and +venerable' seats of learning, now gray in Raleigh's youthful +West--ambitious, perhaps, to lead off in this popular innovation, +where Saurians, and Icthyosaurians, and Entomologists, and +Chonchologists are already hustling the poor Greek and Latin Teachers +into corners, and putting them to silence with their growing +terminologies--it would perhaps be difficult to convince one who had +gone through the prescribed course of treatment in one of these +'nurseries of humanity,' that the knowledge of the domestic habits and +social and political organisations of insects and shell-fish, or even +the experiments of the laboratory, though never so useful and proper +in their place, are not, after all, the beginning and end of a human +learning. It was no such place as that that this department of the +science of nature took in the systems or notions of its Elizabethan +Founders. They were 'Naturalists,' indeed; but that did not imply, +with _their_ use of the term, the absence of the natural common human +sense in the selection of the objects of their pursuits. 'It is a part +of science to make _judicious_ inquiries and wishes,' says the speaker +in chief for this new doctrine of nature; speaking of the particular +and special applications of it which he is forbidden to make openly, +but which he instructs, and prepares, and charges his followers to +make for themselves. + +One of those innovations, one of those movements in which the new +ground of ages of future culture is first chalked out--a movement +whose end is not yet, whose beginning we have scarce yet seen--was +made in England, not very far from the time in which Sir Walter +Raleigh, began first to convert the eclat of his rising fortunes at +home, and the splendour of his heroic achievements abroad, and all +those new means of influence which his great position gave him, to the +advancement of those deeper, dearer ambitions, which the predominance +of the nobler elements in his constitution made inevitable with him. +Even then he was ready to endanger those golden opinions, waiting to +be worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon, and new-won +rank, and liberty and life itself, for the sake of putting himself +into his true intellectual relations with his time, as a philosopher +and a beginner of a new age in the human advancement. For 'spirits are +not finely touched but to fine issues.' + +If there was no Professor's Chair, if there was no Pulpit or Bishop's +Stall waiting for him, and begging his acceptance of its perquisites, +he must needs institute a chair of his own, and pay for leave to +occupy it. If there was no university with its appliances within his +reach, he must make a university of his own. The germ of a new +'universality' would not be wanting in it. His library, or his +drawing-room, or his 'banquet,' will be Oxford enough for him. He will +begin it as the old monks began theirs, with their readings. Where the +teacher is, there must the school be gathered together. And a school +in the end there will be: a school in the end the true teacher will +have, though he begin it, as the barefoot Athenian began his, in the +stall of the artisan, or in the chat of the Gymnasium, amid the +compliments of the morning levee, or in the woodland stroll, or in the +midnight revel of the banquet. + +When the hour and the man are indeed met, when the time is ripe, and +one _truly sent_, ordained of that Power which _chooses_, not one +only--what uncloaked atheism is that, to promulgate in an age like +this!--_not_ the Teachers and Rabbis of _one race_ only, but _all the +successful_ agents of human advancement, the initiators of new eras of +man's progress, the inaugurators of new ages of the relief of the +human estate and the Creator's glory--when such an one indeed appears, +there will be no lack of instrumentalities. With some verdant +hill-side, it may be, some blossoming knoll or 'mount' for his +'chair,' with a daisy or a lily in his hand, or in a fisherman's boat, +it may be, pushed a little way from the strand, he will begin new +ages. + +The influence of Raleigh upon his time cannot yet be fully estimated; +because, in the first place, it was primarily of that kind which +escapes, from its subtlety, the ordinary historical record; and, in +the second place, it was an influence at the time _necessarily +covert_, studiously disguised. His relation to the new intellectual +development of his age might, perhaps, be characterised as _Socratic_; +though certainly not because he lacked the use, and the most masterly +use, of that same weapon with which his younger contemporary brought +out at last, in the face of his time, the plan of the Great +Instauration. In the heart of the new establishment which the +magnificent courtier, who was a 'Queen's delight,' must now maintain, +there soon came to be a little 'Academe.' The choicest youth of the +time, 'the Spirits of the Morning Sort,' gathered about him. It was +the new philosophic and poetic genius of the age that he attracted to +him; it was on that philosophic and poetic genius that he left his +mark for ever. + +He taught them, as the masters taught of old, in dialogues--in words +that could not then be written, in words that needed the master's +modulation to give them their significance. For the new doctrine had +need to be clothed in a language of its own, whose inner meaning only +those who had found their way to its inmost shrine were able to +interpret. + +We find some contemporary and traditional references to this school, +which are not without their interest and historical value, as tending +to show the amount of influence which it was supposed to have exerted +on the time, as well as the acknowledged necessity for concealment in +the studies pursued in it. The fact that such an Association +_existed_, that it _began with Raleigh_, that young men of distinction +were attracted to it, and that in such numbers, and under such +conditions, that it came to be considered ultimately as a '_School_,' +of which he was the head-master--the fact that the new experimental +science was supposed to have had its origin in this association,--that +opinions, differing from the received ones, were also secretly +discussed in it,--that _anagrams_ and other devices were made use of +for the purpose of infolding the _esoteric_ doctrines of the school in +popular language, so that it was possible to write in this language +acceptably to the vulgar, and without violating preconceived opinions, +and at the same time instructively to the initiated,--all this +remains, even on the surface of statements already accessible to any +scholar,--all this remains, either in the form of contemporary +documents, or in the recollections of persons who have apparently had +it from the most authentic sources, from persons who profess to know, +and who were at least in a position to know, that such was the +impression at the time. + +But when the instinctive dread of innovation was already so keenly on +the alert, when Elizabeth was surrounded with courtiers still in their +first wrath at the promotion of the new 'favourite,' indignant at +finding themselves so suddenly overshadowed with the growing honours +of one who had risen from a rank beneath their own, and eagerly +watching for an occasion against him, it was not likely that such an +affair as this was going to escape notice altogether. And though the +secrecy with which it was conducted, might have sufficed to elude a +scrutiny such as theirs, there was _another_, and more eager and +subtle enemy,--an enemy which the founder of this school had always to +contend with, that had already, day and night, at home and abroad, its +Argus watch upon him. That vast and secret foe, which he had arrayed +against him on foreign battle fields, knew already what kind of +embodiment of power this was that was rising into such sudden favour +here at home, and would have crushed him in the germ--that foe which +would never rest till it had pursued him to the block, which was ready +to join hands with his personal enemies in its machinations, in the +court of Elizabeth, as well as in the court of her successor, that +vast, malignant, indefatigable foe, in which the spirit of the old +ages lurked, was already at his threshold, and penetrating to the most +secret chamber of his councils. It was on the showing of _a Jesuit_ +that these friendly gatherings of young men at Raleigh's table came to +be branded as 'a school of Atheism.' And it was through such agencies, +that his enemies at court were able to sow suspicions in Elizabeth's +mind in regard to the entire orthodoxy of his mode of explaining +certain radical points in human belief, and in regard to the absolute +'conformity' of his views on these points with those which she had +herself divinely authorised, suspicions which he himself confesses he +was never afterwards able to eradicate. The matter was represented to +her, we are told, 'as if he had set up for a doctor in the faculty and +invited young gentlemen into his school, where the Bible was jeered +at,' and the use of profane anagrams was inculcated. The fact that he +associated with him in his chemical and mathematical studies, and +entertained in his house, a scholar labouring at that time under the +heavy charge of getting up 'a philosophical theology,' was also made +use of greatly to his discredit. + +And from another uncontradicted statement, which dates from a later +period, but which comes to us worded in terms as cautious as if it had +issued directly from the school itself, we obtain another glimpse of +these new social agencies, with which the bold, creative, social +genius that was then seeking to penetrate on all sides the +custom-bound time, would have roused and organised a new social life +in it. It is still the second-hand hearsay testimony which is quoted +here. '_He is said_ to have set up an Office of Address, and it is +_supposed_ that the office _might_ respect a _more liberal +intercourse_--_a nobler mutuality of advertisement_, than would +perhaps admit of _all sorts of persons_.' 'Raleigh set up a kind of +Office of Address,' says another, 'in the capacity of an agency for +all sorts of persons.' John Evelyn, refers also to that long dried +fountain of communication which _Montaigne_ first proposed, Sir Walter +Raleigh put in practice, and Mr. Hartlib endeavoured to renew. + +'This is the scheme described by Sir W. Pellis, which is referred +traditionally to Raleigh and Montaigne (see Book I. chap. xxxiv.) An +Office of _Address_ whereby the wants of _all_ may be made known to +ALL (that painful and great instrument of this design), _where men may +know what is already done in the business of learning, what is at +present in doing, and what is intended to be done_, to the end that, +by such a _general communication of design and mutual assistance, the +wits and endeavours of the world_ may no longer be _as so many +scattered coals_, which, for want of _union_, are soon quenched, +whereas being laid together they would have yielded _a comfortable_ +light and heat. [This is evidently _traditional_ language] ... such as +advanced rather to the _improvement_ of _men_ themselves than their +means.'--OLDYS. + +_This_ then is the association of which Raleigh was the chief; _this_ +was the state, within the state which he was founding. ('See the reach +of this man,' says Lord Coke on his Trial.) It is true that the honour +is also ascribed to Montaigne; but we shall find, as we proceed with +this inquiry, that _all_ the works and inventions of this new English +school, of which Raleigh was chief, all its new and vast designs for +man's relief, are also claimed by that same aspiring gentleman, as +they were, too, by another of these Egotists, who came out in his own +name with this identical project. + +It was only within the walls of a school that the great principle of +the new philosophy of fact and practice, which had to pretend to be +profoundly absorbed in chemical experiments, or in physical +observations, and inductions of some kind--though not without an +occasional hint of a broader intention,--it was only in _esoteric_ +language that the great principles of this philosophy could begin to +be set forth _in their true comprehension_. The very trunk of it, the +primal science itself, must needs be mystified and hidden in a shower +of metaphysical dust, and piled and heaped about with the old dead +branches of scholasticism, lest men should see for themselves _how_ +broad and comprehensive _must_ be the ultimate sweep of its +determinations; lest men should see for themselves, how a science +which begins in fact, and returns to it again, which begins in +observation and experiment, and returns in scientific practice, in +scientific arts, in scientific re-formation, might have to do, ere all +was done, with facts not then inviting scientific investigation--with +arts not then inviting scientific reform. + +In consequence of a sudden and common advancement of intelligence +among the leading men of that age, which left the standard of +intelligence represented in more than one of its existing +institutions, very considerably in the rear of its advancement, there +followed, as the inevitable result, a tendency to the formation of +some medium of expression,--whether that tendency was artistically +developed or not, in which the new and nobler thoughts of men, in +which their dearest beliefs, could find some vent and limited +interchange and circulation, without startling the _ear_. Eventually +there came to be a number of men in England at this time,--and who +shall say that there were none on the continent of this +school,--occupying prominent positions in the state, heading, it might +be, or ranged in opposite factions at Court, who could speak and write +in such a manner, upon topics of common interest, as to make +themselves entirely intelligible to each other, without exposing +themselves to any of the risks, which confidential communications +under such circumstances involved. + +For there existed a certain mode of expression, originating in some of +its more special forms with this particular school, yet not altogether +conventional, which enabled those who made use of it to steer clear of +the Star Chamber and its sister institution; inasmuch as the terms +employed in this mode of communication were not in the more obvious +interpretation of them actionable, and to a vulgar, unlearned, or +stupid conceit, could hardly be made to appear so. There must be a +High Court of Wit, and a Bench of Peers in that estate of the realm, +or ever these treasons could be brought to trial. For it was a mode of +communication which involved in its more obvious construction the +necessary submission to power. It was the instructed ear,--the ear of +a school,--which was required to lend to it its more recondite +meanings;--it was the ear of that new school in philosophy which had +made History the basis of its learning,--which, dealing with +_principles_ instead of _words_, had glanced, not without some nice +observation in passing, at their more '_conspicuous_' historical +'INSTANCES';--it was the ear of a school which had everywhere the +great historical representations and diagrams at its control, and +could substitute, without much hindrance, particulars for generals, or +generals for particulars, as the case might be; it was the ear of a +school intrusted with discretionary power, but trained and practised +in the art of using it. + +Originally an art of necessity, with practice, in the skilful hands of +those who employed it, it came at length to have a charm of its own. +In such hands, it became an instrument of literary power, which had +not before been conceived of; a medium too of densest ornament, of +thick crowding conceits, and nestling beauties, which no style before +had ever had depth enough to harbour. It established a new, and more +intimate and living relation between the author and his +reader,--between the speaker and his audience. There was ever the +charm of that secret understanding lending itself to all the effects. +It made the reader, or the hearer, participator in the artist's skill, +and joint proprietor in the result. The author's own glow must be on +his cheek, the author's own flash in his eye, ere that result was +possible. The nice point of the skilful pen, the depth of the lurking +tone was lost, unless an eye as skilful, or an ear as fine, tracked or +waited on it. It gave to the work of the artist, nature's own +style;--it gave to works which had the earnest of life and death in +them the sport of the 'enigma.' + +It is not too much to say, that the works of Raleigh and Bacon, and +others whose connection with it is not necessary to specify just here, +are written throughout in the language of this school. 'Our glorious +Willy'--(it is the gentleman who wrote the 'Faery Queene' who claims +him, and his glories, as 'ours'),--'our glorious Willy' was born in +it, and knew no other speech. It was that 'Round Table' at which Sir +Philip Sydney presided then, that his lurking meanings, his +unspeakable audacities first 'set in a roar.' It was there, in the +keen encounters of those flashing 'wit combats,' that the weapons of +great genius grew so fine. It was there, where the young wits and +scholars, fresh from their continental tours, full of the gallant +young England of their day,--the Mercutios, the Benedicts, the Birons, +the Longuevilles, came together fresh from the Court of Navarre, and +smelling of the lore of their foreign 'Academe,' or hot from the +battles of continental freedom,--it was _there_, in those _réunions_, +that our Poet caught those gracious airs of his--those delicate, +thick-flowering refinements--those fine impalpable points of courtly +breeding--those aristocratic notions that haunt him everywhere. It was +there that he picked up his various knowledge of men and manners, his +acquaintance with foreign life, his bits of travelled wit, that flash +through all. It was there that he heard the clash of arms, and the +ocean-storm. And it was there that he learned 'his old ward.' It was +there, in the social collisions of that gay young time, with its bold +over-flowing humours, that would not be shut in, that he first armed +himself with those quips and puns, and lurking conceits, that crowd +his earlier style so thickly,--those double, and triple, and quadruple +meanings, that stud so closely the lines of his dialogue in the plays +which are clearly dated from that era,--the natural artifices of a +time like that, when all those new volumes of utterance which the lips +were ready to issue, were forbidden on pain of death to be 'extended,' +must needs 'be crushed together, infolded within themselves.' + +Of course it would be absurd, or it would involve the most profound +ignorance of the history of literature in general, to claim that the +principle of this invention had its origin here. It had already been +in use, in recent and systematic use, in the intercourse of the +scholars of the Middle Ages; and its origin is coeval with the origin +of letters. The free-masonry of learning is old indeed. It runs its +mountain chain of signals through all the ages, and men whom times and +kindreds have separated ascend from their week-day toil, and hold +their Sabbaths and synods on those heights. They whisper, and listen, +and smile, and shake the head at one another; they laugh, and weep, +and complain together; they sing their songs of victory in one key. +That machinery is so fine, that the scholar can catch across the ages, +the smile, or the whisper, which the contemporary tyranny had no +instrument firm enough to suppress, or fine enough to detect. + + 'But for her father sitting still on hie, + Did warily still watch the way she went, + And eke from far observed with jealous eye, + Which way his course the wanton Bregog bent. + + Him to deceive, for all his watchful ward, + The wily lover did devise this slight. + First, into many parts, his stream he shared, + That whilst the one was watch'd, the other might + + Pass unespide, to meet her by the way. + And then besides, those little streams, so broken, + He under ground so closely did convey, + That of their passage doth appear no token.' + +It was the author of the 'Faery Queene,' indeed, his fine, elaborate, +fertile genius burthened with its rich treasure, and stimulated to new +activity by his poetical alliance with Raleigh, whose splendid +invention first made apparent the latent facilities which certain +departments of popular literature then offered, for a new and hitherto +unparalleled application of this principle. In that prose description +of his great Poem which he addresses to Raleigh, the distinct avowal +of a double intention in it, the distinction between a particular and +general one, the emphasis with which the elements of the ideal name, +are discriminated and blended, furnish to the careful reader already +some superficial hints, as to the capabilities of such a plan to one +at all predisposed to avail himself of them. And, indeed, this Poet's +manifest philosophical and historical tendencies, and his avowed view +of the comprehension of the Poet's business would have seemed +beforehand to require some elbow-room,--some chance for poetic curves +and sweeps,--some space for the line of beauty to take its course in, +which the sharp angularities, the crooked lines, the blunt bringing up +everywhere, of the new philosophic tendency to history would scarcely +admit of. There was no breathing space for him, unless he could +contrive to fix his poetic platform so high, as to be able to override +these restrictions without hindrance. + +'For the Poet thrusteth into the midst, even where it most concerneth +him, and then recoursing to the things fore-past, and _divining of +things to come_, he maketh a pleasing _analysis_ of ALL.' + +And it so happened that his Prince Arthur had dreamed the poet's +dream, the hero's dream, the philosopher's dream, the dream that was +dreamed of old under the Olive shades, the dream that all our Poets +and inspired anticipators of man's perfection and felicity have always +been dreaming; but this one '_awakening_,' determined that it should +be a dream no longer. It was the hour in which the genius of antiquity +was reviving; it was the hour in which the poetic inspiration of all +the ages was reviving, and _arming_ itself with the knowledge of +'things not dreamt of' by old reformers--that knowledge of nature +which is _power_, which is the true _magic_. For this new Poet had +seen in a vision that same 'excellent beauty' which 'the divine' ones +saw of old, and 'the New Atlantis,' the celestial vision of _her_ +kingdom; and being also 'ravished with that excellence, and +_awakening_, he determined to _seek her out_. And so being by _Merlin +armed_, and by _Timon thoroughly instructed_, he went forth to seek +her in _Fairy Land_.' There was a little band of heroes in that age, a +little band of philosophers and poets, secretly bent on that same +adventure, sworn to the service of that same Gloriana, though they +were fain to wear then the scarf and the device of another Queen on +_their_ armour. It is to the prince of this little band--'the prince +and mirror of all chivalry'--that this Poet dedicates his poem. But it +is Raleigh's device which he adopts in the names he uses, and it is +Raleigh who thus shares with Sydney the honour of his dedication. + +'In that Faery Queene, I mean,' he says, in his prose description of +the Poem addressed to Raleigh, 'in that Faery Queene, I mean Glory in +my general intention; but, in my particular, I conceive the most +glorious person of our sovereign the Queen, and _her_ kingdom--in +_Fairy Land_. + +'And yet, in some places, I do otherwise shadow her. For considering +she beareth _two persons, one_ of a most Royal _Queen_ or _Empress_, +the other of a most VIRTUOUS and BEAUTIFUL lady--the _latter part_ I +do express in BEL-PHEBE, fashioning her name according to your own +_most excellent conceit_ of "_Cynthia_," Phebe and Cynthia being both +names of _Diana_.' And thus he sings his poetic dedication:-- + + 'To thee, that art the Summer's Nightingale, + Thy sovereign goddess's most dear delight, + Why do I send this rustic madrigal, + That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite? + _Thou, only fit this argument to write_, + In whose high thoughts _pleasure hath built her bower_, + And dainty love learn'd sweetly to indite. + My rhymes, I know, unsavoury are and soure + To taste the streams, which _like a golden showre_, + Flow from thy fruitful head of thy love's praise. + Fitter, perhaps, _to thunder martial stowre_,[Footnote] + When thee so list thy _tuneful_ thoughts to raise, + Yet _till that thou thy poem wilt make known_, + Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shown.' + +[Footnote: +'Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with _rage_ +_Or influence chide_, or _cheer_ the drooping stage.' + +BEN JONSON.] + +'Of me,' says Raleigh, in a response to this obscure partner of his +works and arts,--a response not less mysterious, till we have found +the solution of it, for it is an enigma. + + 'Of me _no lines_ are loved, _no letters_ are of price, + Of all that speak the English tongue, but those of _thy device_.' + +[It was a '_device_' that symbolised _all_. It was a _circle_ +containing the alphabet, or the _A B C_, and the esoteric meaning of +it was '_all_ in _each_,' or _all_ in _all_, the new doctrine of the +_unity_ of science (the '_Ideas_' of the New '_Academe_'). That was +the token-name under which a great Book of this Academy was issued.] + +It is to Sidney, Raleigh, and the Poet of the 'Faery-Queene,' and the +rest of that courtly company of Poets, that the contemporary author in +the Art of Poetry alludes, with a special commendation of Raleigh's +vein, as the 'most lofty, insolent, and passionate,' when he says,' +they have _writ_ excellently well, if their _doings_ could be found +out and made public with the rest.' + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +RALEIGH'S SCHOOL, CONTINUED.--THE NEW ACADEMY. + +EXTRACT FROM A LATER CHAPTER OF RALEIGH'S LIFE. + + +_Oliver_. Where will the old Duke live? + +_Charles_. They say _he is already_ in the forest of _Arden_, and a +many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood +of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and +fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world. + +As You Like It. + + _Stephano_ [sings]. + Flout 'em and skout'em; and skout'em and flout 'em, + _Thought_ is free. + + _Cal_. That's not the tune. + + [Ariel _plays the tune on a tabor and pipe_.] + + _Ste_. What is this _same?_ + + _Trin_. This is the tune of our catch, played by--the picture + of--_Nobody_. + +But all was not over with him in the old England yet--the present had +still its chief tasks for him. + +The man who had 'achieved' his greatness, the chief who had made his +way through such angry hosts of rivals, and through such formidable +social barriers, from his little seat in the Devonshire corner to a +place in the state, so commanding, that even the jester, who was the +'Mr. Punch' of that day, conceived it to be within the limits of his +prerogative to call attention to it, and that too in 'the presence' +itself [See 'the knave' _commands_ 'the queen.'--_Tarleton_]--a place +of command so acknowledged, that even the poet could call him in the +ear of England 'her _most_ dear delight'--such a one was not going to +give up so easily the game he had been playing here so long. He was +not to be foiled with this great flaw in his fortunes even here; and +though all his work appeared for the time to be undone, and though the +eye that he had fastened on him was 'the eye' that had in it 'twenty +thousand deaths.' + +It is this patient piecing and renewing of his broken webs, it is this +second building up of his position rather than the first, that shows +us what he is. One must see what he contrived to make of those +'apartments' in the Tower while he occupied them; what before +unimagined conveniencies, and elegancies, and facilities of +communication, and means of operation, they began to develop under the +searching of his genius: what means of reaching and moving the public +mind; what wires that reached to the most secret councils of state +appeared to be inlaid in those old walls while he was within them; +what springs that commanded even there movements not less striking and +anomalous than those which had arrested the critical and admiring +attention of Tarleton under the Tudor administration,--movements on +that same royal board which Ferdinand and Miranda were seen to be +playing on in Prospero's cell when all was done,--one must see what +this logician, who was the magician also, contrived to make of the +lodging which was at first only 'the cell' of a condemned criminal; +what power there was there to foil his antagonists, and crush them +too,--if nothing but throwing themselves under the wheels of his +advancement would serve their purpose; one must look at all this to +see 'what manner of man' this was, what stuff this genius was made of, +in whose hearts ideas that had been parted from all antiquities were +getting welded here then--welded so firmly that all futurities would +not disjoin them, so firmly that thrones, and dominions, and +principalities, and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this +world might combine in vain to disjoin them--the ideas whose union was +the new 'birth of time.' It is this life in 'the cell'--this game, +these masques, this tempest, that the magician will command +there--which show us, when all is done, what new stuff of Nature's own +this was, in which the new idea of combining 'the part operative' and +the part speculative of human life--this new thought of making 'the +art and practic part of life _the mistress_ to its theoric' was +understood in this scholar's own time (as we learn from the secret +traditions of the school) to have had its first germination: this idea +which is the idea of the modern learning--the idea of connecting +knowledge generally and in a systematic manner with the human +conduct--knowledge as distinguished from pre-supposition--the idea +which came out afterwards so systematically and comprehensively +developed in the works of his great contemporary and partner in arts +and learning. + +We must look at this, as well as at some other demonstrations of which +this time was the witness, to see what new mastership this is that was +coming out here so signally in this age in various forms, and in more +minds than one; what soul of a new era it was that had laughed, even +in the boyhood of its heroes, at old Aristotle on his throne; that had +made its youthful games with dramatic impersonations, and caricatures, +and travesties of that old book-learning; that in the glory of those +youthful spirits--'the spirits of youths, that meant to be of note and +began betimes'--it thought itself already competent to laugh down and +dethrone with its 'jests'; that had laughed all its days in secret; +that had never once lost a chance for a jibe at the philosophy it +found in possession of the philosophic chairs--a philosophy which had +left so many things in heaven and earth uncompassed in its old futile +dreamy abstractions. + + Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, + Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, + Hang up philosophy, + +was the word of the poet of this new school in one of his 'lofty and +passionate' moods, at a much earlier stage of this philosophic +development. 'See what learning is!' exclaims the Nurse, speaking at +that same date from the same dictation, for there is a Friar 'abroad' +there already in the action of that play, who is undertaking to bring +his learning to bear upon practice, and opening his cell for +scientific consultation and ghostly advice on the questions of the +play as they happen to arise; and it is his apparent capacity for +smoothing, and reconciling, and versifying, not words only, but facts, +which commands the Nurse's admiration. + +This doctrine of a practical learning, this part operative of the new +learning for which the founders of it beg leave to reintegrate the +abused term of Natural Magic, referring to the Persians in particular, +to indicate the extent of the field which their magical operations are +intended ultimately to occupy; this idea, which the master of this +school was illustrating now in the Tower so happily, did not originate +in the Tower, as we shall see. + +The first heirs of this new invention, were full of it. The babbling +infancy of this great union of art and learning, whose speech flows in +its later works so clear, babbled of nothing else: its Elizabethan +savageness, with its first taste of learning on its lips, with its new +classic lore yet stumbling in its speech, already, knew nothing else. +The very rudest play in all this collection of the school,--left to +show us the march of that 'time-bettering age,' the play which offends +us most--belongs properly to this collection; contains _this_ secret, +which is the Elizabethan secret, and the secret of that art of +delivery and tradition which this from the first inevitably +created,--yet rude and undeveloped, but _there_. + +We need not go so far, however, as that, in this not pleasant +retrospect; for these early plays are not the ones to which the +interpreter of this school would choose to refer the reader, for the +proof of its claims at present;--these which the faults of youth and +the faults of the time conspire to mar: in which the overdoing of the +first attempt to hide under a cover suited to the tastes of the Court, +or to the yet more faulty tastes of the rabble of an Elizabethan +play-house,--the boldest scientific treatment of 'the forbidden +questions,' still leaves so much upon the surface of the play that +repels the ordinary criticism;--these that were first sent out to +bring in the rabble of that age to the scholar's cell, these in which +the new science was first brought in, in its slave's costume, with all +its native glories shorn, and its eyes put out 'to make sport' for the +Tudor--perilous sport!--these first rude essays of a learning not yet +master of its unwonted tools, not yet taught how to wear its fetters +gracefully, and wreathe them over and make immortal glories of +them--still clanking its irons. There is nothing here to detain any +criticism not yet instructed in the secret of this Art Union. But the +faults are faults of execution merely; _the design_ of the Novura +Organum is not more noble, not more clear. + +For these works are the works of that same 'school' which the Jesuit +thought so dangerous, and calculated to affect unfavourably the +morality of the English nation--the school which the Jesuit contrived +to bring under suspicion as a school in which doctrines that differed +from opinions received on essential points were secretly +taught,--contriving to infect with his views on that point the lady +who was understood, at that time, to be the only person qualified to +reflect on questions of this nature; the school in which Raleigh was +asserted to be perverting the minds of young men by teaching them the +use of profane anagrams; and it cannot be denied, that anagrams, as +well as other 'devices in letters,' _were_ made use of, in involving +'the bolder meanings' contained in writings issued from this school, +especially when the scorn with which science regarded the things it +found set up for its worship had to be conveyed sometimes in a point +or a word. It is a school, whose language might often seem obnoxious +to the charge of profanity and other charges of that nature to those +who do not understand its aims, to those who do not know that it is +from the first a school of Natural Science, whose chief department was +that history which makes the basis of the '_living_ art,' the art of +_man's_ living, the _essential_ art of it,--a school in which the use +of words was, in fact, more rigorous and scrupulous than it had ever +been in any other, in which the use of words is for the first time +scientific, and yet, in some respects, more bold and free than in +those in which mere words, as words, are supposed to have some +inherent virtue and efficacy, some mystic worth and sanctity in them. + +This was the learning in which the art of a new age and race first +spoke, and many an old foolish, childish, borrowed notion went off +like vapour in it at its first word, without any one's ever so much as +stopping to observe it, any one whose place was within. It is the +school of a criticism much more severe than the criticism which calls +its freedom in question. It is a school in which the taking of names +in vain in general is strictly forbidden. That is the first +commandment of it, and it is a commandment with promise. + +The man who sits there in the Tower, now, driving that same +'goose-pen' which he speaks of as such a safe instrument for unfolding +practical doctrines, with such patient energy, is not now occupied +with the statistics of Noah's Ark, grave as he looks; though that, +too, is a subject which his nautical experience and the indomitable +bias of his genius as a western man towards calculation in general, +together with his notion that the affairs of the world generally, past +as well as future, belong properly to his _sphere_ as a _man_, will +require him to take up and examine and report upon, before he will +think that his work is done. It is not a chapter in the History of the +World which he is composing at present, though that work is there at +this moment on the table, and forms the ostensible state-prison work +of this convict. + +This is the man who made one so long ago in those brilliant 'Round +Table' reunions, in which the idea of converting the new _belles +lettres_ of that new time, to such grave and politic uses was first +suggested; he is the genius of that company, that even in such frolic +mad-cap games as Love's Labour's Lost, and the Taming of the Shrew, +and Midsummer Night's Dream, could contrive to insert, not the broad +farce and burlesque on the old pretentious wordy philosophy and +pompous rhetoric it was meant to dethrone only, and not the most +perilous secret of the new philosophy, only, but the secret of its +organ of delivery and tradition, the secret of its use of letters, the +secret of its '_cipher in letters_,' and not its 'cipher in words' +only, the cipher in which the secret of the authorship of these works +was infolded, and in which it was _found_, but not found in these +earlier plays,--plays in which these so perilous secrets are still +conveyed in so many involutions, in passages so intricate with quips +and puns and worthless trivialities, so uninviting or so marred with +their superficial meanings, that no one would think of looking in them +for anything of any value. For it is always when some necessary, but +not superficial, question of the play is to be considered, that the +Clown and the Fool are most in request, for 'there be of them that +will themselves laugh to set on some _barren spectators_ to laugh +too'; and under cover of that mirth it is, that the grave or witty +undertone reaches the ear of the judicious. + +It is in the later and more finished works of this school that the key +to the secret doctrines of it, which it is the object of this work to +furnish, is best found. But the fact, that in the very rudest and most +faulty plays in this collection of plays, which form so important a +department of the works of this school, which make indeed the noblest +tradition, the only adequate tradition, the 'illustrated tradition' of +its noblest doctrine--the fact that in the very earliest germ of this +new union of 'practic and theoric,' of art and learning, from which we +pluck at last Advancements of Learning, and Hamlets, and Lears, and +Tempests, and the Novum Organum, already the perilous secret of this +union is infolded, already the entire organism that these great fruits +and flowers will unfold in such perfection is contained, and clearly +traceable,--this is a fact which appeared to require insertion in this +history, and not, perhaps, without some illustration. + +'It is not amiss to observe,' says the Author of the Advancement of +Learning, when at last his great exordium to the science of nature in +man, and the art of culture and cure that is based on that science is +finished--pausing to observe it, pausing ere he will produce his index +to that science, to observe it: 'It is _not_ amiss to observe', he +says--(speaking of the operation of culture in general on young minds, +so forcible, though unseen, as hardly any length of time, or +contention of labour, can countervail it afterwards)--'how small and +mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall into _great +men, or great matters_, do work _great and important effects_; whereof +we see a notable example in _Tacitus_, of _two stage-players_, +Percennius and Vibulenus, who, _by their faculty of playing_, put the +_Pannonian_ armies _into an extreme tumult and combustion_; for, +_there arising a mutiny_ among them, upon the death of _Augustus_ +Caesar, _Blaesus_ the lieutenant had committed some of the mutineers, +_which were suddenly rescued_; whereupon Vibulenus _got to be heard +speak_ [being a stage-player], which he did _in this manner_. + +'"These poor _innocent_ wretches _appointed to cruel death_, you have +restored to behold the light: but who shall restore _my brother_ to +me, or life to my brother, _that was sent hither in message from the +legions of Germany_ to treat of--THE COMMON CAUSE? And he hath +murdered him this last night by _some of his fencers and ruffians, +that he hath about him for his executioners_ upon soldiers. The +mortalest enemies do not deny burial; _when I have performed my last +duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain +besides him_, so that these, my fellows, _for our good meaning_ and +our _true hearts_ to THE LEGION, _may have leave to bury us_." + +'With which speech he put the army into an infinite fury and uproar; +whereas, truth was, he had no brother, neither was there any _such_ +matter [in that case], but he played it merely _as if_ he had been +upon the stage.' + +This is the philosopher and stage critic who expresses a decided +opinion elsewhere, that 'the play's the thing,' though he finds this +kind of writing, too, useful in its way, and for certain purposes; but +he is the one who, in speaking of the original differences in the +natures and gifts of men, suggests that 'there _are_ a kind of men who +can, as it were, divide themselves;' and he does not hesitate to +propound it as his deliberate opinion, that a man of wit should have +at command a number of styles adapted to different auditors and +exigencies; that is, if he expects to accomplish anything with his +rhetoric. That is what he makes himself responsible for from his +professional chair of learning; but it is the Prince of Denmark, with +his remarkable natural faculty of speaking to the point, who says, +'_Seneca_ can not be _too heavy_, nor _Plautus_ too light, +for--[what?]--the _law of writ_--and--the _liberty_.' '_These_ are the +only _men_,' he adds, referring apparently to that tinselled gauded +group of servants that stand there awaiting his orders. + +'My lord--you played once _in the university_, you say,' he observes +afterwards, addressing himself to that so politic statesmen whose +overreaching court plots and performances end for himself so +disastrously. 'That did I, my lord,' replies Polonius, '_and was +accounted a good actor_.' 'And what did you enact?' 'I did enact +_Julius Caesar_. I--was killed i' the Capitol [I]. Brutus killed me.' +'It was a _brute_ part of him [collateral sounds--Elizabethan +phonography] to kill so _capitol a calf_ there.--Be the players +ready?'(?). [That is the question.] + +'While watching the progress of the action at Sadlers' Wells,' says +the dramatic critic of the 'Times,' in the criticism of the Comedy of +Errors before referred to, directing attention to the juvenile air of +the piece, to 'the classic severity in the form of the play,' and +'that _baldness_ of treatment which is a peculiarity of antique +comedy'--'while watching the progress of the action at Sadlers' Wells, +_we may almost fancy we are at St. Peter's College_, witnessing the +annual performance of _the Queen's scholars_.' That is not surprising +to one acquainted with the history of these plays, though the +criticism which involves this kind of observation is not exactly the +criticism to which we have been accustomed here. But any one who +wishes to see, as a matter of antiquarian curiosity, or for any other +purpose, how far from being hampered in the first efforts of his +genius with _this_ class of educational associations, that particular +individual would naturally have been, in whose unconscious brains this +department of the modern learning is supposed to have had its +accidental origin,--any one who wishes to see in what direction the +antecedents of a person in that station in life would naturally have +biased, _at that time_, his first literary efforts, if, indeed, he had +ever so far escaped from the control of circumstances as to master the +art of the collocation of letters--any person who has any curiosity +whatever on this point is recommended to read in this connection a +letter from a professional contemporary of this individual--one who +comes to us with unquestionable claims to our respect, inasmuch as he +appears to have had some care for _the future_, and some object in +living beyond that of promoting his own immediate private interests +and sensuous gratification. + +It is a letter of Mr. Edward Alleyn (the founder of Dulwich College), +published by the Shakspere Society, to which we are compelled to have +recourse for information on this interesting question; inasmuch as +that distinguished contemporary and professional rival of his referred +to, who occupies at present so large a space in the public eye, as it +is believed for the best of reasons, has failed to leave us any +specimens of his method of reducing his own personal history to +writing, or indeed any demonstration of his appreciation of the art of +chirography, in general. He is a person who appears to have given a +decided preference to the method of oral communication as a means of +effecting his objects. But in reading this truly interesting document +from the pen of an Elizabethan player, who _has_ left us a specimen of +his use of that instrument usually so much in esteem with men of +letters, we must take into account the fact, that _this_ is an +exceptional case of culture. It is the case of a player who aspired to +distinction, and who had raised himself by the force of his genius +above his original social level; it is the case of a player who has +been referred to recently as a proof of the position which it was +possible for 'a stage player' to attain to under those particular +social conditions. + +But as this letter is of a specially private and confidential nature, +and as this poor player who _did_ care for the future, and who founded +with his talents, such as they were, a noble charity, instead of +living and dying to himself, is not to blame for his defects of +education,--since his _acts_ command our respect, however faulty his +attempts at literary expression,--this letter will not be produced +here. But whoever has read it, or whoever may chance to read it, in +the course of an antiquarian research, will be apt to infer, that +whatever educational bias the first efforts of genius subjected to +influences of the same kind would naturally betray, the faults charged +upon the Comedy of Errors, the leaning to the classics, the taint of +St. Peter's College, the tone of the Queen's scholars, are hardly the +faults that the instructed critic would look for. + +But to ascertain the fact, that the controlling idea of that new +learning which the Man in the Tower is illustrating now in so grand +and mature a manner, not with his pen only, but with his 'living art,' +and with such an entire independence of classic models, is already +organically contained in those earlier works on which the classic +shell is still visible, it is not necessary to go back to the +Westminster play of these new classics, or to the performances of the +Queen's Scholars. Plays having a considerable air of maturity, in +which the internal freedom of judgment and taste is already absolute, +still exhibit on the surface of them this remarkable submission to the +ancient forms which are afterwards rejected on principle, and by a +rule in the new rhetoric--a rule which the author of the Advancement +of Learning is at pains to state very clearly. The _wildness_ of which +we hear so much, works itself out upon the surface, and determines the +form at length, as these players proceed and grow bolder with their +work. A play, second to none in historical interest, invaluable when +regarded simply in its relation to the history of this school, one +which may be considered, in fact, the Introductory Play of the New +School of Learning, is one which exhibits very vividly these striking +characteristics of the earlier period. It is one in which the +vulgarities of the Play-house are still the cloak of the philosophic +subtleties, and incorporated, too, into the philosophic design; and it +is one in which the unity of design, that one design which makes the +works of this school, from first to last, as the work of one man, is +still cramped with those other unities which the doctrines of Dionysus +and the mysteries of Eleusis prescribed of old to _their_ +interpreters. 'What is the _end_ of _study_? What is the _end_ of it?' +was the word of the New School of Learning. _That_ was its first +speech. It was a speech produced with dramatic illustrations, for the +purpose of bringing out its significance more fully, for the purpose +of pointing the inquiry unmistakeably to those ends of learning which +the study of the learned then had not yet comprehended. It is a speech +on behalf of a new learning, in which the extant learning is produced +on the stage, in its actual historical relation to those '_ends_' +which the new school conceived to be the true ends of it, which are +brought on to the stage in palpable, visible representation, not in +allegorical forms, but in instances, 'conspicuous instances,' living +specimens, after the manner of this school. + +'What is the end of study?' cried the setter forth of this new +doctrine, as long before as when lore and love were debating it +together in that 'little Academe' that was yet, indeed, to be 'the +wonder of the world, still and contemplative in _living_ art.' 'What +is the end of study?' cries already the voice of one pacing under +these new olives. _That_ was the word of the new school; that was the +word of new ages, and these new minds taught of nature--her priests +and prophets knew it then, already, 'Let fame that all hunt after _in +their lives_,' _they_ cry-- + + _Live_ registered upon our brazen _tombs_, + And then _grace us in the disgrace of death_; + When spite of cormorant devouring time, + The endeavour of _this present breath_ may buy + _That honour_ which shall bate his scythe's keen edge, + And make us HEIRS of _all eternity_--[of ALL]. + * * * * * + _Navarre_ shall be the wonder of the world, + Our Court shall be _a little Academe_, + _Still and contemplative in_--LIVING _art_. + +This is the Poet of the Woods who is beginning his 'recreations' for +us here--the poet who loves so well to take his court gallants in +their silks and velvets, and perfumes, and fine court ladies with all +their courtly airs and graces, and all the stale conventionalitites +that he is sick of, out from under the low roofs of princes into that +great palace in which the Queen, whose service he is sworn to, keeps +the State. This is the school-master who takes his school all out on +holiday excursions into green fields, and woods, and treats them to +country merry-makings, and not in sport merely. This is the one that +breaks open the cloister, and the close walls that learning had dwelt +in till then, and shuts up the musty books, and bids that old droning +cease. This is the one that stretches the long drawn aisle and lifts +the fretted vault into a grander temple. The Court with all its pomp +and retinue, the school with all its pedantries and brazen ignorance, +'High Art' with its new graces, divinity, Mar-texts and all, must +'come hither, come hither,' and 'under the green-wood tree lie with +me,' the ding-dong of this philosopher's new learning says, calling +his new school together. This is the linguist that will find +'_tongues_ in trees,' and crowd out from the halls of learning the +lore of ancient parchments with their verdant classics, their 'truth +in beauty dyed.' This is the teacher with whose new alphabet you can +find 'sermons in stones, _books_ in the running brooks,' and +good,--good--his '_good_' the good of the New School, that broader +'_good_' in every _thing_. 'The roof of _this_ court is too high to be +_yours_,' says the princess of this out-door scene to the sovereignty +that claimed it then. + +This is 'great Nature's' Poet and Interpreter, and he takes us always +into 'the continent of nature'; but man is his chief end, and that +island which his life makes in the universal being is the point to +which that Naturalist brings home all his new collections. This is the +Poet of the Woods, but man,--man at the summit of his arts, in the +perfection of his refinements, is always the creature that he is +'collecting' in them. In his wildest glades, this is still the species +that he is busied with. He has brought him there to experiment on him, +and that we may see the better what he is. He has brought him there to +improve his arts, to reduce his conventional savageness, to re-refine +his coarse refinements, not to make a wild-man of him. This is the +Poet of the Woods; but he is a woodman, he carries an axe on his +shoulder. He will wake a continental forest with it and subdue it, and +fill it with his music. + +For this is the Poet who cries 'Westward Ho!' But he has not got into +the woods yet in this play. He is only on the edge of them as yet. It +is under the blue roof of that same dome which is 'too high,' the +princess here says, to belong to the pygmy that this Philosopher likes +so well to bring out and to measure under that canopy--it is 'out of +doors' that this new speech on behalf of a new learning is spoken. But +there is a close rim of conventionalities about us still. It is _a +Park_ that this audacious proposal is uttered in. But nothing can be +more orderly, for it is 'a Park with a Palace in it.' There it is, in +the background. If it were the Attic proscenium itself hollowed into +the south-east corner of the Acropolis, what more could one ask. But +it is the palace of the King of--_Navarre_, who is the prince of good +fellows and the prince of good learning at one and the same time, +which makes, in this case, the novelty. 'A Park with a Palace in it' +makes the first scene. 'Another part of the same' with the pavilion of +a princess and the tents of _her_ Court seen in the distance, makes +the second; and the change from one part of this park to another, +though we get into the heart of it sometimes, is the utmost license +that the rigours of the Greek Drama permit the Poet to think of at +present. This criticism on the old learning, this audacious proposal +for the new, with all the bold dramatic illustration with which it is +enforced, must be managed here under these restrictions. Whatever +'persons' the plot of this drama may require for its evolutions, +whatever witnesses and reporters the trial and conviction of the old +learning, and the definition of the ground of the new, may require, +will have to be induced to cross this park at this particular time, +because the form of the new art is not yet emancipated, and the Muse +of the Inductive Science cannot stir from the spot to search them out. + +However, that does not impair the representation as it is managed. +There is a very bold artist here already, with all his deference for +the antique. We shall be sure to have _all_ when he is the plotter. +The action of this drama is not complicated. The persons of it are +few; the characterization is feeble, compared with that of some of the +later plays; but that does not hinder or limit the design, and it is +all the more apparent for this artistic poverty, anatomically clear; +while as yet that perfection of art in which all trace of the +structure came so soon to be lost in the beauty of the illustration, +is yet wanting; while as yet that art which made of its living +instance an intenser life, or which made with its _living_ art a life +more living than life itself, was only germinating. + +The illustration here, indeed, approaches the allegorical form, in the +obtrusive, untempered predominance of the qualities represented, so +overdone as to wear the air of a caricature, though the historical +combination is still here. These diagrams are alive evidently; they +are men, and not allegorical spectres, or toys, though they are +'painted in character.' + +The entire representation of the extant learning is dramatically +produced on this stage; the germ of the 'new' is here also; and the +unoccupied ground of it is marked out here as, in the Advancement of +Learning, by the criticism on the deficiences of that which has the +field. Here, too, the line of the extant culture,--the narrow indented +boundary of the _culture_ that professed to take all is always +defining the new,--cutting out the wild not yet visited by the art of +man;--only here the criticism is much more lively, because here 'we +come _to particulars_,' a thing which the new philosophy--much insists +on; and though this want in learning, and the wildness it leaves, is +that which makes tragedies in this method of exhibition; it has its +comical aspect also; and this is the laughing and weeping philosopher +in one who manages these representations; and in this case it is the +comical aspect of the subject that is seized on. + +Our diagrams are still coarse here, but they have already the good +scientific quality of exhausting the subject. It is the New School +that occupies the centre of the piece. Their quarters are in that +palace, but the _king_ of it is the _Royalty_ (Raleigh) that founded +and endowed this School--that was one of his secret titles,--and under +that name he may sometimes be recognized in descriptions and +dedications that persons who were not in the secret of the School +naturally applied in another quarter, or appropriated to themselves. +'_Rex_ was a surname among the Romans,' says the Interpreter of this +School, in a very explanatory passage, 'as well as _King_ is _with +us_.' It is the New School that is under these boughs here, but hardly +that as yet. + +It is rather the representation of the new classical learning,--the +old learning newly revived,--in which the new is germinating. It is +that learning in its _first_ effect on the young, enthusiastic, but +earnest practical English mind. It is that revival of the old +learning, arrested, _daguerréotyped_ at the moment in which the new +begins to stir in it, in minds which are going to be the master-minds +of ages. + +'Common sense' is the word here already. 'Common sense' is the word +that this new Academe is convulsed with when the curtain rises. And +though it is laughter that you hear there now, sending its merry +English peals through those musty, antique walls, as the first ray of +that new beam enters them; the muse of the new mysteries has also +another mask, and if you will wait a little, you shall hear that tone +too. Cries that the old mysteries never caught, lamentations for +Adonis not heard before, griefs that Dionysus never knew, shall yet +ring out from those walls. + +Under that classic dome which still calls itself Platonic, the +questions and experiments of the new learning are beginning. These +youths are here to represent the new philosophy, which is science, in +the act of taking its first step. The subject is presented here in +large masses. But this central group, at least, is composed of living +men, and not dramatic shadows merely. There are good historical +features peering through those masks a little. These youths are full +of youthful enthusiasm, and aspiring to the ideal heights of learning +in their enthusiasm. But already the practical bias of their genius +betrays itself. They are making a practical experiment with the +classics, and to their surprise do not find them 'good for life.' + +Here is the School, then,--with the classics on trial in the persons +of these new school-men. That is the central group. What more do we +want? Here is the new and the old already. But this is the old +_revived_--newly revived;--this is the revival of learning in whose +stimulus the _new_ is beginning. There is something in the field +besides that. There is a 'school-master abroad' yet, that has not been +examined. These young men who have resolved themselves in their secret +sittings into a committee of the whole, are going to have him up. He +will be obliged to come into this park here, and speak his speech in +the ear of that English 'common sense,' which is meddling here, for +the first time, in a comprehensive manner with things in general; he +will have to 'speak out loud and plain,' that these English parents +who are sitting here in the theatre, some of 'the wiser sort' of them, +at least, may get some hint of what it is that this pedagogue is +beating into their children's brains, taking so much of their glorious +youth from them--that priceless wealth of nature which none can +restore to them,--as the purchase. But this is not all. There is a man +who teaches the grown-up children of the parish in which this Park is +situated, who happens to live hard by,--a man who professes the care +and cure of minds. He, too, has had a summons sent him; there will be +no excuse taken; and his examination will proceed at the same time. +These two will come into the Park together; and perhaps we shall not +be able to detect any very marked difference in their modes of +expressing themselves. They are two ordinary, quiet-looking personages +enough. There is nothing remarkable in their appearance; their coming +here is not forced. There are deer in this Park; and 'book-men' as +they are, they have a taste for sport also it seems. Unless you should +get a glimpse of the type,--of the unit in their faces--and that +shadowy train that _the cipher_ points to,--unless you should observe +that their speech is somewhat strongly pronounced for an individual +representation--merely glancing at them in passing--you would not, +perhaps, suspect who they are. And yet the hints are not wanting; they +are very thickly strewn,--the hints which tell you that in these two +men all the extant learning, which is in places of trust and +authority, is represented; all that is not included in that elegant +learning which those students are making sport of in those 'golden +books' of theirs, under the trees here now. + +But there is another department of art and literature which is put +down as a department of '_learning_,' and a most grave and momentous +department of it too, in that new scheme of learning which this play +is illustrating,--one which will also have to be impersonated in this +representation,--one which plays a most important part in the history +of this School. It is that which gives it the _power_ it lacks and +wants, and in one way or another will have. It is that which makes _an +arm_ for it, and a _long_ one. It is that which supplies its hidden +_arms_ and _armour_. But neither is this department of learning as it +is extant,--as this School finds it prepared to its hands, going to be +permitted to escape the searching of this comprehensive satire. There +is a 'refined traveller of Spain' haunting the purlieus of this Court, +who is just the bombastic kind of person that is wanted to act this +part. For this impersonation, too, is historical. There are just such +creatures in nature as this. We see them now and then; or, at least, +he is not much overdone,--'this child of Fancy,--Don Armado hight.' It +is the Old Romance, with his ballads and allegories,--with his old +'lies' and his new arts,--that this company are going to use for their +new minstrelsy; but first they will laugh him out of his bombast and +nonsense, and instruct him in the knowledge of 'common things,' and +teach him how to make poetry out of them. They have him here now, to +make sport of him with the rest. It is the fashionable literature,-- +the literature that entertains _a court_,--the literature of _a +tyranny_, with his gross servility, with his courtly affectations, +with his arts of amusement, his 'vain delights,' with his euphuisms, +his 'fire-new words,' it is the polite learning, the Elizabethan +_Belles Lettres_, that is brought in here, along with that old +Dryasdust Scholasticism, which the other two represent, to make up +this company. These critics, who turn the laugh upon themselves, who +caricature their own follies for the benefit of learning, who make +themselves and their own failures the centre of the comedy of _Love's_ +Labour's Lost, are not going to let this thing escape; with the +heights of its ideal, and the grossness of its real, it is the very +fuel for the mirth that is blazing and crackling here. For these are +the woodmen that are at work here, making sport as they work; hewing +down the old decaying trunks, gathering all the nonsense into heaps, +and burning it up and and clearing the ground for the new. + +'What is the end of study,' is the word of this Play. To get the old +books shut, but _not_ till they have been examined, _not_ till all the +good in them has been taken out, not till we have made a _stand_ on +them; to get the old books in their places, under our feet, and +'_then_ to make progression' after we see where we are, is the +proposal here--_here_ also. It is the shutting up of the old books, +and the opening of the new ones, which is the business here. But +_that_--that is not the proposal of an ignorant man (as this Poet +himself takes pains to observe); it is not the proposition of a man +who does not know what there is in books--who does not know but there +is every thing in them that they claim to have in them, every thing +that is good for life, _magic_ and all. An ignorant man is in awe of +books, on account of his ignorance. He thinks there are all sorts of +things in them. He is very diffident when it comes to any question in +regard to them. He tells you that he is not '_high learned_,' and +defers to his betters. Neither is this the proposition of a man who +has read _a little_, who has only a smattering in books, as the Poet +himself observes. It is the proposition of _a scholar_, who has read +them _all_, or had them read for him and examined, who knows what is +in them _all_, and what they are good for, and what they are not good +for. This is the man who laughs at learning, and borrows her own +speech to laugh her down with. _This_, and _not the ignorant man_, it +is who opens at last 'great nature's' gate to us, and tells us to come +out and learn of her, _because_ that which old books did _not_ 'clasp +in,' that which old philosophies have 'not _dreamt_ of,'--the lore of +laws not written yet in books of man's devising, the lore of _that_ of +which man's ordinary life consisteth is _here_, uncollected, waiting +to be spelt out. + + _King_. _How well he's read_ to reason _against reading_. + +is the inference _here_. + + _Dumain_. _Proceeded_ well to _stop_ all good _proceeding._ + +It is _progress_ that is proposed here also. After the survey of +learning 'has been well taken, _then_ to make _progession_' is the +word. It is not the doctrine of unlearning that is taught here in this +satire. It is a learning that includes all the extant wisdom, and +finds it insufficient. It is one that requires a new and nobler study +for its god-like _ends_. But, at the same time, the hindrances that a +practical learning has to encounter are pointed at from the first. The +fact, that the true ends of learning take us at once into the ground +of the forbidden questions, is as plainly stated in the opening speech +of the New Academy as the nature of the statement will permit. The +fact, that the intellect is trained to _vain delights_ under such +conditions, because there is no earnest legitimate occupation of it +permitted, is a fact that is glanced at here, as it is in other +places, though not in such a manner, of course, as to lead to a +'question' from the government in regard to the meaning of the +passages in which these grievances are referred to. Under these +embarrassments it is, we are given to understand, however, that the +criticism on the old learning and the plot for the new is about to +proceed. + +Here it takes the form of comedy and broad farce. There is a touch of +'tart Aristophanes' in the representation here. This is the +introductory performance of the school in which the student hopes for +_high words howsoever low the matter_, emphasizing that hope with an +allusion to the heights of learning, as he finds it, and the highest +word of it, which seems irreverent, until we find from the whole +purport of the play how far _he_ at least is from taking it _in vain_, +whatever implication of that sort his criticism may be intended to +leave on others, who use good words with so much iteration and to so +little purpose. 'That is a _high hope_ for a low having' is the +rejoinder of that associate of his, whose views on this point agree +with his own so entirely. It is the height of the _hope_ and the +lowness of the _having_--it is the height of the _words_ and the +lowness of the _matter_, that makes the incongruity here. That is the +soul of all the mirth that is stirring here. It is the height of '_the +style_' that '_gives us cause to climb in the merriment_' that makes +the subject of this essay. It is literature in general that is laughed +at here, and the branches of it in particular. It is the old books +that are walking about under these trees, with their follies all +ravelled out, making sport for us. + +But this is not all. It is the _defect_ in learning which is +represented here--that same 'defect' which a graver work of this +Academy reports, in connection with a proposition for the Advancement +of Learning--for its advancement into the fields not yet taken up, and +which turn out, upon inquiry, to be the fields of human life and +practice;--it is that main defect which is represented here. 'I find a +kind of science of "_words_" but none of "_things_,"' says the +reporter. 'What do you read, my lord?' 'Words, words, words,' echoes +the Prince of Denmark. 'I find in these antique books, in these +Philosophies and Poems, a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of +matter chosen to give glory either to the subtilty of disputations, or +to the eloquence of discourses,' says the other and graver reporter; +'but as to the ordinary and common matter of which life consisteth, I +do _not_ find it erected into an art or science, or reduced to written +inquiry.' 'How _low_ soever the matter, I hope in God for _high +words_,' says a speaker, who comes out of that same palace of learning +on to this stage with the secret badge of the new lore on him, which +is the lore of practice--a speaker not less grave, though he comes in +now in the garb of this pantomime, to make sport for us with his news +of learning. For 'Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light +for the law of writ and the liberty.' + +It is the high _words_ and the low _having_ that make the incongruity. +But we cannot see the vanity of those heights of words, till the +lowness of the matter which they profess to abstract has been brought +into contrast with them, till the particulars which they do _not_ +grasp, which they can _not_ compel, have been brought into studious +contrast with them. The delicate graces of those flowery summits of +speech which the ideal nature, when it energises in speech, creates, +must overhang in this design the rude actuality which the untrained +nature in man, forgotten of art, is always producing. And it is the +might of nature in this opposition, it is the force of 'matter,' it is +the unconquerable cause contrasted with the vanity of the words that +have not comprehended the _cause_, it is the futility of these heights +of words that are not '_forms_' that do not correspond to things which +must be exhibited here also. It is the force of the _law_ in nature, +that must be brought into opposition here with the height of the +_word_, the _ideal_ word, the _higher_, but not yet scientifically +abstracted word, that seeks in vain because it has no 'grappling-hook' +on the actuality, to bind it. There already are the _heights of +learning_ as it is, as this school finds it, dramatically exhibited on +the one hand; but this, too,--_life_ as it is,--as this school finds +it, man's life as it is, unreduced to order by his philosophy, +unreduced to melody by his verse, must also be dramatically exhibited +on the other hand, must also be impersonated. It is life that we have +here, the 'theoric' on the one side, the 'practic' on the other. The +height of the books on the one side, the lowness, the unvisited, +'unlettered' lowness of the life on the other. That which exhibits the +_defect_ in learning that the new learning is to remedy, the new +uncultured, unbroken ground of science must be exhibited here also. +But _that_ is man's life. That is the world. And what if it be? There +are diagrams in this theatre large enough for that. It is the theatre +of the New Academy which deals also in IDEAS, but prefers the +solidarities. The wardrobe and other properties of this theatre are +specially adapted to exigencies of this kind. The art that put the +extant learning with those few strokes into the grotesque forms you +see there, will not be stopped on this side either, for any law of +writ or want of space and artistic comprehension. This is the learning +that can be bounded in the nut-shell of an aphorism and include all in +its bounds. + +There are not many persons here, and they are ordinary looking persons +enough. _But_ if you _lift_ those dominos a little, which that +'refined traveller of Spain' has brought in fashion, you will find +that this rustic garb and these homely country features hide more than +they promised; and the princess, with her train, who is keeping state +in the tents yonder, though there is an historical portrait there too, +is greater than she seems. This Antony _Dull_ is a poor rude fellow; +but he is a great man in this play. This is the play in which one asks +'Which is the princess?' and the answer is, 'The tallest and the +thickest.' Antony is the thickest, he is the acknowledged sovereign +here in this school; for he is of that greater part that carries it, +and though he hath never fed of the dainties bred in a book, these +spectacles which the new 'book men' are getting up here are intended +chiefly for him. And that unlettered small knowing soul 'Me'--'still +_me_'--insignificant as you think him when you see him in the form of +a country swain, is a person of most extensive domains and +occupations, and of the very highest dignity, as this philosophy will +demonstrate in various ways, under various symbols. You will have that +same _me_ in the form of a _Mountain_, before you have read all the +books of this school, and mastered all its '_tokens_' and '_symbols_.' + +The dramatic representation here is meagre; but we shall find upon +inquiry it is already the Globe Theatre, with all its new +solidarities, new in philosophy, new in poetry, that the leaves of +this park hide--this park that the doors and windows of the New +Academe open into--these new grounds that it lets out its students to +play and study in, and collect their specimens from--'still and +contemplative in living art.' It was all the world that was going +through that park that day haply, we shall find. It is all the world +that we get in this narrow representation here, as we get it in a more +limited representation still, in another place. 'All the world knows +_me_ in my book and my book in _me_,' cries the Egotist of the +Mountain. It is the first Canto of that great Epic, whose argument +runs through so many books, that is chanted here. It is the war, the +unsuccessful war of lore and nature, whose lost fields have made man's +life, that is getting reviewed at last and reduced to speech and +writing. It is the school itself that makes the centre of the plot in +this case; these gay young philosophers with 'the ribands' yet +floating in their 'cap of youth,' who oppose lore to love, who 'war +against _their own affections_ and THE HUGE ARMY OF THE WORLD'S +DESIRES,' ere they know what they are; who think to conquer nature's +potencies, her universal powers and causes, with wordy ignorance, with +resolutions that ignore them simply, and make a virtue of ignoring +them, these are the chief actors here, who come out of that classic +tiring house where they have been shut up with the ancients so long, +to celebrate on this green plot, which is life, their own defeat, and +propose a better wisdom, the wisdom of the moderns. And Holofernes, +the schoolmaster, who cultivates minds, and Sir Nathaniel, the curate, +who cures them, and Don Armado or Don A_drama_dio, from the flowery +heights of the new Belles Lettres, with the last refinement of +Euphuism on his lips, and Antony Dull, and the country damsel and her +swain, and the princess and her attendants, are all there to eke out +and complete the philosophic design,--to exhibit the extant learning +in its airy flights and gross descents, in its ludicrous attempt to +escape from those particulars or to grapple, without loss of grandeur, +those particulars of which man's life consisteth. It is the vain +pretension and assumption of those faulty wordy abstractions, whose +falseness and failure in practice this school is going to expose +elsewhere; it is the defect of those abstractions and idealisms that +the Novum Organum was invented to remedy, which is exhibited so +grossly and palpably here. It is the height of those great swelling +words of rhetoric and logic, in rude contrast with those actualities +which the history of man is always exhibiting, which the universal +nature in man is always imposing on the learned and unlearned, the +profane and the reverend, the courtier and the clown, the 'king and +the beggar,' the actualities which the natural history of man +continues perseveringly to exhibit, in the face of those logical +abstractions and those ideal schemes of man as he should be, which had +been till this time the fruit of learning;--those actualities, those +particulars, whose lowness the new philosophy would begin with, which +the new philosophy would erect into an art or science. + +The foundation of this ascent is natural history. There must be +nothing omitted here, or the stairs would be unsafe. The rule in this +School, as stated by the Interpreter in Chief, is, 'that there be +_nothing in the globe of matter_, which should not be likewise in the +globe of _crystal_ or _form_;' that is, he explains, 'that there +should not be anything in _being_ and _action_, which should not be +_drawn_ and _collected_ into _contemplation_ and _doctrine_.' The +lowness of matter, all the capabilities and actualities of speech and +action, not of the refined only, but of the vulgar and profane, are +included in the science which contemplates an historical result, and +which proposes the _reform_ of these actualities, the cure of these +maladies,--which comprehends man as man in its intention,--which makes +the _Common Weal_ its end. + +Science is the word that unlocks the books of this School, its gravest +and its lightest, its books of loquacious prose and stately allegory, +and its Book of Sports and Riddles. Science is the clue that still +threads them, that never breaks, in all their departures from the +decorums of literature, in their lowest descents from the refinements +of society. The vulgarity is not _the_ vulgarity of the vulgar--the +inelegancy is not the spontaneous rudeness of the ill-bred--any more +than its doctrine of nature is the doctrine of the unlearned. The +loftiest refinements of letters, the courtliest breeding, the most +exquisite conventionalities, the most regal dignities of nature, are +always present in _these_ works, to measure these abysses, flowering +to their brink. Man as he is, booked, surveyed,--surveyed from the +continent of nature, put down as he is in her book of kinds, not as he +is from his own interior isolated conceptions only,--the universal +powers and causes as they are developed in him, in his untaught +affections, in his utmost sensuous darkness,--the universal principle +instanced whereit is most buried, the cause in nature found;--man as +he is, in his heights and in his depths, 'from his lowest note to the +top of his key,'--man in his possibilities, in his actualities, in his +thought, in his speech, in his book language, and in his every-day +words, in his loftiest lyric tongue, in his lowest pit of play-house +degradation, searched out, explained, interpreted. That is the key to +the books of this Academe, who carry always on their armour, visible +to those who have learned their secret, but hid under the symbol of +their double worship, the device of the Hunters,--the symbol of the +twin-gods,--the silver bow, or the bow that finds all. 'Seeing that +she beareth two persons ... I do also otherwise _shadow_ her.' + +It is man's life, and the culture of it, erected into an art or +science, that these books contain. In the lowness of the lowest, and +in the aspiration of the noblest, the powers whose entire history must +make the basis of a successful morality and policy are found. It is +all abstracted or drawn into contemplation, 'that the precepts of cure +and culture may be more rightly concluded.' 'For that which in +speculative philosophy corresponds to the cause, in practical +philosophy becomes the rule.' + +It is not necessary to illustrate this criticism in this case, because +in this case the design looks through the execution everywhere. The +criticism of the Novum Organum, the criticism of the Advancement of +Learning, and the criticism of Raleigh's History of the World, than +which there is none finer, when once you penetrate its crust of +profound erudition, is here on the surface. And the scholasticism is +not more obtrusive here, the learned sock is not more ostentatiously +paraded, than in some critical places in those performances; while the +humour that underlies the erudition issues from a depth of learning +not less profound. + +As, for instance, in this burlesque of the descent of _Euphuism_ to +the prosaic detail of the human conditions, not then accommodated with +a style in literature, a defect in learning which this Academy +proposed to remedy. A new department in literature which began with a +series of papers issued from this establishment, has since undertaken +to cover the ground here indicated, the _every-day_ human life, and +reduce it to written inquiry, notwithstanding 'the lowness of the +matter.' + +LETTER FROM DON ARMADO TO THE KING. + +_King_ [_reads_], 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole +dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and body's fostering +patron.... So it is,--besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did +commend the black, oppressing humour to the most wholesome physick of +thy health-giving air, and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to +walk. The time when? About the sixth hour: when beasts most graze, +birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called +supper.' + +[No one who is much acquainted with the style of the author of this +letter ought to have any difficulty in identifying him here. There was +a method of dramatic composition in use then, and not in _this_ +dramatic company only, which produced an amalgamation of styles. 'On a +forgotten matter,' these associated authors themselves, perhaps, could +not always 'make distinction of their hands.' But there are places +where Raleigh's share in this 'cry of players' shows through very +palpably.] + +'So much for the time _when_. Now for the ground _which_; which I mean +I walked upon: it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where +I mean I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that +draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou +beholdest, surveyest, or seest, etc.... + +'Thine in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty. + +'DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.' + +And in another letter from the same source, the dramatic criticism on +that style of literature which it was the intention of this School 'to +reform altogether' is thus continued. + +... 'The magnanimous and most illustrate King _Cophetua_, set eye upon +the pernicious and indubitate beggar _Zenelophon_. And it was he that +might rightly say, _Veni, vidi, vici_; which to _anatomise_ in the +vulgar, (_O base and obscure vulgar_!) _Videlicet_, he came, saw, and +overcame... Who came? the king. Why did he come? to see. Why did he +see? to overcome. To whom came he? to the beggar. What saw he? the +beggar. Who overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory. On +whose side? etc. + +'Thine in the dearest design of industry.' + +[_Dramatic comment_.] + +_Boyet. I am much deceived but I remember the style. + +_Princess_. Else your memory is bad going o'er it erewhile._ + +_Jaquenetta_. Good Master Parson, be so good as to read me this +letter--it was sent me from Don _Armatho_: I beseech you to read it. + +_Holofernes_. [Speaking here, however, not in character but for 'the +_Academe_.'] _Fauste precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra +Ruminat_, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as +the traveller doth of Venice + + --Vinegia, Vinegia, + Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia. + +Old Mantuan! Old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, _loves thee +not.--Ut re sol la mi fa.--Under pardon_, Sir, what are THE CONTENTS? +or, rather, as Horace says in his--What, my soul, _verses_? + +_Nath_. Ay, Sir, and _very learned_ [one would say so _upon +examination_]. + +_Hol_. Let me have a _staff_, a stanza, a verse; _Lege Domine_. + +_Nath_. [Reads the 'verses.']--'If love make me forsworn,' etc. + +_Hol_. You _find not the apostrophe_, and _so--miss_ the +_accent_--[criticising the reading. It is necessary to find the +_apostrophe_ in the verses of this Academy, before you can give the +accent correctly; there are other points which require to be noted +also, in this refined courtier's writings, as this criticism will +inform us]. Let me _supervise_ the canzonet. Here _are only numbers_ +ratified, but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadency of poesy, +_caret_. _Ovidius Naso_ was the man. And _why_, indeed, Naso; but for +_smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy_, the _jerks of +invention_. _Imitari_ is nothing; so doth the hound his master, the +ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. [It was no such reading and +writing as _that_ which this Academy was going to countenance, or +teach.] But, Damosella, was this directed to you? + +_Jaq_. Ay, Sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's +lords. + +_Hol_. I will _over-glance_ the _super-script_. 'To the snow white +hand of the most beauteous lady _Rosaline_.' I will look again _on the +intellect_ of the letter for the _nomination_ of the party writing, +_to the person written unto_ (_Rosaline_).--[_Look again_.--That is +the rule for the reading of letters issued from this Academy, whether +they come in Don Armado's name or another's, when the point is _not_ +to 'miss the _accent_.'] 'Your ladyship's, in all desired employment, +BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the +king, and here he hath framed a _letter_ to a _sequent_ of the +stranger queen's, which, _accidentally or by way of progression_, hath +miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the _royal +hand of the king. It may concern much_. Stay not thy compliment, I +forgive thy duty. _Adieu_. + +_Nath_. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; +and as a certain father saith-- + +_Hol_. Sir, tell me not of _the father_, I do fear colorable colors. +But to return to _the verses_. Did they please you, Sir Nathaniel? + +_Nath_. Marvellous well _for the pen_. + +_Hol_. I _dine_ to-day at the _father's _of a certain pupil of _mine_, +where, if before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with +a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parent of the +foresaid child, or pupil, undertake your _ben venuto, where I will +prove_ those _verses to be very unlearned_, neither savouring of +poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech _your society_. + +_Nath_. And thank you, too; for _society_ (saith the text) is _the +happiness of_ LIFE. + +_Hol_. And, _certes_, the text _most infallibly concludes it_.--Sir, +[to Dull] I do _invite you too_, [to hear the verses ex-criticised] +you _shall not_ say me _nay: pauca verba. Away_; the _gentles are at +their games_, and we will _to our recreation_. + + Another part of the _same_. After dinner. + + _Re-enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull_. + +_Hol. Satis quod sufficit_. + +_Nath_. I praise God for you, Sir: your _reasons_ at dinner have been +_sharp and sententious_; pleasant without scurrility, witty without +affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and +strange without heresy. I did converse this _quondam_ day with a +companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called Don +Adriano de Armado. + +_Hol_. _Novi hominem tanquam te_. His manner is lofty, his discourse +peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, and his general +behaviour, vain, ridiculous and thrasonical. He is too picked, too +spruce, too affected, too odd, and, as it were, too peregrinate, as I +may call it. + +_Nath_. A most singular and choice epithet! [Takes out his +table-book.] + +_Hol_. _He draweth out the thread of his verbosity_ finer than the +_staple of his argument_, ['More matter with less art,' says the queen +in Hamlet], I abhor such _fantastical phantasms_, such insociable and +_point device_ companions, such rackers of orthography, as to speak +doubt _fine_ when _he should say doubt_, etc. This is abhominable +which he would call abominable; it insinuateth me of insanie; _Ne +intelligis, domine_? to make frantic, lunatic. + +_Nath_. _Lans deo bone intelligo_. + +_Hol_. _Bone--bone for bene_: _Priscian, a little scratched 'twill +serve_. [This was never meant to be printed of course; all this is +understood to have been prepared only for a performance in 'a booth.'] + +_Enter_ Armado, etc. + +_Nath. Videsne quis venit?_ + +_Ho. Video et gaudeo._ + +_Arm._ Chirra! + +_Hol. Quare_ Chirra not Sirrah! + +But the first appearance of these two _book-men_, as _Dull_ takes +leave them to call them in this scene, is not less to the purpose. +They come in with Antony Dull, who serves as a foil to their learning; +from the moment that they open their lips they speak 'in character,' +and they do not proceed far before they give us some hints of the +author's purpose. + +_Nath_. Very _reverent sport_ truly, and done _in the testimony of a +good conscience_. + +_Hol_. The deer was, as you know, in _sanguis_, ripe as a pomewater, +who _now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of Coelo_, the sky, the +welkin, the heaven, and _anon falleth like a crab on the face of +terra_--the soil, the land, the earth. [A-side glance at the heights +and depths of the incongruities which are the subject here.] + +_Nath_. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, +like a scholar at the least, but, etc..... + +_Hol_. Most _barbarous_ intimation! [referring to Antony Dull, who has +been trying to understand this learned language, and apply it to the +subject of conversation, but who fails in the attempt, very much to +the amusement and self-congratulation of these scholars]. Yet a _kind_ +of _insinuation_, as it were, _in via, in way of explication_ [a style +much in use in this school], _facere_, as it were, replication, or +rather _ostentare_, to show, as it were, _his inclination_, after his +undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather +unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion,--to insert again my +_haud credo_ for a deer.... Twice sod simplicity, _bis coctus!_ Oh +_thou monster ignorance_, how deformed dost thou look! + +_Nath._ [explaining] Sir, _he hath never fed of the dainties bred in a +book_; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; _his +intellect_ is not replenished; he is only an animal--only sensible in +the duller parts; + +And such _barren_ plants are set before us that we thankful should be, +(Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify +in us more than he. + +For _as it would ill become me_ to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So +were there _a patch set on learning_ to see HIM in a _school_. [That +would be a new 'school,' a new 'learning,' patching the 'defect' (as +it would be called elsewhere) in the old.] + +_Dull_. You two are book-men. Can you tell me by your wit, etc. + +_Nath_. A rare talent. + +_Dull_. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. + +_Hol_. This is a gift that I have; simple, simple; a foolish +extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, +apprehensions, motions, revolutions: But the gift is good in those in +whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. + +_Nath_. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners; +for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit +very greatly under you; you are a good member of the COMMON-WEALTH. + + He is in earnest of course. Is the Poet so too? + 'What is the end of study?'--let me know. + +'O they have lived long in the alms-basket of WORDS,' is the criticism +on this learning with which this showman, whoever he may he, explains +his exhibition of it. And surely he must be, indeed, of the school of +Antony Dull, and never fed with the dainties bred in a book, who does +not see what it is that is criticised here;--that it is the learning +of an unlearned time, of a barbarous time, of a vain, frivolous +debased, wretched time, that has been fed long--always from "the +alms-basket of words." And one who is acquainted already with the +style of this school, who knows already its secret signs and stamp, +would not need to be told to look again on the intellect of the letter +for the nomination of the party writing, to the person written to, in +order to see what source this pastime comes from,--what player it is +that is behind the scene here. 'Whoe'er he be, he bears a mounting +mind,' and beginning in the lowness of the actual, and collecting the +principles that are in all actualities, the true forms that are forms +in nature, and not in man's speech only, the new IDEAS of the New +Academy, the ideas that are powers, with these 'simples' that are +causes, he will reconstruct fortuitous conjunctions, he will make his +poems in facts; he will find his Fairy Land in her kingdom whose iron +chain he wears. + +'The gentles were at their games,' and the soul of new ages was +beginning its re-creations. + +For this is but the beginning of that 'Armada' that this Don +Armado--who fights with sword and pen, in ambush and in the open +field--will sweep his old enemy from the seas with yet. + + O like a book of sports thou'lt read me o'er, + But there's more in me than thou'lt understand. + + Look how the father's face + Lives in his issue; even so the race + Of Shake-spear's mind and _manners_ brightly _shines_ + In his _well turn'd_ and _true filed lines_, + In each of which he seems to _shake_ a _lance_, + As _brandished_ in the eyes of--[what?--]_Ignorance!_ + + BEN JONSON. + +_Ignorance!_--yes, that was the word. + +It is the Prince of that little Academe that sits in the Tower here +now. It is in the Tower that that little Academe holds its +'conferences' now. There is a little knot of men of science who +contrive to meet there. The associate of Raleigh's studies, the +partner of his plans and toils for so many years, _Hariot_, too +scientific for his age, is one of these. It is in the Tower that +Raleigh's school is kept now. The English youth, the hope of England, +follow this teacher still. 'Many young gentlemen still resort to him.' +Gilbert Harvey is one of this school. 'None but _my father_ would keep +such a bird in such a cage,' cries _one_ of them--that Prince of Wales +through whom the bloodless revolution was to have been accomplished; +and a Queen seeks his aid and counsel there still. + +It is in the Tower now that we must look for the sequel of that +holiday performance of the school. It is the genius that had made its +game of that old _love's_ labour's lost that is at work here still, +still bent on making a lore of life and love, still ready to spend its +rhetoric on things, and composing its metres with them. + + Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, + When in eternal lines to _time_ thou growest. + +He is building and manning new ships in his triumphant fleet. But they +are more warlike than they were. The papers that this Academe issues +now have the stamp of the Tower on them. 'The golden shower,' that +'flowed from his fruitful head of his love's praise' flows no more. +Fierce bitter things are flung forth from that retreat of learning, +while the kingly nature has not yet fully mastered its great wrongs. +The 'martial hand' is much used in the compositions of this school +indeed for a long time afterwards. + + Fitter perhaps to thunder martial stower + When thee so list thy tuneful thoughts to raise, + +said the partner of his verse long before. + + With _rage_ + Or _influence chide_ or _cheer_ the drooping stage, + +says _his_ protegé. + +It was while this arrested soldier of the human emancipation sat amid +his books and papers, in old Julius Caesar's Tower, or in the Tower of +that Conqueror, 'commonly so called,' that the 'readers of the wiser +sort' found, 'thrown in at their _study windows_,' writings, _as if_ +they came 'from _several citizens_, wherein _Caesar's ambition was +obscurely glanced at_' and thus the whisper of the Roman Brutus +'pieced them out.' + + Brutus _thou sleep'st_; awake, and _see thyself_. + Shall _Rome_ [soft--'_thus must I piece it out_.'] + Shall _Rome_ stand under _one man's awe_? _What_ Rome? + * * * * * + The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, + But in ourselves that we are underlings. + * * * * * + Age, _thou_ art shamed. + +It was while he sat there, that the audiences of that player who was +bringing forth, on 'the banks of Thames,' such wondrous things out of +his treasury then, first heard the Roman foot upon their stage, and +the long-stifled, and pent-up speech of English freedom, bursting from +the old Roman patriot's lips. + + _Cassius_. And let us swear our resolution. + + _Brutus_. _No_, not an oath: If not the face of men, + The sufferance of our soul's, the time's abuse, + If these be motives weak, break off betimes, + And every man hence to his idle bed; + _So_ let high-sighted tyranny range on, + Till _each man drop by lottery_. + +It was while he sat there, that the player who did not _write_ his +speeches, said-- + + _Nor stony tower_, nor walls of beaten brass, + Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, + Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; + If I know this, know _all the world beside_, + That part of tyranny that _I_ do bear, + _I_ can shake off at pleasure. + + And why should Caesar be a tyrant then? + _Poor Man_! I know he would not be a wolf, + But that he sees the _Romans_ are but sheep: + _He_ were no lion, were not _Romans_ hinds. + + But I, perhaps, speak _this_ + Before a willing bondman. + + _Hamlet_. My lord,--you played once in the university, you say? + + _Polonius_. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor. + + _Hamlet_. And what did you enact? + + _Polonius_. I did enact _Julius Caesar_. I was killed i'the Capitol; + Brutus killed me. + + _Hamlet_. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf + there.--Be the players ready? + +Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of +writ, and the liberty. _These_ are the only _men_. + + _Hamlet_. Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you + would drive me into a toil? + + _Guild_. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too + unmannerly. + + _Hamlet_. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this + pipe? + + _Guild_. My lord, I cannot. + + _Hamlet_. I pray you. + + _Guild_. Believe me, I cannot. + + _Hamlet_. I do beseech you. + + _Guild_. I know no touch of it, my lord. + + _Hamlet_. 'Tis as _easy as lying. Govern_ these ventages with your + fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, _and it will + discourse most eloquent music_. Look you, _these are the stops_. + + _Guild_. But _these_ cannot _I_ command to any _utterance of + harmony: I have not the_ SKILL. + + _Hamlet. Why, look you now_, how _unworthy a thing_ you make of ME? + You would _play upon_ ME; _you would seem_ to know _my stops_; you + would pluck out the heart of MY MYSTERY; you would sound me from + my lowest note to the top of my key; and there is much _music_, + excellent voice in _this little organ, yet_ cannot you make it + speak. 'Sblood! do you think I AM EASIER TO BE PLAYED ON THAN A + PIPE? Call me what _instrument_ you will, though you can _fret_ + me, you cannot PLAY upon me. + + + + _Hamlet_. Why did you laugh when I said, _Man_ delights not me? + + _Guild_. To think, my lord, if you delight not in _man_, what + lenten entertainment THE PLAYERS shall receive from you. We + coted them on the way, and thither are they coming to offer + you--SERVICE. + + + + +BOOK I. + +THE ELIZABETHAN ART OF DELIVERY AND TRADITION. + + +PART I. + +MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE'S 'PRIVATE AND RETIRED ARTS.' + + And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, + With windlaces and with _assays_ of _bias_, + By _indirections_, find _directions out_; + So by my former lecture and advice, + Shall you, my son.--_Hamlet_. + +CHAPTER I. + +ASCENT FROM PARTICULARS TO THE 'HIGHEST PARTS OF SCIENCES,' BY THE +ENIGMATIC METHOD ILLUSTRATED. + + +Single, _I'll_ resolve you.--_Tempest_. + +Observe his inclination in yourself.--_Hamlet_. + +For ciphers, they are commonly in letters, but may be in words. +_Advancement of Learning_. + +The fact that a Science of Practice, not limited to Physics and the +Arts based on the knowledge of physical laws, but covering the whole +ground of the human activity, and limited only by the want and faculty +of man, required, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, some +special and profoundly artistic methods of 'delivery and tradition,' +would not appear to need much demonstration to one acquainted with the +peculiar features of that particular crisis in the history of the +English nation. + +And certainly any one at all informed in regard to the condition of +the world at the time in which this science,--which is the new +practical science of the modern ages,--makes its first appearance in +history,--any one who knows what kind of a public opinion, what amount +of intelligence in the common mind the very fact of the first +appearance of such a science on the stage of the human affairs +presupposes,--any one who will stop to consider what kind of a public +it was to which such a science had need as yet to address itself, when +that engine for the diffusion of knowledge, which has been battering +the ignorance and stupidity of the masses of men ever since, was as +yet a novel invention, when all the learning of the world was still +the learning of the cell and the cloister, when the practice of the +world was still in all departments, unscientific,--any one at least +who will stop to consider the nature of the 'preconceptions' which a +science that is none other than the universal science of practice, +must needs encounter in its principal and nobler fields, will hardly +need to be told that if produced at all under such conditions, it must +needs be produced covertly. Who does not know, beforehand, that such a +science would have to concede virtually, for a time, the whole ground +of its nobler fields to the preoccupations it found on them, as the +inevitable condition of its entrance upon the stage of the human +affairs in any capacity, as the basis of any toleration of its claim +to dictate to the men of practice in any department of their +proceedings. + +That that little 'courtly company' of Elizabethan scholars, in which +this great enterprise for the relief of man's estate was supposed in +their own time to have had its origin, was composed of wits and men of +learning who were known, in their own time, to have concealed their +connection with the works on which their literary fame chiefly +depended--that that 'glorious Willy,' who finds these forbidden fields +of science all open to his pastime, was secretly claimed by this +company--that a style of 'delivery' elaborately enigmatical, borrowed +in part from the invention of the ancients, and the more recent use of +the middle ages, but largely modified and expressly adapted to this +exigency, was employed in the compositions of this school, both in +prose and verse, a style capable of conveying not merely a double, but +a triple significance; a style so capacious in its concealments, so +large in its '_cryptic_,' as to admit without limitation the whole +scope of this argument, and so involved as to conceal in its +involutions, all that was then forbidden to appear,--this has been +proved in that part of the work which contains the historical key to +this delivery. + +We have also incontestable historical evidence of the fact, that the +man who was at the head of this new conjunction in speculation and +practice in its more immediate historical developments,--the scholar +who was most openly concerned in his own time in the introduction of +those great changes in the condition of the world, which date their +beginning from this time, was himself primarily concerned in the +invention of this art. That this great political chief, this founder +of new polities and inventor of new social arts, who was at the same +time the founder of a new school in philosophy, was understood in his +own time to have found occasion for the use of such an art, in his +oral as well as in his written communications with his school;--that +he was connected with a scientific association, which was known to +have concealed under the profession of a curious antiquarian research, +an inquiry into the higher parts of sciences which the government of +that time was not disposed to countenance;--that in the opinion of +persons who had the best opportunity of becoming acquainted with the +facts at the time, this inventor of the art was himself beheaded, +chiefly on account of the discovery of his use of it in one of his +gravest literary works;--all this has been produced already, as matter +of historic record merely. All this remains in the form of detailed +contemporary statement, which suffices to convey, if not the fact that +the forbidden parts of sciences were freely handled in the discussions +of this school, and not in their secret oral discussions only, but in +their great published works,--if not that, at least the fact that such +was the impression and belief of persons living at the time, whether +any ground existed for it or not. + +But the arts by which these new men of science contrived to evade the +ignorance and the despotic limitations of their time, the inventions +with which they worked to such good purpose upon their own time, in +spite of its restrictions and oppositions, and which enable them to +'outstretch their span,' and prolong and perpetuate their plan for the +advancement of their kind, and compel the future ages to work with +them to the fulfilment of its ends;--the arts by which these great +original naturalists undertook to transfer in all their unimpaired +splendour and worth, the collections they had made in the nobler +fields of their science to the ages that would be able to make use of +them;--these are the arts that we shall have need to master, if we +would unlock the legacy they have left to us. + +The proof of the existence of this special art of delivery and +tradition, and the definition of the objects for which it was +employed, has been derived thus far chiefly from sources of evidence +exterior to the works themselves; but the inventors of it and those +who made use of it in their own speech and writings, are undoubtedly +the persons best qualified to give us authentic and lively information +on this subject; and we are now happily in a position to appreciate +the statements which they have been at such pains to leave us, for the +sake of clearing up those parts of their discourse which were +necessarily obscured at the time. Now that we have in our hands that +key of _Times_ which they have recommended to our use, that knowledge +of times which 'gives great light in many cases to true +interpretations,' it is not possible any longer to overlook these +passages, or to mistake their purport. + +But before we enter upon the doctrine of Art which was published in +the first great recognized work of this philosophy, it will be +necessary to produce here some extracts from a book which was not +originally published in England, or in the English language, but one +which was brought out here as an exotic, though it is in fact one of +the great original works of this school, and one of its boldest and +most successful issues; a work in which the new grounds of the actual +experience and life of men, are not merely inclosed and propounded for +written inquiry, but openly occupied. This is not the place to explain +this fact, though the continental relations of this school, and other +circumstances already referred to in the life of its founder, will +serve to throw some light upon it; but on account of the bolder +assertions which the particular form of writing and publication +rendered possible in this case, and for the sake also of the more +lively exhibition of the art itself which accompanies and illustrates +these assertions in this instance, it appears on the whole excusable +to commence our study of the special Art for the delivery and +tradition of knowledge in those departments which science was then +forbidden on pain of death to enter, with that exhibition of it which +is contained in this particular work, trusting to the progress of the +extracts themselves to apologize to the intelligent reader for any +thing which may seem to require explanation in this selection. + +It is only necessary to premise, that this work is one of the many +works of this school, in which a grave, profoundly scientific design +is concealed under the disguise of a gay, popular, attractive form of +writing, though in this case the audience is from the first to a +certain extent select. It has no platform that takes in--as the plays +do, with their more glaring attractions and their lower and broader +range of inculcation,--the populace. There is no pit in this theatre. +It is throughout a book for men of liberal culture; but it is a book +for the world, and for men of the world, and not for the cloister +merely, and the scholar. But this, too, has its differing grades of +readers, from its outer court of lively pastime and brilliant aimless +chat to that _esoteric_ chamber, where the abstrusest parts of +sciences are waiting for those who will accept the clues, and +patiently ascend to them. + +The work is popular in its form, but it is inwoven throughout with a +thread of lurking meanings so near the surface, and at times so boldly +obtruded, that it is difficult to understand how it could ever have +been read at all without occasioning the inquiry which it was intended +to occasion under certain conditions, but which it was necessary for +this society to ward off from their works, except under these +limitations, at the time when they were issued. For these inner +meanings are everywhere pointed and emphasized with the most bold and +vivid illustration, which lies on the surface of the work, in the form +of stories, often without any apparent relevance in that exterior +connection--brought in, as it would seem, in mere caprice or by the +loosest threads of association. They lie, with the 'allegations' which +accompany them, strewn all over the surface of the work, like 'trap' +on 'sand-stone,' telling their story to the scientific eye, and +beckoning the philosophic explorer to that primeval granite of +sciences that their vein will surely lead to. But the careless +observer, bent on recreation, observes only a pleasing feature in the +landscape, one that breaks happily its threatened dulness; the reader, +reading this book as _books_ are wont to be read, finds nothing in +this phenomenon to excite his curiosity. And the author knows him and +his ways so well, that he is able to foresee that result, and is not +afraid to trust to it in the case of those whose scrutiny he is +careful to avoid. For he is one who counts largely on the +carelessness, or the indifference, or the stupidity of those whom he +addresses. There is no end to his confidence in that. He is +perpetually staking his life on it. Neither is he willing to trust to +the clues which these unexplained stories might seem of themselves to +offer to the studious eye, to engage the attention of the reader--the +reader whose attention he is bent on securing. Availing himself of one +of those nooks of discourse, which he is at no loss for the means of +creating when the purpose of his _essaie_ requires it, he beckons the +confidential reader aside, and thus explains his method to him, +outright, in terms which admit of but one construction. 'Neither these +stories,' he says, 'nor my allegations do always serve simply for +example, authority, or ornament; I do not only regard them for the use +I make of them; they carry sometimes, _besides what I apply them to_, +the seeds of a richer and bolder matter, and sometimes, _collaterally, +a more delicate sound_, both to me myself,--who will say no more about +it _in this place_' [we shall hear more of it in another place, +however, and where the delicate collateral sounds will not be +wanting]--'both to me myself, and _to others who happen to be of my +ear_.' + +To the reader, who does indeed happen to be of his ear, to one who has +read the 'allegations' and stories that he speaks of, and the whole +work, and the works connected with it, by means of that knowledge of +the inner intention, and of the method to which he alludes, this +passage would of course convey no new intelligence. But will the +reader, to whom the views here presented are yet too new to seem +credible, endeavour to imagine or invent for himself any form of +words, in which the claim already made in regard to the style in which +the great original writers of this age and the founders of the new +science of the human life were compelled to infold their doctrine, +could have been, in the case of this one at least, more distinctly +asserted. Here is proof that one of them, one who counted on an +_audience_ too, did find himself compelled to infold his richer and +bolder meanings in the manner described. All that need be claimed at +present in regard to the authorship of this sentence is, that it is +written by one whose writings, in their higher intention, have ceased +to be understood, for lack of the '_ear_' to which his bolder and +richer meanings are addressed, for lack of the _ear_, to which the +collateral and more delicate sounds which his words sometimes carry +with them are perceptible; and that it is written by a philosopher +whose learning and aims and opinions, down to the slightest points of +detail, are absolutely identical with those of the principal writers +of this school. + +But let us look at a few of the stories which he ventures to introduce +so emphatically, selecting only such as can be told in a sentence or +two. Let us take the next one that follows this explanation--the story +in the very next paragraph to it. The question is _apparently_ of +Cicero, of his style, of his vanity, of his supposed care for his +_fame_ in future ages, of his _real disposition and objects_. + +'Away with that eloquence that so enchants us with its _harmony_, that +we should more study it than _things_' [what new soul of philosophy is +this, then, already?]--'unless you will affirm that of _Cicero_ to be +of so supreme perfection as to form _a body_ of itself. And of him, I +shall further add one story we read of to this purpose, wherein _his +nature_ will _much more manifestly be laid open to us_' [than in that +seeming care for his fame in future ages, or in that lower object of +style, just dismissed so scornfully]. + +'He was to make an oration in public, and found himself a little +straitened _in time_, to _fit his words to his mouth as he had a mind +to do_, when _Eros_, one of his slaves, brought him word that the +_audience was deferred_ till the next day, at which he was so ravished +with joy that _he enfranchised him_.' + +The word 'time'--here admits of a double rendering whereby the +_author's_ aims are more manifestly laid open; and there is also +another word in this sentence which carries a 'delicate sound' with +it, to those who have met this author in other fields, and who happen +to be of his counsel. But lest the stories of themselves should still +seem flat and pointless, or trivial and insignificant to the +uninstructed ear, it may be necessary to interweave them with some +further 'allegations on this subject,' which the author assumes, or +appears to assume, in his own person. + +'I write my book for _few men_, and for _few years_. Had it been +_matter of duration_, I should have put it into a _better language_. +According to the continual variation that ours has been subject to +hitherto [and we know who had a similar view on this point], who can +expect that the present _form of language_ should be in use fifty +years hence. It slips every day through our fingers; and since I was +born, is altered above one half. We say that it is now perfect: _every +age says the same of the language it speaks_. I shall hardly trust to +that so long as it runs away and _changes_ as it does. + +''Tis for good and useful writings to nail and rivet it to them, and +its reputation will go _according to the fortune of our state. For +which reason, I am not afraid to insert herein several private +articles, which will spend their use amongst the men now living_, AND +THAT CONCERN THE PARTICULAR KNOWLEDGE OF SOME WHO WILL SEE FURTHER +INTO THEM THAN THE COMMON READER.' But that the inner reading of these +private articles--that reading which lay farther in--to which he +invites the attention of those whom it concerns--was not expected to +spend its use among the men then living, that which follows might seem +to imply. It was that wrapping of them, it was that gross +superscription which 'the fortune of our state was likely to make +obsolete ere long,' this author thought, as we shall see if we look +into his prophecies a little. 'I will not, after all, as I often hear +dead men spoken of, that men should say of _me_: "He _judged_, and +LIVED SO and SO. Could he have spoken when he was dying, he would have +said _so_ or _so_. I knew him better than any." + + 'So _our_ virtues + Lie in the interpretation of the times,' + +'says the unfortunate Tullus Aufidius, in the act of conducting a +Volscian army against the infant Roman state, bemoaning himself upon +the conditions of his historic whereabouts, and beseeching the +sympathy and favourable constructions of posterity-- + + So our virtues + Lie in the interpretation of the times; + And power unto itself most commendable + Hath not a tomb so evident as a hair + To extol what it hath done. + +'The times,' says Lord Bacon, speaking in reference to books +particularly, though _he_ also recommends the same key for the reading +of lives, 'the times in many cases give _great light_ to true +interpretations.' + +'Now as much as decency permits,' continues the other, anticipating +_here_ that speech which he might be supposed to have been anxious to +make in defence of his posthumous reputation, could he have spoken +when he was dying, and forestalling that criticism which he +foresaw--that odious criticism of posterity on the discrepancy between +_his life_ and _his judgment_--'Now as much as decency permits, I +_here_ discover my inclinations and affections. _If any observe_, he +will find that _I have either told or designed to tell_ ALL. _What I +cannot express I point out with my finger_. + +'There was never greater circumspection and _military prudence_ than +sometimes is seen among US; can it be that men are afraid to lose +themselves by the way, _that they reserve themselves to the end of the +game_?' + +'There needs no more but to see a man promoted to dignity, though we +knew him but three days before a man of no mark, yet an image of +grandeur and ability insensibly steals into our opinion, and we +persuade ourselves that growing in reputation and attendants, he is +also increased in merit':-- + + _Hamlet_. Do the boys carry it away? + + _Ros_. Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load too. + + _Hamlet_. It is not very strange; for my uncle is king of Denmark, + and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give + twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in + little. 'Sblood, there is something _in this, more_ than + _natural_ [talking of the _super_natural], _if philosophy could + find it out_. + +'But,' our prose philosopher, whose mind is running much on the same +subjects, continues 'if it happens so that he [this favourite of +fortune] falls again, and is mixed with the common crowd, every one +inquires with wonder into the _cause_ of his having been hoisted so +high. _Is it he_? say they: did he know no more than this _when he was +in_ PLACE?' ['change _places_ ... robes and furred gowns hide all.'] +Do _princes_ satisfy _themselves_ with so little? _Truly we were in +good hands_! That which I myself adore in kings, is [note it] _the +crowd of the adorers_. All reverence and submission is due to them, +_except that of the understanding_; my _reason_ is not to bow and +bend, 'tis my _knees_' 'I will not do't' says another, who is in this +one's counsels, + + I will not do't + Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth, + And by my body's action, teach my mind + A most inherent baseness. _Coriolanus_. + +'Antisthenes one day entreated _the Athenians to give orders that +their asses might be employed in tilling the ground_,--to which it was +answered, "that _those animals were not destined to such a service_." +"That's all one," replied he; "it only sticks at your command; for the +most ignorant and incapable men you employ _in your commands of war_, +immediately become worthy enough _because_--YOU EMPLOY THEM."' + +There mightst thou behold the great image of authority. A dog's obeyed +in office.--Lear. + + For thou dost know, oh Damon dear, + This realm dismantled was + Of Jove himself; and now reigns here, + A very--very--_Peacock_. + Horatio. You might have rhymed. Hamlet. + +'to which,' continues this political philosopher,--that is, to which +preceding anecdote--containing such unflattering intimations with +regard to the obstinacy of nature, in the limits she has set to the +practical abilities of those _animals_, not enlarging their natural +gifts out of respect to the Athenian selection (an anecdote which +supplies a rhyme to Hamlet's verse, and to many others from the same +source)--'_to which the custom of so many people_, who canonize the +KINGS they have chosen _out of their own body_, and are not content +only to honour, but adore them, _comes very near. Those of Mexico_ +[for instance, it would not of course do to take any nearer home], +after the ceremonies of _their_ king's coronation are finished, _dare +no more look him in the face_; but, as if they _deified_ him by his +royalty, _among_ the oaths they make him take to _maintain their +religion and laws_, to be valiant, just and mild; he moreover +swears,--_to make the sun run his course in his wonted light,--to +drain the clouds at a fit season,--to confine rivers within their +channels,--and to cause all things necessary for his people to be +borne by the earth_.' '(They told me I was everything. But when the +rain came to wet me once, when the wind would not peace at my +bidding,' says Lear, 'there I found them, there I smelt them out.)' +This, in connection with the preceding anecdote, to which, in the +opinion of this author, it comes properly so very near, may be classed +of itself among the suggestive stories above referred to; but the +bearing of these quotations upon the particular question of style, +which must determine the selection here, is set forth in that which +follows. + +It should be stated, however, that in a preceding paragraph, the +author has just very pointedly expressed it as his opinion, that men +who are supposed, by common consent, to be so far above the rest of +mankind in their single virtue and judgment, that they are permitted +to govern them at their discretion, should by no means undertake to +maintain that view, by exhibiting that supposed kingly and divine +faculty in the way of _speech_ or _argument_; thus putting themselves +on a level with their subjects, and by meeting them on their own +ground, with their own weapons, giving occasion for comparisons, +perhaps not altogether favourable to that theory of a superlative and +divine difference which the doctrine of a divine right to rule +naturally presupposes. 'For,' he says, 'neither is it enough for those +_who govern and command us, and have all the world in their hand_, to +have a common understanding, and to be able to do what the rest can' +[their faculty of judgment must match their position, for if it be +only a common one, the difference will make it despised]: 'they are +very much below us, if they be not _infinitely above us_. And, +therefore, _silence_ is to them not only a countenance of respect and +gravity, but very often of good profit and policy too; for, Megabysus +going to see _Apelles_ in his _painting_ room, stood a great while +without speaking a word, and at last began to talk of his paintings, +for which he received this rude reproof. '_Whilst thou wast silent_, +thou seemedst to be something great, by reason of thy chains and pomp; +_but now that we have heard thee speak_, there is not the meanest boy +in my shop that does not despise thee.' But after the author's +subsequent reference to 'those animals' that were to be made competent +by a vote of the Athenian people for the work of their superiors, to +which he adds the custom of people who canonize the kings they have +chosen out of their own body, which comes so near, he goes on +thus:--_I differ from this common fashion_, and am more apt to suspect +capacity when I see it accompanied with grandeur of fortune and +_public applause_. We are to consider of what advantage it is, _to +speak when one pleases, to choose the subject one will speak of_--[an +advantage not common with authors then]--TO INTERRUPT OR CHANGE OTHER +MEN'S ARGUMENTS, WITH A MAGISTERIAL AUTHORITY, to protect oneself from +the opposition of others, by a nod, a smile, or silence, in the +presence of an assembly that trembles with reverence and respect. _A +man of a prodigious fortune_, coming to give his judgment upon some +slight dispute that was foolishly set on foot at his _table_, began in +these words:--'It can only be a liar or a fool that will say otherwise +than so and so.' '_Pursue this philosophical point with a dagger in +your hand_.' + +Here is an author who does contrive to pursue his philosophical +points, however, dagger or no dagger, wherever they take him. By +putting himself into the trick of singularity, and affecting to be a +mere compound of eccentricities and oddities, neither knowing nor +caring what it is that he is writing about, and dashing at haphazard +into anything as the fit takes him,--'Let us e'en fly at anything,' +says Hamlet,--by assuming, in short, the disguise of the elder Brutus; +and, on account of a similar necessity, there is no saying what he +cannot be allowed to utter with impunity. Under such a cover it is, +that he inserts the passages already quoted, which have lain to this +hour without attracting the attention of critics, unpractised happily, +and unlearned also, in the subtleties which tyrannies--such +tyrannies--at least generate; and under this cover it is, that he can +venture now on those astounding political disquisitions, which he +connects with the complaint of the restrictions and embarrassments +which the presence of a man of prodigious fortune at the table +occasions, when an argument, trivial or otherwise, happens to be going +on there. Under this cover, he can venture to bring in here, in this +very connection, and to the very table, even of this man of prodigious +fortune, pages of the freest political discussion, containing already +the finest analysis of the existing political 'situation,' so full of +dark and lurid portent, to the eye of the scientific statesman, to +whom, even then, already under the most intolerable restrictions of +despotism, of the two extremes of social evil, that which appeared to +be the most terrible, and the most to be guarded against, in the +inevitable political changes then at hand, was--not the consolidation +but the dissolution of the state. + +For already the horizon of that political oversight included, not the +eventualities of the English Revolutions only, but the darker +contingencies of those later political and social convulsions, from +whose soundless whirlpools, men spring with joy to the hardest +sharpest ledge of tyranny; or hail with joy and national thanksgiving +the straw that offers to land them on it. Already the scientific +statesman of the Elizabethan age could say, casting an eye over +Christendom as it stood then, 'That which most threatens us is, not an +_alteration_ in the entire and solid mass, but its _dissipation_ and +_divulsion_.' + +It is after pages of the freest philosophical discussion, that he +arrives at this conclusion--discussion, in which the historical +elements and powers are for the first time scientifically recognized +and treated throughout with the hand of the new master. For this is a +philosopher, who is able to receive into his philosophy the fact, that +out of the most depraved and vicious social materials, by the +inevitable operation of the universal natural laws, there will, +perhaps, result a social adhesion and predominance of powers--a social +'whole,' more capable of maintaining itself than any that Plato or +Aristotle, from the heights of their abstractions, could have invented +for them. He ridicules, indeed, those ideal politics of antiquity as +totally unfit for practical realisation, and admits that though the +question as to that which is absolutely the best form of government +might be of some value _in a new world_, the basis of all alterations +in existing governments should be the fact, that we take a world +already formed to certain customs, and do not beget it, as Pyrrha or +Cadmus did theirs, and by what means soever we may have the privilege +to rebuild and reform it anew, we can hardly _writhe it_ from its +wonted bent, but we shall _break all_. For the subtlest principles of +the philosophy of things are introduced into this discussion, and the +boldest applications of the Shakspere muse are repeated in it. + +'That is the way to _lay all flat_,' cries the philosophic poet in the +Roman play, opposing on the part of the Conservatist, the violence of +an oppressed people, struggling for new forms of government, and +bringing out fully, along with their claims, the anti-revolutionary +side of the question. 'That which tempts me out on these journeys,' +continues this foreign philosopher, speaking in his usual ambiguous +terms of his rambling excursive habits and eccentricities of +proceedings, glancing also, perhaps, at his outlandish tastes--'that +which tempts me out on these journeys, is _unsuitableness to the +present manners of_ OUR STATE. _I_ could easily console myself with +this corruption in reference to the _public interest_, but not to _my +own: I_ am _in particular_ too much oppressed:--for, _in my +neighbourhood_ we are of late by _the long libertinage of our civil +wars grown old_ in so _riotous a form of state_, that in earnest _'tis +a wonder how it can subsist_. In fine, I see by our example, that the +society of men is maintained and held together _at what price soever; +in what condition soever they are placed they will close and stick +together_ [see the doctrine of things and their original powers in the +"Novum Organum"]--_moving and heaping up themselves, as uneven bodies, +that shuffled together without order, find of themselves means to +unite and settle_. King Philip mustered up a rabble of the most wicked +and incorrigible rascals he could pick out, and put them altogether in +a city which he had built for that purpose, which bore their name; I +believe that they, even from vices, erected a government among them, +and a commodious and just society.' + +'Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation'; and let the +reader note here, how the principle which has predominated +historically in the English Revolution, the principle which the fine +Frankish, half Gallic genius, with all its fire and artistic faculty, +could not strike instinctively or empirically, in its political +experiments--it is well to note, how this distinctive element of the +_English_ Revolution--that revolution which is still in progress, with +its remedial vitalities--already speaks beforehand, from the lips of +this foreign Elizabethan Revolutionist. 'Nothing presses so hard upon +a state as innovation; change only gives form to injustice and +tyranny. WHEN ANY PIECE IS OUT OF ORDER IT MAY BE PROPPED, one may +prevent and take care that the _decay and corruption_ NATURAL TO ALL +THINGS, do not carry us too far from _our beginnings and principles_; +but to undertake to found so great a mass anew, and to change the +foundations of so vast a building, is for them to do who to _make +clean, efface_, who would reform particular defects by a universal +confusion, and cure diseases by _death_.' Surely, one may read in good +Elizabethan English passages which savor somewhat of this policy. One +would say that the principle was in fact identical, as, for instance, +in this case. 'Sir Francis Bacon (who was always for moderate +counsels), when one was speaking of such a reformation of the Church +of England, as would in effect make it _no church_, said thus to +him:--'Sir, the subject we talk of is the _eye_ of England, and if +there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavour to take them off; but +he were a strange oculist who would pull out the eye.' [And here is +another writer who seems to be taking, on this point and others, very +much the same view of the constitution and vitality of states, about +these times:-- + + He's a disease that must be cut away. + Oh, he's a limb that has but a disease; + Mortal to cut it off; to cure it, easy.] + +But our Gascon philosopher goes on thus, with his Gascon inspirations: +and these sportive notions, struck off at a heat, these careless +intuitions, these fine new practical axioms of scientific politics, +appear to be every whit as good as if they had been sifted through the +scientific tables of the Novum Organum. They are, in fact, the +identical truth which the last vintage of the Novum Organum yields on +this point. 'The world is unapt for curing itself; _it is so impatient +of any thing that presses it_, that it thinks of nothing but +_disengaging itself_, at what price soever. We see, by a thousand +examples, that it generally cures itself to its cost. The _discharge +of a present evil is no cure, if a general amendment of condition does +not follow_; the surgeon's end is _not only to cut away the dead +flesh_,--that is but the progress of his cure;--he has a care over and +above, _to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh_, and +_to restore the member to its due state_. Whoever only proposes to +himself to remove that which offends _him_, falls short; _for good_ +does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, _and a +worse, as it happened in Caesar's killers_, who brought the republic +to _such a pass, that they had reason to repent their meddling with +it_.' 'I fear there will _a worse_ one come in his place,' says a +fellow in Shakespear's crowd, at the first Caesar's funeral; and that +his speech made the moral of the piece, we shall see in the course of +this study. + +But though the frantic absolutisms and irregularities of that 'old +riotous form of military government,' which the long civil wars had +generated, seemed of themselves to threaten speedy dissolution, this +old Gascon prophet, with his inexhaustible fund of English shrewdness, +and sound English sense, underlying all his Gasconading, by no means +considers the state as past the statesman's care: 'after all, _we are +not, perhaps, at the last gasp_,' he says. 'The conservation of states +_is a thing that in all likelihood surpasses our understanding_: a +civil government is, as Plato says, "a mighty and powerful thing, and +hard to be dissolved." "States, as great engines, move slowly," says +Lord Bacon; "and are not so soon put out of frame";--that is, so soon +as "the resolution of particular persons," which is his reason for +producing his moral philosophy, or rather his moral _science_, as +_his_ engine for attack upon the state, a science which concerns the +government of every man over himself; "for, as in Egypt, the seven +good years sustained the seven bad; so governments, for a time +well-grounded, do bear out errors following."' But this is the way +that this Gascon philosopher records _his_ conclusions on the same +subject. 'Every thing that totters does not fall. The contexture of so +great a body holds by more nails than one. _It holds even by its +antiquity_, like old buildings from which the foundations are worn +away by time, without rough cast or cement, which yet live or support +themselves by their own weight. Moreover, it is not rightly to go to +work to reconnoitre only the flank and the fosse, to judge of the +security of a place; it must be examined _which way approaches_ can be +made to it, AND IN WHAT CONDITION THE ASSAILANT IS--that is the +question. '_Few vessels sink with their own weight_, and without some +exterior violence. Let us every way cast our eyes. Every thing about +us totters. In all the great states, both of Christendom and +elsewhere, that are known to us, if you will but look, you will there +see evident threats of alteration and ruin. Astrologers need not go to +heaven to foretell, as they do, GREAT REVOLUTIONS' [this is the speech +of the Elizabethan age--'great revolutions'] 'and _imminent +mutations_.' [This is the new kind of learning and prophecy; there was +but one source of it open then, that could yield axioms of this kind; +for this is the kind that Lord Bacon tells us the head-spring of +sciences must be visited for.] 'But _conformity is a quality +antagonist to_ DISSOLUTION. For my part, I despair not, and _fancy I +perceive ways to save us_.' + +And _surely_ this is one of the inserted private articles, before +mentioned, which may, or may not be, 'designed to spend their use +among the men now living'; but 'which concern the particular knowledge +of some who will see further into them than the common reader.' If +there had been a 'London Times' going then, and this old outlandish +Gascon Antic had been an English statesman preparing this article as a +leader for it, the question of the Times could hardly have been more +roundly dealt with, or with a clearer northern accent. + +But it is high time for him to bethink himself, and 'draw his old +cloak about him'; for, after all, this so just and profound a view of +so grave a subject, proceeds from one who has no aims, no plan, no +learning, no memory;--a vain, fantastic egotist, who writes only +because he will be talking, and talking of himself above all; who is +not ashamed to attribute to himself all sorts of mad inconsistent +humours, and to contradict himself on every page, if thereby he can +only win your eye, or startle your curiosity, and induce you to follow +him. After so long and grave a discussion, suddenly it occurs to him +that it is time for a little miscellaneous confidential chat about +himself, and those certain oddities of his which he does not wish you +to lose sight of altogether; and it is time, too, for another of those +_stories_, which serve to divert the attention when it threatens to +become too fixed, and break up and enliven the dull passages, besides +having that other purpose which he speaks of so frankly. And although +this whole discussion is not without a direct bearing upon that +particular topic, with which it is here connected, inasmuch as the +political situation, which is so clearly exhibited, is precisely that +of the Elizabethan scholar, it is chiefly this little piece of +confidential chat with which it closes, and _its significance in that +connection_, which gives the rest its insertion here. + +For suddenly he recollects himself, and stops short to express the +fear that he may have written _something similar to this elsewhere_; +and he gives you to understand--not all at once--but by a series of +strokes, that too bold a repetition _here_, of what he has said +_elsewhere_ might be attended, to him, with serious consequences; and +he begs you to note, as he does in twenty other passages and stories +here and elsewhere, that his _style_ is all hampered with +considerations such as these--that instead of merely thinking of +making a good book, and presenting his subjects in their clearest and +most effective form for the reader;--a thing in itself sufficiently +laborious, as other authors find to their cost, he is all the time +compelled to weigh his words with reference to such points as this. He +must be perpetually on his guard that the identity of that which he +presents here, and that which he presents elsewhere, under other and +very different forms (in much graver forms perhaps, and perhaps in +others not so grave), shall no where become so glaring as to attract +popular attention, while he is willing and anxious to keep that +identity or connection constantly present to the apprehension of the +few, for whom he tells us his book--that is, this book within the +book--is written. + +'I fear in these _reveries_ of mine,' he continues, suspending at last +suddenly this bold and continuous application to the immediate +political emergency of those philosophical principles which he has +exhibited in the abstract, in their _common_ and _universal form_, +elsewhere; 'I fear, in these reveries of the _treachery of my memory_, +lest by inadvertence it should make me write the same thing twice. Now +I here set down _nothing new_, these are _common_ thoughts, and +having per-adventure conceived them a hundred times, _I am afraid_ I +_have set them down somewhere else already_. Repetition is everywhere +troublesome, though it were in Homer, _but 'tis ruinous in things that +have only a superficial and transitory_ SHOW. I do not love +inculcation, even in the most profitable things, as in Seneca, and the +practice of his Stoical school displeases me of _repeating upon every +subject and at length_, THE PRINCIPLES and PRESUPPOSITIONS THAT SERVE +IN GENERAL, and _always_ to re-allege anew;' that is, under the +particular divisions of the subject, _common and universal reasons_. +'What I cannot express I point out with my finger,' he tells you +elsewhere, but it is thus that he continues here. + +'My memory grows worse and worse every day. I must _fain for the time +to come_ (collateral sounds), for _hitherto, thank God, nothing has +happened much amiss_, to avoid all preparation, for fear of tying +myself to some obligation upon which I must be forced to insist. To +_be tied and bound to a thing_ puts _me_ quite out, and especially +where I have to depend upon so weak an instrument as my memory. I +never could read this story without being offended at it, with as it +were _a personal_ and natural resentment.' The reader will note that +the question here is of _style_, or method, and of this author's style +in particular, and of his special embarrassments. + +'Lyncestes _accused of conspiracy against Alexander_, the day that he +was brought out before the army, according to the custom, to be heard +in his defence, had prepared a _studied speech_, of which, _haggling +and stammering_, he pronounced _some words_. As he was becoming more +perplexed and struggling with his memory, and _trying to recollect +himself_, the soldiers that stood _nearest_ killed him with their +spears, looking upon his confusion and silence as a confession of his +guilt: very fine, indeed! The place, the spectators, the expectation, +would astound a man _even though were there no object in his mind but +to speak well_; but WHAT _when 'tis an harangue upon which his life +depends_?' You that happen to be of my ear, it is my style that we are +speaking of, and there is my story. + +'_For my part the very being tied to what I am to say, is enough to +loose me from it_'--that is the cause of his wandering--'_The more I +trust to my memory_, the more do I put myself out of my own power, so +_much as to find it in my own countenance_, and have _sometimes been +very much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein I was bound_, +whereas _my design is_ to manifest in speaking a _perfect +nonchalance_, both of face and accent, and _casual and unpremeditated +motions_, as rising from present occasions, _choosing rather to say +nothing to purpose, than to show that_ I came _prepared to speak +well_; a thing especially unbecoming _a man of my profession_. The +preparation begets a great deal more expectation than it will satisfy; +a man very often absurdly strips himself to his doublet to leap no +further _than he would have done in his gown_.' [Perhaps the +reflecting scholar will recollect to have seen an instance of this +magnificent preparation for saying something to the purpose, attended +with similarly lame conclusions; but, if he does not, the story which +follows may tend to refresh his memory on this point.] 'It is recorded +of the orator Curio, that _when he proposed the division of his +oration_ into three or four parts, it often happened either that he +forgot some one, or added one or two more.' A much more illustrious +speaker, who spoke under circumstances not very unlike those in which +the poor conspirator above noted made his haggling and fatal attempts +at oratory, is known to have been guilty of a similar oversight; for, +having invented a plan of universal science, designed for the relief +of the human estate, he forgot the principal application of it. But +this author says, _I_ have always avoided falling into this +inconvenience, having always hated these promises and announcements, +not only out of distrust of my memory, but also because this method +relishes too much of the _artificial_. You will find no scientific +plan _here_ ostentatiously exhibited; you will find such a plan +elsewhere with all the works set down in it, but the works themselves +will be missing; and you will find the works elsewhere, but it will be +under the cover of a superficial and transitory show, where it would +be ruinous to produce the plan, '_I_ have always _avoided_ falling +into this inconvenience. _Simpliciora militares decent_.' But as he +appears, after all, to have had no military weapon with which to +sustain that straight-forwardness of speech which is becoming in a +military power, and no dagger to pursue his points with, some +artifice, though he professes not to like it, may be necessary, and +the rule which he here specifies is, on the whole, perhaps, not +altogether amiss. ''Tis enough that I have promised to myself never to +take upon me to speak in a place where I owe respect; for as to that +sort of speaking where a man _reads_ his speech, besides that it is +very absurd, it is a mighty disadvantage to those who _naturally could +give it a grace by action_, and to rely upon the mercy of the +readiness of my invention, I will much less do it; 'tis heavy and +perplexed, and such as would never furnish me in sudden and important +necessities.' + +'Speaking,' he says in another place, 'hurts and discomposes me,--my +_voice_ is loud and high, so that when I have gone to whisper some +great person about an affair of _consequence, they have often had to +moderate my voice. This story deserves a place here_. + +'Some one in a certain Greek school was speaking loud as _I do_. The +master of the ceremonies sent to him to speak _lower_. "Tell him then, +he must send me," replied the other, "the tone he would have me speak +in." To which the other replied, "that he should take the tone from +the ear of him to whom he spake." It was well said, if it be +understood. Speak _according to the affair_ you are speaking about to +the auditor,--(speak according to the business you have in hand, to +the purpose you have to accomplish)--for if it mean, it is sufficient +that he _hears_ you, I do not find it reason.' It is a more artistic +use of speech that he is proposing in his new science of it, for as +Lord Bacon has it, who writes as we shall see on this same subject, +'the _proofs_ and _persuasions_ of _rhetoric_ ought to differ +according to the auditors,' and the Arts of Rhetoric have for their +legitimate end, 'not merely PROOF, but _much more_, IMPRESSION.' 'For +many forms are _equal in signification_ which are _differing in +impression_, as the difference is great in the piercing of that which +is _sharp_, and that which is _flat_, though the _strength_ of the +percussion be the same; for instance, there is no man but will be a +little more raised, by hearing it said, "Your enemies will be glad of +this," than by hearing it said only, "This is evil for you."' But it +is thus that our Gascon proceeds, whose comment on his Greek story we +have interrupted. 'There is a voice to _flatter_, there is a voice to +_instruct_, and a voice to _reprehend_. _I_ would not only have my +voice to reach my hearer, but peradventure _that it strike_ and +_pierce_ him. When I rate my footman in a sharp and bitter tone, it +would be very fine for him to say, "Pray master, speak lower, for I +hear you very well." _Speaking_ is _half his that speaks_, and _half +his that hears_; the last ought to prepare himself to receive it, +according to its motion, as with tennis players; he that receives the +ball, shifts, draws back, and prepares himself to receive it, +according as he sees him move, who strikes the stroke, and according +to the stroke itself.' It is not, therefore, because this author has +failed to furnish the rules of interpretation necessary for +penetrating to the ultimate intention of this new kind of speaking, if +all this affectation of simplicity, and all these absurd contradictory +statements of his, have been suffered hitherto to pass unchallenged. +It is the public mind he has to deal with. 'That which he adores in +kings is the _throng_ of _their adorers_.' If he should take the +public at once into his confidence, and tell them beforehand precisely +what his own opinions were of things in general, if he should set +before them in the outset the conclusions to which he proposed to +drive them, he might indeed stand some chance to have his arguments +interrupted, or changed with a magisterial authority; he would indeed +find it necessary to pursue his philosophical points with a dagger in +his hand. + +And besides, this dogmatical mode of teaching does not appear to him +to secure the ends of teaching. He wishes to rouse the human mind to +activity, to compel it to think for itself, and put it on the +inevitable road to his conclusions. He wishes the reader to strike out +those conclusions for himself, and fancy himself the discoverer if he +will. So far from being simple and straightforward, his style is in +the profoundest degree artistic, for the soul of all our modern art +inspired it. He thinks it does no good for scholars to call out to the +active world from the platform of their last conclusions. The truths +which men receive from those didactic heights remain foreign to them. +'We want medicines to arouse the sense,' says Lord Bacon, who proposed +exactly the method of teaching which this philosopher had, as it would +seem, already adopted. 'I bring a trumpet to awake his _ear_, to set +his _sense_ on the attentive bent, and _then_ to speak,' says that +poet who best put this art in practice. + +But here it is the prose philosopher who would meet this dull, stupid, +custom-bound public on its own ground. He would assume all its +absurdities and contradictions in his own person, and permit men to +despise, and marvel, and laugh at them in him without displeasure. For +whoever will notice carefully, will perceive that the use of the +personal pronoun here, is not the limited one of our ordinary speech. +Such an one will find that this philosophical _I_ is very broad; that +it covers too much to be taken in its literal acceptation. Under this +term, the term by which each man names _himself_, the common term of +the individual humanity, he finds it convenient to say many things. +'They that will fight _custom_ with _grammar_,' he says, 'are fools. +When another tells me, or when I say to myself, _This_ is a word of +Gascon growth; _this_ a dangerous phrase; _this_ is an ignorant +discourse; thou art too full of figures; _this_ is a paradoxical +saying; _this_ is a foolish expression: _thou makest thyself merry +sometimes, and men will think_ thou sayest a thing in good earnest, +which thou only speakest in jest. Yes, say I; but I correct the faults +of _inadvertence, not those of custom_. I have done what I designed,' +he says, in triumph, '_All the world knows_ ME in my book, _and my +book in_ ME.' + +And thus, by describing human nature under that term, or by repeating +and stating the common opinions as his own, he is enabled to create an +opposition which could not exist, so long as they remain unconsciously +operative, or infolded in the separate individuality, as a part of its +own particular form. + +'My errors are sometimes natural and incorrigible,' he says; 'but the +good which virtuous men do to the public in making themselves +imitated, _I, perhaps, may do in making my manners avoided_. While I +publish and accuse my own imperfections, somebody will learn to be +afraid of them. _The parts that I most esteem in myself_, are more +honoured in decrying than in commending _my own manners_. Pausanias +tells us of an ancient player upon the lyre, who used to make his +scholars go to hear one that lived over against him, and played very +ill, that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. +_The present time_ is fitting to reform us _backward_, more by +_dissenting_ than _agreeing_; by differing than consenting.' That is +his application of his previous confession. And it is this _present +time_ that he impersonates, holding the mirror up to nature, and +provoking opposition and criticism for that which was before buried in +the unconsciousness of a common absurdity, or a common wrong. +'Profiting little by good examples, I endeavour to render myself as +agreeable as I see others offensive; as constant as I see others +fickle; as good as I see others evil.' + +'There is no fancy so frivolous and extravagant that does not seem to +me a suitable product of the human mind. All such whimsies as are in +use amongst us, deserve at least to be hearkened to; for my part, they +only with me import _inanity_, but they import _that_. Moreover, +_vulgar and casual opinions are something more than nothing in +nature_. + +'If I converse with a man of mind, and no flincher, who presses hard +upon me, right and left, his imagination raises up mine. The +contradictions of judgments do neither offend nor alter, they only +rouse and exercise me. I could suffer myself to be rudely handled by +my friends. "Thou art a fool; thou knowest not what thou art talking +about." When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my +anger. I advance towards him that contradicts, as to one that +instructs me. _I embrace and caress truth, in what hand soever I find +it, and cheerfully surrender myself, and extend to it my conquered +arms_; and take a pleasure in being reproved, and _accommodate myself +to my accusers_ [aside] (very often more by reason of _civility_ than +amendment); loving to gratify the liberty of admonition, by my +facility of submitting to it, at my own expense. Nevertheless, it is +hard to bring the men of my time to it. They have not the courage _to +correct_, because they have not the courage _to be corrected, and +speak always with dissimulation in the presence of one another_. I +take so great pleasure in being judged and known, that it is almost +indifferent to me in which of THE TWO FORMS I am so. My imagination +does so often contradict and condemn itself, that _it is all one to me +if another do it_. The study of books is a languishing, feeble motion, +that heats not, whereas conversation _teaches_ and _exercises_ at +once.' But what if a book could be constructed on a new principle, so +as to produce the effect of _conference_--of the noblest kind of +conference--so as to rouse the stupid, lethargic mind to a truly +_human_ activity--so as to bring out the common, human form, in all +its latent actuality, from the eccentricities of the individual +varieties? Something of that kind appears to be attempted here. + +He cannot too often charge the attentive reader, however, that his +arguments require examination. 'In _conferences_,' he says, 'it is a +rule that every word that _seems_ to be good, is not immediately to be +accepted. One must try it on all points, to see _how it is lodged in +the author_: [perhaps he is not in earnest] _for_ one must not always +_presently yield_ what truth or beauty soever seem to be in the +argument.' A little delay, and opposition, the necessity of hunting, +or fighting, for it, will only make it the more esteemed in the end. +In such a style, 'either the author must stoutly oppose it [that is, +whatsoever beauty or truth is to be the end of the argument in order +to challenge the reader] or draw back, under colour of not +understanding it, [and so piquing the reader into a pursuit of it] or, +sometimes, perhaps, he may aid the point, and carry it _beyond_ its +proper reach [and so forcing the reader to correct him. This whole +work is constructed on this principle]. As when I contend with a +vigorous man, I please myself with anticipating his conclusions; I +ease him of the trouble of explaining himself; I strive to prevent his +imagination, whilst it is yet springing and imperfect; the order and +pertinency of his understanding warns and threatens me afar off. But +as to _these_,--and the sequel explains this relative, for it has no +antecedent in the text--as to these, I deal quite contrary with them. +I _must understand and presuppose nothing but by them_.... Now, if you +come to explain anything to them and confirm them (these readers), +they presently catch at it, and rob you of the advantage of your +interpretation. "It was what I was about to say; it was just _my_ +thought, _and if I did not express it so_, it was only for want of +_language_." Very pretty! Malice itself must be employed to correct +this _proud ignorance_--'tis injustice and inhumanity to relieve and +set him right who stands in no need of it, and is the worse for it. _I +love_ to let him step deeper into the mire,'--[luring him on with his +own confessions, and with my assumptions of his case] '_and so deep +that if it be_ possible, they may at least discern their error. FOLLY +AND ABSURDITY ARE NOT TO BE CURED BY BARE ADMONITION. What Cyrus +answered him who importuned him to harangue his army upon the point of +battle, "that men do not become valiant and warlike on a sudden, _by a +fine oration_, no more than a man becomes a good musician by hearing a +fine song," may properly be said of such an admonition as this;' or, +as Lord Bacon has it, 'It were a strange speech, which spoken, or +_spoken oft_, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he is _by +nature_ subject; it is _order, pursuit, sequence_, and _interchange of +application_, which is mighty in nature.' But the other +continues:--'These are apprenticeships that are to be served +beforehand by a long continued education. We owe this care and this +assiduity of correction and instruction to _our own_, [that is the +school,] but to go to preach to the first passer-by, and to lord it +over the ignorance and folly of the first we meet, is a thing that I +abhor. I rarely do it, even in _my own particular conferences_, and +rather surrender my cause, than proceed to these _supercilious_ and +_magisterial_ instructions.' The clue to the reading of his inner +book. This is what Lord Bacon also condemns, as the _magisterial_ +method,--'My _humour_ is unfit, either to speak or write for +_beginners_;' he will not shock or bewilder them by forcing on them +prematurely the last conclusions of science; '_but_ as to things that +are said in _common discourse_ or _amongst other things_, I never +oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd soever.' + +'Let none _even doubt_,' says the author of the Novum Organum, who +thought it wisest to steer clear _even_ of _doubt_ on such a point, +'whether we are anxious to destroy and demolish _the philosophical +arts and sciences which are now in use_. On the contrary, we readily +cherish their practice, cultivation, and honour; for we by no means +interfere to prevent _the prevalent system_ from encouraging +discussion, adorning discourses, or being employed _serviceably_ in +the chair of the Professor, or the practice of common life, and being +taken in short, by general consent, _as current coin_. Nay, we plainly +declare that the system we offer will not be very _suitable_ for such +purposes, not being easily adapted to _vulgar apprehension, except_ by +EFFECTS AND WORKS. To show our _sincerity_ [hear] in professing our +regard and friendly disposition towards _the received sciences_, we +can refer to the evidence of our published writings, _especially_ our +books on--the Advancement--[the _Advancement_] of Learning.' And the +reader who can afford time for 'a second cogitation,' the second +cogitation which a superficial _and_ interior meaning, of course, +requires, with the aid of the key of times, will find much light on +that point, here and there, in the works referred to, and especially +in those parts of them in which the scientific use of popular terms is +treated. 'We will not, therefore,' he continues, 'endeavour to evince +it (our sincerity) any further by _words_, but content ourselves with +steadily, etc., ... professedly premising that no great _progress_ can +be made by the present methods in the _theory_ and contemplation of +science, _and_ that they can _not_ be made to produce _any very +abundant effects_.' This is the proof of his sincerity in professing +his regard and friendly disposition towards them, to be taken in +connection with his works on the Advancement of Learning, and no doubt +it was sincere, and just to that extent to which these statements, and +the practice which was connected with them, would seem to indicate; +but the careful reader will perceive that it was a regard, and +friendliness of disposition, which was naturally qualified by that +doubly significant fact last quoted. + +But the question of style is still under discussion here, and no +wonder that with _such_ views of the value of the 'current coin,' and +with a regard and reverence for the received sciences so deeply +qualified; or, as the other has it, with a humour so unfit either to +speak or write for _beginners_, a style which admitted of other +efficacies than bare _proofs_, should appear to be demanded for +popular purposes, or for beginners. And no wonder that with views so +similar on this first and so radical point, these two men should have +hit upon the same method in _Rhetoric_ exactly, though it _was_ then +wholly new. But our Gascon, goes on to describe its freedoms and +novelties, its imitations of the living conference, its new +vitalities. + +'May we not,' says the successful experimenter in this very style, +'mix with the subject of conversation and communication, the quick and +sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst friends +pleasantly and _wittingly_ jesting with one another; an exercise for +which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, if it be not so +extended and serious as _the other I just spoke of_, 'tis no less +smart and ingenious, nor of less utility _as Lycurgus thought_.' + + + +CHAPTER II. + +FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF 'PARTICULAR METHODS OF +TRADITION.'--EMBARRASSMENTS OF LITERARY STATESMEN. + + +Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all, and +another storm brewing. I hear it sing in the wind. My, best way is to +creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: Misery +acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud, till the +dregs of the storm be past.--_Tempest_. + +Here then, in the passages already quoted, we find the plan and +theory--the premeditated form of a new kind of Socratic performance; +and this whole work, as well as some others composed in this age, make +the realization of it; an invention which proposes to substitute for +the languishing feeble motion which is involved in the study of +_books_--the kind of books which this author found invented when he +came--for the passive, sluggish receptivity of another's thought, the +living glow of pursuit and discovery, the flash of self-conviction. + +It is a Socratic dialogue, indeed; but it waits for the reader's eye +to open it; he is himself the principal interlocutor in it; there can +be nothing done till he comes in. Whatsoever beauty or truth maybe in +the argument; whatsoever jokes and repartees; whatsoever infinite +audacities of mirth may be hidden under that grave cover, are not +going to shine out for any lazy book-worm's pleasure. He that will not +work, neither shall he eat of this food. 'Up to the _mountains_,' for +_this is hunter's language_, 'and he that strikes the venison first +shall be lord of this feast.' It is an invention whereby the author +will remedy for himself the complaint, that life is short, and art is +long; whereby he will 'outstretch his span,' and make over, not his +learning only but his _living_ to the future;--it is an +instrumentality by which he will still maintain living relations with +the minds of men, by which he will put himself into the most intimate +relations of sympathy, and confidence, and friendship, with the mind +of the few; by which he will reproduce his purposes and his faculties +in them, and train them to take up in their turn that thread of +knowledges which is to be spun on. + +But if this design be buried so deeply, is it not _lost_ then? If all +the absurd and contradictory developments--if all the mad +inconsistencies--all the many-sided contradictory views, which are +possible to human nature on all the questions of human life, which +this single personal pronoun was made to represent, in the profoundly +philosophic design of the author, are still culled out by learned +critics, and made to serve as the material of a grave, though it is +lamented, somewhat egotistical biography, is not all this ingenuity, +which has successfully evaded thus far not the careless reader only, +but the scrutiny of the scholar, and the sharp eye of the reviewer +himself, is it not an ingenuity which serves after all to little +purpose, which indeed defeats its own design? No, by no means. That +disguise which was at first a necessity, has become the instrument of +his power. It is that broad _I_ of his, that _I myself_, with which he +still takes all the world; it is that single, many-sided, vivacious, +historical impersonation, that ideal impersonation of the individual +human nature as it is--not as it should be--with all its 'weaved-up +follies ravelled out,' with all its before unconfessed actualities, +its infinite absurdities and contradictions, so boldly pronounced and +assumed by one laying claim to an historical existence, it is this +historical assumption and pronunciation of all the before unspoken, +unspeakable facts of this unexplored department of natural history, it +is this apparent confession with which this magician entangles his +victims, as he tells us in a passage already quoted, and leads them on +through that objective representation of their follies in which they +may learn to hate them, to that globe mirror--that mirror of the age +which he boasts to have hung up here, when he says, 'I have done what +I designed: all the world knows _me in my book_, and my book in _me_.' + +Who shall say that it is yet time to strip him of the disguise which +he wears so effectively? With all his faults, and all his egotisms, +who would not be sorry to see him taken to pieces, after all? And who +shall quite assure us, that it would not still be treachery, even now, +for those who have unwound his clues, and traversed his labyrinths to +the heart of his mystery,--for those who have penetrated to the +chamber of his inner school, to come out and blab a secret with which +he still works so potently; insensibly to those on whom he works, +perhaps, yet so potently? But there is no harm done. It will still +take the right reader to find his way through these new devices in +letters; these new and vivacious proofs of learning; for him, and for +none other, they lurk there still. + +To evade political restrictions, and to meet the popular mind on its +own ground, was the double purpose of the disguise; but it is a +disguise which will only detect, and not baffle, the mind that is able +to identify itself with his, and able to grasp his purposes; it is a +disguise which will only detect the mind that knows him, and his +purposes already. The enigmatical form of the inculcation is the +device whereby that mind will be compelled to follow his track, to +think for itself his thoughts again, to possess itself of the inmost +secret of his intention; for it is a school in whose enigmatical +devices the mind of the future was to be caught, in whose subtle +exercises the child of the future was to be trained to an identity +that should restore the master to his work again, and bring forth +anew, in a better hour, his clogged and buried genius. + +But, if the fact that a new and more vivid kind of writing, issuing +from the heart of the new philosophy of _things_, designed to work new +and extraordinary effects by means of literary instrumentalities,-- +effects hitherto reserved for other modes of impression,--if the +fact, that a new and infinitely artistic mode of writing, burying +the secrets of philosophy in the most careless forms of the vulgar +and popular discourse, did, in this instance at least, exist; if +this be proved, it will suffice for our present purpose. What else +remains to be established concerning points incidentally started +here, will be found more pertinent to another stage of this enquiry. + +From beginning to end, the whole work might be quoted, page by page, +in proof of this; but after the passages already produced here, there +would seem to be no necessity for accumulating any further evidence on +this point. A passage or two more, at least, will suffice to put +_that_ beyond question. The extracts which follow, in connection with +those already given, will serve, at least, to remove any rational +doubt on that point, and on some others, too, perhaps. + +'But whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really +am, I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to +paper such mean and frivolous things as these; the meanness of the +_subject_ compels me to it.'--'_Human reason is a two-edged_ and a +_dangerous sword_. Observe, in the hand of _Socrates_, her most +intimate and familiar friend, _how many points it has. Thus_, I am +good for nothing but to follow, and suffer myself to be easily carried +away with the crowd.'--'I have this opinion of _these political +controversies_: Be on what side you will, you have as fair a game to +play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far as to +jostle _principles that are too manifest to be disputed; and yet, +'tis_ my _notion, in public affairs_ [hear], _there is no government_ +so ill, _provided it be ancient_, and has been _constant_, that is not +better than change and alteration. Our manners are infinitely +corrupted, and wonderfully incline to grow worse: of our laws and +customs, _there are many that are barbarous and monstrous: +nevertheless_, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the +danger of stirring things, _if I could put something under to stay the +wheel_, and keep it where it is, _I would do so with all my heart_. It +is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of its ancient +observances; _never any man undertook, but he succeeded; but to +establish a better regimen in the stead of that a man has overthrown, +many who have attempted this have foundered in the attempt_. I very +little consult _my prudence_ [philosophic 'prudence'] in my conduct. I +am willing to let it be guided by _public rule_. + +'In fine, to return to myself, the only things by which _I_ esteem +_myself_ to be something, is _that wherein never any man_ thought +himself to be defective. _My recommendation is vulgar and common_; for +whoever thought _he_ wanted sense. It would be a _proposition that +would imply a contradiction in itself_; [in such subtleties thickly +studding this popular work, the clues which link it with other works +of this kind are found--the clues to a new _practical human +philosophy_.] 'Tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis +tenacious and strong; _but the first ray of the patient's sight_ does +nevertheless pierce it through and disperse it, as the beams of the +sun do a thick mist: to _accuse one's self_, would be to _excuse one's +self_ in this case; and to _condemn_, to _absolve_. There never was +porter, or silly girl, that did not think they had sense enough for +their need. The reasons that proceed from the natural arguing of +others, we think that if we had turned our thoughts that way, we +should ourselves have found it out as well as they. _Knowledge, +style_, and such parts as we see in other works, we are readily aware +if they excel our own; but for the simple products of the +_understanding_, every one thinks he could have found out the like, +and is hardly sensible of the weight and difficulty, unless--and then +with much ado--in an extreme and incomparable distance; _and whoever +should be able clearly to discern_ the height of another's judgment, +would be also able _to raise his own to the same pitch_; so that this +is a sort of exercise, from which a man is to expect very little +praise, a kind of composition of small repute. _And, besides, for whom +do you write_?'--for he is merely meeting this common sense. His +object is merely to make his reader confess, 'That was just what I was +about to say, it was just my thought; and if I did not express it so, +it was only for want of language;'--'for whom do you write? _The +learned_, to whom the authority appertains of judging books, know no +other value but that of learning, and allow of no other process of wit +but that of erudition and art. If you have mistaken one of the Scipios +for another, what is all the rest you have to say worth? Whoever is +ignorant of Aristotle, according to their rule, is in some sort +ignorant of himself. _Heavy and vulgar souls_ cannot discern the grace +of a high and unfettered style. Now these two sorts of men make the +_world_. The _third sort_, into whose hands you fall, of souls that +are regular, and strong of themselves, is so rare, that it _justly_ +has neither _name nor place amongst us_, and it is pretty well time +lost to aspire to it, or to endeavour to please it.' He will not +content himself with pleasing the few. He wishes to _move_ the world, +and its approbation is a secondary question with him. + +'He that should record _my_ idle talk, to the prejudice of the most +paltry law, opinion, or custom of his parish, would do himself a great +deal of wrong, and me too; for, in what I say, I warrant no other +certainty, but 'tis what I _had then in my thought, a thought +tumultuous and wavering_. ["I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet," +says the offended king. "These words are not mine." _Hamlet_: "Nor +mine _now_."] All I say is by way of discourse. _I should not speak so +boldly, if it were my due to be believed, and so I told a great man, +who complained to me of the tartness and contention of my advice_.' +And, indeed, he would not, in this instance, that is very +certain;--for he has been speaking on the subject of RELIGIOUS +TOLERATION, and among other remarks, somewhat too far in advance of +his time, he has let fall, by chance, such passages as these, which, +of course, he stands ready to recall again in case any one is +offended. ('These words are not mine, Hamlet.' 'Nor mine now.') 'To +_kill men_, a clear and shining light is required, and our life is too +real and essential, to warrant these supernatural and fantastic +accidents.' 'After all 'tis setting a _man's conjectures_ at a very +high price to _cause a man to be roasted alive upon them_.' He does +not look up at all, after making this accidental remark; for he is too +much occupied with a very curious story, which happens to come into +his head at that moment, of certain men, who being more profoundly +asleep than _men usually are_, became, according to certain grave +authorities, what in their dreams they fancied they were; and having +mentioned one case sufficiently ludicrous to remove any unpleasant +sensation or inquiry which his preceding allusion might have +occasioned, he resumes, 'If _dreams can sometimes so incorporate +themselves with effects of life_, I cannot believe that therefore our +will should be accountable to justice. _Which I say, as a man_, who am +neither _judge nor privy counsellor_, nor think myself, by many +degrees, worthy so to be, but a _man of the common sort_, born and +vowed to the obedience of the public realm, both in _words_ and +_acts_. + + '_Thought_ is free;--_thought_ is free.' + _Ariel_. + +'Perceiving _you to be ready and prepared on one part_, I propose to +you on the other, with all the care I can, to _clear_ your judgment, +not to enforce it. Truly, _I_ have not only a great many humours, but +_also a great many opinions_ [which I bring forward here, and assume +as mine] that I would _endeavour_ to make _my son dislike_, if I had +one. The _truest_, are not always the most commodious to man; he is of +too _wild_ a composition. "We speak of all things by precept and +resolution," he continues, returning again to this covert question of +toleration, and Lord Bacon complains also that that is the method in +his meridian. They make me hate things that are _likely_, when they +impose them on me for _infallible_. "Wonder is the foundation of all +philosophy"--(or, as Lord Bacon expresses it, "wonder is the seed of +knowledge")--enquiry the progress--ignorance the end. Ay, but there is +a sort of ignorance, _strong and generous_, that yields nothing _in +honour and courage to knowledge_, a knowledge, which to conceive, +requires _no less knowledge_ than knowledge itself.' + +'I saw, in my younger days, a report of a process that Corras, a +counsellor of Thoulouse, put in print.'--[The vain, egotistical, +incoherent, rambling old Frenchman, the old Roman Catholic French +gentleman, who is understood to be the author of this new experiment +in letters, was not far from being a middle-aged man, when the +pamphlet which he here alludes to was first published; but his +chronology, generally, does not bear a very close examination. Some +very extraordinary anachronisms, which the critics are totally at a +loss to account for, have somehow slipped into his story. There _was_ +a young philosopher in France in those days, of a most precocious, and +subtle, and inventive genius--of a most singularly artistic genius, +combining speculation and practice, as they had never been combined +before, and already busying himself with all sorts of things, and +among other things, with curious researches in regard to ciphers, and +other questions not less interesting at that time;--there was a youth +in France, whose family name was also English, living there with his +eyes wide open, a youth who had found occasion to _invent_ a cipher of +his own even then, into whose hands that publication might well have +fallen on its first appearance, and one on whose mind it might very +naturally have made the impression here recorded. But let us return to +the story.]--'I saw in my younger days, a report of a process, that +Corras, a counsellor of Thoulouse, put in print, of a strange accident +of _two men, who presented themselves the one for the other_. I +remember, and I hardly remember anything else, that he seemed to have +rendered _the imposture of him whom he judged to be guilty, so +wonderful, and so far exceeding both our knowledge and his who was the +judge, that I thought it a very bold sentence that condemned him to be +hanged_. [That is the point.] _Let us take up_ SOME FORM of ARREST, +that shall say, THE COURT _understands nothing of the matter_, more +freely and ingenuously than the Areopagites did, _who ordered the +parties to appear again in a hundred years_.' We must not forget that +these stories 'are not regarded by the author merely for the use he +makes of them,--that they carry, besides what he applies them to, the +seeds of a richer and bolder matter, and sometimes collaterally a +_more delicate sound_, both to the author himself who declines saying +anything more about it _in that place_, and to others who shall happen +to be of his ear!' One already prepared by previous discovery of the +method of communication here indicated, and by voluminous readings in +it, to understand that appeal, begs leave to direct the attention of +the critical reader to the delicate collateral sounds in the story +last quoted. + +It is not irrelevant to notice that this story is introduced to the +attention of the reader, 'who will, perhaps, see farther into it than +others,' in that chapter on toleration in which it is suggested that +considering the fantastic, and unscientific, and unsettled character +of the human beliefs and opinions, and that even 'the Fathers' have +suggested in their speculations on the nature of human life, that what +men believed themselves to be, in their dreams, they really became, it +is after all setting a man's conjectures at a very high price to cause +a man to be roasted alive on them; the chapter in which it is +intimated that considering the natural human liability to error, a +little more room for correction of blunders, a little larger chance of +arriving at the common truth, a little more chance for growth and +advancement in learning, would, perhaps, on the whole, be likely to +conduce to the human welfare, instead of sealing up the human +advancement for ever, with axe and cord and stake and rack, within the +limits of doctrines which may have been, perhaps, the very wisest, the +most learned, of which the world was capable, at the time when their +form was determined. It is the chapter which he calls fancifully, a +chapter 'on _cripples_,' into which this odd story about the two men +who presented themselves, the one for the other, in a manner so +remarkable, is introduced, for _lameness_ is always this author's +grievance, wherever we find him, and he is driven to all sorts of +devices to overcome it; for he is the person who came prepared to +speak well, and who hates that sort of speaking, where a man reads his +speech, because he is one who could naturally give it a grace by +action, or as another has it, he is one who would suit the action to +the word. + +But it was not the question of 'hanging' only, or 'roasting alive,' +that authors had to consider with themselves in these times. For those +forms of literary production which an author's literary taste, or his +desire to reach and move and mould the people, might incline him to +select--the most approved forms of popular literature, were in effect +forbidden to men, bent, as these men were, on taking an active part in +the affairs of their time. Any extraordinary reputation for excellence +in these departments, would hardly have tended to promote the +ambitious views of the young aspirant for honors in that school of +statesmanship, in which the 'Fairy Queen' had been scornfully +dismissed, as 'an old song.' Even that disposition to the gravest and +profoundest forms of philosophical speculation, which one foolish +young candidate for advancement was indiscreet enough to exhibit +prematurely there, was made use of so successfully to his +disadvantage, that for years his practical abilities were held in +suspicion on that very account, as he complains. The reputation of a +_Philosopher_ in those days was quite as much as this legal +practitioner was willing to undertake for his part. That of a _Poet_ +might have proved still more uncomfortable, and more difficult to +sustain. His claim to a place in the management of affairs would not +have been advanced by it, in the eyes of those old statesmen, whose +favour he had to propitiate. However, he was happily relieved from any +suspicion of that sort. If those paraphrases of the Psalms for which +he chose to make himself responsible,--if those Hebrew melodies of his +did not do the business for him, and clear him effectually of any such +suspicion in the eyes of that generation, it is difficult to say what +would. But whether his devotional feelings were really of a kind to +require any such painful expression as that on their own account, may +reasonably be doubted by any one acquainted at all with his general +habits of thought and sentiment. These lyrics of the philosopher +appear on the whole to prove too much; looked at from a literary point +of view merely, they remind one forcibly of the attempts of Mr. +_Silence_ at a Bacchanalian song. 'I have a reasonable good ear in +music,' says the unfortunate Pyramus, struggling a little with that +cerebral development and uncompromising facial angle which he finds +imposed on him. 'I have a reasonable good ear in music: let us have +the tongs and the bones.' + +'A man must frame _some probable cause_, why he should not do his +best, and why he should dissemble his abilities,' says this author, +speaking of _colour_, or the covering of defects; and that the +prejudice just referred to was not peculiar to the English court, the +remarkable piece of dramatic criticism which we are about to produce +from this old Gascon philosopher's pages, may or may not indicate, +according as it is interpreted. It serves as an introduction to the +passage in which the author's double meaning, and the occasionally +double sound of his stories is noted. In the preceding chapter, it +should be remarked, however, the author has been discoursing in high +strains, upon the vanity of popular applause, or of any applause but +that of reason and conscience; sustaining himself with quotations from +the Stoics, whose doctrines on this point he assumes as the precepts +of a true and natural philosophy; and among others the following +passage was quoted:--[Taken from an epistle of Seneca, but including a +quotation from a letter of Epicurus, on the same subject.]--'Remember +him who being asked why he took so much pains in an art that could +come to the knowledge of but few persons, replied, "A few are enough +for me. I have enough with one, I have enough with never a one." He +said true; yourself and a companion _are_ theatre enough to one +another, or _you_ to _yourself_. Let us be to you _the whole people_, +and the whole people to you but _one_. You should do like the beasts +of chase who _efface the track at the entrance into their den_.' But +this author's comprehensive design embraces all the oppositions in +human nature; he thinks it of very little use to preach to men from +the height of these lofty philosophic flights, unless you first dive +down to the platform of their actualities, and by beginning with the +secret of what they are, make sure that you take them with you. So +then the latent human vanity, must needs be confessed, and instead of +taking it all to himself this time, poor Cicero and Pliny are dragged +up, the latter very unjustly, as the commentator complains, to stand +the brunt of this philosophic shooting. + +'But this exceeds all meanness of spirit in _persons of such quality +as they were_, to think to derive any glory from babbling and prating, +_even to the making use of their private letters to their friends, and +so withal that_ though some of them _were never sent, the opportunity +being lost_, they nevertheless published them; with this worthy +excuse, that they were unwilling to lose their labour, and have their +lucubrations thrown away.'--Was it not well becoming two consuls of +Rome, _sovereign magistrates of the republic, that_ commanded the +world, to spend their time in patching up elegant missives, in order +to gain the reputation of being well versed _in their own mother +tongue_? What could a pitiful schoolmaster have done worse, who got +his living by it? If the _acts_ of Xenophon and Caesar had not far +transcended their eloquence, I don't believe they would ever have +taken the pains to _write_ them. They made it their business to +recommend not their _saying_, but their _doing_. The companions of +Demosthenes in the embassy to Philip, extolling that prince as +handsome, eloquent, and a stout drinker, Demosthenes said that those +were commendations more proper for a woman, an advocate, or a sponge. +'Tis not _his profession_ to know either how to hunt, or to dance +well. + + Orabunt causas alii, coelique meatus + Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent, + Hic regere imperio populos sciat. + +Plutarch says, moreover, that to appear so excellent in these less +necessary qualities, is to produce witness against a man's self, that +he has spent his time and study ill, which ought to have been employed +in the acquisition of more necessary and more useful things. Thus +Philip, King of Macedon, having heard _the great Alexander_, his son, +_sing at a feast_ to the _wonder and envy of the best musicians_ +there. 'Art thou not ashamed,' he said to him, 'to _sing so well_?' +And to the same Philip, a musician with whom he was disputing about +something concerning his art, said, '_Heaven forbid, sir, that so +great a misfortune should ever befall you as to understand these +things better than I_.' Perhaps this author might have made a similar +reply, had _his_ been subjected to a similar criticism. And Lord Bacon +quotes this story too, as he does many others, which this author has +_first selected_, and for the same purpose; for, not content with +appropriating his philosophy, and pretending to invent his design and +his method, he borrows all his most significant stories from him, and +brings them in to illustrate the same points, and the points are +borrowed also: he makes use, indeed, of his common-place book +throughout in the most shameless and unconscionable manner. 'Rack his +style, Madam, _rack his style_?' he said to Queen Elizabeth, as he +tells us, when she consulted him--he being then of her counsel +learned, in the case of Dr. Hayward, charged with having written 'the +book of the deposing of Richard the Second, and the _coming in_ of +Henry the Fourth,' and sent to the Tower for that offence. The queen +was eager for a different kind of advice. Racking an author's book did +not appear to her coarse sensibilities, perfectly unconscious of the +delicacy of an author's susceptibilities, a process in itself +sufficiently murderous to satisfy her revenge. There must be some +flesh and blood in the business before ever she could understand it. +She wanted to have 'the question' put to that gentleman as to his +meaning in the obscure passages in that work under the most impressive +circumstances; and Mr. Bacon, _himself_ an author, being of her +counsel learned, was requested to make out a case of treason for her; +and wishes from such a source were understood to be commands in those +days. Now it happened that one of the managers and actors at the Globe +Theatre, who was at that time sustaining, as it would seem, the most +extraordinary relations of intimacy and friendship with the friends +and patrons of this same person, then figuring as the queen's adviser, +had recently composed a tragedy on this very subject; though that +gentleman, more cautious than Dr. Hayward, and having, perhaps, some +learned counsel also, had taken the precaution to keep back the scene +of the deposing of royalty during the life-time of this sharp-witted +queen, reserving its publication for the reign of her erudite +successor; and the learned counsel in this case being aware of the +fact, may have felt some sympathy with this misguided author. 'No, +madam,' he replied to her inquiry, thinking to take off her bitterness +with a merry conceit, as he says, 'for treason I can _not_ deliver +opinion that there is any, but very much felony.' The queen +apprehending it gladly, asked, 'How?' and 'wherein?' Mr. Bacon +answered, 'Because he had stolen many of his sentences and conceits +out of Cornelius Tacitus.' It would do one good to see, perhaps, how +many felonious appropriations of sentences, and quotations, and ideas, +the application he recommends would bring to light in this case. + +But the instances already quoted are not the only ones which this free +spoken foreign writer, this Elizabethan genius abroad, ventures to +adduce in support of this position of his, that statesmen--men who +aspire to the administration of republics or other forms of +government--if they cannot consent on that account to relinquish +altogether the company of the Muses, must at least so far respect the +prevailing opinion on that point, as to be able to sacrifice to it the +proudest literary honours. Will the reader be pleased to notice, not +merely the extraordinary character of the example in this instance, +but _the grounds_ of the assumption which the critic makes with so +much coolness. + +'And could the perfection of eloquence have added any lustre +proportionable to the merit of a great person, certainly Scipio and +Laelius had never resigned the honour of their comedies, with all the +_luxuriancies and delicacies of the Latin tongue_, to an African +slave, for that the work was THEIRS _its beauty and excellency_ +SUFFICIENTLY PROVE.' [This is from a book in which the supposed +autograph of Shakspere is found; a work from which he quotes +incessantly, and from which he appears, indeed, to have taken the +whole hint of his learning.] 'Besides Terence himself confesses as +much, and I should take it ill in any one that would _dispossess me_ +of that _belief_.' For, as he says in another place, in a certain +deeply disguised dedication which he makes of the work of a friend, a +poet, whose early death he greatly lamented, and whom he is +'determined,' as he says, 'to revive and raise again to life if he +can:' 'As we often judge of the greater by the less, and _as the very +pastimes_ of great men give an honourable idea to the clear-sighted +_of the source_ from which they spring, I hope you will, by this work +of his, rise to the knowledge of himself, and by consequence love and +embrace his memory. In so doing, you will accomplish what he +exceedingly longed for whilst he lived.' But here he continues thus, +'I have, indeed, in my time known some, who, by a knack of writing, +have got both title and fortune, yet disown their apprenticeship, +_purposely corrupt their style,_ and affect ignorance of so vulgar a +quality (which _also our nation observes_, rarely to be seen _in very +learned hands_), carefully seeking a reputation by better qualities.' + + I once did hold it, as our statists do, a baseness to write fair: + but now it did me yeoman's service.--_Hamlet_. + +And it is in the next paragraph to _this_, that he takes occasion to +mention that his stories and allegations do not always serve simply +for example, authority, or ornament; that they are not limited in +their application to the use he ostensibly makes of them, but that +they carry, for those who are in his secret, other meanings, bolder +and richer meanings, and sometimes collaterally a more delicate sound. +And having interrupted the consideration upon Cicero and Pliny, and +their vanity and pitiful desire for honour in future ages, with this +criticism on the limited sphere of statesmen in general, and the +devices to which _Lćlius and Scipio_ were compelled to resort, in +order to get _their_ plays published without diminishing the lustre of +their personal renown, and having stopped to insert that most +extraordinary avowal in regard to his two-fold meanings in his +allegations and stories, he returns to the subject of this +correspondence again, for there is more in this also than meets the +ear; and it is not _Pliny_, and _Cicero_ only, whose supposed vanity, +and regard for posthumous fame, as men of letters, is under +consideration. 'But returning to the _speaking virtue_;' he says, 'I +find _no great choice_ between not knowing to speak _anything but +ill_, and not knowing anything but _speaking well_. The sages tell us, +that as to what concerns _knowledge_ there is nothing but +_philosophy_, and as to what concerns _effects_ nothing but _virtue_, +that is generally proper to all degrees and orders. There is something +like _this in these two other_ philosophers, for _they also promise_ +ETERNITY to the letters they write to their friends, but 'tis _after +another manner_, and by accommodating themselves _for a good end_ to +the vanity of _another_; for they write to them that if the concern of +making themselves known to future ages, and the thirst of glory, do +yet _detain_ them in the management of public affairs, and make them +fear the solitude and retirement to which they would persuade them; +let them never trouble themselves more about it, forasmuch as they +shall have credit enough with posterity to assure them that, were +there nothing else but the _letters_ thus writ to them, those letters +will render their names as known and famous as their _own public +actions_ themselves could do. [And that--_that_ is the key to the +correspondence between _two other_ philosophers enigmatically alluded +to here.] And besides this difference,' for it is 'these two other +philosophers,' and not Pliny and Cicero, and not Seneca and Epicurus +alone, that we talk of here, 'and besides _this difference, these_ are +not _idle_ and _empty_ letters, that contain nothing but a fine jingle +of well chosen words, and fine couched phrases; but replete and +_abounding with grave and learned discourses_, by which a man may +render himself--not more eloquent but more _wise_, and that instruct +us not to _speak_ but _to do well_'; for that is the rhetorical theory +that was adopted by the scholars and statesmen then alive, whose +methods of making themselves known to future ages he is indicating, +even in these references to the ancients. '_Away_ with that +_eloquence_ which so enchants us with its _harmony_ that we should +more study it than _things_'; for this is the place where the +quotation with which our investigation of this theory commenced is +inserted in the text, and here it is, in the light of these preceding +collections of hints that he puts in the story first quoted, wherein +he says, the nature of the orator will be much more manifestly laid +open to us, than in that seeming care for his fame, or in that care of +his style, for its own sake. It is the story of Eros, the slave, who +brought the speaker word that the audience was _deferred_, when in +composing a speech that he was to make in public, 'he found himself +straitened in _time_, to fit his words to his mouth as he had a mind +to do.' + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE POSSIBILITY OF GREAT ANONYMOUS WORKS,--OR WORKS PUBLISHED UNDER AN +ASSUMED NAME,--CONVEYING, UNDER RHETORICAL DISGUISES, THE PRINCIPAL +SCIENCES,--RE-SUGGESTED, AND ILLUSTRATED. + + +_Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine +for fear of the storm.--Tempest_. + +BUT as to this love of glory which the stoics, whom this philosopher +quotes so approvingly, have measured at its true worth; as to this +love of literary fame, this hankering after an earthly immortality, +which he treats so scornfully in the Roman statesman, let us hear him +again in another chapter, and see if we can find any thing whereby +_his_ nature and designs will more manifestly be laid open to us. 'Of +all the foolish dreams in the world,' he says, that which is most +universally received, is the solicitude of reputation and glory, which +we are fond of to that degree as to abandon riches, peace, life, and +health, which are effectual and substantial good, to pursue this vain +phantom. And of all the irrational humours of men, it should seem that +the philosophers themselves have the most ado, and do the least +disengage themselves from this the most restive and obstinate of all +the follies. There is not any one view of which _reason_ does so +clearly accuse the vanity, as that; but it is _so deeply rooted in +us_, that I doubt whether any one ever clearly freed himself from it, +or no. _After you have said all, and believed all_ that has been said +to its prejudice, it creates so intestine an inclination _in +opposition to your best arguments_, that you have little power and +firmness to resist it; _for_ (_as Cicero says_) even those who +controvert it, would yet that _the books they write_ should appear +before the world with _their names in the title page_, and seek to +derive glory from seeming to despise it. All other things are +communicable and fall into commerce; we lend our goods-- + +[It irks me not that men my garments wear.] + +and stake our lives for the necessities and service of our friends; +but to communicate one's honour, _and to robe another with one's own +glory_, is very rarely seen. And yet we have some examples of that +kind. Catulus Luctatius, in the Cymbrian war, having done all that in +him lay to make his flying soldiers face about upon the enemy, _ran +himself at last away with the rest, and counterfeited the coward_, to +the end that his men might rather seem to follow their captain, than +to fly from the enemy; and after several anecdotes full of that inner +significance of which he speaks elsewhere, in which he appears, but +only appears, to lose sight of this question of literary honour, for +they relate to _military_ conflicts, he ventures to approach, somewhat +cautiously and delicately, the latent point of his essay again, by +adducing the example of persons, _not_ connected with the military +profession, who have found themselves called upon in various ways, and +by means of various weapons, to take part in these wars; who have yet, +in consequence of certain '_subtleties of conscience_,' _relinquished_ +the _honour_ of their successes; and though there is no instance +adduced of that particular kind of disinterestedness, in which an +author relinquishes to another the honour of his title page, as the +beginning might have led one to anticipate; on the whole, the not +indiligent reader of this author's performances here and elsewhere, +will feel that the subject which is announced as the subject of this +chapter, 'Not to communicate a man's honour or glory,' has been, +considering the circumstance, sufficiently illustrated. + +'_As women succeeding to peerages_ had, notwithstanding their sex, the +right to assist and give their votes in the causes that appertain to +the jurisdiction of peers; so the ecclesiastical peers, +_notwithstanding their profession_, were obliged to _assist our kings_ +in their wars, not only with their friends and servants, but in their +own persons. And he instances the Bishop of Beauvais, who took a +gallant share in the battle of Bouvines, but did not think it _fit for +him to participate in the fruit and glory of that violent and bloody +trade_. He, with his own hand, reduced several of the enemy that day +to his mercy, whom he delivered to the first gentleman he met, either +to kill or to receive them to quarter, _referring that part to another +hand_. As also did William, Earl of Salisbury, to Messire John de +Neale, with a like subtlety of conscience to the other, he would KILL, +_but_ NOT WOUND _him_, and _for that reason_, fought only with a +_mace_. And a certain person in my time, being reproached by the king +that he had _laid hands_ on a _priest_, stiffly and positively denied +it. The case was, he had cudgelled and kicked him.' And there the +author abruptly, for that time, leaves the matter without any allusion +to the case of still another kind of combatants, who, fighting with +another kind of weapon, might also, from similar subtleties of +conscience, perhaps think fit to devolve on others the glory of their +successes. + +But in a chapter on _names_, in which, if he has not told, he has +_designed to tell all_; and what he could not express, he has at least +pointed out with his finger, this subject is more fully developed. In +this chapter, he regrets that such as write _chronicles in Latin_ do +not leave our names as they find them, for in making of _Vaudemont_ +VALLE-MONTANUS, and metamorphosing names to dress them out in Greek or +Latin, we know not where we are, and with the _persons_ of _the men, +lose_ the _benefit_ of the _story_: but one who tracks the inner +thread of this apparently miscellaneous collection of items, need be +at no such loss in this case. But at the conclusion of this apparently +very trivial talk about _names_, he resumes his philosophic humour +again, and the subsequent discourse on this subject, recalls once +more, the considerations with which philosophy sets at nought the loss +of fame, and forgets in the warmth that prompts to worthy deeds, the +glory that should follow them. + +'But this consideration--that is the consideration "that it is the +custom in _France_, to call every man, even a stranger, by the name of +any _manor_ or _seigneury_, he may chance to come in possession of, +tends to the total confusion of descents, so that _surnames_ are no +security,"--"for," he says, "a younger brother of a good family, +having a _manor_ left him by his father, by the name of which he has +been known and honoured, cannot handsomely leave it; ten years after +his decease, it falls into the hand of a stranger, who does the same." +Do but judge whereabouts we shall be concerning the knowledge of these +men. This consideration leads me therefore into another subject. Let +us look a little more narrowly into, and examine upon what foundation +we erect this glory and reputation, for which the world is turned +topsy-turvy. Wherein do we place this renown, that we hunt after with +such infinite anxiety and trouble. It is in the end PIERRE or WILLIAM +that bears it, takes it into his possession, and whom only it +concerns. Oh what a valiant faculty is HOPE, that in a mortal subject, +and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, +eternity, and of supplying her master's indigence, at her pleasure, +with all things that he can imagine or desire. And this Pierre or +William, what is it but a sound, when all is done, ("What's in a +name?") or three or four dashes with a pen?' + +And he has already written two paragraphs to show, that the name of +William, at least, is not excepted from the general remarks he is +making here on the vanity of names; while that of Pierre is five times +repeated, apparently with the same general intention, and another +combination of sounds is not wanting which serves with that free +translation the author himself takes pains to suggest and defend, to +complete what was lacking to that combination, in order to give these +remarks their true point and significance, in order to redeem them +from that appearance of flatness which is not a characteristic of this +author's intentions, and in his style merely serves as an intimation +to the reader that there is something worth looking for beneath it. + +As to the name of William, and the amount of personal distinction +which that confers upon its owners, he begins by telling us, that the +name of Guienne is said to be derived from the Williams of our ancient +Aquitaine, 'which would seem,' he says, rather far fetched, were there +not as crude derivations in Plato himself, to whom he refers in other +places for similar precedents; and when he wishes to excuse his +enigmatical style--the titles of his chapters for instance. And by way +of emphasizing this particular still further, he mentions, that on the +occasion when Henry, the Duke of Normandy, the son of Henry the +Second, of England, made a feast in France, the concourse of nobility +and gentry was so great, that for _sport's sake_ he divided them into +_troops, according to their names_, and in the _first troop, which +consisted of Williams_, there were found a hundred and ten knights +sitting at the table of that name, without reckoning the simple +gentlemen and servants. + +And here he apparently digresses from his subject for the sake of +mentioning the Emperor _Geta_, 'who distributed the several courses of +his meats by the _first letters of the meats_ themselves, where those +that began with _B_ were served up together; _as_ brawn, beef, +beccaficos, and so of the others.' This appears to be a little out of +the way; but it is not impossible that there may be an allusion in it +to the author's own family name of _Eyquem_, though that would be +rather farfetched, as he says; but then there is _Plato_ at hand, +still to keep us in countenance. + +But to return to the point of digression. 'And this Pierre, or +William, what is it but a sound when all is done? _Or_ three or four +dashes with a pen, _so easy to be varied_, that I would fain know to +whom is to be attributed the glory of so many victories, to +_Guesquin_, to Glesquin, or to _Gueaguin_. And yet there would be +something more in the case than in Lucian that Sigma should serve Tau +with a process, for "He seeks no mean rewards." _The quere is here in +good earnest. The point is_, which of _these letters_ is to be +rewarded for so many sieges, battles, wounds, imprisonment, and +services done to the crown of France by this famous constable. +_Nicholas Denisot_ never concerned _himself_ further than _the letters +of his name_, of which he has altered the _whole contexture, to build +up by anagram_ the Count d'Alsinois _whom he has endowed with the +glory of his poetry and painting_. [A good precedent--but here is a +better one.] And the historian Suetonius looked only to the _meaning +of his_; and so, cashiering his _fathers surname, Lenis_ left +Tranquillus _successor to the reputation of his writings_. Who would +believe that the Captain Bayard should have no honour but what he +derives from the great deeds of Peter (Pierre) Terrail, [the name of +Bayard--"the meaning"] and that Antonio Escalin should suffer himself, +to his face, to be robbed of the honour of so many navigations, and +commands at sea and land, by Captain Poulin and the Baron de la Garde. +[The name of Poulin was taken from the place where he was born, De la +Garde from a person who took him in his boyhood into his service.] Who +hinders my groom from calling himself Pompey the Great? But, after +all, what virtue, what springs are there that convey to my deceased +groom, or the other Pompey (who had his head cut off in Egypt), this +glorious renown, and these so much honoured flourishes of the pen?' +Instructive suggestions, especially when taken in connection with the +preceding items contained in this chapter, apparently so casually +introduced, yet all with a stedfast bearing on this question of names, +and all pointing by means of a thread of delicate sounds, and not less +delicate suggestions, to another instance, in which the possibility of +circumstances tending to countervail the so natural desire to +appropriate to the name derived from one's ancestors, the lustre of +one's deeds, is clearly demonstrated. + +''Tis with good reason that men decry the hypocrisy that is in war; +for what is more easy to an old soldier than to shift in time of +danger, and to counterfeit bravely, when he has no more heart than a +chicken. There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a man's own +person'--'and had we the use of the Platonic ring, which renders those +invisible that wear it, if turned inwards towards the palm of the +hand, it is to be feared that a great many would often hide +themselves, when they _ought to appear_.' 'It seems that to be known, +_is in some sort to a man's life and its duration in another's +keeping_. I for my part, hold that I am wholly in myself, and that +other life of mine which lies in the knowledge of my friends, +considering it nakedly and simply in itself, I know very well that I +am sensible of no fruit or enjoyment of it but by the vanity of a +fantastic opinion; and, when I shall be dead, I shall be much less +sensible of it, and shall withal absolutely lose the use of those real +advantages that sometimes accidentally follow it. [That was Lord +Bacon's view, too, exactly.] I shall have no more handle whereby to +take hold of reputation, or whereby it may take hold of me: for to +expect that my name should receive it, in the first place, I have no +name that is enough my own. Of two that I have, one is common to all +my race, and even to others also: there is one family at Paris, and +another at Montpelier, whose surname is _Montaigne_; another in +Brittany, and Xaintonge called _De la Montaigne_. The transposition of +_one syllable only_ is enough to ravel our affairs, so that I shall +peradventure share in their glory, and they shall partake of my shame; +and, moreover, my ancestors were formerly surnamed _Eyquem_, a name +wherein a _family well known in England_ at this day is concerned. As +to my other name, any one can _take it that will_, and _so_, perhaps, +I may honour _a porter_ in my own stead. And, besides, though I had a +particular distinction myself, what can it distinguish when I _am no +more_. Can it point out and favour inanity? + + But will thy manes such a gift bestow + As to make violets from thy ashes grow? + +'But of this I have spoken elsewhere.' He has--and to purpose. + +But as to the authority for these readings, Lord Bacon himself will +give us that; for this is the style which he discriminates so sharply +as 'the _enigmatical_,' a style which he, too, finds to have been in +use among the ancients, and which he tells us _has some affinity_ with +that new method of making over knowledge from the mind of the teacher +to that of the pupil, which he terms the method of _progression_-- +(which is the method of _essaie_)--in opposition to the received +method, the only method he finds in use, which he, too, calls +the _magisterial_. And this method of progression, with which the +enigmatical has some affinity, is to be used, he tells us, in cases +where knowledge is delivered as a thread to be spun on, where science +is to be removed from one mind to another _to grow from the root_, and +not delivered as trees for the use of the carpenter, where _the root_ +is of no consequence. In this case, he tells us it is necessary for +the teacher to descend to _the foundations of knowledge and consent_, +and so to transplant it into another as it grew in his own mind, +'whereas as knowledge is now delivered, there is a _kind of contract +of error_ between the deliverer and the receiver, for he that +delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such a form as may +_best be believed_, and not as may best be _examined_: and he that +receiveth knowledge desireth rather _present satisfaction_ than +_expectant inquiry_, and so rather _not to doubt than not to err, +glory_ making the author not to lay open his weakness, and _sloth_ +making the disciple _not to know his strength_.' Now, so very grave a +defect as this, in the method of the delivery and tradition of +Learning, would of course be one of the first things that would +require to be remedied in any plan in which '_the Advancement_' of it +was seriously contemplated. And this method of the delivery and +tradition of knowledge which transfers _the root_ with them, that they +may grow in the mind of the learner, is the method which this +philosopher professes to find wanting, and the one which he seems +disposed to invent. He has made a very thorough survey of the stores +of the ancients, and is not unacquainted with the more recent history +of learning; he knows exactly what kinds of methods have been made use +of by the learned in all ages, for the purpose of putting themselves +into some tolerable and possible relations with the physical majority; +he knows what devices they have always been compelled to resort to, +for the purpose of establishing some more or less effective +communication between themselves and that world to which they +instinctively seek to transfer their doctrine. But this method, which +he suggests here as the essential condition of the growth and +advancement of learning, he does _not_ find invented. He refers to a +method which he calls the enigmatical, which has an affinity with it, +'used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients,' but disgraced +since, 'by the impostures of persons, who have made it as a _false +light_ for their counterfeit merchandises.' The purpose of this latter +style is, as he defines it, 'to remove the _secrets_ of knowledge from +the penetration of the more vulgar capacities, and to reserve them to +_selected auditors_, or to wits of such sharpness as can pierce the +veil.' And that is a method, he tells us, which philosophy can by no +means dispense with in his time, and 'whoever would let in new light +upon the human understanding must still have recourse to it.' But the +method of delivery and tradition in those ancient schools, appears to +have been too much of the dictatorial kind to suit this proposer of +advancement; its tendency was to arrest knowledge instead of promoting +its growth. He is not pleased with the ambition of those old masters, +and thinks they aimed too much at a personal impression, and that they +sometimes undertook to impose their own particular and often very +partial grasp of those universal doctrines and principles, which are +and must be true for all men, in too dogmatical and magisterial a +manner, without making sufficient allowance for the growth of the mind +of the world, the difference of races, etc. + +But if any doubt in regard to the use of the method described, in the +composition of the work now first produced as AN EXAMPLE of the use of +it, should still remain in any mind; or if this method of unravelling +it should seem too studious, perhaps the author's own word for it in +one more quotation may be thought worth taking. + +'_I can give no account of my life by_ MY ACTIONS, fortune has placed +_them_ too low; _I must do it_ BY MY FANCIES. And when shall I have +done representing the continual agitation and change of my thoughts as +they come into my head, seeing that Diomedes filled six thousand books +upon the subject of grammar.' [The commentators undertake to set him +right here, but the philosopher only glances in his intention at the +voluminousness of the science of _words_, in opposition to the science +of _things_, which he came to establish.] 'What must prating +_produce_, since prating itself, and the first beginning to speak, +stuffed the world with such a horrible load of volumes. So many words +about _words_ only. They accused one Galba, of old, of living idly; he +made answer that every one ought to give account of his _actions_, but +_not_ of his _leisure_. He was mistaken, for _justice_--[the civil +authority]--has cognizance and _jurisdiction_ over those that _do +nothing_, or only PLAY _at_ WORKING.... Scribbling appears to be the +sign of a disordered age. Every man applies himself negligently to the +duty of his _vocation_ at such a time and debauches in it.' From that +central wrong of an evil government, an infectious depravity spreads +and corrupts all particulars. Everything turns from its true and +natural course. Thus _scribbling_ is the sign of a disordered age. Men +write in such times instead of acting; and scribble, or seem to +perhaps, instead of writing openly to purpose. + +And yet, again, that central, and so divergent, wrong is the result of +each man's particular contribution, as he goes on to assert. 'The +corruption of this age is made up by the particular contributions of +every individual man,'-- + + He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.--_Cassius_. + +'Some contribute _treachery_, others _injustice_, irreligion, +_tyranny_, _avarice_ and _cruelty, according as they have power; the_ +WEAKER SORT CONTRIBUTE FOLLY, VANITY, _and_ IDLENESS, and _of these_ I +am one.' + + _Caesar_ loves no plays as thou dost, Antony. + Such men are dangerous. + +Or, as the same poet expresses it in another Roman play:-- + + This _double worship_, + Where one part does _disdain with cause, the other + Insult without all reason_; where gentry, title, wisdom + Cannot conclude but by the _yea and no_ + Of _general ignorance_,--it must omit + Real necessities--and give way the while + To unstable slightness; purpose _so barred_, + It follows, nothing is done to purpose. + +And that is made the plea for an attempt to overthrow the popular +power, and to replace it with a government containing the true head of +the state, its nobility, its learning, its gentleness, its wisdom. + +But the essayist continues:--'It seems as if it were the season for +_vain things_ when _the hurtful oppress us_; in a time when doing ill +is common, to do nothing but what _signifies nothing_ is a kind of +commendation. 'Tis _my_ comfort that _I_ shall be one of the last that +shall be called in question,--for it would be against reason _to +punish the less troublesome_ while we are _infested_ with the +_greater_. _As the physician_ said to one who presented him his finger +to dress, and who, as he perceived, had an ulcer _in his lungs_, +"Friend, it is not now time to concern yourself about your finger's +ends." _And yet_ I saw some years ago, _a person, whose name and +memory I have in very great esteem_, in the very height of our great +disorders, when there was _neither law nor justice put in execution, +nor magistrate that performed his office_,--_no more than there is +now_,--publish I know not what _pitiful reformations_ about _clothes, +cookery_ and _law chicanery_. _These are amusements_ wherewith _to +feed a people that are ill used, to show that they are not totally +forgotten. These others_ do the same, who insist upon _stoutly +defending_ the _forms_ of _speaking_, dances and games to a people +totally abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices--it is for the +Spartans only to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they are +just upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of +their lives. + +'For _my part_, I have _yet a worse_ custom. I scorn to mend myself by +halves. If my _shoe_ go awry, I let my shirt and my cloak do so too: +when I am out of order I feed on mischief. I abandon myself through +despair, and let myself go towards the precipice, and as the saying +is, throw the helve after the hatchet.' We should not need, perhaps, +the aid of the explanations already quoted, to show us that the author +does not confess this custom of his for the sake of commending it to +the sense or judgment of the reader,--who sees it here for the first +time it may be put into words or put on paper, who looks at it here, +perhaps, for the first time objectively, from the critical stand-point +which the review of another's confession creates; and though it may +have been latent in the dim consciousness of his own experience, or +practically developed, finds it now for the first time, collected from +the phenomena of the blind, instinctive, human motivity, and put down +on the page of science, as a principle in nature, in human nature +also. + +But this is indeed a Spartan combing and curling, that the author is +falling to, in the introductory flourishes ('diversions' as he calls +them) of this great adventure, that his pen is out for now: he is +indeed upon the point of running headlong into the fiercest +dangers;--it is the state, the wretched, discased, vicious state, +dying apparently, yet full of teeth and mischief, that he is about to +handle in his argument with these fine, lightsome, frolicsome +preparations of his, without any perceptible 'mittens'; it is the +heart of that political evil that his time groans with, and begins to +find insufferable, that he is going to probe to the quick with that so +delicate weapon. It is a tilt against the block and the rack, and all +the instruments of torture, that he is going to manage, as handsomely, +and with as many sacrifices to the graces, as the circumstances will +admit of. But the political situation which he describes so boldly +(and we have already seen what it is) affects us here in its relation +to the question of style only, and as the author himself connects it +with the point of our inquiry. + +'A man may regret,' he says, 'the better times, but cannot fly from +the present, we may wish for other magistrates, but we must, +notwithstanding, obey those we have; and, peradventure, it is more +laudable to obey the bad than the good, so long as the image of the +ancient and received laws of this monarchy shall shine in any corner +of the kingdom. If they happen, unfortunately, to thwart and +contradict one another, so as to produce two factions of doubtful +choice,'-- + + And my soul aches + To know, [says Coriolanus] when two authorities are up, + Neither supreme, how soon confusion + May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take + The one by the other. + +--'in this contingency will willingly choose,' continues the other, +'to withdraw from the tempest, and in the meantime, _nature or the +hazards of war may lend me a helping hand_. Betwixt Cćsar and Pompey, +I should soon and frankly have declared myself, but amongst the three +robbers that came after, a man must needs _have either hid himself_, +or have gone along with the current of the time, _which I think a man +may lawfully do, when reason no longer rules_.' '_Whither_ dost thou +wandering go?' + +'This _medley_ is a little from my subject, I go out of my way but +'tis rather _by licence than oversight_. My fancies _follow_ one +another, _but sometimes at a great distance_, and _look towards one +another_, but 'tis with an _oblique glance_. I have read a DIALOGUE of +PLATO of such a _motley and fantastic_ composition. The _beginning was +about love_, and all the rest ABOUT RHETORIC. _They_ stick not (that +is, the ancients) at these variations, and have a marvellous grace in +letting themselves to be carried away at the pleasure of the winds; or +at least to _seem_ as if they were. The titles of my chapters do not +always comprehend the whole matter, they often denote it _by some mark +only_, as those other titles _Andria Eunuchus_, or these, _Sylla, +Cicero, Torquatus_. I love _a poetic march_, by leaps and skips, 'tis +an art, as Plato says, light, nimble; and _a little demoniacal_. There +are places in _Plutarch_ where _he_ forgets his theme, where the +proposition of _his_ argument is only found _incidentally_, and +stuffed throughout with foreign matter. Do but observe his meanders in +the Demon of Socrates. How beautiful are his variations and +digressions; and then _most of all, when they seem to be_ fortuitous, +[hear] and introduced _for want of heed. 'Tis the indiligent reader_ +that loses my subject--_not I. There will always be found some words_ +or _other in a corner that are to the purpose, though it lie very +close_ [that is the unfailing rule]. I ramble about indiscreetly and +tumultously: my style and my _wit_ wander at the same rate, [he +wanders _wittingly_]. A _little folly_ is _desirable_ in him _that +will not be guilty of stupidity_, say the precepts, and much more the +_examples_ of our masters. A thousand poets flag and languish after a +_prosaic manner_; but the best old prose, and I strew it here up and +down _indifferently_ for verse, shines throughout with the vigor and +boldness of poetry, and represents some air of its fury. Certainly, +prose must _yield_ the pre-eminence in speaking. "The poet," says +Plato, "when set upon the muse's tripod, pours out with fury, whatever +comes into his mouth, like the pipe of a fountain, _without +considering and pausing upon what he says_, and things come from him +of _various colors_, of _contrary substance_, and with an irregular +torrent": he himself (Plato) is all over poetical, and all the old +theology (_as the learned inform us) is poetry_, and the _first +philosophy_, is the origiual language of the gods. + +'I would have the matter _distinguish itself_; it sufficiently shows +_where it changes_, where it concludes, _where it begins, and where it +resumes, without interlacing it with words of connection_, introduced +for the relief of _weak or negligent ears_, and without commenting +myself. Who is he that had not rather not be read at all, than after a +drowsy or _cursory_ manner? Seeing I cannot fix the reader's attention +by the _weight_ of what I write, _maneo male_, if I should chance _to +do it by my intricacies_. [Hear]. I mortally hate obscurity and _would +avoid it if I could. In such an employment_, to whom you will not give +an hour you will give nothing; _and you do nothing for him for whom +you only do, whilst you are doing something else_. To which may be +added, that I have, perhaps, some particular obligation to speak only +_by halves_, to speak _confusedly and discordantly_.' + +But this is, perhaps, enough to show, in the way of direct assertion, +that we have here, at least, a philosophical work composed in that +style which Lord Bacon calls 'the enigmatical,' in which he tells us +the _secrets_ of knowledge are reserved for _selected auditors_, or +wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil; a style which he, too, +tells us was sometimes used by the discretion of the ancients, though +he does not specify either Plutarch or Plato; in that place, and one +which he introduces in connection with his new method of progression, +in consequence of its having, as he tells us, _some affinity_ with it, +and that we have here also a specimen of that new method itself, by +means of which knowledge is to be delivered as a thread to be spun on. + +But let us leave, for the present, this wondrous Gascon, though it is +not very easy to do so, so long as we have our present subject in +hand,--this philosopher, whose fancies look towards one another at +such long, such very long distances, sometimes, though not always, +with an _oblique_ glance, who dares to depend so much upon the eye of +his reader, and especially upon the reader of that 'far-off' age he +writes to. It would have been indeed irrelevant to introduce the +subject of this foreign work and its style in this connection without +further explanation, but for the identity of political situation +already referred to, and but for those subtle, interior, incessant +connections with the higher writings of the great Elizabethan school, +which form the _main characteristic_ of this production. The fact, +that this work was composed in the country in which the chief +Elizabethan men attained their maturity, that it dates from the time +in which Bacon was completing his education there, that it covers +ostensibly not the period only, but the scenes and events of Raleigh's +six years campaigning there, as well as the fact alluded to by this +author himself, in a passage already quoted,--the fact that there was +a family then in England, _very well known_, who bore the surname of +his ancestors, a family of the name of _Eyquem_, he tells us with +whom, perhaps, he still kept up some secret correspondence and +relations, the fact, too, which he mentions in his chapter on Names, +that a surname in France is very easily acquired, and is not +necessarily derived from one's ancestors,--that same chapter in which +he adduces so many instances of men who, notwithstanding that +inveterate innate love of the honour of one's own proper name, which +is in men of genius still more inveterate,--have for one reason or +another been willing to put upon anagrams, or synonyms, or borrowed +names, all their honours, so that in the end it is William or Pierre +who takes them into his possession, and bears them, or it's the name +of 'an African slave' perhaps, or the name of a 'groom' (promoted, it +may be, to the rank of a jester, or even to that of a player,) that +gets all the glory. All these facts, taken in connection with the +conclusions already established, though insignificant in themselves, +will be found anything but that for the philosophical student who has +leisure to pursue the inquiry. + +And though the latent meanings, in which the interior connections and +identities referred to above are found, are not yet critically +recognised, a latent national affinity and liking strong enough to +pierce this thin, artificial, foreign exterior, appears to have been +at work here from the first. For though the seed of the richer and +bolder meanings from which the author anticipated his later harvest, +could not yet be reached, that new form of popular writing, that +effective, and vivacious mode of communication with the popular mind +on topics of common concern and interest, not heretofore recognised as +fit subjects for literature, which this work offered to the world on +its surface, was not long in becoming fruitful. But it was on the +English mind that it began to operate first. It was in England, that +it began so soon to develop the latent efficacies it held in germ, in +the creation of that new and widening department in letters--that so +new, so vast, and living department of them, which it takes today all +our reviews, and magazines, and journals, to cover. And the work +itself has been from the first adopted, and appropriated here, as +heartily as if it had been an indigenous production, some singularly +distinctive product too, of the so deeply characterised English +nationality. + +But it is time to leave this wondrous Gascon, this new 'Michael of the +Mount,' this man who is 'consubstantial with his book,'--this 'Man of +the Mountain,' as he figuratively describes it. Let us yield him this +new ascent, this new triumphant peak and pyramid in science, which he +claims to have been the first to master,--the unity of the universal +man,--the historical unity,--the universal human form, collected from +particulars, not contemplatively abstracted,--the inducted Man of the +new philosophy. '_Authors_,' he says, 'have _hitherto_ communicated +themselves to the people by some _particular_ and _foreign_ mark; _I, +the first of any by my universal being_, as _Michael_ de Montaigne, I +propose a life mean and without lustre: all moral philosophy is +applied as well to a private life as to one of the greatest +employment. _Every man_ carries _the entire form of the human +condition_...I, the first of any by my universal being, as +_Michael_,'--see the chapter on names,--'as _Michael_ de Montaigne.' +Let us leave him for the present, or attempt to, for it is not very +easy to do so, so long as we have our present subject in hand. + +For, as we all know, it is from this idle, tattling, rambling old +Gascon--it is from this outlandish looker-on of human affairs, that +our Spectators and Ramblers and Idlers and Tattlers, trace their +descent; and the Times, and the Examiners, and the Observers, and the +Spectators, and the Tribunes, and Independents, and all the Monthlies, +and all the Quarterlies, that exercise so large a sway in human +affairs to-day, are only following his lead; and the best of them have +not been able as yet to leave him in the rear. But how it came to +pass, that a man of this particular turn of mind, who belonged to the +old party, and the times that were then passing away, should have felt +himself called upon to make this great signal for the human +advancement, and how it happens that these radical connections with +other works of that time, having the same general intention, are found +in the work itself,--these are points which the future _biographers_ +of this old gentleman will perhaps find it for their interest to look +to. And a little of that more studious kind of reading which he +himself so significantly solicited, and in so many passages, will +inevitably tend to the elucidation of them. + + + + +PART II. + +THE BACONIAN RHETORIC, OR THE METHOD OF PROGRESSION. + +'The secrets of nature have not more gift in taciturnity.' + +_Troilus and Cressida_. + +'I did not think that Mr. Silence had been a man of this mettle.' + +_Falstaff_. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE 'BEGINNERS.' + + +'PROSPERO.--Go bring THE RABBLE, + +O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place.' + +_Tempest_. + +But though a foreign philosopher may venture to give us the clue to +it, perhaps, in the first instance, a little more roundly, it is not +necessary that we should go the Mayor of Bordeaux, in order to +ascertain on the highest possible authority, what kind of an art of +communication, what kind of an art of delivery and tradition, men, in +such circumstances, find themselves compelled to invent;--that is, if +they would not be utterly foiled for the want of it, in their noblest +purposes;--we need not go across the channel to find the men +themselves, to whom this art is a necessity,--men so convinced that +they have a mission of instruction to their kind, that they will +permit no temporary disabilities to divert them from their end,--men +who must needs open their school, no matter what oppositions there may +be, to be encountered, no matter what imposing exhibitions of military +weapons may be going on just then, in their vicinity; and though they +should find themselves straitened in time, and not able to fit their +words to their mouths as they have a mind to, though they should be +obliged to accept the hint from the master in the Greek school, and +take their tone _from the ear of those to whom they speak_, though +many speeches which would spend their use among the men then living +would have to be inserted in their most enduring works with a private +hint concerning that necessity, and a private reading of them for +those whom it concerned; though _the audience_ they are prepared to +address _should be deferred_, though the benches of the inner school +should stand empty for ages. We need not go abroad at all to discover +men of this stamp, and their works and pastimes, and their arts of +tradition;--men so filled with that which impels men to speak, that +speak they must, and speak they will, in one form or another, by word +or gesture, by word or deed, though they speak to the void waste, +though they must speak till they reach old ocean in his unsunned +caves, and bring him up with the music of their complainings, though +the marble Themis fling back their last appeal, though they speak to +the tempest in his wrath, to the wind and the rain, and the fire and +the thunder,--men so impregnated with that which makes the human +speech, that speak they will, though they have but a rusty nail, +wherewith to etch their story, on their dungeon wall; though they dig +in the earth and bury their secret, as one buried his of old--that +same secret still; for it is still those EARS--those 'ears' that +'Midas hath' which makes the mystery. + +They know that the days are coming when the light will enter their +prison house, and flash in its dimmest recess; when the light they +sought in vain, will be there to search out the secrets they are +forbid. They know that the day is coming, when the disciple himself, +all tutored in the art of their tradition, bringing with him the key +of its delivery, shall be there to unlock those locked-up meanings, to +spell out those anagrams, to read those hieroglyphics, to unwind with +patient loving research to its minutest point, that text, that with +such tools as the most watchful tyranny would give them, they will yet +contrive to leave there. They know that their buried words are seeds, +and though they lie long in the earth, they will yet spring up with +their 'richer and bolder meanings,' and publish on every breeze, their +boldest mystery. + +For let not men of narrower natures fancy that such action is not +proper to the larger one, and cannot be historical. For there are +different _kinds_ of men, our _science_ of men tells us, and that is +an unscientific judgment which omits 'the _particular addition_, that +bounteous nature hath closed in each,'--her 'addition to the bill that +writes them all alike.' For there is a kind of men 'whose minds are +proportioned to that which may be dispatched at once, or within a +short return of time, and there is another kind, whose minds are +proportioned to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with +length of pursuit,'--so the Coryphćus of those choir that the latter +kind compose, informs us, 'so that there may be fitly said to be a +_longanimity_, which is commonly also ascribed to God as a +magnanimity.' + +And our English philosophers had to light what this one calls a new +'Lamp of Tradition,' before they could make sure of transmitting their +new science, through such mediums as those that their time gave them; +and a very gorgeous many-branched lamp it is, that the great English +philosopher brings out from that 'secret school of living Learning and +living Art' to which he secretly belongs, for the admiration of the +professionally learned of his time, and a very lustrous one too, as it +will yet prove to be, when once it enters the scholar's apprehension +that it was ever meant be lighted, when once the little movement that +turns on the dazzling jet is ordered. + +For we have all been so taken up with the Baconian _Logic_ hitherto +and its wonderful effects in the relief of the human estate, that the +Baconian RHETORIC has all this time escaped our notice; and nobody +appears to have suspected that there was anything in _that_ worth +looking at; any more than they suspect that there is anything in some +of those other divisions which the philosopher himself lays so much +stress on his proposal for the Advancement of Learning,--in his +proposal for the advancement of it into _all_ the fields of human +activity. But we read this proposition still, as James the First was +expected to read it, and all these departments which are brought into +that general view in such a dry and formal and studiously scholastic +manner, appear to be put there merely to fill up a space; and because +the general plan of this so erudite performance happened to include +them. + +For inasmuch as the real scope and main bearing of this proposition, +though it is in fact _there_, is of course _not_ there, in any such +form as to attract the particular attention of the monarch to whose +eye the work is commended; and inasmuch as the new art of a scientific +Rhetoric is already put to its most masterly use in reserving that +main design, for such as may find themselves able to receive it, of +course, the need of any such invention is not apparent on the surface +of the work, and the real significance of this new doctrine of Art and +its radical relation to the new science, is also reserved for that +class of readers who are able to adopt the rules of interpretation +which the work itself lays down. Because the real applications of the +New Logic could not yet be openly discussed, no one sees as yet, that +there was, and had to be, a Rhetoric to match it. + +For this author, who was not any less shrewd than the one whose +methods we have just been observing a little, had also early +discovered in the great personages of his time, a disposition to +moderate his voice whenever he went to speak to them on matters of +importance, in his natural key, for his voice too, was naturally loud, +and high as he gives us to understand, though he '_could_ speak small +like a woman'; he too had learned to take the tone _from the ear of +him to whom he spake_, and he too had learned, that it was not enough +merely to speak so as to make himself heard by those whom he wished to +affect. He also had learned to speak according to the affair he had in +hand, according to the purpose which he wished to accomplish. He also +is of the opinion that different kinds of _audiences_ and different +_times_, require different modes of speech, and though he found it +necessary to compose his works in the style and language of his own +time, he was confident that it was a language which would not remain +in use for many ages; and he has therefore provided himself with +another, more to his mind which he has taken pains to fold carefully +within the other, and one which lie thinks will bear the wear and tear +of those revolutions that he perceives to be imminent. + +But in consequence of our persistent oversight of this Art of +Tradition, on which he relies so much, (which is as fine an invention +of his, as any other of his inventions which we find ourselves so much +the better for), that appeal to 'the times that are farther off,' has +not yet taken effect, and the audience for whom he chiefly laboured is +still 'deferred.' + +This so noble and benign art which he calls, with his own natural +modesty and simplicity, the Art of _Tradition_, this art which grows +so truly noble and worthy, so distinctively human, in his clear, +scientific treatment of it,--in his scientific clearance of it from +the wildnesses and spontaneities of accident, or the superfluities and +trickery of an art without science,--that stops short of the ultimate, +the human principle,--this so noble art of speech or tradition is, +indeed, an art which this great teacher and leader of men will think +it no scorn to labour: it is one on which, even such a teacher can +find time to stop; it is one which even such a teacher can stop to +build from the foundation upwards, he will not care how splendidly; it +is one on which he will spend without stint, and think it gain to +spend, the wealth of his invention. + +But, at the same time, it is with him a _subordinate_ art. It has no +worth or substance in itself; it borrows all its worth from that which +masters and rigorously subdues it to its end. Here, too, we find +ourselves coming down on all its old ceremonial and observance, from +that new height which we found our foreign philosopher in such quiet +possession of,--taking his way at a puff through poor Cicero's +periods,--those periods which the old orator had taken so much pains +with, and laughing at his pains:--but this English philosopher is more +daring still, for it is he who disposes, at a word, without any +comment, just in passing merely,--from his practical stand-point,--of +'the flutes and trumpets of the Greeks,' like the other making nothing +at all in his theory of criticism of _mere_ elegance, though it is the +Gascon, it is true, who undertakes the more lively and extreme +practical demonstrations of this theoretical contempt of it,--setting +it at nought, and flying in the face of it,--writing in as loquacious +and homely a style as he possibly can, just for the purpose for +setting it at nought, though not without giving us a glimpse +occasionally, of a faculty that would enable him to mince the matter +as fine as another if he should see occasion--as, perhaps, he may. For +he talks very emphatically about his _poetry_ here and there, and +seems to intimate that he has a gift that way; and that he has, +moreover, some works of value in that department of letters, which he +is anxious to 'save up' for posterity, if he can. But here, it is the +scholar, and not the loquacious old gentleman at all, who is giving us +in his choicest, selectest, courtliest phrase, in his most stately and +condensed style, _his_ views of this subject; but that which is +noticeable is, that _the art_ in its fresh, new upspringing from the +secret of life and nature, from the soul of _things_, the art and that +which it springs from, is in these two so different forms _identical_. +Here, too, the point of its criticism and review is the same. 'Away +with that eloquence that so enchants us with _its harmony_ that we +should more study it than _things_'; but here the old Roman masters +the philosopher, for a moment, and he puts in a scholarly parenthesis, +'unless you will affirm that of Cicero to be of so supreme perfection +as to form _a body of itself_.' + +But Hamlet, in his discourse with that wise reasoner, and unfortunate +practitioner, who thought that brevity was the soul of wit, and +tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, puts it more briefly +still. + + _Polonius_. What do you read, my lord? + _Hamlet_. Words, words, words! + +'More matter, and less art,' another says in that same treatise on art +and speculation. Now inasmuch as this art and science derives all its +distinction and lustre from that new light on the human estate of +which it was to be the vehicle, somebody must find the trick of it, so +as to be able to bring out _that doctrine_ by its help, before we can +be prepared to understand the real worth of this invention. It would +be premature to undertake to set it forth fully, till that is +accomplished. There must be a more elaborate exhibition of that +science, before the art of its transmission can be fully treated; we +cannot estimate it, till we see how it strikes to the root of the new +doctrine, how it begins with its beginning, and reaches to its end: we +cannot estimate it till we see its relation, its essential relation, +to that new doctrine of the human nature, and that new doctrine of +state, which spring from the doctrine of nature in general, which is +_the_ doctrine, which is the beginning and the end of the new science. + +We find here on the surface, as we find everywhere in this +comprehensive treatise, much apparent parade of division and +subdivision, and the author appears to lay much stress upon this, and +seems disposed to pride himself upon his dexterity in chopping up the +subject as finely as possible, and keeping the parts quite clear of +one another; and sometimes, in his distributions, putting those points +the farthest apart which are the most nearly related, though not so +far, that they cannot 'look towards each other,' though it may be, as +the other says, '_obliquely_.' He evidently depends very much on his +arrangement, and seems, indeed, to be chiefly concerned about that, +when he comes to the more critical parts of his subject. But it is to +_the continuities_ which underlie these separations, to which he +directs the attention of those to whom he speaks in earnest, and not +in particular cases only. '_Generally_,' he says, '_let this be a +rule_, that all partitions of knowledge be accepted rather for LINES +and VEINS, than for _sections_ and _separations_, and that _the +continuance and entireness of knowledge_ be preserved. For the +_contrary hereof_,' he says, 'is that which has made PARTICULAR +SCIENCES BARREN, SHALLOW, and ERRONEOUS, while they have not been +nourished and maintained from the _common_ fountain.' For this is the +ONE SCIENCE, the deep, the true, the fruitful one, the fruitful +because the ONE. + +These lines, then, which he cautions us against regarding as +divisions, which are brought in with such parade of scholasticism, +with such a profound appearance of artifice, will always be found by +those who have leisure to go below the surface, to be but the +indications of those natural articulations and branches into which the +subject divides and breaks itself, and the conducting lines to that +trunk and heart of sciences, that common fountain from which all this +new vitality, this sudden up-springing and new blossoming of learning +proceeds, that fountain in which its flowers, as well as its fruits, +and its thick leaves are nourished. + +Here in this Art of Tradition, which comprehends the whole subject of +the human speech from the new ground of the common nature in man--that +_double_ nature which tends to isolation on the one hand, and which +makes him a part and a member of society on the other; we find it +treated, first, as a means by which men come simply to a common +understanding with each other, by which that _common ground_, that +ground of _community_, and _communication_, and _identity_, which a +common _understanding_ in this kind makes, can be best reached; and +next we find it treated as a means by which _more than the +understanding_ shall be reached, by which _the sentiment_, the _common +sentiment_, which also belongs to the larger nature, shall be +strengthened and developed,--by which the counteracting and partial +sentiments shall be put in their place, and the _will_ compelled; +whereby that common human form, which in its perfection is the object +of the human love and reverence shall be scientifically developed; by +which the particular form with its diseases shall be artistically +disciplined and treated. This Art of Tradition concerns, first, the +understanding; and secondly, the affections and the will. As man is +constituted, it is not enough to convince his understanding. + +First, then, it is 'the organ' and 'method' of tradition; and next, it +is what he calls the _illustration_ of it. First, the object is, to +bring truth to the understanding in as clear and unobstructed a manner +as the previous condition--as the diseases and pre-occupations of the +mind addressed will admit of, and next to bring all the other helps +and arts by which the sentiments are touched and the will mastered. +First, he will speak true, or as true as they will let him; but it is +not enough to speak true. He must be able to speak sharply too, +perhaps--or humorously, or touchingly, or melodiously, or +overwhelmingly, with words that burn. It is not enough, perhaps, to +reach the ear of his auditor: 'peradventure' he too 'will also pierce +it.' It is not enough to draw diagrams in chalk on a black board in +this kind of mathematics, where the will and the affections are the +pupils, and standing ready to defy axioms, prepared at any moment to +demonstrate practically, that the part is greater than the whole, and +face down the universe with it, 'murdering impossibility to make what +cannot be, slight work.' It is not enough to have a tradition that is +_clear_, or as clear a one as will pass muster with the government and +with the preconceptions of the people themselves. He must have a +pictured one--a pictorial, an illuminated one--a beautiful one,--he +must have what he calls an ILLUSTRATED TRADITION. + +'Why not,' he says. He runs his eye over the human instrumentalities, +and this art which we call _art--par excellence_, which he sees +setting up for itself, or ministering to ignorance and error, and +feeding the diseased affections with 'the sweet that is their poison,' +he seizes on at once, in behalf of his science, and declares that it +is her lawful property, 'her slave, born in her house,' and fit for +nothing in the world but to minister to her; and what is more, he +suits the action to the word--he brings the truant home, and reforms +her, and sets her about her proper business. That is what he proposes +to have done in his theory of art, and it is what he tells us he has +done himself; and he has: there is no mistake about it. That is what +he means when he talks about his illustrated tradition of science--his +illustrated tradition of the science of HUMAN NATURE and its +_differences_, _original_ and _acquired_, and the _diseases_ to which +it is liable, and the artificial growths which appertain to it. It is +very curious, that no one has seen this tradition--this illustrated +tradition, or anything else, indeed, that was at all worthy of this +new interpreter of mysteries, who goes about to this day as the +inventor of a method which he was not able himself to put to any +practical use; an inventor who was obliged to leave his machine for +men of a more quick and subtle genius, or to men of a more practical +turn of mind to manage, men who had a closer acquaintance with nature. + +That which is first to be noted in looking carefully at this draught +of a new Art of Tradition which the plan of the Advancement of +Learning includes,--that which the careful reader cannot fail to note, +is the fact, that throughout all this most complete and radical +exhibition of the subject (for brief and casual as that exhibition +seems on the surface, the science and art from its root to its +outermost branches, is there)--throughout all this exhibition, under +all the superficial divisions and subdivisions of the subject, it is +still the method of PROGRESSION which is set forth here: under all +these divisions, there is still one point made; it is still the Art of +a Tradition which is designed to reserve the _secrets_ of science, and +the nobler arts of it, for the minds and ages that are able to receive +them. This new art of tradition, with its new organs and methods, and +its living and beautiful illustration, when once we look through the +network of it to the unity within, this new rhetoric of science, is in +fact the instrument which the philosopher would substitute, if he +could, for those more cruel weapons which the men of his time were +ready to take in hand; and it is the instrument with which he would +forestall those yet more fearful political convulsions that already +seemed to his eye to threaten from afar the social structures of +Christendom; it is the beautiful and bloodless instrumentality whereby +the mind of the world is to be wrenched insensibly from its old place +without 'breaking all.' + +For neither does this author, any more than that other, who has been +quoted here on this point, think it wise for the philosopher to rush +madly out of his study with his EUREKA, and bawl to the first passer +by in scientific terms the last result of his science, 'lording it +over his ignorance' with what can be to him only a _magisterial_ +announcement. For what else but that can it be, for instance, to tell +the poor peasant, on his way to market, with his butter and eggs in +his basket, planting his feet on the firm earth without any qualms or +misgivings, and measuring his day by the sun's great toil and +rejoicing race in heaven, what but this same magisterial teaching is +it, to stop him, and tell him to his bewildered face that the sun +never rises or sets, and that the earth is but a revolving ball? +Instead of giving him a truth you have given him a falsehood. You have +brought him a truth out of a sphere with which he is not conversant, +which he cannot ascend to--whose truths he cannot translate into his +own, without jarring all. Either you have told him what must be to him +a lie, or you have upset all his little world of beliefs with your +magisterial doctrine, and confounded and troubled him to no purpose. + +But the Method of Progression, as set forth by Lord Bacon, requires +that the new scientific truth shall be, not nakedly and flatly, but +artistically exhibited; because, as he tells us, 'the great labour is +with the people, and this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.' +He will not have it exhibited in bare propositions, but translated +into the people's dialect. He would not begin if he could--if there +were no political or social restriction to forbid it--by overthrowing +on all points the popular belief, or wherever it differs from the +scientific conclusion. It is a very different kind of philosophy that +proceeds in that manner. This is one which comprehends and respects +all actualities. The popular belief, even to its least absurdity 'is +something more than nothing in nature'; and the popular belief with +all its admixture of error, is better than the half-truths of a +misunderstood, untranslated science; better than these would be in its +place. That truth of nature which it contains for those who are able +to receive it, and live by it, you would destroy for them, if you +should attempt to make them read it _prematurely_, in your language. +Any kind of organism which by means of those adjustments and +compensations, with which nature is always ready to help out anything +really hers,--any organism that is capable of serving as the means of +an historical social continuance, is already some gain on chaos and +social dissolution; and is, perhaps, better than a series of +philosophical experiments. The difficulty is not to overthrow the +popular errors, but to get something better in their place, he tells +us; and that there are men who have succeeded in the first attempt, +and very signally failed in the second. Beautiful and vigorous unions +grew up under the classic mythologies, that dissolved and went down +for ever, in the sunshine of the classic philosophies. For there were +more things in heaven and earth than were included in those last, or +dreamt of in them. + +In your expurgation, of the popular errors, you must be sure that the +truth they contain, is in some form as strongly, as _effectively_ +composed in your text, or the popular error is truer and better than +the truth with which you would replace it. This is a master who will +have no other kind of teaching in his school. His scholars must go so +far in their learning as to be able to come back to this popular +belief, and account for it and understand it; they must be as wise as +the peasant again, and be able to start with him, from his starting +point, before they can get any diploma in this School of +_Advancement_, or leave to practise in it. But when the old is already +ruinous and decaying, and oppressing and keeping back the new,--when +the vitality is gone out of it, and it has become deadly instead, when +the new is struggling for new forms, the man of science though never +so conservative from inclination and principle, will not be wanting to +himself and to the state in this emergency. He 'loves the _fundamental +part of state_ more' than in _such_ a crisis he will 'doubt the change +of it,' and will not 'fear to jump a body with a dangerous physic, +that's sure of death without it.' + +First of all then, the condition of this lamp of tradition, that is to +burn on for ages, is, that it shall be able to adapt itself to the +successive stages of the advancement it lights. It is the inevitable +condition of this school which begins with the present, which begins +with the people, which descends to the lowest stage of the +contemporary popular belief, and takes in the many-headed monster +himself, without any trimming at all, for its audience,--it is the +first condition of such a school, conducted by a man of science, that +it shall have its proper grades of courts and platforms, its selecter +and selectest audiences. There must be landing places in the ascent, +points of rendezvous agreed on, where 'the delicate collateral sounds' +are heard, which only those who ascend can hear. There is no +jar,--there is no forced advancement in this school; there is no +upward step for any, who have not first been taught to see it, who +have not, indeed, already taken it. For it is an artist's school, and +not a pedant's, or a vague speculator's, who knows not how to converge +his speculation, even upon his mode of tradition. + +The founders of this school trust much in their general plan of +instruction and relief, to the gradual advancement of a common +intelligence, by means of a scientific, but _concealed_ historical +teaching. They will teach their lower classes, their 'beginners,' as +great nature teaches--insensibly;--as great nature teaches--in the +concrete, 'in easy instances.' For the secret of her method is that +which they have studied; that is the learning which they have +mastered; the spirit of it, which is the poet's gift, the quickest, +subtlest, most searching, most analytic, most synthetic spirit of it, +is that with which great nature has endowed them. They will speak, as +they tell us, as the masters always have spoken from of old to them +who are without; they will 'open their mouths in parables,' they will +'utter their dark sayings on the harp.' They know that men are already +prepared by nature's own instruction, to feel in a fact,--to receive +in historical representations--truths which would startle them in the +abstract, truths which they are not yet prepared to disengage from the +historical combinations in which they receive them; though with every +repetition, and especially with the pointed, selected, prolonged +repetition of the teacher, where the 'ILLUSTRIOUS INSTANCE' is +selected and cleared of its extraneous incident, and made to enter the +mind alone, and pierce it with its principle,--with every such +repetition, the step to that generalization and axiom becomes +insensibly shorter and more easy. They know that men are already wiser +than their teachers, in some--in many things; that they have all of +them a great stock of incommunicative wisdom which all their teachers +have not been able to make them give up, which they never will give +up, till the strong man, who is stronger, enters with his larger +learning out of the same book, with his mightier weapons out of the +same armory, and spoils their goods, or makes them old and worthless, +by the side of the new, resplendent, magic wealth he brings with him. + +The new philosophy of nature has truths to teach which nature herself +has already been teaching all men, with more or less effect, +miscellaneously, and at odd hours, ever since they were born; and this +philosopher gives a large place in his history, to that vulgar, +practical human wisdom, which all the books till his time had been of +too high a strain to glance at. But 'art is a second nature, and +imitateth that dextrously and compendiously, which nature performs by +ambages and length of time.' The scientific interpreter of nature will +select, and unite, and teach continuously, and pointedly, in grand, +ideal, representative fact, in 'prerogative instances,' that which +nature has but faintly and unconsciously impressed with her method; +for he has a scientific organum, and what is more,--a great deal more, +a thousand times more,--he has the scientific genius that invented it. +His soul is a Novum Organum--his mind is a table of rejections that +sifts the historic masses, and brings out the instances that are to +his purpose, the bright, bold instances that flame forth the doubtful +truth, that tell their own story and need no interpreter, the high +ideal instances that talk in verse because it is their native tongue +and they can no other. He has found,--or rather nature lent it to him, +the universal historic solvent, and the dull, formless, miscellaneous +facts of the common human experience, spring up in magic orders, in +beautiful, transparent, scientific continuities, as they arrange +themselves by the laws of his thinking. + +For the truth is, and it must be said here, and not here only, but +everywhere, wherever there is a chance to say it,--that Novum Organum +was not made to examine the legs of spiders with, or the toes of 'the +grandfather-long-legs,' or any of their kindred; though of course it +is susceptible of such an application, when it falls into the hands of +persons whose genius inclines them in those directions; and it is a +use, that the inventor would not have disdained to put it to himself, +if he had had time, and if his attention had not been so much +distracted by the habits and history of that 'nobler kind of vermin,' +which he found feeding on the human weal in his time, and eating out +the heart of it. This man was not a fool, but a man. He was a +naturalist indeed, of the newest and highest style, but that did not +hinder his being a man at the same time. He and his company were the +first that set the example of going, deliberately, and on principle, +out of the human nature for knowledge; but it was that they might +re-return with better axioms for the culture, and nobility, and sway +of _that form_, which, 'though it be but a part in the continent of +nature,' is as this one openly declares, '_the end_ and _term_ of +NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, _in the intention_ of MAN.' His science included +the humblest and least agreeable of nature's performances; his Novum +Organum was able to take up the smallest conceivable atom of +existence, whether animate or not, and make a study of it. He has no +disrespect for caterpillars or any kind of worm or insect; but he is +not a caterpillar himself, or an insect of any kind, or a Saurian, or +an Icthyosaurian, but a man; and it was for the sake of building up +from a new basis a practical doctrine of human life, that he invented +that instrument, and put so much fine work upon it. + +With his 'PREROGATIVE INSTANCES,' he will build height after height, +the solid, but imperceptible stair-way to his summit of knowledges, so +that men shall tread its utmost floors without knowing what heights +they are--even as they tread great nature's own solidities, without +inquiring her secret. + +The shrewd unlearned man of practice shall take that great book of +nature, that illustrated digest of it, on his knees, to while away his +idle hours with, in rich pastime, and smile to see there, all written +out, that which he faintly knew, and never knew that he knew before; +he will find there in sharp points, in accumulations, and percussions, +that which his own experience has at length wearily, dimly, worked and +worn into him. It is his own experience, exalted indeed, and +glorified, but it is that which beckons him on to that which is yet +beyond it; he shall read on, and smile, and laugh, and weep, and +wonder at the power; but never dream that it is science, the new +science--the science of nature--the product of the new organum of it +applied to _human_ nature, and _human_ life. The abstract statement of +that which the concrete exhibition veils, is indeed always there, +though it lie never so close, in never so snug a corner; but it is +there so artistically environed, that the reader who is not ready for +it, who has not learned to disengage the principle from the instance, +who has had no hint of an _illustrated tradition_ in it, will never +see it; or if he sees it, he will think it is there by accident, or +inspiration, and pass on. + +Here, in this open treatise upon the art of delivering and teaching of +knowledge, the author lays down, in the most impressive terms, the +necessity of a style which shall serve as a _veil_ of tradition, +imperceptible or impenetrable to the uninitiated, and admitting 'only +such as have by the help of a master, attained to the interpretation +of dark sayings, or are able by their own genius to enter within the +veil'; and after having distributed under many heads, the secret of +this method of scientific communication, he asserts distinctly that +there is no other mode of dealing with the popular belief and +preconception, but the one just described--that same method which the +teachers of the people have always instinctively adopted, whenever +that which was new and contrary to the received doctrines, was to be +communicated. 'For a man of judgment,' he says, 'must, of course, +perceive, that there should be a difference in the teaching and +delivery of knowledge, according to the _presuppositions, which he +finds infused and impressed upon the mind of the learner_. For _that +which is new and foreign from opinions received_, is to be delivered +in ANOTHER FORM, from that which is _agreeable and familiar_. And, +therefore, Aristotle, when he says to Democritus, "if we shall indeed +_dispute_ and _not_ follow after _similitudes_," as if he would tax +Democritus with being too full of _comparisons_, where he thought to +reprove, really commended him.' There is no use in disputing in such a +case, he thinks. 'For those whose doctrines are already _seated_ in +popular opinion, have only to dispute or prove; but those whose +doctrines are beyond the popular opinions, have a _double labour_; the +one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and +demonstrate; so that it is of _necessity with them to have recourse to +similitudes_ AND TRANSLATIONS _to express themselves_. And, therefore, +in the _infancy of learning_, and in rude times, when those +conceptions which are now trivial, were then new, _the world was full +of parables and similitudes_, for else would men either have passed +over _without mark, or else_ REJECTED FOR PARADOXES, that which was +offered _before they had understood or judged_. So in divine learning, +we see how frequent parables and tropes are, for it _is a rule in the +doctrine of delivery, that every science_ which is _not consonant with +presuppositions and prejudices_, must pray in aid of _similes_ and +_allusions_.' + +The true master of the art of teaching will vary his method too, he +tells us according to the _subject_ which he handles,--and the reader +should note particularly the illustration of this position, the +instance of this general necessity, which the author selects for the +sake of pointing his meaning here, for it is here--precisely +here--that we begin to touch the heart of that new method which the +new science itself prescribed,--'the true teacher will vary his method +according to the subject which he handles,' for there is a great +difference in the delivery of _mathematics_, which are the most +abstracted of sciences, and POLICY, which is the _most immersed_, and +the opinion that 'uniformity of method, in multiformity of matter, is +necessary,' has proved very hurtful to learning, for it tends to +reduce learning to certain _empty_ and _barren_--note it,--_barren_-- +'generalities;'--(so important is the method as _that_; that it makes +the difference between the fruitful and the barren, between the old +and the new) 'being but the very _husks_ and _shells_ of sciences, +all the _kernel_ being forced out and expressed with the torture and +press of the method; and, _therefore_, as I did allow well of +_particular topics_ for invention'--_therefore_--his science requires +him to go into particulars, and as the necessary consequence of that, +it requires freedom--_'therefore'_--as I did allow well of particular +_topics of invention, 'so_ do I allow likewise of _particular methods +of tradition_.' Elsewhere,--in his Novum Organum--he quotes the +scientific outlines and divisions of this very book, he quotes the +very draught and outline of the new human science, which is the +principal thing in it, and tells us plainly that he is perfectly aware +that those new divisions, those essential differences, those true and +radical forms in nature, which he has introduced here, in his doctrine +of _human_ nature, will have no practical effect at all, as they are +exhibited _here_; because they _are_ exhibited in this method which he +is here criticising, that is, in empty and barren abstractions,-- +because it was impossible for him to produce here anything but the +_husks_ and _shells_ of that principal science, all the kernel being +forced out and expulsed with the torture and press of the method. +But, at the same time, he gives us to understand, that these same +shells and husks may be found in another place, with the kernels and +_nuts_ in them, and that he has not taken so much pains to let us see +in so many places, what new forms of delivery the new philosophy will +require, merely for the sake of letting us see, at the same time, that +when it came to _practice_, he himself stood by the old ones, and +contented himself with barren abstractions, and generalities, the +husks and shells of sciences, instead of aiming at particulars, and +availing himself of these '_particular methods of tradition_.' + +He takes also this occasion to recommend a method which was found +extremely serviceable at that time; namely, the method of teaching by +aphorism, 'without any _show_ of an art or method; not merely because +it tries the author, since aphorisms being made out of the _pith_ and +_heart_ of sciences, _no man can write them who is not sound and +grounded_,' who has not a system with its trunk and root, though he +makes no show of it, but buries it and shows you here and there the +points on the surface that are apt to look as if they had some +underlying connection--not only because it tries the author, _but +because they point to action_; for particulars being dispersed, do +best agree with dispersed directions; and, moreover, aphorisms +representing a BROKEN KNOWLEDGE, invite men _to inquire farther_, +whereas methods, _carrying the show of a total_, do secure men as _if +they were at farthest_, and it is the _advancement_ of learning that +he is proposing. + +He suggests again, distinctly here, the rule he so often claims he has +himself put in practice, elsewhere, that the use of CONFUTATION in the +delivery of science, ought to be very sparing; and to serve to remove +strong _preoccupations_ and _prejudgments_, and not to minister and +excite disputations and doubts. For he says in another place, 'As +Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for +Naples, that they came with _chalk_ in their hands, _to mark up their +lodgings_, and not with _weapons to fight_, so _I_ like better that +entry of truth which cometh peaceably, with chalk to mark up those +minds, which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which +cometh with pugnacity and contention.' + +He alludes here too, in passing, to some other distinctions of method, +which are already received, that of ANALYSIS and _synthesis_, or +CONSTITUTION, that of _concealment_, or CRYPTIC, which he says 'he +allows well of, though he has himself stood upon those which are least +handled and observed.' He brings out his doctrine of the necessity of +a method which shall include _particulars_ for _practical_ purposes +also, under another head: here it is the limit of _rules_,--the +propositions or precepts of _arts_ that he speaks of, and the _degree_ +of particularity which these precepts ought to descend to. 'For every +knowledge,' he says, 'may be fitly said to have a latitude and +longitude, accounting the latitude towards _other sciences_' (for +there are rules and propositions of such latitude as to include all +arts, all sciences)--'and the longitude towards action, that is, from +the greatest generality, to the most particular precept: and as to the +degree of particularity to which a knowledge should descend,' though +something must, of course, be left in all departments to the +discretion of the practitioner, he thinks it is a question which will +bear looking into in a general way; and that it might be possible to +have rules in all departments, which would limit very much the +necessity of individual experiment, and not leave us so much at the +mercy of individual discretion in the most serious matters. +Philosophy, as he finds it, does not appear to be very helpful to +practice, on account of its keeping to those general propositions, so +much, as well as on some other accounts, and has fallen into bad +repute, it seems, among men who find it necessary to make, without +science, as they best can, rules of some sort;--rules that are capable +of dealing with that quality in particulars which is apt to be called +_obstinacy_ in this aspect of it. 'For we see remote and superficial +generalities do but offer knowledge to scorn of practical men, and are +no more aiding to practice, than an Ortelius's _universal map_ is to +direct the way between London and York.' And what is this itself but a +universal map, this map of the advancement of learning? + +All this doctrine of the tradition of sciences, he produces under the +head of the _method_ of their tradition, but in speaking of the +_organ_ of it, he treats it _exclusively_ as the medium of tradition +for _those sciences which require_ CONCEALMENT, or admit only of a +suggestive exhibition. And as he makes, too, the claim that he has +himself given practical proof, in passing, of his proficiency in this +art, and appeals to the skilful for the truth of this statement, the +passage, at least, in which this assertion is made, will be likely to +repay the inquiry which it invites. + +He begins by drawing our attention to the fact, that words are not the +only representatives of things, and he says 'this is not an +inconsiderable thing, _for while we are treating of the coin of +intellectual_ matters, _it is_ pertinent to observe, that as money may +be made of other materials besides gold and silver, so other marks of +things may be invented besides words and letters.' And by way of +illustrating the advantages of such a means of tradition, under +certain disadvantages of position, he adduces as much in point, the +case of Periander, who being consulted how to preserve a tyranny +_newly usurped_, bid the messenger _attend_ and _report what he saw +him do_, and went into his garden and _topped all the highest +flowers_; signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping +low of the nobility and grandees. And thus other apparently trivial, +purely purposeless and sportive actions, might have a traditionary +character of no small consequence, if the messenger were only given to +understand beforehand, that the acts thus performed were axiomatical, +pointing to rules of practice, that the forms were representative +forms, whose '_real_' exhibition of the particular natures in +question, was much more vivid and effective, much more memorable as +well as _safe_, than any abstract statement of that philosophic truth, +which is the truth of direction, could be. + +As to the '_accidents_ of words, which are measure, sound, and +elevation of accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them,' even +here the new science suggests a new rule, which is not without a +remarkable relation to _that 'particular method of tradition_,' which +the author tells us in another place, some parts of his new science +required. 'This subject,' he says, 'involves some curious observations +in rhetoric, but chiefly POESY, as we consider it in respect of the +verse, and _not of the argument_; wherein, though men in learned +tongues do tie themselves to _the ancient measures_, yet in modern +languages it seemeth to me as free to make _new measures of verses as +of dances_.' The spirit of the new philosophy had a chance to speak +out there for once, without intending, of course, to transcend that +particular limit just laid down, namely, the measure of _verses_, and +with that literal limitation, to the form of the verse, the remark is +sufficiently suggestive; for he brings out from it at the next step, +in the way of formula, the new principle, the new Shaksperian +principle of rhetoric: _In these things_ the sense is better judge +than the art. And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and +an unfit subject, it is well said:--'_Quod tempore antiquum videtur, +id incongruitate est maxime novum_.'' + +But when he comes to speak specifically of _writing_ as a means of +tradition, he confines his remarks to that particular kind of writing, +which is agreed on betwixt particular persons, and called by the name +of _cipher_, giving excellent reasons for this proceeding, impertinent +as it may seem, to those who think that his only object is to make out +a list and 'muster-roll of the arts and sciences';--stopping to tell +us plainly that he knows what he is about, and that he has not brought +in '_these private and retired arts_,' with so much stress, and under +so many heads, in connection with 'the principal and supreme +sciences,' and _the mode of their tradition_, without having some +occasion for it. + +'Ciphers are commonly in letters, or alphabets, but _may be_ in +words,' he says, proceeding to enumerate the different kinds, and +furnishing on the spot, some pretty specimens of what may be done in +the way of that kind which he calls 'doubles,' a kind which he is +particularly fond of; one hears again the echo of those delicate, +collateral sounds, which our friend, over the mountains, warned us of, +declining to say any more about them in that place. In the later +edition, he takes occasion to say, in this connection, 'that as +writing in the received manner no way obstructs the _manner of +pronunciation_, but leaves that _free_, an innovation in it is of no +purpose.' And if a cipher be the proper name for a private method of +writing, agreed on betwixt particular persons, it is certainly the +name for the method which he proposes to adopt in _his_ tradition of +the principal sciences; as he takes occasion to inform those whom it +may concern, in an early portion of the work, and when he is occupied +in the critical task of putting down some of the primary terms. 'I +doubt not,' he says, by way of explanation, 'but it will easily appear +to men of judgment, that in _this_ and _other particulars_, +wheresoever _my conception and notion may differ from the ancient, I +am studious to keep the ancient terms_.' Surely there is no want of +frankness here, so far as the men of judgment are concerned at least. +And after condemning those innovators who have taken a different +course, he says again, 'But to me on the other side that do desire as +much as lieth in _my pen_, to ground a sociable intercourse between +antiquity and _proficience_, it seemeth best to keep way with +antiquity _usque ad aras_; and therefore to _retain the ancient_ +TERMS, though I sometimes alter the _uses and definitions_, according +to the moderate proceeding in civil government, where, although there +be some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus _wisely_ noteth +'eadem magistratuum vocabula.' Surely that is plain enough, especially +if one has time to take into account the force and historic reach of +that last illustration, 'eadem magistratuum vocabula.' + +In the later and enlarged edition of his work, he lays much stress +upon the point that the cipher 'should be free from suspicion,' for he +says, 'if a letter should come into the hands of such as have a power +over the writer or receiver, though the cipher itself be trusty and +impossible to decipher, it is still subject to _examination_ and +_question_, and (as he says himself), 'to _avoid all suspicion_,' he +introduces there a cipher in _letters_, which he invented in his youth +in Paris, 'having the highest perfection of a cipher, that of +signifying _omnia per omnia_;' and for the same reason perhaps, that +of 'avoiding all suspicion,' he quite omits there that very remarkable +passage in the earlier work, in which he treats it as a medium of +_tradition_, and takes pains to intimate his reasons for producing it +in that connection, _with the principal and supreme sciences_. If it +was, indeed, any object with him to avoid suspicion, and recent +disclosures had then, perhaps, tended to sharpen somewhat the +contemporary criticism; he _did well_, unquestionably, to omit that +passage. But at the time when _that_ was written, he appears to be +chiefly inclined to notice the remarkable facilities, which this style +offers to an inventive genius. For he says, 'in regard of the rawness +and unskilfulness of _the hands through which they pass_, the greatest +matters, are sometimes carried in the _weakest ciphers_.' And that +there may be no difficulty or mistake as to the reading of that +passage, he immediately adds, 'In the enumeration of these private and +retired arts, it may be thought I _seek to make a great muster-roll of +sciences_, naming them for _show_ and _ostentation_, and _to little +other purpose_. But'--note it--'But, let those which are _skilful in +them judge, whether I bring them in only for appearance_, or whether, +in that which I speak of them, though in few words, there be not _some +seed of proficience_. And this must be remembered, that as there be +many of great account in their countries and provinces, which, when +they come up to the _seat of the estate_, are but of mean rank, and +scarcely regarded; so these arts, ("these private and retired arts,") +being here placed _with the principal and supreme sciences, seem_ +petty things, YET TO SUCH AS HAVE CHOSEN THEM TO SPEND THEIR LABOURS +AND STUDIES IN THEM, THEY SEEM GREAT MATTERS. ("Let those which are +skilful in them, judge (after that) whether I bring them in only for +appearance" or to _little_ other purpose).' + +That apology would seem sufficient, but we must know what these +labours and studies are, before we can perceive the _depth_ of it. And +if we have the patience to follow him but a step or two further, we +shall find ourselves in the way of some very direct and accurate +information, as to that. For we are coming now, in the order of the +work we quote from, to that very part, which contains the point of all +these labours and studies, the _end_ of them,--that part to which the +science of nature in general, and the secret of this art of tradition, +was a necessary _introduction_. [For this Art of Tradition makes the +link between the new Logic and the application of it to _Human_ Nature +and Human Life.] + +Thus far, this art has been treated as a means of simply +_transferring_ knowledge, in such forms as the conditions of the +Advancement of Learning prescribe,--forms adapted to the different +stages of mental advancement, commencing with the lowest range of the +common opinion in his time,--starting with the contemporary opinions +of the majority, and reserving 'the secrets of knowledge,' for such as +are able to receive them. Thus far, it is the Method, and the Organ of +the tradition of which he has spoken. But it is when he comes to speak +of what he calls the _Illustration_ of it, that the convergency of his +design begins to be laid open to us, for this work is not what it may +seem on the surface, as he takes pains to intimate to us--a 'mere +muster-roll of sciences.' + +It is when he comes to tell us that he will have his 'truth in beauty +dyed,' that he does not propose to have the new learning left in the +form of argument and logic, or in the form of bare scientific fact, +that he does not mean to appeal with it to the _reason_ only; that he +will have it in a form in which it will be able to attract and allure +men, and make them in love with it, a form in which it will be able to +force its way into the will and the affections, and make a lodgement +in the hearts of men, long ere it is able to reach the judgment;--it +is not till he begins to bring out here, his new doctrine of the true +end of rhetoric, and the use to which it ought to be put in +subordination to science, that we begin to perceive the significance +of the arrangement which brings this theory of an Illustrated Art of +Tradition into immediate connection with the new science of human +nature and human life which the Author is about to constitute,--so as +to serve as an introduction to it--the arrangement which interposes +this art of Tradition, between the New Logic and its application to +Human Nature and Human Life--to POLICY and MORALITY. + +He will not consent to have this so _powerful_ engine of popular +influence, which the ćsthetic art seems, to his eye, to offer, left +out, in his scheme of scientific instrumentalities: he will not pass +it by scornfully, as some other philosophers have done, treating it +merely as a voluptuary art. He will have of it, something which shall +differ, not in degree only, but in kind, from the art of the +confectioner. + +He begins by stating frankly his reasons for making so much of it in +this grave treatise, which is what it professes to be, a treatise on +Learning and its Advancement. 'For although,' he says, 'in true value, +it is inferior to _wisdom_, as it is said by God to Moses, when he +disabled himself for want of this faculty, "Aaron shall be thy +_speaker_, and thou shalt be to him as God;" _yet with people_ it is +the more _mighty_, and it is just that which is mighty with the +people--which he tells us in another place--is wanting. "For this +people who knoweth not _the law_ are cursed."' But here he continues, +'for so Solomon saith, "Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens, sed dulcis +eloquio majora reperiet;" signifying that profoundness of wisdom will +help a man to a name or admiration,'--(it is something more than that +which he is proposing as _his_ end)--'but that it is eloquence--which +prevails in _active life_;' so that the very movement which brought +philosophy down to earth, and put her upon reforming the practical +life of men, was the movement which led her to assume, not +instinctively, only, but by theory, and on principle, this new and +beautiful apparel, this deep disguise of pleasure. She comes into the +court with her case, and claims that this Art, which has been treated +hitherto as if it had some independent rights and laws of its own, is +properly a subordinate of hers; a chattel gone astray, and setting up +for itself as an art voluptuary. + +Works on rhetorics are not wanting, the author reports. Antiquity has +laboured much in this field. Notwithstanding, he says, there is +something to be done here too, and the Elizabethan ćsthetics must be +begun also in the _prima philosophia_. 'Notwithstanding,' he +continues, 'to stir the earth a little about the _roots_ of this +science, as we have done of the rest; the duty and office of Rhetoric +is to apply _reason to imagination for the better moving of_ THE WILL; +for we see reason is disturbed in the administration of the will by +three means; by sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or +impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or affection, +which pertains to morality.' So in this negotiation within ourselves, +men are _undermined_ by inconsequences, _solicited and importuned_ by +impressions and observations, and _transported_ by _passions_. Neither +is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as that these _powers and +arts_ should have force to _disturb_ reason and not to _establish_ and +_advance_ it. For the end of logic is to teach a form of logic to +secure reason, not to entrap it. The end of morality is to procure the +affections to obey reason, and not to invade it. The _end_ of rhetoric +is to _fill the imagination_ to second reason, and not to _oppress_ +it. For these abuses of arts come in but _ex obliquo_ for caution. + +That is the real original English doctrine of Art:--that is the +doctrine of the age of Elizabeth, at least, as it stands in that +queen's English, and though it may be very far from being orthodox at +present, it is the doctrine which must determine the rule of any +successful interpretation of works of art composed on that theory. +'And, therefore,' he proceeds to say, 'it was great injustice in +Plato, though springing out of a just hatred of the rhetoricians of +his time, to esteem of rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it +to cookery that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome, by +variety of sauces _to the pleasure of the taste_.' 'And therefore, as +Plato said eloquently, "That virtue, if she could be seen, would move +great love and affection, so, seeing that she cannot be showed to the +sense by corporal shape, the next degree is to show her to the +imagination _in lively representation_": _for_ to show her to _reason +only_, in _subtilty of argument_ was a thing ever derided +in--_Chrysippus and many of the Stoics--who thought to thrust virtue +upon men_ by _sharp disputations and conclusions, which have no +sympathy with the will of man_.' + +'Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to +reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and +injunctions to the will, more than of _naked propositions and proofs;_ +but in regard of the continual mutinies and seditions of the +affections, + + Video meliora proboque + Deteriora sequor; + +'Reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions +did not practise and win the imagination from the affections part, and +contract a confederacy between the reason and the imagination, against +the affections; for _the affections themselves_ carry ever an appetite +to _good_, as reason doth. _The difference is_'--mark it--'the +difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely _the present; +reason_ beholdeth the future and _sum_ of time. And therefore the +present _filling the imagination most_, reason is commonly vanquished; +but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made things +future and remote, _appear as present_, then, _upon the revolt of the +imagination reason prevaileth_.' Not less important than that is this +art in his scheme of learning. No wonder that the department of +learning which he refers to the imagination should take that prime +place in his grand division of it, and be preferred deliberately and +on principle to the two others. + +'Logic differeth from Rhetoric chiefly in this, that logic handleth +reason exact and in truth, and rhetoric handleth it as it is planted +in popular opinions and manners. And therefore _Aristotle_ doth +_wisely_ place rhetoric as between logic on the one side, and moral or +civil knowledge on the other, (and when we come to put together the +works of this author, we shall find that _that_ and none other is the +place it takes in _his_ system, that that is just the bridge it makes +in his plan of operations.)' The proofs and demonstrations of logic +_are towards all men indifferent and the same_: but the proofs and +persuasions of rhetoric _ought to differ according to the auditors_. + + Orpheus in sylvis inter delphinas Arion. + +Which application, in perfection of idea, ought to extend so far, that +if a man should speak of _the same thing to several persons_, he +should speak to them _all respectively, and several ways_; and there +was a great folio written on this plan which came out in those days +dedicated 'to the Great Variety of Readers. From the most able to him +that can but spell'; (this is just the doctrine, too, which the +Continental philosopher sets forth we see);--though this '_politic_ +part of eloquence in private speech,' he goes on to say here, 'it is +easy for the greatest orators _to want; whilst by observing their well +graced forms of speech, they lose the volubility_ of APPLICATION; and +_therefore_ it shall not be _amiss_ to recommend this _to better +inquiry_, not being curious whether we place it here, or in that part +which concerneth _policy._' + +Certainly one would not be apt to infer from that decided preference +which the author himself manifests here for those stately and +well-graced forms of speech, judging _merely_ from the style of this +performance at least, one would not be inclined to suspect that he +himself had ever been concerned in any literary enterprises, or was +like to be, in which that _volubility_ of application which he appears +to think desirable, was successfully put in practice. But we must +remember, that he was just the man who was capable of conceiving of a +_variety_ of _styles adapted to different exigencies_, if we would +have the key to this style in particular. + +But we must look a little at these labours and studies themselves, +which required such elaborate and splendid arts of delivery, if we +would fully satisfy ourselves, as to whether this author really had +any purpose after all in bringing them in here beyond that of mere +ostentation, and for the sake of completing his muster-roll of the +sciences. Above, we see an intimation, that the divisions of the +subject are, after all, not so 'curious' but that the inquiry might +possibly be resumed again in other connections, and in the particular +connection specified, namely, in that part which concerneth _Policy_. + +In that which follows, the new science of human nature and human +life--which is the end and term of this treatise, we are told--is +brought out under the two heads of Morality and Policy; and it is +necessary to look into _both_ these departments in order to find what +application he was proposing to make of this art and science of +Tradition and Delivery, and in order to see what place--what vital +place it occupied in his system. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE SCIENCE OF POLICY. + + + 'Policy is the most immersed.'--_Advancement of Learning_. + +Reversing the philosophic order, we glance first into that new +department of science which the author is here boldly undertaking to +constitute under the above name, because in this his own practical +designs, and rules of proceeding, are more clearly laid open, and the +place which is assigned in his system to that radical science, for +which these arts of Delivery and Tradition are chiefly wanting, is +distinctly pointed out. + +And, moreover, in this department of Policy itself, in marking out one +of the grand divisions of it, we find him particularly noticing, and +openly insisting on, the form of delivery and inculcation which the +new science must take here, that is, if it is going to be at all +available as a science of practice. + +In this so-called plan for the advancement of learning, the author +proceeds, as we all know, by noticing _the deficiencies_ in human +learning as he finds it; and everywhere it is that radical deficiency, +which leaves human life and human conduct in the dark, while the +philosophers are busied with their controversies and wordy +speculations. And in that part of his inventory where he puts down as +wanting a science of practice in those every-day affairs and +incidents, in which the life of man is most conversant, embodying +axioms of practice that shall save men the wretched mistakes and +blunders of which the individual life is so largely made up; blunders +which are inevitable, so long as men are left here, to natural human +ignorance, to uncollected individual experience, or to the shrewdest +empiricism;--in this so original and interesting part of the work, he +takes pains to tell us at length, that that which he has before put +down under the head of '_delivery_' as a point of form and method, +becomes here essential as a point of substance also. It is not merely +that he will have his axioms and precepts of direction digested from +the facts, instead of being made out of the teacher's own brains, but +he will have THE FACTS themselves, in all their stubbornness and +opposition to the teacher's preconceptions, for the body of the +discourse, and the precepts accommodated thereto, instead of having +the precepts for the body of the discourse, and the facts brought in +to wait upon them. That is the form of the practical doctrine. + +He regrets that this part of a true learning has not been collected +hitherto into writing, to the great derogation of learning, and the +professors of learning; for from this proceeds the popular opinion +which has passed into an adage, that there is no great concurrence +between wisdom and learning. The deficiency here is well nigh total he +says: 'but for the wisdom of business, wherein man's life is most +conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered +advertisements, that have no proportion to the _magnitude of the +subject_. For if books were written of this, as of the other, I doubt +not but _learned men_ with _mean experience_ would far excel men of +_long experience without learning_, and _outshoot them with their own +bow_. Neither need it be thought that this knowledge is too variable +to fall under precept,' he says; and he mentions the fact, that in old +Rome, so renowned for practical ability, in its wisest and saddest +times, there were professors of this learning, that were known for +GENERAL WISE MEN, who used to walk at certain hours in the place, and +give _advice_ to private citizens, who came to consult with them of +the _marriage_ of _a daughter_, for instance, or the _employing_ of _a +son_, or of _an accusation_, or of a _purchase or bargain_, and _every +other occasion incident to man's life_. There is a pretty scheme laid +out truly. Have _we_ any general wise man, or ghost of one, who walks +up and down at certain hours and gives advice on such topics? However +that may be, this philosopher does not despair of such a science. +'So,' he says, commenting on that Roman custom, 'there is a wisdom of +council and advice, even in private cases, arising out of a universal +_insight into the affairs_ of _the world_, which is _used_ indeed upon +_particular cases propounded_, but is gathered by general +_observation_ of _cases_ of _like nature_.' And fortifying himself +with the example of Solomon, after collecting a string of texts from +the Sacred Proverbs, he adds, 'though they are capable, of course, of +a more divine interpretation, taking them as instructions for life, +they might have received large discourse, if he would have _broken +them_ and _illustrated them_, by deducements and examples. Nor was +this in use with the Hebrews only, but it is generally to be found in +the wisdom of the more ancient times, that as men found out any +observation that they thought was _good for life_, they would gather +it, and express it in _parable_, or _aphorism_, or _fable_.' + +But for _fables_, they were vicegerents and supplies, _where examples +failed_. Now that the times abound with history, THE AIM IS BETTER +WHEN THE MARK IS ALIVE. And, therefore, he recommends as the form of +writing, 'which is of all others fittest for this variable argument, +discourses upon histories and examples: for knowledge drawn freshly, +_and in our view_, out of particulars, _knoweth the way best to +particulars again_; and it hath much greater life _for practice_, when +_the discourse attendeth upon the example_, than when the example +attendeth upon the discourse. For this is no point of order as it +seemeth at first' (indeed it is not, it is a point as substantial as +the difference between the old learning of the world and the +new)--'this is no point of order, but of substance. For when the +example is the _ground_ being set down in a history at large, it is +set down with all circumstances, which may _sometimes control_ the +discourse thereupon made, and sometimes supply it as _a very pattern +for action_; whereas the examples which are alleged _for the +discourse's sake_, are cited succinctly and without _particularity_, +and carry a _servile aspect_ towards the discourse which they are +brought in to make good.' + +The question of method is here, as we see, incidentally introduced; +but it is to be noted, and it makes one of the rules for the +interpretation of that particular kind of style which is under +consideration, that in this casual and secondary introduction of a +subject, we often get shrewder hints of the author's real intention +than we do in those parts of the work where it is openly and +distinctly treated; at least, these scattered and apparently +accidental hints,--these dispersed directions, often contain the key +for the 'second' reading, which he openly bespeaks for the more open +and elaborate discussion. + +And thus we are able to collect, from every part of this proposal for +a practical and progressive human learning, based on the defects of +the unpractical and stationary learning which the world has hitherto +been contented with, the author's opinion as to the form of delivery +and inculcation best adapted to effect the proposed object under the +given conditions. This question of form runs naturally through the +whole work, and comes out in specifications of a very particular and +significant kind under some of its divisions, as we shall see. But +everywhere we find the point insisted on, which we have just seen so +clearly brought out, in the department which was to contain the axioms +of success in private life. Whatever the particular form may be, +everywhere we come upon this general rule. Whatever the particular +form may be, everywhere it is to be one in which the facts shall have +the precedence, and the conclusions shall follow; and not one in which +the conclusions stand first, and the facts are brought in to make them +good. And this very circumstance is enough of itself to show that the +form of this new doctrine will be thus far new, as new as the doctrine +itself; that the new learning will be found in some form very +different, at least, from that which the philosophers and professed +teachers were then making use of in their didactic discourses, in some +form so much more lively than that, and so much less oracular, that it +would, perhaps, appear at first, to those accustomed only to the +other, not to be any kind of learning at all, but something very +different from that. + +But this is not the only point in the general doctrine of delivery +which we find produced again in its specific applications. Through all +the divisions of this discourse on Learning, and not in that part of +it only in which the Art of its Tradition is openly treated, we find +that the prescribed form of it is one which will adapt it to the +popular preconceptions; and that it must be a form which will make it +not only universally acceptable, but universally attractive; that it +is not only a form which will throw open the gates of the new school +to all comers, but one that will bring in mankind to its benches. Not +under the head of Method only, or under the head of Delivery and +Tradition, but in those parts of the work in which the substance of +the new learning is treated, we find dispersed intimations and +positive assertions, that the form of it is, at the same time, popular +and enigmatical,--not openly philosophical, and not 'magisterial,'-- +but insensibly didactic; and that it is, in its principal and +higher departments--in those departments on which this plan for +the human relief concentrates its forces--essentially POETICAL. That +is what we find in the body of the work; and the author repeats +in detail what he has before made a point of telling us, in general, +under this head of Delivery and Tradition of knowledge, that he +sees no reason why that same instrument, which is so powerful for +delusion and error, should not be restored to its true uses as an +instrument of the human advancement, and a vehicle, though a veiled +_one_--a beautiful and universally-welcome vehicle--for bringing in on +this Globe Theatre the knowledges that men are most in need of. + +The doctrine which is to be conveyed in this so subtle and artistic +manner is none other than the Doctrine of Human Nature and Human Life, +or, as this author describes it here, the Scientific Doctrine of +MORALITY and POLICY. It is that new doctrine of human nature and human +life which the science of nature in general creates. It is the light +which universal science, collected from the continent of nature, gives +to that insular portion of it 'which is the end and term of natural +philosophy in the intention of man.' Under these heads of _Morality_ +and _Policy_, the whole subject is treated here. But to return to the +latter. + +The question of Civil Government is, in the light of this science, a +very difficult one; and this philosopher, like the one we have already +quoted on this subject, is disposed to look with much suspicion on +propositions for violent and sudden renovations in the state, and +immediate abolitions and cures of social evil. He too takes a +naturalist's estimate of those larger wholes, and their virtues, and +faculties of resistance. + +'Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject,' he says, 'which is, +of all others, _most immersed in matter_, and hardliest reduced to +axiom. _Nevertheless_, as Cato, the censor, said, "that the Romans +were like sheep, for that a man might better drive a flock of them +than one of them, for, in a flock, if you could get SOME FEW to go +right, the rest would follow;" _so_ in that respect, MORAL PHILOSOPHY +_is more difficult than policy_. Again, moral philosophy propoundeth +to itself the framing of _internal_ goodness, but civil knowledge +requireth only an _external_ goodness, for that, as to society, +sufficeth. Again, States, as great engines, move slowly, _and are not +so soon put out of frame_;' (that is what our foreign statist thought +also) 'for, as in Egypt the seven good years sustained the seven bad, +so governments for a time, well grounded, do bear out errors +following. But _the resolution of particular persons_ is _more +suddenly subverted. These respects do somewhat qualify the extreme +difficulty of civil knowledge_.' + +This is the point of attack, then,--this is the point of scientific +attack,--the resolution of particular persons. He has showed us where +the extreme difficulty of this subject appears to lie in his mind, and +he has quietly pointed, at the same time, to that place of resistance +in the structure of the state, which is the key to the whole position. +He has marked the spot exactly where he intends to commence his +political operations. For he has discovered a point there, which +admits of being operated on, by such engines as a feeble man like him, +or a few such together, perhaps, may command. It is the new science +that they are going to converge on that point precisely, namely the +resolution of particular persons. It is the _novum organum_ that this +one is bringing up, in all its finish, for the assault of that +particular quarter. Hard as that old wall is, great as the faculty of +conservation is in these old structures that hold by time, there is +one element running all through it, these chemists find, which _is_ +within their power, namely, the resolution of particular persons. It +is the science of the conformation of the parts, it is the +constitutional structure of the human nature, which, in its scientific +development, makes men, naturally, members of communities, beautiful +and felicitous parts of states,--it is that which the man of science +will _begin_ with. If you will let him have that part of the field to +work in undisturbed, he will agree not to meddle with the state. And +beside those general reasons, already quoted, which tend to prevent +him from urging the immediate application of his science to this +'larger whole,' for its wholesale relief and cure, he ventures upon +some specifications and particulars, when he comes to treat distinctly +of government itself, and assign to it its place in his new science of +affairs. If one were to judge by the space he has openly given it on +his paper in this plan for the human advancement and relief, one would +infer that it must be a very small matter in his estimate of agencies; +but looking a little more closely, we find that it is not that at all +in his esteem, that it is anything but a matter of little consequence. +It was enough for him, at such a time, to be allowed to put down the +fact that the art of it was properly scientific, and included in his +plan, and to indicate the kind of science that is wanting to it; for +the rest, he gives us to understand that he has himself fallen on such +felicitous times, and finds that affair in the hands of a person so +extremely learned in it, that there is really nothing to be said. And +being thrown into this state of speechless reverence and admiration, +he considers that the most meritorious thing he can do, is to pass to +the other parts of his discourse with as little delay as possible. + +It is a very short paragraph indeed for so long a subject; but, short +as it is, it is not less pithy, and it contains reasons why it should +not be longer, and why that new torch of science which he is bringing +in upon the human affairs generally, cannot be permitted to enter that +department of them in his time. 'The first is, that it is a part of +knowledge secret and retired in _both_ those respects in which things +are deemed secret; for some things are secret because they are hard to +know, and _some_ because they are not fit to utter. Again, the wisdom +of _antiquity_, the _shadows whereof are in the Poets_, in the +description of torments and pains, _next unto the crime of rebellion_, +which was the _giants_ offence, doth detest _the crime of futility_, +as in Sisyphus and Tantalus. But this was meant of _particulars_. +Nevertheless, _even unto the general rules and discourses_ of policy +and government, [it extends; for even here] there is due a _reverent_ +handling.' And after having briefly indicated the comprehension 'of +this science,' and shown that it is the thing he is treating under +other heads, he concludes, 'but considering that _I write to a king_ +who is a _master_ of it, and is _so well assisted_, I think it decent +to pass over _this part_ in silence, as willing to obtain the +certificate which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto; who +being silent when others contended to make demonstration of their +abilities by speech, desired it might be certified for _his part_ that +there was one that knew how to hold his peace.' + +And having thus distinctly cleared himself of any suspicion of a +disposition to introduce scientific inquiry and innovation into +departments not then open to a procedure of that sort, his proposal +for an advancement of learning in other quarters was, of course, less +liable to criticism. But even that part of the subject to which he +limits himself involves, as we shall see, an incidental reference to +this, from which he here so modestly retires, and affords no +inconsiderable scope for that genius which was by nature so +irresistibly impelled, in one way or another, to the criticism and +reformation of the larger wholes. He retires from the open assault, +but it is only to go deeper into his subject. He is constituting the +science of that from which the state proceeds. He is analyzing the +state, and searching out in the integral parts of it, that which makes +true _states_ impossible. He has found the revolutionary forces in +their simple forms, and is content to treat them in these. He is +bestowing all his pains upon an art that will develop--on scientific +principles, by simply attending to the natural laws, as they obtain in +the human kind, royalties, and nobilities, and liege-men of all +degrees--an art that will make all kinds of pieces that the structure +of the state requires. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. + +Section I.--THE EXEMPLAR OF GOOD. + + + 'Nature craves + All dues to be rendered to their owners.' + +But this great innovator is busying himself here with drawing up a +report of THE DEFICIENCIES IN LEARNING; and though he is the first to +propose a plan and method by which men shall build up, systematically +and scientifically, a knowledge of _Nature in general_, instead of +throwing themselves altogether upon their own preconceptions and +abstract controversial theories, after all, the principal deficiency +which he has to mark--that to which, even in this dry report, he finds +himself constrained to affix some notes of admiration--this principal +deficiency is THE SCIENCE OF MAN--THE SCIENCE of _human nature_ +itself. And the reason of this deficiency is, that very deficiency +before named; it is that very act of shutting himself up to his own +theories which leaves the thinker without a _science_ of himself. 'For +it is the greatest proof of want of skill, to investigate _the nature_ +of any object in itself alone; and, in general, those very things +which are considered as secret, are manifested and common in other +objects, but will never be clearly seen if the contemplations and +experiments of men be directed _to themselves alone_.' It is this +science of NATURE IN GENERAL which makes the SCIENCE of _Human Nature_ +for the first time possible; and that is the end and term of the new +philosophy,--so the inventor of it tells us. And the moment that he +comes in with that new torch, which he has been out into 'the +continent of nature' to light,--the moment that he comes back with it, +into this old debateable ground of the schools, and begins to apply it +to that element in the human life in which the scientific innovation +appears to be chiefly demanded, 'most of the controversies,' as he +tells us very simply--'most of the controversies, wherein moral +philosophy is conversant, are judged and determined by it.' + +But here is the bold and startling criticism with which he commences +his approach to this subject; here is the ground which he makes at the +first step; this is the ground of his scientific innovation; not less +important than this, is the field which he finds unoccupied. In the +handling of this science he says, (the science of 'the Appetite and +Will of Man'), 'those which have written seem to me to have done as if +a man that _professed to teach to write_ did only exhibit _fair +copies_ of alphabets _and_ letters joined, without giving any precepts +or directions for the carriage of the hand, or the framing of the +letters; so have they made good and fair _exemplars_ and _copies_, +carrying the _draughts_ and _portraitures_ of _good, virtue, duty, +felicity_; propounding them, well described, as the true _objects_ and +_scopes_ of man's will and designs; _but how to attain these excellent +marks_, and _how_ to _frame_ and _subdue_ the _will_ of _man_ to +become _true_ and _conformable_ to _these pursuits_, they _pass it +over altogether_, or slightly and _unprofitably_; for it is not,' he +says, 'certain scattered glances and touches that can excuse the +_absence_ of this _part_ of--SCIENCE. + +'The reason of this omission,' he supposes, 'to be that hidden rock, +whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast +away, which is, that men have despised to be conversant in _ordinary +and common matters_, the _judicious direction whereof, nevertheless_, +is the wisest doctrine; for life consisteth not in novelties nor +_subtleties_, but, _contrariwise_, they have compounded sciences +_chiefly_ of _a certain_ resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, +_chosen to give glory_ either to the _subtlety_ of _disputations_, or +to the _eloquence_ of _discourses_.' But his theory of teaching is, +that 'Doctrine should be such as should make men in love with the +_lesson_, and not with the teacher; being directed to the auditor's +benefit, and not to the author's commendation.' _Neither_ needed men +of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune which the poet +Virgil promised himself, and, indeed, obtained, who got as much glory +of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations +of husbandry _as of the heroical acts of Ćneas_. + + 'Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum + Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorum.' + _Georg_. iii. 289. + +So, then, there is room for a new Virgil, but his theme is +_here_;--one who need not despair, if he be able to bring to his +subject those excellent parts this author speaks of, of getting as +much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the +_observations of this husbandry_, as those have had who have sketched +the ideal forms of the human life, the dream of what should be. The +copies and exemplars of good,--that vision of heaven,--that idea of +felicity, and beauty, and goodness that the human soul brings with it, +like a memory,--those celestial shapes that the thought and heart of +man, by a law in nature, project,--that garden of delights that all +men remember, and yearn for, and aspire to, and will have, in one form +or another, in delicate air patterns, or gross deceiving images,--that +large, intense, ideal good which men desire--that perfection and +felicity, so far above the rude mocking realities which experience +brings them,--that, _that_ has had its poets. No lack of these +exemplars the historian finds, when he comes to make out his report of +the condition of his kind--where he comes to bring in his inventory of +the human estate: when so much is wanting, that good he reports '_not_ +deficient.' Edens in plenty,--gods, and demi-gods, and heroes, _not_ +wanting; the purest abstract notions of virtue and felicity, the most +poetic embodiments of them, are put down among the goods which the +human estate, as it is, comprehends. This part of the subject appears, +to the critical reviewer, to have been exhausted by the poets and +artists that mankind has always employed to supply its wants in this +field. No room for a poet here! The draught of the ideal Eden is +finished;--the divine exemplar is finished; that which is wanting +is,--_the husbandry thereunto_. + +Till now, the philosophers and poetic teachers had always taken their +stand at once, on the topmost peak of Olympus, pouring down volleys of +scorn, and amazement, and reprehension, upon the vulgar nature they +saw beneath, made out of the dust of the ground, and qualified with +the essential attributes of that material,--kindled, indeed, with a +breath of heaven, but made out of clay,--different kinds of +clay,--with more or less of the Promethean spark in it; but always +clay, of one kind or another, and always compelled to listen to the +laws that are common to the kinds of that substance. And it was to +this creature, thus bound by nature, thus _doubly_ bound,--'crawling +between earth and heaven,' as the poet has it,--that these winged +philosophers on the ideal cliffs, thought it enough to issue their +mandates, commanding it to renounce its conditions, to ignore its +laws, and come up thither at a word,--at a leap,--making no ado about +it. + + 'I can call spirits from the vasty deep.' + 'And so can I, and so can any man;' + +Says the new philosopher-- + + 'But will they _come?_ + _Will they come_--when you do call for them?' + +It was simply a command, that this dirty earth should convert itself +straight into Elysian lilies, and bloom out, at a word, with roses of +Paradise. Excellent patterns, celestial exemplars, of the things +required were held up to it; and endless declamation and argument why +it should be that, and not the other, were not wanting:--but as to any +scientific inquiry into the nature of the thing on which this form was +to be superinduced, as to any _scientific_ exhibition of the form +itself which was to be superinduced, these so essential conditions of +the proposed result, were in this case alike wanting. The position +which these reformers occupy, is one so high, that the question of +different kinds of soils, and chemical analyses and experiments, would +not come within their range at all; and 'the resplendent or lustrous +mass of matter,' of which their sciences are compounded, chosen to +give glory either to the subtilty of disputations or to the eloquence +of discourses, would not bear any such vulgar admixture. It would make +a terrible jar in the rhythm, which those large generalizations +naturally flow in, to undertake to introduce into them any such points +of detail. + +And the new teacher will have a mountain too; but it will be one that +'overlooks the vale,' and he will have a rock-cut-stair to its utmost +summit. He is one who will undertake this despised unlustrous matter +of which our ordinary human life consists, and make a science of it, +building up its generalizations from its particulars, and observing +the actual reality,--the thing as it is, freshly, for that purpose; +and not omitting any detail,--the poorest. The poets who had +undertaken this theme before had been so absorbed with the idea of +what man should be, that they could only glance at him as he is: the +idea of a science of him, was not of course, to be thought of. There +was but one name for the creature, indeed, in their vocabulary and +doctrine, and that was one which simply seized and embodied the +general fact, the unquestionable historic fact, that he has not been +able hitherto to attain to his ideal type in nature, or indeed to make +any satisfactory approximation to it. + +But when the Committee of Inquiry sits at last, and the business +begins to assume a systematic form, even the science of that ideal +good, that exemplar and pattern of good, which men have been busy on +so long,--the _science_ of it,--is put down as 'wanting,' and the +_science_ of the _husbandry thereunto_, '_wholly deficient_.' + +And the report is, that this new argument, notwithstanding its +every-day theme, is one that admits of being sung also; and that the +Virgil who is able to compose 'these Georgies of the Mind,' may +promise himself fame, though his end is one that will enable him to +forego it. Let us see if we can find any further track of him and his +great argument, whether in prose or verse;--this poet who cares not +whether he has his 'singing robes' about him or not, so he can express +and put upon record his new 'observations of this husbandry.' + +THE EXEMPLAR OF GOOD.--'And surely,' he continues, 'if the purpose be +in good earnest, _not to write at leisure that which men may read at +leisure_'--note it--that which men may read at leisure--'but really to +_instruct_ and _suborn action and active life_, these GEORGICS of the +MIND, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy +than _the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty_, and _felicity_; +therefore the _main and primitive division_ of MORAL KNOWLEDGE, +seemeth to be into the EXEMPLAR or PLATFORM of GOOD, and THE REGIMEN +or CULTURE OF THE MIND, the one describing the NATURE of GOOD, the +other prescribing RULES _how_ to SUBDUE, APPLY, and ACCOMMODATE THE +WILL OF MAN THEREUNTO.' + +As to '_the nature of good_, positive or simple,' the writers on this +subject have, he says, 'set it down excellently, in describing the +forms of virtue and duty, with their situations, and postures, in +distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and +administrations, and the like: nay, farther, they have commended them +to man's nature and spirit, with great quickness of argument, and +beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them, _as +much as discourse can do_, against corrupt and popular opinions. And +for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have excellently +handled it also.'--That part deserveth to be reported for 'excellently +laboured.' + +What is it that is wanting then? What radical, fatal defect is it that +he finds even in the doctrine of the NATURE OF GOOD? What is the +difficulty with this platform and exemplar of good as he finds it, +notwithstanding the praise he has bestowed on it? The difficulty is, +that it is not scientific. It is not broad enough. It is _special_, it +is limited to the species, but it is not properly, it is not +effectively, specific, because it is not connected with the doctrine +of nature in general. It does not strike to those universal original +principles, those simple powers which determine the actual historic +laws and make the nature of things itself. This is the criticism, +therefore, with which this critic of the learning of the world as he +finds it, is constrained to qualify that commendation. + +_Notwithstanding_, if before they had come to _the popular and +received notions of 'vice'_ and _'virtue,' 'pleasure'_ and _'pain,'_ +and the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry +concerning THE ROOTS of GOOD and EVIL, and the strings to those roots, +they had given, in my opinion, _a great light to that which followed_, +and especially _if they had consulted with nature_, they had made +their doctrines less prolix and more profound, which being by them in +part omitted, and in part handled with much confusion, we will +endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner. Here then, is the +preparation of the Platform or Exemplar of Good, the scientific +platform of virtue and felicity; going behind the popular notion of +vice and virtue, pain and pleasure, and the like, he strikes at once +to the nature of good, as it is 'formed in everything,' for the +foundation of this specific science. He lays the beams of it, in the +axioms and definitions of his '_prima philosophia_' 'which do not fall +within the compass of the special parts of science, but are more +common and of a higher stage, for the distributions and partitions of +knowledge are _not_ like several lines that meet in one angle, and so +touch but in a point, but are like _branches of a tree that meet in a +stem_ which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and +continuance before it comes to discontinue and break itself into arms +and boughs,' and it is not the narrow and specific observation on +which the popular notions are framed, but the scientific, which is +needed for the New Ethics,--the new knowledge, which here too, is +POWER. He must detect and recognise here also, he must track even into +the nature of man, those universal 'footsteps' which are but 'the same +footsteps of nature treading or printing in different substances.' +'There is formed in _everything_ a double nature of good, the one as +everything is a total or substantive in itself, and the other, as it +is a part or member of a greater body whereof the latter is in +_degree_ the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the +conservation of a more general form.... This double nature of good, +and the comparison thereof, is much more engraven upon MAN, _if he +degenerate not_, unto whom the conservation of duty to the public +ought _to be much more precious_ than the conservation of _life and +being_;' and, by way of illustration, he mentions first the case of +Pompey the Great, 'who being in commission of purveyance for a famine +at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency by his friends, that +he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he +said only to them, "_Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam_."' But, he +adds, 'it may be _truly_ affirmed, that there was never any +philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and +highly _exalt_ the good which is _communicative_, and _depress_ the +good which is private and particular, as the _holy faith_, well +declaring that it was the _same God_ that gave the _Christian law to +men_, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate creatures that we +spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of God have +wished themselves anathematised, and razed out of the book of life, in +an ecstasy of charity, and infinite feeling of communion.' + +And having first made good his assertion, that this being set down, +and _strongly planted_, determines most of the _controversies_ wherein +moral philosophy is conversant, he proceeds to develop still further +these scientific notions of good and evil, which he has gone below the +popular notions and into the nature of things to find, these +scientific notions, which, because they are scientific, he has still +to go out of the specific nature to define; and when he comes to nail +down his scientific platform of the _human_ good with them, when he +comes to strike their clear and simple lines, deep as the universal +constitution of things, through the popular terms, and clear up the +old confused theories with them, we find that what he said of them +beforehand was true; they do indeed throw great light upon that which +follows. + +To that exclusive, incommunicative good which inheres in the private +and particular nature,--and he does not call it any hard names at all +from his scientific platform; indeed in the vocabulary of the +Naturalist we are told, that these names are omitted, 'for we call a +nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools their folly,'--that +exclusive good he finds both passive and active, and this also is one +of those primary distinctions which 'is formed in all things,' and so +too is the _subdivision_ of passive good which follows. 'For there is +impressed upon _all things_ a triple desire, or appetite, proceeding +from _love to themselves_; one, of preserving and continuing their +form; another, of _advancing_ and perfecting their form; and a third, +of multiplying and extending their form upon other things; whereof the +multiplying or signature of it upon other things, is that which we +handled by the name of active good.' But passive good includes both +conservation and perfection, or _advancement_, which latter is the +highest degree of passive good. For to preserve in state is the less; +to preserve with advancement is the greater. As to _man_, his approach +or assumption to DIVINE or ANGELICAL NATURE is the perfection of _his_ +form, the error or false imitation of which good is that which is the +tempest of human life. So we have heard before; but in the doctrine +which we had before, it was the dogma,--the dogma whose inspiration +and divinity each soul recognized; to whose utterance each soul +responded, as deep calleth unto deep,--it was the Law, the Divine Law, +and not the _science of it_, that was given. + +And having deduced 'that good of man which is private and particular, +as far as seemeth fit,' he returns 'to that good of man which respects +and beholds society,' which he terms DUTY, because the term of duty is +more proper to a mind well framed and disposed towards others, as the +term of VIRTUE is applied to a mind well formed and composed in +itself; though neither can a man understand _virtue, without some +relation to society_, nor _duty, without an inward disposition_. + +But he wishes us to understand and remember, now that he comes out of +the particular nature, and begins to look towards society with this +term of Duty, that he is still dealing with 'the will of particular +persons,' that it is still the science of _morals_, and not +_politics_, that he is meddling with. 'This part may seem at first,' +he says, 'to pertain to science civil and politic, but not if it be +well observed; for it concerneth the regiment and _government of every +man over himself_, and not over others.' And this is the plan which he +has marked out in his doctrine of government as the most hopeful point +in which to _commence_ political reformations; and one cannot but +observe, that if this art and science should be successfully +cultivated, the one which he dismisses so briefly would be cleared at +once of some of those difficulties, which rendered any more direct +treatment of it at that time unadvisable. This part of learning +concerneth then 'the regiment and government of every man over +himself, and not over others.' '_As_ in architecture _the direction_ +of _the framing_ the _posts, beams_, and _other parts_ of _building_, +is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting the +building; and in mechanicals, the direction _how_ to _frame_ AN +INSTRUMENT OR ENGINE is not the same with the manner of _setting it on +work_, and employing it; _and yet, nevertheless_, in expressing of the +one, you _incidentally_ express the _aptness_ towards the other [hear] +_so_ the doctrine of the conjugation of men in society differeth from +_that_ of _their conformity thereunto_.' The received doctrine of that +conjugation certainly appeared to; and the more this scientific +doctrine of the parts, and the conformity thereunto, is incidentally +expressed,--the more the scientific direction _how to frame_ the +instrument or engine, is opened, the more this difference becomes +apparent. + +But even in limiting himself to the individual human nature as it is +developed in particular persons, regarding society only as it is +incidental to that, even in putting down his new scientific platform +of the good that the appetite and will of man naturally seeks, and in +marking out scientifically its _degrees_ and _kinds_, he gives us an +opportunity to perceive in passing, that he is not altogether without +occasion for the use of that particular art, with its peculiar +'organs' and 'methods' and 'illustration,' which he recommends under +so many heads in his treatise on that subject, for the delivery or +tradition of knowledges, which tend to _innovation_ and +_advancement_--knowledge which is 'progressive' and 'foreign from +opinions received.' + +This doctrine of _duty_ is sub-divided into two parts; the _common_ +duty of every man as a MAN, or A MEMBER of A STATE, which is that part +of the platform and exemplar of good, he has before reported as +'extant, and well laboured.' The other is the _respective_ or +_special_ duty of every man in his PROFESSION, VOCATION and PLACE; and +it is under this head of the _special_ and _respective_ duties of +places, vocations and professions, where the subject begins to grow +narrow and pointed, where it assumes immediately, the most critical +aspects,--it is here that his new arts of delivery and tradition come +in to such good purpose, and stand him instead of other weapons. For +this is one of those cases precisely, which the philosopher on the +Mountain alluded to, where an argument is set on foot at the table of +a man of prodigious fortune, when the man himself is present. Nowhere, +perhaps,--in his freest forms of writing, does he give a better +reason, for that so deliberate and settled determination, which he so +openly declares, and everywhere so stedfastly manifests, not to put +himself in an antagonistic attitude towards opinions, and vocations, +and professions, as they stood authorized in his time. Nowhere does he +venture on a more striking comparison or simile, for the purpose of +setting forth that point vividly, and impressing it on the imagination +of the reader. + +'The first of these [sub-divisions of duty] is extant, and well +laboured, as hath been said. The second, likewise, I may report rather +dispersed than deficient; which _manner of dispersed argument I +acknowledge to be best_; [it is one he is much given to;] for who can +take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue, _challenge_ and +_right_ of EVERY several vocation, profession and place? [--truly?--] +For although sometimes a looker on, may see more than a gamester, and +there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, 'that the _vale_ best +discovereth _the hill_,' yet there is small doubt, that men can write +best, and most really and materially of their own professions,' and it +is to be wished, he says, 'as that which would make learning, indeed, +solid and fruitful, that active men would, or could, become writers.' +And he proceeds to mention opportunely in that connection, a case very +much in point, as far as he is concerned, but not on the face of it, +so immediately to the purpose, as that which follows. It will, +however, perhaps, repay that very careful reading of it, which will be +necessary, in order to bring out its pertinence in this connection. +And we shall, perhaps, not lose time ourselves, by taking, as we pass, +the glimpse which this author sees fit to give us, of the facilities +and encouragements which existed then, for the scientific treatment of +this so important question of the duties and vices of vocations and +professions. + +'In which I _cannot but_ mention, _honoris causa, your majesty's_ +excellent book, touching the _duty_ of A KING' [and he goes on to give +a description which applies, without much 'forcing,' to the work of +another king, which he takes occasion to introduce, with a direct +commendation, a few pages further on]--'a work richly compounded of +divinity, morality, and policy, with great _aspersion_ of all other +arts; and being, in mine opinion, one of the most sound and healthful +writings that I have read. Not sick of business, as those are who lose +themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in +matters impertinent; not savoring of perfumes and paintings as those +do, who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth, and +chiefly _well disposed_ in the _spirits_ thereof, being _agreeable to +truth_, and _apt for action_;'--[this passage contains some hints as +to this author's notion of what a book should be, in form, as well as +substance, and, therefore, it would not be strange, if it should apply +to some other books, as well]--'and far removed from _that natural +infirmity_, whereunto _I noted those that write in their own +professions_, to be _subject_, which is that they _exalt it above +measure_; for your majesty hath truly described, _not_ a king of +Assyria or Persia, in their _external_ glory, [and not that kind of +king, or kingly author is he talking of] but a _Moses_, or a _David, +pastors of their people_. + +'Neither can I _ever lose out of my remembrance_, what I heard your +majesty, in the same sacred spirit of government, deliver in a great +cause of judicature, which was, that kings ruled by _their laws_, as +God did by the laws of nature, and ought rarely to put in use their +supreme prerogative, as God doth his power of working miracles. _And +yet, notwithstanding_, in your book of _a free monarchy_, you do well +give men to understand, that you know the plenitude of the _power_ and +_right_ of a king, as well as _the circle of his office and duty. Thus +have I presumed to _allege_ this excellent writing of your majesty, +_as a prime_ or _eminent example_ of Tractates, concerning _special_ +and _respective_ duties.' [It is, indeed, an _exemplar_ that he talks +of here.] 'Wherein _I should have said as much, if it had been written +a thousand years since_: neither am I moved with certain courtly +decencies, which I esteem it flattery to praise in presence; no, it is +flattery to _praise in absence: that is_, when _either_ the virtue is +absent, _or--the occasion_ is absent, and so the praise is _not +natural_, but _forced_, either in truth, _or--in time_. But let Cicero +be read in his oration _pro Marcello_, which is nothing but an +excellent TABLE of _Caesar's_ VIRTUE, and _made to his face_; besides +the _example_ of many other excellent persons, _wiser a great deal +than such observers_, and we will never doubt upon a _full occasion_, +to give _just_ praises to _present_ or _absent_.' + +The reader who does not think that is, on the whole, a successful +paragraph, considering the general slipperiness of the subject, and +the state of the ice in those parts of it, in particular where the +movements appear to be the most free and graceful; such a one has, +probably, failed in applying to it, that key of 'times,' which a _full +occasion_ is expected to produce for this kind of delivery. But if any +doubt exists in any mind, in regard to this author's opinion of the +rights of his own profession and vocation, and _the circle_ of _its_ +office and duties,--if any one really doubts what only allegiance this +author professionally acknowledges, and what kingship it is to which +this great argument is internally dedicated, it may be well to recall +the statement on that subject, which he has taken occasion to insert +in another part of the work, so that that point, at least, may be +satisfactorily determined. + +He is speaking of 'certain base conditions and courses,' in his +criticism on the manners of learned men, which he says 'he has no +purpose to give allowance to, wherein divers professors of learning +have wronged themselves and gone too far,'--glancing in particular at +the trencher philosophers of the later age of the Roman state, 'who +were little better than parasites in the houses of the great. But +above all the rest,' he continues, 'the _gross_ and _palpable +flattery_, whereunto, many, not unlearned, have abased and abused +their wits and pens, turning, as Du Bartas saith, Hecuba into Helena, +and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and +estimation of learning. Neither is the _modern dedication_, of books +and writings _as to patrons_, to be commended: for that books--such as +are _worthy the name of books_, ought to have _no patrons, +but_--(hear) but--Truth and Reason. And the ancient custom was to +dedicate them only to _private and equal friends_, or to _entitle_ the +books with their names, or if to _kings_ and _great persons_, it was +_some such_ as the argument of the book was fit and proper for: but +these and the like courses may deserve rather _reprehension_ than +defence. + +'Not that I can tax,' he continues, however, 'or condemn the +application of learned men to men in fortune.' And he proceeds to +quote here, approvingly, a series of speeches on this very point, +which appear to be full of pertinence; the first of the philosopher +who, when he was asked in mockery, 'How it came to pass that +philosophers were followers of rich men, and not rich men of +philosophers,' answered soberly, and yet sharply, 'Because the one +sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not'. And then the +speech of Aristippus, who, when some one, tender on behalf of +philosophy, reproved him that he would offer the profession of +philosophy such an indignity, as for a private suit to fall at a +tyrant's feet, replied, 'It was not his fault, but it was the fault of +Dionysius, that he had his ears in his feet'; and, lastly, the reply +of another, who, yielding his point in disputing with Caesar, claimed, +'That it was reason to yield to him who commanded thirty legions,' and +'these,' he says, 'these, and _the like_ applications, and stooping to +points of necessity and convenience, cannot be disallowed; for, though +they may have _some outward baseness_, yet, in a _judgment truly +made_, they are to be accounted submissions _to the occasion_, and +_not to the person_.' + +And that is just _Volumnia's_ view of the subject, as will be seen in +another place. + + Now, this no more dishonors you at all, + Than to take in a town with gentle words, + Which else would put you to your fortune, and + The hazard of much blood.-- + And you will rather show our general louts + How you can frown, than spend a _fawn_ upon them, + For the inheritance of their loves, and _safeguard_ + Of _what that want might ruin_. + +But then, in the dramatic exhibition, the other side comes in too:-- + + I will not do't; + Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth, + And by my body's action, teach my mind + _A most inherent baseness._ + +It is the same poet who says in another place:-- + + Almost my nature is subdued to that it works in. + +'But to return,' as our author himself says, after his complimentary +notice of the king's book, accompanied with that emphatic promise to +give an account of himself upon a full occasion, and we have here, +apparently, a longer digression to apologize for, and return from; +but, in the book we are considering, it is, in fact, rather apparent +than real, as are most of the author's digressions, and casual +introductions of impertinent matter; for, in fact, the exterior order +of the discourse is often a submission to the _occasion_, and is not +so essential as the author's apparent concern about it would lead us +to infer; indeed he has left dispersed directions to have this +treatise broken up, and recomposed in a more lively manner, upon a +full occasion, and when time shall serve; for, at present, this too is +chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof. + +And in marking out the grounds in human life, then lying waste, or +covered with superstitious and empirical arts and inventions, in +merely showing the fields into which the inventor of this new +instrument of observation and inference by rule, was then proposing to +introduce it, and in presenting this new report, and this so startling +proposition, in those differing aspects and shifting lights, and under +those various divisions which the art of delivery and tradition under +such circumstances appeared to prescribe; having come, in the order of +his report, to that main ground of the good which the will and +appetite of man aspires to, and the direction thereto,--this so +labored ground of philosophy,--when it was found that the new +scientific platform of good, included--not the exclusive good of the +individual form only, but that of those 'larger wholes,' of which men +are _constitutionally_ parts and members, and the special DUTY,--for +that is the specific name of this principle of integrity in the +_human_ kind, that is the name of that larger law, that spiritual +principle, which informs and claims the parts, and conserves the +larger form which is the worthier,--when it was found that this part +included the particular duty of every man in his _place, vocation_, +and _profession_, as well as the common duty of men as men, surely it +was natural enough to glance here, at that _particular profession and +vocation_ of authorship, and the claims of the respective _places_ of +_king_ and _subject_ in that regard, as well as at the _duty_ of the +_king_, and the superior advantages of a government of laws in +general, as being more in accordance with the order of nature, than +that other mode of government referred to. It was natural enough, +since this subject lies always in abeyance, and is essentially +involved in the work throughout, that it should be touched here, in +its proper place, though never so casually, with a glance at those +nice questions of conflicting claims, which are more fully debated +elsewhere, distinguishing that which is forced in _time_, from that +which is forced in _truth_, and the absence of the person, from the +absence of the occasion. + +But the approval of that man of prodigious fortune, to whom this work +is openly dedicated, is always, with this author, who understands his +ground here so well, that he hardly ever fails to indulge himself in +passing, with a good humoured, side-long, glance at 'the situation,' +this approval is the least part of the achievement. That which he, +too, adores in kings, is 'the throng of their adorers'. It is the +sovereignty which makes kings, and puts them in its liveries, that he +bends to; it is that that he reserves his art for. And this proposal +to run the track of the science of nature through this new field of +human nature and its higher and highest aims, and into the very field +of _every man's_ special place, and vocation, and profession, could +not well be made without a glance at those difficulties, which the +clashing claims of authorship, and _other professions_, would in this +case create; without a glance at the imperious necessities which +threaten the life of the new science, which here also imperiously +prescribe the form of its TRADITION; he could not go by this place, +without putting into the reader's hands, with one bold stroke, the key +of its DELIVERY. + +For it is in the paragraph which follows the compliment to the king in +his character as an author, in pursuing still further this subject of +vocations and professions, that we find in the form of '_fable_' and +'_allusion_,'--that form which the author himself lays down in his Art +of Tradition, as _the_ form of inculcation for new truth,--the precise +position, which is the key to this whole method of new sciences, which +makes the method and the interpretation, the vital points, in the +writing and the reading of them. + +'But, to return, there belongeth farther to the handling of this part, +touching the _Duties_ of Professions and Vocations, a relative, or +_opposite_, touching the _frauds, impostures and vices of every +profession_, which hath been likewise handled. But how? Rather in _a +satire_ and _cynically_, than _seriously_ and _wisely_; for men have +rather sought by _wit_ to deride and traduce _much of that which is +good in_ PROFESSIONS, than _with judgment to discover and sever that +which is corrupt_. For, as Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after +knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure, shall be sure to find +matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction. But _the +managing of this argument_ with _integrity_ and _truth_, _which I note +as deficient_, seemeth to me to be _one of the best fortifications for +honesty and virtue that can be planted_. _For_, as the fable goeth of +the _basilisk_, that if _he see you first_, you die for it, but if YOU +SEE HIM FIRST--HE DIETH; _so_ it is with deceits and _evil arts_, +which if they be first ESPIED _lose their life_, but if they +_prevent_, endanger.' [If they see you first, you die for it; and not +you only, but your science. + + Yet were there but this single plot to lose, + This _mould_ of Marcius, they to dust should grind it, + And throw it against the wind.] + +'So that we are much beholden' he continues, 'to Machiavel _and +others_ that write _what men do_, and not what they ought to do, +[perhaps he refers here to that writer before quoted, who writes, +"others _form_ men,--_I_ report him"]; for it is not possible,' +continues the proposer of the science of special duties of _place_, +and _vocation_, and _profession_, 'the _critic_ of this department, +too,--it is not possible to join the serpentine wisdom with the +columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the +serpent,--that is, _all forms_ and _natures of evil_, for without +this, _virtue_ lieth open and un-fenced. Nay, an honest man can do no +good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of +the knowledge of evil: for men of corrupted minds pre-suppose that +honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and believing of +preachers, schoolmasters, and _men's exterior language_; so as, except +you can make them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of their +own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality.' A book composed for +the express purpose of meeting the difficulty here alluded to, has +been already noticed in the preceding pages, on account of its being +one of the most striking samples of that peculiar style of +_tradition_, which the advancement of Learning prescribes, and here is +another, in which the same invention and discovery appears to be +indicated:--'Why I can teach you'--says a somewhat doubtful claimant +to supernatural gifts: + + 'Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command + The devil.' + 'And I can teach _thee_, coz, to shame the devil; + By telling truth; + If thou hast power to raise him, bring him hither, + And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence: + Oh, while you live, TELL TRUTH.' + +But _this_ is the style, in which the one before referred to, falls in +with the humour of this Advancer of Learning. 'As to the rest, I have +enjoined _myself_ to dare to _say_, all that I dare _to do_, and even +_thoughts_ that are not to be published, displease me. The worst of my +actions and qualities do not appear to me so foul, as I find it foul +and base not to dare to own them. Every one is wary and discreet in +_confession_, but men ought to be so in _action_. I wish that this +excessive license of mine, may draw men to freedom _above these +timorous and mincing pretended virtues, sprung from our +imperfections_, and that at the expense of my immoderation, I may +reduce them to reason. A man must see and study his vice to correct +it, they who conceal it from others, commonly conceal it from +themselves and do not think it covered enough, if they themselves see +it.... the diseases of the soul, the greater they are, keep themselves +the more obscure; the most sick are the least sensible of them: for +these reasons they must often be dragged into light, by an unrelenting +and pitiless hand; they must be opened and torn from the caverns and +secret recesses of the heart.' 'To meet the Huguenots, who condemn our +auricular and private confession, I confess myself in public, +religiously and purely,--others have published the errors of their +_opinions_, I of my _manners_. I am greedy of making myself known, and +I care not to how many, provided it be truly; or rather, I hunger for +nothing, but I mortally hate to be _mistaken_ by those who happen to +come across _my name_. _He that does_ all things for honor and glory +[as some great men in that time were supposed to], what can he think +to gain by showing himself to the world _in a mask, and by concealing +his true being from the people_? Commend a hunchback for his fine +shape, he has a right to take it for an affront: if you are a coward, +and men commend you for your valor, is it of _you_ that they speak? +They take you for another. Archelaus, king of Macedon, walking along +the street, somebody threw water on his head; which they who were with +him said he ought to punish, "Ay, but," said the other, "he did not +throw the water upon _me_, but upon _him_ whom he took me to be." +Socrates being told that people spoke ill of him, "Not at all," said +he, "there is nothing in me of what they say!" _I am content to be +less commended provided I am better known_. I may be reputed a wise +man, in such a sort of wisdom as I take to be folly.' Truly the +Advancement of Learning would seem to be not all in the hands of one +person in this time. It appears, indeed, to have been in the hands of +some persons who were not content with simply propounding it, and +noting deficiencies, but who busied themselves with actively carrying +out, the precise plan propounded. Here is one who does not content +himself with merely criticising '_professions_ and _vocations_' and +suggesting improvements, but one who appears to have an inward call +himself to the cure of diseases. Whoever he may be, and since he seems +to care so very little for his name himself, and looks at it from such +a philosophical point of view, we ought not, perhaps, to be too +particular about it; whoever he may be, he is unquestionably a Doctor +of the New School, the scientific school, and will be able to produce +his diploma when properly challenged; whoever he may be, he belongs to +'the Globe' for the manager of that theatre is incessantly quoting +him, and dramatizing his philosophy, and he says himself, 'I look on +all men as my compatriots, and prefer the _universal and common tie to +the national_.' + +But in marking out and indicating the plan and method of the new +operation, which has for its end to substitute a scientific, in the +place of an empirical procedure, in the main pursuits of human life, +the philosopher does not limit himself in this survey of the special +social duties to the special duties of professions and vocations. +'Unto this part,' he says, 'touching _respective_ duty, doth also +appertain the duties between husband and wife, parent and child, +master and servant: so likewise the laws of _friendship_ and +_gratitude_, the civil bond of _companies, colleges_, and _politic +bodies_, of _neighbourhood_, and all other proportionate duties; _not_ +as they are parts of a government and society, _but as to the framing +of the mind of particular persons_.' + +The reader will observe, that that portion of moral philosophy which +is here indicated, contains, according to this index, some extremely +important points, points which require learned treatment; and in our +further pursuit of this inquiry, we shall find, that the new light +which the science of nature in general throws upon the doctrine of the +special duties and upon these points here emphasized, has been most +ably and elaborately exhibited by a contemporary of this philosopher, +and in the form which he has so specially recommended,--with all that +rhetorical power which he conceives to be the natural and fitting +accompaniment of this part of learning. And the same is true also +throughout of that which follows. + +'The knowledge concerning good respecting society, doth handle it also +not simply alone, but _comparatively_, whereunto belongeth the +weighing of duties _between person and person, case and case, +particular and public_: as we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus +against his own sons, which was so much extolled, yet what was said? + +Infelix utcunque ferent ea fata minores. + +'So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides. [So the +philosopher on the mountain tells us, too, for his common-place book +and this author's happen to be the same.] Again we see when M. Brutus +and Cassius _invited to a supper_ certain _whose opinions they meant +to feel_, whether they were fit to be made their associates, and cast +forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant,--being an +usurper,--_they were divided in opinion_;' [this of itself is a very +good specimen of the style in which points are sometimes introduced +casually in passing, and by way of illustration merely] some holding +that _servitude_ was the _extreme_ of evils, and _others_ that tyranny +was _better than a civil war_; and this question also our philosopher +of the mountain has considered very carefully from his retreat, +weighing all the _pros_ and _cons_ of it. And it is a question which +was treated also, as we all happen to know, in that other form of +writing for which this author expresses so decided a preference, in +which the art of the poet is brought in to enforce and impress the +conclusion of the philosopher. Indeed, as we proceed further with the +plan of this so radical part of the subject, we shall find, that the +ground indicated has everywhere been taken up on the spot by somebody, +and to purpose. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. + +Section II.--THE HUSBANDRY THEREUNTO; OR, THE CURE AND CULTURE OF THE +MIND. + + + 'Tis an unweeded garden + That grows to seed--' + + Hamlet. + +But we have finished now with what he has to say here of the EXEMPLAR +or science of GOOD, and its _kinds_, and _degrees_, and the comparison +of them, the good that is proper to the individual, and the good that +includes society. He has found much fine work on that platform of +virtue, and felicity,--excellent exemplars, the purest doctrine, the +loftiest virtue, tried by the scientific standard. And though he has +gone behind those popular names of vice and virtue, pain and pleasure, +and the like, in which these doctrines _begin_, to the more simple and +original forms, which the doctrine of nature in general and its laws +supplies, for a platform of moral science, his doctrine is large +enough to include all these works, in all their excellence, and give +them their true place. A reviewer so discriminating, then, so far from +that disposition to scorn and censure, which he reprehends, so careful +to conserve that which is good in his scientific constructions and +reformations, so pure in judgment in discovering and severing that +which is corrupt, a reporter so clearly scientific, who is able to +maintain through all this astounding report of the deficiences in +human learning, a tone so quiet, so undemonstrative, such a one +deserves the more attention when he comes now to 'the art and practic +part' of this great science, to which all other sciences are +subordinate, and declares to us that he finds it, as a part of +science, 'WANTING!' not defective, but _wanting_. + +'Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this FRUIT of LIFE, it +remaineth to speak of the HUSBANDRY that belongeth thereunto, without +which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image or +statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and +motion.' + +But as this author is very far, as he confesses, from wishing to +clothe himself with the honors of an Innovator,--such honors as +awaited the Innovator in that time,--but prefers always to sustain +himself with authority from the past, though at the expense of that +lustre of novelty and originality, which goes far, as he acknowledges, +in establishing new opinions,--adopting in this precisely the +practices, and, generally, to save trouble, the quotations of that +other philosopher, so largely quoted here, who frankly gives his +reasons for _his_ procedure, confessing that he pinches his authors a +little, now and then, to make them speak to the purpose; and that he +reads them with his pencil in his hand, for the sake of being able to +produce respectable authority, grown gray in trust, with the moss of +centuries on it, for the views which he has to set forth; culling bits +as he wants them, and putting them together in his mosaics as he finds +occasion; so now, when we come to this so important part of the +subject, where the want is so clearly reported--where the scientific +innovation is so unmistakeably propounded--we find ourselves suddenly +involved in a storm of Latin quotations, all tending to prove that the +thing was perfectly understood among the ancients, and that it is as +much as a man's scholarship is worth to call it in question. The +author marches up to the point under cover of a perfect cannonade of +classics, no less than five of the most imposing of the Greek and +Latin authors being brought out, for the benefit of the stunned and +bewildered reader, in the course of one brief paragraph, the whole +concluding with a reference to the Psalms, which nobody, of course, +will undertake to call in question; whereas, in cases of ordinary +difficulty, a proverb or two from Solomon is thought sufficient. + +For this last writer, with his practical inspiration--with his +aphorisms, or 'dispersed directions,' which the author prefers to a +methodical discourse, as they best point to action--with his perpetual +application of divinity to matters of common life, and to the special +and respective duties, this, of all the sacred writers, is the one +which he has most frequent occasion to refer to; and when, in his +chapter on Policy, he brings out openly his proposal to invade the +every-day practical life of men, in its apparently most unaxiomatical +department, with his scientific rule of procedure--a proposal which he +might not have been 'so prosperously delivered of,' if it had been +made in any less considerate manner--he stops to produce whole pages +of solid text from this so unquestionably conservative authority, by +way of clearing himself from any suspicion of innovation. + +First, then, in setting forth this so novel opinion of his, that the +doctrine of the FRUIT of LIFE should include not the scientific +platform of good, and its degrees and kinds only,--not the doctrine of +the ideal excellence and felicity only, but the doctrine--the +scientific doctrine--the scientific art of the Husbandry +thereunto;--in setting forth the opinion, that that first _part_ of +moral science is _but a part of it_, and that as human nature is +constituted, it is not enough to have a doctrine of good in its +perfection, and the divinest exemplars of it; first of all he produces +the subscription of no less a person than Aristotle, whose +conservative faculties had proved so effectual in the dark ages, that +the opinion of Solomon himself could hardly have been considered more +to the purpose. 'In such full words,' he says; and seeing that the +advancement of Learning has already taken us on to a place where the +opinions of Aristotle, at least, are not so binding, we need not +trouble ourselves with that long quotation now--'in such full _words_, +and with such _iteration_, doth he inculcate this part, so saith +_Cicero_ in great commendation of _Cato_ the second, that he had +applied himself to philosophy--"_Non ita disputandi causa, sed ita +vivendi_." And although the neglect of our times, wherein few men do +hold any consultations touching _the reformation of their_ LIFE, as +_Seneca_ excellently saith, "De partibus vitae, quisque deliberat, de +summa nemo," may make this part seem superfluous, yet I must conclude +with that aphorism of _Hippocrates_, "Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores +non sentiunt, iis mens aegrotat"; they need medicines not only to +assuage the disease, but _to awake the sense_. + +'And if it be said _that the cure of men's minds belongeth to sacred +divinity_, it is most true; but _yet_ Moral Philosophy'--that is, in +_his_ meaning of the term, Moral _Science_, the new science of +nature--'may be _preferred unto her, as a wise servant_ and humble +handmaid. For, as _the Psalm saith_, that "the eye of the handmaid +looketh perpetually towards the mistress," and yet, _no doubt, many +things are left to the discretion of the handmaid_, to discern of the +_mistress's will_; so ought moral philosophy to give _a constant +attention to the doctrines of divinity_, and yet so as it may yield of +herself, within due limits, many sound and profitable directions.' +_That_ is the doctrine. _That_ is the position of the New Science in +relation to divinity, as defined by the one who was best qualified to +place it--that is the mission of the New Science, as announced by the +new Interpreter of Nature,--the priest of her ignored and violated +laws,--on whose work the seal of that testimony which he challenged to +it has already been set--on whose work it has already been written, in +the large handwriting of that Providence Divine, whose benediction he +invoked, 'accepted'--accepted in the councils from which the effects +of life proceed. + +'This part, therefore,' having thus defined his position, he +continues, 'because of the _excellency thereof_, I cannot but find it +EXCEEDING STRANGE that it is not reduced _to written inquiry_; the +rather because it consisteth of much matter, wherein _both speech and +action is often conversant_, and such wherein the common talk of men, +_which is rare_, but yet cometh sometimes to pass, is _wiser than +their books_. It is reasonable, therefore, that we propound it with +the more particularity, both for the worthiness, and _because we may +acquit ourselves for reporting it deficient_' [with such 'iteration +and fulness,' with all his _discrimination_, does he contrive to make +_this_ point]; 'which seemeth _almost incredible_, and is otherwise +conceived--[note it]--and is otherwise conceived and _presupposed_ by +those themselves that have written.' [They do not see that they have +missed it.] 'We will, therefore, enumerate some HEADS or POINTS +_thereof, that it may appear the better what it is_, and __whether it +be extant_.' + +A momentous question, truly, for the human race. That was a point, +indeed, for this reporter to dare to make, and insist on and +demonstrate. Doctrines of THE FRUIT of LIFE--doctrines of its +perfection, exemplars of it; but no science--no science of the Culture +or the Husbandry thereunto--though it is otherwise conceived and +presupposed by those who have written! Yes, that is the position; and +not taken in the general only, for he will proceed to propound it with +more particularity--he will give us the HEADS of it--he will proceed +to the articulation of that which is wanting--he will put down, before +our eyes, the points and outlines of the new human science, the +science of the husbandry thereto, both for the worthiness thereof, and +that it may appear the better WHAT IT IS, and whether--WHETHER IT BE +EXTANT. For who knows but it may be? Who knows, after all, but the +points and outlines here, may prove but the track of that argument +which the new Georgics will be able to hide in the play of their +illustration, as Periander hid his? Who knows but the Naturalist in +this field was then already on the ground, making his collections? Who +knows but this new Virgil, who thought little of that resplendent and +lustrous mass of matter, that old poets had taken for their glory, who +seized the common life of men, and not the ideal life only, for his +theme--who made the relief of the human estate, and not glory, his +end, but knew that he might promise himself a fame which would make +the old heroic poets' crowns grow dim,--who knows but that _he_--he +himself--is extant, contemplating his theme, and composing its +Index--claiming as yet its INDEX only? Truly, if the propounder of +this argument can in any measure supply the _defects_ which he +outlines, and opens here,--if he can point out to us any new and +worthy collections in that science for which he claims to break the +ground--if he can, in any measure, constitute it, he will deserve that +name which he aspired to, and for which he was willing to renounce his +own, 'Benefactor of men,' and not of an age or nation. + +But let us see where this new science, and scientific art of human +culture begins,--this science and art which is to differ from those +which have preceded it, as the other Baconian arts and sciences which +began in the new doctrine of nature, differed from those which +preceded them. + +'FIRST, therefore, in this, _as in all things which are practical_, we +ought to cast up our account, WHAT is IN OUR POWER, AND WHAT NOT? FOR +the one may be dealt with by way of ALTERATION, but the other by way +of APPLICATION _only_. The husbandman cannot command either the +_nature of the earth or the seasons_ of the weather, no more can the +physician _the constitution of the patient_, and the _variety of +accidents._ So in the CULTURE and CURE of THE MIND of MAN _two things_ +are without our command, POINTS OF NATURE, and POINTS of FORTUNE: for +to the basis of the one, and the conditions of the other, our work is +limited and tied.' That is the first step: that is where the NEW +begins. There is no science or art till that step is taken. + +'_In these things_, therefore, it is left unto us to proceed by +APPLICATION. Vincenda est omnis fortuna ferendo: and so +likewise--Vincenda est omnis natura ferendo. But when we speak of +suffering, we do not speak of a _dull neglected suffering_, but of _a +wise and industrious suffering_, which draweth and contriveth _use and +advantage out of that which seemeth adverse and contrary_, which is +that properly which we call _accommodating_ or _applying_. ["Sweet are +the uses of it," and "blest" indeed are they who can translate the +_stubbornness_ of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style.] + +'Now the wisdom of APPLICATION resteth _principally_ in the _exact and +distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which +we do apply_.'--[This is the process which the Novum Organum sets +forth with so much care], 'for we cannot fit a garment, except we +first take the measure of the body.' + +So then THE FIRST ARTICLE OF THIS KNOWLEDGE is--what?--'to set down +_sound_ and _true distributions_ and _descriptions_ of THE SEVERAL +CHARACTERS AND TEMPERS of MEN'S NATURES and DISPOSITIONS, specially +having regard to _those differences_ which are most _radical_, in +being the fountains and causes of the rest, _or_ most frequent in +_concurrence_ or commixture (not _simple_ differences merely, but the +most frequent conjunctions), wherein it is not the handling of a few +of them, in passage, the better to describe the _mediocrities_ of +_virtues_, that can satisfy this intention'; and he proceeds to +introduce a few points, casually, as it were, and by way of +illustration, but the rule of interpretation for this digest of +learning, in this press of method is, that such points are _never_ +casual, and usually of primal, and not secondary import; 'for if it +deserve to be considered that there _are_ minds which are proportioned +to great matters, and _others_ to small, which Aristotle handleth, or +ought to have handled, by the name of _magnanimity_, doth it not +deserve as well to be considered, that there are minds proportioned to +intend many matters, and _others to few_?' So that some can _divide +themselves_, others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be in +few things at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, +_as well as a_ PUSILLANIMITY. And again, 'that some minds are +proportioned to that which may be despatched at once, or within a +_short return of time_; others to that _which begins afar off_, and is +to be won with length of pursuit. + + Jam tum tenditque fovetque. + +'So that there may be fitly said to be a _longanimity_, which is +commonly also ascribed to God as a _magnanimity_.' Undoubtedly, he +considers this one of those differences in the natures and +dispositions of men, that it is most important to note, otherwise it +would not be inserted here. 'So farther deserved it to be considered +by Aristotle that there is a disposition in conversation, supposing it +in things which do in no sort touch or concern a man's self, _to +soothe and please_; and a disposition contrary to contradict and +cross; and deserveth it not much better to be considered that there is +a disposition, not in conversation, or talk, but _in matter of more +serious nature_, and supposing it still in things _merely +indifferent_, to take pleasure in the good of another, and a +disposition contrariwise to take distaste at the good of another, +which is that _properly_ which we call _good-nature_, or _ill-nature_, +benignity or malignity.' Is not this a field for science, then, with +such differences as these lying on the surface of it,--does not it +begin to open up with a somewhat inviting aspect? This so remarkable +product of nature, with such extraordinary 'differences' in him as +these, is he the only thing that is to go without a scientific +history, all wild and unbooked, while our philosophers are weeping +because 'there are no more worlds to conquer,' because every stone and +shell and flower and bird and insect and animal has been dragged into +the day and had its portrait taken, and all its history to its +secretest points scientifically detected? + +'And therefore,' says this organizer of the science of nature, who +keeps an eye on practice, in _his_ speculations, and recommends to his +followers to observe his lead in that respect, at least, until the +affairs of the world get a little straighter than they were in his +time, and there is leisure for _mere_ speculation,--'And, therefore,' +he resumes, having noted these remarkable differences in the natural +and original dispositions of men,--and certainly there is no more +curious thing in science than the points noted, though the careful +reader will observe that they are not curious merely, but that they +slant in one direction very much, and towards a certain kind of +practice. 'And, therefore,' he resumes, noticing that fact, 'I _cannot +sufficiently marvel_, that this part of knowledge, touching the +_several characters_ of _natures_ and _dispositions_ should be omitted +_both_ in MORALITY and POLICY, considering that it is of _so great_ +ministry and suppeditation to them BOTH.' ['The _several characters_.' +The range of difference is limited. They are comprehensible within a +science, as the differences in other species are. No wonder, then, +'that he cannot sufficiently marvel that this part of knowledge should +be omitted.'] But in neither of these two departments, which he here +marks out, as the ultimate field of the naturalist, and his arts, in +neither of them unfortunately, lies the practice of mankind, as yet so +wholly recovered from that 'lameness,' which this critical observer +remarked in it in his own time, that these observations have ceased to +have a practical interest. + +And having thus ventured to express his surprise at this deficiency, +he proceeds to note what only indications he observes of any work at +all in this field, and the very quarters he goes to for these little +accidental hints and beginnings of such a science, show how utterly it +was wanting in those grandiloquent schools of philosophic theory, and +those magisterial chairs of direction, which the author found in +possession of this department in his time. + +'A man shall find in the traditions of ASTROLOGY, some pretty and apt +_divisions of men's natures_,'--so in the discussions which occur on +this same point in Lear, where this part of philosophy comes under a +more particular consideration, and the great ministry which it would +yield to morality and policy is suggested in a different form, this +same reference to the astrological observations repeatedly occurs. The +Poet, indeed, discards the astrological _theory _of these natural +differences in the dispositions of men, but is evidently in favour of +an observation, and inquiry of some sort, into the second causes of +these 'sequent effects,' and an anatomy of the living subject is in +one case suggested, by a person who is suffering much from the +deficiencies of science in this field, as a means of throwing light on +it. 'Then let Regan be anatomised.' For in the _Play_,--in the poetic +impersonation, which has a scientific purpose for its object, the +historical extremes of these natural differences are touched, and +brought into the most vivid dramatic oppositions; so as to force from +the lips of the by-standers the very inquiries and suggestions which +are put down here; so as to wring from the broken hearts of +men--tortured and broken on the wheel, which 'blind men' call +fortune,--tortured and broken on the rack of an unlearned and barbaric +human society,--or, from hearts that do not break with anything that +such a world can do, the imperious direction of the new science. + +'Then let Regan be anatomised, and _see_ what it is that breeds about +her heart.' He has asked already, 'What is the cause of thunder?' But +'_his_ philosopher' must not stop there. 'Is there any _cause_--is +there any cause _in nature_ that makes these hard hearts?'-- + + It is _the stars_! + The stars above us govern our conditions, + Else one self mate and mate could not beget + Such different issues. + +'A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some pretty and apt +_divisions of men's natures_,' ('let them be _anatomised_,' he, too, +says,) 'according to the _predominance_ of the _planets_;' (this is +the '_spherical predominance_,' which _Edmund_ does not believe +in)--'_lovers_ of quiet, _lovers_ of action, _lovers_ of victory, +_lovers_ of honour, _lovers_ of pleasure, _lovers_ of arts, _lovers_ +of _change_, and so forth.' And here, also, is another very singular +quarter to go to for a science which is so radical in morality; here +is a place, where men have empirically hit upon the fact that it has +some relation to policy. 'A man shall find in the wisest sorts of +these relations which the _Italians_ make touching conclaves, the +natures of the several _Cardinals_, handsomely and livelily painted +forth';--and what he has already said in the general, of this +department, he repeats here under this division of it, that the +conversation of men in respect to it, is in advance of their +books;--'a man shall meet with, in every day's conference, the +denominations of sensitive, dry, formal, real, humorous, "huomo di +prima impressione, huomo di ultima impressione, and the like": but +this is no substitute for science in a matter so radical,'--'and yet, +nevertheless, _this observation, wandereth in words_, but is not +_fixed in inquiry_. For the _distinctions_ are found, many of them, +but we conclude _no precepts_ upon them'; it is induction then that we +want here, after all--_here_ also--here as elsewhere: 'the +distinctions are found, many of them, but we _conclude no precepts_ +upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both HISTORY, +POESY, and DAILY EXPERIENCE, _are as goodly fields where these +observations grow_; whereof we make a few poesies to hold in our +hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionery that _receipts_ +might be made of them for the use of life.' + +How could he say _that_, when there was a man then alive, who was +doing in all respects, the very thing which he puts down here, as the +thing which is to be done, the thing which is of such radical +consequence, which is the beginning of the new philosophy, which is +the beginning of the new _reformation_; who is making this very point +in that science to which the others are subordinate?--how could he say +it, when there was a man then alive, who was ransacking the daily +lives of men, and putting all history and poesy under contribution for +these very observations, one, too, who was concluding precepts upon +them, bringing them to the confectionery, and composing receipts of +them for the use of life; a scholar who did not content himself with +merely _reporting_ a deficiency so radical as this, in the human life; +a man who did not think, apparently, that he had fulfilled _his_ duty +to his kind, by composing a paragraph on this subject. + +And how comes it--how comes it that he who is the first to discover +this so fatal and radical defect in the human science, has himself +failed to put upon record any of these so vital observations? How +comes it that the one who is at last able to put his finger on the +spot where the mischief, where all the boundless mischief, is at work +here,--where the cure must begin, should content himself with +observations and collections in physical history _only_? How comes it +that the man who finds that all the old philosophy has failed to +become operative for the lack of this historical basis, who finds it +so '_exceeding strange_, so _incredible_,' who 'cannot sufficiently +marvel,' that these observations should have been omitted in this +science, heretofore,--the man who is so sharp upon Aristotle and +others, on account of this incomprehensible oversight in their +ethics,--_is himself guilty of this very thing_? And how will this +defect in _his_ work, compare with that same defect which he is at so +much pains to note and describe in the works of others--others who did +not know the value of this history? And how can he answer it to his +kind, that with the views he has dared to put on record here, of the +relation, the _essential_ relation, of this knowledge to human +advancement and relief, _he himself has done nothing at all to +constitute it, except to write this paragraph_. + +And yet, by his own showing, the discoverer of this field was himself +the man to make collections in it; for he tells us that accidental +observations are not the kind that are wanted here, and that the truth +of direction must precede the severity of observation. Is this so? +Whose note book is it then, that has come into our hands, with the +rules and plummet of the new science running through it, where all the +observation takes, spontaneously, the direction of this new doctrine +of nature, and brings home all its collections, in all the lustre of +their originality, in all their multiplicity, and variety, and +comprehension, in all the novelty and scientific rigour of their +exactness, into the channels of these _defects_ of learning? And who +was he, who thought there were more things in heaven and earth, than +were dreamt of in old philosophies, who kept his tables always by him +for open questions? and whose tablets--whose many-leaved tablets, are +they then, that are tumbled out upon us here, glowing with 'all saws, +all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied +there.' And if aphorisms are made out of the pith and heart of +sciences, if 'no man can write good aphorisms who is not sound and +grounded,' what Wittenberg, what University was he bred in? + +Till now there has been no man to claim this new and magnificent +collection in natural science: it is a legacy that came to us without +a donor;--this new and vast collection in natural history, which is +put down here, all along, as _that which is wanting_--as that which is +wanting to the science of man, to the science of his advancement to +his place in nature, and to the perfection of his form,--as that which +is wanting to the science of the larger wholes, and the art of their +conservation. There was no _man_ to claim it, for the _boast_, the +very boast made on behalf of the thing for whom it was claimed--was-- +he _did not know it was worth preserving_!--he _did not know_ that +this mass of new and profoundly scientific observation--this so new +and subtle observation, so artistically digested, with all the +precepts concluded on it, strewn, crowded everywhere with those +aphorisms, those axioms of practice, that are made out of the pith and +heart of sciences--he did not know it was of any value! That is his +history. That is the sum of it, and surely it is enough. Who, that is +himself at all above the condition of an oyster, will undertake to +say, deliberately and upon reflection, that it is not? So long as we +have that one fact in our possession, it is absurd, it is simply +disgraceful, to complain of any deficiency in this person's biography. +There is enough of it and to spare. With that fact in our possession, +we ought to have been able to dispense long ago with some, at least, +of those details that we have of it. The only fault to be found with +the biography of this individual as it stands at present is, that +there is too much of it, and the public mind is labouring under a +plethora of information. + +If that fact be not enough, it is our own fault and not the author's. +He was perfectly willing to lie by, till it was. He would not take the +trouble to come out for a time that had not studied his philosophy +enough to find it, and to put the books of it together. + +Many years afterwards, the author of this work on the Advancement of +Learning, saw occasion to recast it, and put it in another language. +But though he has had so long a time to think about it, and though he +does not appear to have taken a single step in the interval, towards +the supplying of this radical deficiency in human science; we do not +find that his views of its importance are at all altered. It is still +the first point with him in the scientific culture of human +nature,--the first point in that Art of Human Life, which is the end +and term of _Natural Philosophy_, as _he_ understands the limits of +it. We still find the first Article of the Culture of the Mind put +down, 'THE DIFFERENT NATURES OR DISPOSITIONS OF MEN,' _not the vulgar +propensities_ to VIRTUES and VICES--note it--'or perturbations and +passions, but of such as are _more internal and radical_, which are +generally neglected.' 'This is a study,' he says, which 'might afford +GREAT LIGHT TO THE SCIENCES.' And again he refers us to the existing +supply, such as it is, and repeats with some amplification, his +previous suggestions. 'In astrological traditions, the natures and +dispositions of men, are tolerably _distinguished_ according to the +influence of the planets, where _some_ are said to be by nature formed +for _contemplation, others_ for _war_, others for _politics_.' +Apparently it _would_ be 'great ministry to policy,' if one could get +the occult sources of such differences as these, so as to be able to +command them at all, in the culture of men, _or_ in the fitting of men +to their places. 'But' he proceeds, 'so likewise among the _poets_ of +all kinds, we _everywhere find_ characters of nature, though +_commonly_ drawn with excess and _exceeding the limits of nature_.' + +Here, too, the philosopher refers us again to the common discourse of +men, as containing wiser observations on this subject, than their +books. 'But much the best matter of all,' he says, 'for such a +treatise, may be _derived from_ the more _prudent_ historians, and not +so well from eulogies or panegyrics, which are usually written soon +after the death of _an illustrious person_, but much rather from a +whole body of history, as often as such a person appears, for such an +_inwoven_ account gives a better description than _panegyrics_.... But +we do not mean that such characters should be received in ethics, as +perfect civil images.' They are to be subjected to an artistic +process, which will bring out the radical principles in the +dispositions and tempers of men in general, as the material of +inexhaustible varieties of combination. He will have these historic +portraits merely 'for outlines and first draughts of the images +themselves, which, being variously compounded and mixed, afford all +kinds of portraits, so that an _artificial and accurate dissection_ +may be made of MEN'S MINDS AND NATURES, and the _secret disposition of +each particular man laid open_, that from the knowledge of the +_whole_, the PRECEPTS _concerning the_ ERRORS of THE MIND may be MORE +RIGHTLY FORMED.' Who did that very thing? Who was it that stood on the +spot and put that design into execution? + +But this is not all; this is only the beginning of the observation and +study of _differences_. For he would have also included in it, 'those +impressions of nature which are otherwise _imposed_ upon by the mind, +by the SEX, AGE, COUNTRY, STATE OF HEALTH, MAKE OF BODY, as of beauty +and deformity, and THE LIKE, which are inherent and not external:' and +more, he will have included in it--in these _practical Ethics_ he will +have included--'POINTS OF FORTUNE,' and the differences that they +make; he will have _all the differences_ that this creature exhibits, +under any conditions, put down; he will have his whole nature, so far +as his history is able to show it, on his table; and not as it is +exhibited accidentally, or spontaneously merely, but under the test of +a studious inquiry, and essay; he will apply to it the trials and +vexations of Art, and wring out its last confession. This is the +practical doctrine of this species; this is what the author we have +here in hand, calls the _science_ of it, or the beginning of its +science. This is one of the _parts of science_ which he says is +wanting. Let us follow his running glimpse of the points here, then, +and see whether it is extant here, too, and whether there is anything +to justify all this preparation in bringing it in, and all this +exceeding marvelling at the want of it. + +'And again _those differences_ which proceed from FORTUNE, as +SOVEREIGNTY, NOBILITY, OBSCURE BIRTH, RICHES, WANT, MAGISTRACY, +PRIVATENESS, PROSPERITY, ADVERSITY, constant fortune, variable +fortune, rising _per saltum, per gradus_, and the like.' These are +articles that he puts down for points in his _table of natural +history_, points for the collection of instances; this is the tabular +preparation for induction here; for he does not conclude his precepts +on the popular, miscellaneous, accidental history. That will do well +enough for books. It won't do to get out axioms of practice from such +loose material. They have to ring with the proof of another kind of +condensation. All _his_ history is artificial, prepared history more +_select_ and _subtle_ and _fit_ than the other kind, he +says,--prepared on purpose; perhaps we shall come across his tables, +some day, with these very points on them, filled in with the +observations of one, so qualified by the truth of direction to make +them 'severe'. It would not be strange, for he gives us to understand +that he is not altogether idle in this part of his Instauration, and +that he does not think it enough to lay out work for others, without +giving an occasional specimen of his own, of the thing which he notes +as deficient, and proposes to have done, so that there may be no +mistake about it as to what it really is; for he appears to think +there is some danger of that. Even here, he produces a few +illustrations of his meaning, that it may appear the better what is, +and whether it be extant. + +'And therefore we see, that _Plautus_ maketh it a wonder to see an OLD +man beneficent. _St. Paul_ concludeth that severity of _discipline_ +was to be used to the _Cretans_, ("increpa eos dure"), upon _the +disposition_ of THEIR COUNTRY. "Cretenses semper mendaces, malć +bestize, ventres pigri." _Sallust_ noteth that it is usual with KINGS +to desire _contradictories_; "Sed plerumque, regić voluntates, ut +vehementes sunt sic mobiles saepeque ipsć sibi adversć." _Tacitus_ +observeth how rarely THE RAISING OF THE FORTUNE mendeth the +disposition. "Solus Vespasianus mutatus in melius." _Pindar_ maketh an +observation that great and sudden fortune for the most part defeateth +men. So _the Psalm_ showeth it more easy to keep a measure in the +enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune; "Divitić si +affluant nolite cor apponere."' '_These observations, and the +like_,'--what book is it that has so many of '_the like_'?--'I deny +not but are touched a little by Aristotle _as in passage_ in his +_Rhetorics_, and are handled in some scattered discourses.' One would +think it was another philosopher, with pretensions not at all +inferior, but professedly very much, and altogether superior to those +of Aristotle, whose short-comings were under criticism here; 'but they +(_these observations_) were never INCORPORATED _into moral +philosophy_, to which they do ESSENTIALLY appertain, as THE KNOWLEDGE +of THE DIVERSITY of GROUND and MOULDS doth to _agriculture_, and the +knowledge of the DIVERSITY of COMPLEXIONS and CONSTITUTIONS doth to +the _physician_; except'--note it--'except we mean to follow the +indiscretion of empirics, which minister _the same medicines to all +patients_.' + +Truly this does appear to give us some vistas of a _science_, and a +'pretty one,' for these particulars and illustrations are here, that +we may see the better what it is, and whether it be extant. That is +the question. And it happens singularly enough, to be a question just +as pertinent now, as it was when the philosopher put it on his paper, +two hundred and fifty years ago. + +_There_ is the first point, then, in the table of this scientific +history, with its subdivisions and articulations; and here is the +second, not less essential. 'Another article of this knowledge is the +inquiry touching THE AFFECTIONS; for, as in medicining the body,'--and +it is a practical science we are on here; it is the cure of the mind, +and not a word for show,--'as in medicining the body, it is in order, +_first_, to know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, +the _diseases_; and, lastly, the _cures_; so in medicining of the +mind,--after knowledge of the _divers characters_ of _men's natures_, +it followeth, in order, to know the diseases and infirmities of the +mind, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers of the +affections.' And we shall find, under the head of the medicining of +the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which +could be better said _there_ than _here_, because the wrath of +professional dignitaries,--the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps +quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others. For +though 'the Doctors' in that department, did manage, in the dark ages, +to possess themselves of certain weapons of their own, which are said +to have proved, on the whole, sufficiently formidable, they were not, +as it happened, armed by the State as the others then were; and it was +usually discretionary with the patient to avail himself, or not, of +their drugs, and receipts, and surgeries; whereas, in the diseased and +suffering soul, no such discretion was tolerated. The drugs were +indeed compounded by the State in person, and the executive stood by, +axe in hand, to see that they were taken, accompanying them with such +other remedies as the case might seem to require; the most serious +operations being constantly performed without ever taking 'the sense' +of the patient. + +So we must not be surprised to find that this author who writes under +such liabilities ventures to bring out the pith of his trunk of +sciences,--that which sciences have in common,--the doctrine of the +nature of things,--what he calls '_prima philosophia_,' when his +learned sock is on--a little more strongly and fully in that branch of +it, with a glance this way, with a distinct intimation that it is +common to the two, and applies here as well. There, too, he complains +of the ignorance of anatomy, which is just the complaint he has been +making here, and that, for want of it, 'they quarrel many times with +the humours which are not in fault, the fault being in the very frame +and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine +_alterative_, but must be _accommodated_ and palliated by diet and +medicines _familiar_.' There, too, he reports the lack of medicinal +history, and gives directions for supplying it, just such directions +as he gives here, but that which makes the astounding difference in +the reading of these reports to-day, is, that the one has been +accepted, and the other has not; nay, that the one has been _read_, +and the other has not: for how else can we account for the fact, that +men of learning, in our time, come out and tell us deliberately, not +merely that this man's place in history, is the place of one who +devoted his genius to the promotion of the personal convenience and +bodily welfare of men, but, that it is the place of one who gave up +the nobler nature, deliberately, on principle, and after examination +and reflection, as a thing past help from science, as a thing lying +out of the range of philosophy? How else comes it, that the critic +to-day tells us, dares to tell us, that this leader's word to the new +ages of advancement is, that there is no scientific advancement to be +looked for _here_?--how else could he tell us, with such vivid detail +of illustration, that this innovator and proposer of advancement, +never intended his Novum Organum to be applied to the _cure_ of the +moral diseases, to the subduing of the WILL and the AFFECTIONS,--but +thought, because the old philosophy had failed, there was no use in +trying the new;--because the philosophy of words, and preconceptions, +had failed, the philosophy of observation and application, the +philosophy of ideas as they are in nature, and not as they are in the +mind of man merely, the philosophy of _laws_, must fail also;--because +ARGUMENT had failed, ART was hopeless;--because syllogisms, based on +popular, unscientific notions were of no effect, _practical axioms_ +based on the scientific knowledge of natural causes, and on their +specific developments, were going to be of none effect also? If the +passages which are now under consideration, had been so much as +_read_, how could a learned man, in our time, tell us that the author +of the 'Advancement of Learning' had come with any such despairful +word as that to us,--to tell us that the new science he was +introducing upon this Globe theatre, the science of _laws_ in nature, +offered to _Divinity_ and Morality no aid,--no ministry, no service in +the _cure of the mind_? And the reason why they have not been read, +the reason why this part of the 'Advancement of Learning,' which is +the principal part of it in the intention of its author, _has_ been +overlooked hitherto is, that the Art of Tradition, which is described, +here--the art of the Tradition, and delivery of knowledges which are +foreign from opinions received, was in the hand of its inventor, and +able to fulfil his pleasure. + +After the knowledge of the divers characters of men's natures then, +the next article of this inquiry is the DISEASES and INFIRMITIES of +the MIND, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers of +THE AFFECTIONS. For as the ancient politicians in popular estates were +wont to compare the people to the sea, and the _orators_ to the winds, +because the sea would of itself be calm and quiet, if the winds did +not move and trouble it; _so_ the _people would be peaceable_ and +_tractable_, if the _seditious orators did not set them in working and +agitation_; so it may be fitly said, that the mind, in the nature +thereof, would be _temperate_ and _stayed_, if _the affections_, as +winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And _here, again_, +I find, _strange as before_, that _Aristotle_ should have written +divers volumes of _Ethics_, and never handled THE AFFECTIONS, which is +the _principal subject thereof_; and yet, in his _Rhetorics_, where +they are considered but _collaterally_, and in a second degree, as +they may be moved by speech, he findeth place for them, and handleth +them well _for the quantity_, but where their _true place_ is, he +_permitteth_ them. (Very much the method of procedure adopted by the +philosopher who composes that criticism; who also finds a place for +the affections in passing, where they are considered collaterally, and +in a second degree, and for the quantity, he handleth them well, and +who knows how to bring his Rhetorics to bear on them, as well as the +politicians in popular estates did of old, though for a different end; +but where their true place is, he, too, _permitteth_ them; and, in his +Novum Organum, he keeps so clear of them, and _permits_ them so fully, +that the critics tell us he never meant it should touch them.) 'For it +is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this +inquiry, no more than he that should _generally_ handle the nature of +light can be said to handle the nature of _colours_; for pleasure and +pain are to the particular affections as light is to the particular +colours.' Is not this a man for particulars, then? And when he comes +to the practical doctrine,--to _the art_--to the knowledge, which is +_power_,--will he not have particulars here, as well as in those other +arts which are based on them? Will he not have particulars here, as +well as in chemistry and natural philosophy, and botany and +mineralogy; or, when it comes to practice here, will he be content, +after all, with the old line of argument, and elegant disquisition, +with the old generalities and subtleties of definition, which required +no collection of particulars, which were independent of observation, +or for which the popular accidental observation sufficed? 'Better +travels, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I +can gather by that which we have at secondhand. _But yet_ it is like +it was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions, which, +in a subject of this nature, are _but curiosities_, than _in_ ACTIVE +_and_ AMPLE DESCRIPTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS. So, likewise, I find some +particular writings of _an elegant nature_, touching some of the +affections; as of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of +tenderness of countenance, and others.' And such writings were not +confined to the ancients. Some of us have seen elegant writings of +this nature, published under the name of the philosopher who composes +this criticism, and suggests the possibility of essays of a more +lively and _experimental_ kind, and who seems to think that the +treatment should be _ample_, as well as _active_. + +'_But_ the POETS and WRITERS of HISTORY are the best _Doctors_ of +_this knowledge_, where we may find, painted forth with great _life_, +_how affections are kindled and incited_, and _how pacified_ and +_refrained_;'--certainly, that is the kind of learning we want +here:--'and how, again, contained from _act_ and _further +degree_'--very useful knowledge, one would say, and it is a pity it +should not be 'diffused,' but it is not every poet who can be said to +have it;--'_how_ they disclose themselves--_how_ they work--how they +vary;'--this is the science of them clearly, _whoever_ has it;--'how +they gather and fortify--how they are _enwrapped one within +another_;'--yes, there is one Poet, one Doctor of this science, in +whom we can find _that_ also;--'and how they do fight and encounter +one with another, and other like _particularities_.' We all know what +Poet it is, to whose lively and ample descriptions of the affections +and passions--to whose _particularities_--that description best +applies, and in what age of the world he lived; but no one, who has +not first studied them as scientific exhibitions, can begin to +perceive the force--the exclusive force--of the reference. 'Amongst +the which, this last is of special _use_ in MORAL and CIVIL matters: +_how_, I say, to _set affection against affection_, and to master one +by another, even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird +with bird, which otherwise, percase, we could not so easily recover.' +The Poet has not only exhibited this with very voluminous and lively +details, but he, too, has concluded his precept;-- + + 'One fire burns out another's burning'-- + 'One desperate grief cures with another's languish'-- + 'Take thou some new infection to thine eye, + And the rank poison of the old will die.' + _Romeo and Juliet_. + + 'As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity; + And pity to the _general wrong of Rome_ + Hath, done this deed _on Cćsar.' + _Julius Cćsar_. + +for it is the _larger_ form, which is the worthier, in that new +department of mixed mathematics which this philosopher was +cultivating. + + 'One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail: + Rights by rights fouler, strength by strengths do fail.' + _Coriolanus_. + +And for history of _cases_, see the same author in Hamlet and other +plays. [This philosopher's prose not unfrequently contains the key of +the poetic paraphrase; and the true reading of the line, which has +occasioned so much perplexity to the critics, may, perhaps, be +suggested by this connection--'to set affection against affection, and +to master one by another, even as we hunt beast with beast, and fly +bird with bird.'] + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY.--ALTERATION. + + + Hast thou not learn'd me how + To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so, + That our great king himself doth woo me oft + For my confections? Having thus far proceeded, + (Unless thou think'st me devilish,) is't not meet + That I did amplify my judgment in + Other conclusions? _Cymbeline_. + +Thus far, it is the science of Man, _as he is_, that is propounded. It +is a scientific history of the Mind and its diseases, built up from +particulars, as other scientific histories are; and having disposed, +in this general manner, of that which must be dealt with by way of +_application_, those points of nature and fortune, which he puts down +as the basis and conditions to _which all our_ WORK _is limited and +tied_, we come now to that which IS within our power--to those points +which we can deal with by way of ALTERATION, and not of _application_ +merely; and yet points which are operating perpetually on the human +character, changing the will and appetite, and altering the conduct, +by laws not less sure than those which operate in the occult processes +of nature, and determine differences behind the scene, or out of the +range of our volition. + +And if after having duly weighed the hints we have already received of +the importance of the subject, we do not any longer suffer ourselves +to be put off the track, or bewildered by the first rhetorical effect +of the sentence in which these agencies are introduced to our +attention,--if we look at that rapid series of words, as something +else than the points of a period, if we stop long enough to recover +from the confusion which a mere string of names, a catalogue or table +of contents, crowded into single sentence, will, of necessity, +create,--if we stop long enough to see that each one of these words is +a point in the table of a new science, we shall perceive at once, that +after having made all this large allowance, this _new_ allowance for +that which is _without_ our power, there is still a very, very large +margin of operation, and discovery, and experiment left; that there is +still a large scope of _alteration_ left--alteration in man as he is. +For we shall find that these forces which _are_ within our power, are +the very ones which are making, and always have been making, man what +he is. Running our eye along this table of forces and supplies, with +that understanding of its uses, we shall perceive at once, that we +have the most ample material here, if it were but scientifically +handled; untried, inexhaustible means and appliances for raising man +to the height of his pattern and original, to the stature of a perfect +man. + +It is not the material of this regimen of growth and advancement, it +is not the Materia Medica that is wanting,--it is the science of it. +It is the natural history of these forces, with the precepts +scientifically concluded on them, that is wanting. The appliances are +here; the scientific application of them remains to be made, and until +these have been tried, it is too early to pronounce on the case; until +these have been tried, just as other precepts of the new science have +been, it is too soon to say that that science of nature,--that +knowledge of laws--that foreknowledge of effects, which operates so +remedially in all other departments of the human life, is without +application, is of no efficiency here; until these have been tried it +is too soon to say that the science of nature is _not_ what the man +who brought it in on this Globe theatre _declared it_ to _be_, the +handmaid of Divinity, the intelligent handmaid and minister of +religion, to whose discretion in the economy of Providence, much, much +has evidently been left. + +And it was no assumption in this man to claim, as he did claim, a +divine and providential authority for this procedure. And those who +intelligently fulfil their parts in this great enterprise for man's +relief, and the Creator's glory, have just as clear a right to say, as +those of old who fulfilled with such means and lights, and +inspirations as their time gave them, their part in the plan of the +human advancement, 'it is God who worketh in us.' + +'Now come we to those points which _are_ within our command, and have +_force_ and _operation_ upon the mind, to _affect the will and +appetite_, and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled +CUSTOM, EXERCISE, HABIT, EDUCATION, EXAMPLE, IMITATION, EMULATION, +COMPANY, FRIENDS, PRAISE, REPROOF, EXHORTATION, FAME, LAWS, BOOKS, +STUDIES: these, as they have determinate use in moralities, from these +_the mind_ SUFFERETH; and of these are such receipts and regiments +compounded and described, as may serve to recover or preserve the +health and good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human +medicine; of which number we will insist upon some one or two, _as an +example of the rest_, because it _were too long_ to prosecute _all_.' +But the careful reader perceives in that which follows, that the +treatment of this so vital subject, though all that the author has to +say upon it _here_, is condensed into these brief paragraphs, is not +by any means so miscellaneous, as this introduction and 'the _first_ +cogitation' on it, might, perhaps, have prepared him to find it. + +To be permitted to handle these forces openly, in the form of literary +report, and recommendation, would, no doubt, have seemed to this +inventor of sciences, in his day no small privilege. But there was +another kind of experiment in them which he aspired to. He wished to +take these forces in hand more directly, and compound recipes, with +them, and other 'regiments' and cures. For by nature and carefullest +study he was a Doctor in this degree and kind--and a man thus fitted, +inevitably seeks his sphere. Very unlearned in this science of human +nature which he has left us,--much wanting in analysis must he be, who +can find in the persistent determination of such a man to possess +himself of places of trust and authority, only the vulgar desire for +courtly distinction, and eagerness for the paraphernalia of office. +This man was not wanting in any of the common natural sentiments; the +private and particular nature was large in him, and that good to which +he gives the preference in his comparison of those exclusive aims and +enjoyments, is 'the good which is _active_, and not that which is +_passive_'; both as it tends to secure that individual perpetuity +which is the especial craving of men thus specially endowed, and on +account of 'that affection for variety and _proceeding_' which is also +common to men, and specially developed in such men,--an affection +which the goods of the passive nature are not able to satisfy. 'But in +_enterprises_, pursuits and purposes of life, there is much variety +whereof men are sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, +progressions, recoils, re-integration, approaches and attainings to +their ends.' And he gives us a long insight into his own particular +nature and history in that sentence. He is careful to distinguish this +kind of good from the good of society, 'though in some cases it hath +an incident to it. For that gigantine state of mind which possesseth +the _troublers_ of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla, and _infinite +other in smaller model_, who would have all men happy or unhappy, as +they were their friends or enemies, _and would give form to the world +according to their own humours_, which is the true _theomachy_, +pretendeth and aspireth to _active good_ though it _recedeth farthest_ +from that _good of society_, which we have determined to be _the +greater_.' + +In no troubler or benefactor of the world, on the largest scale, in no +theomachist of any age, whether intelligent and benevolent, or +demoniacal and evil, had this nature which he here defines so clearly, +ever been more largely incorporated, or more effectively armed. But in +him this tendency to personal aggrandisement was overlooked, and +subordinated by the larger nature,--by the intelligence which includes +the whole, and is able to weigh the part with it, and by the +sentiments which enforce or anticipate intelligent decision. + +Both these facts must be taken into the account, if we would read his +history fairly. For he composed for himself a plan of living, in which +this naturally intense desire for an individual perpetuity and renown, +and this love of action and enterprise for its own sake, was sternly +subordinated to the noblest ends of living, to the largest good of his +kind, to the divine and eternal law of duty, to the relief of man's +estate and the Creator's glory. And without making any claim on his +behalf, which it would be unworthy to make for one to whom the truth +was dearer than the opinions of men; it may be asserted, that whatever +errors of judgment or passion, we may find, or think we find in him, +these ends were with him predominant, and shaped his course. + +He was not naturally a man of _letters_, but a man of action, +intensely impelled to action, and it was because he was forbidden to +fulfil his enterprise in person, because he had to write letters of +direction to those to whom he was compelled to entrust it, because he +had to write letters to the future, and leave himself and his will in +letters, that letters became, in his hands, _practical_. He, too, knew +what it was to be compelled 'to unpack his heart in words' when deeds +should have expressed it. + +But even words are forbidden him here. After all the pains he has +taken to show us what the deficiency is which he is reporting here, +and what the art and science which he is proposing, he can only put +down a few paragraphs on the subject, casually, as it were, in +passing. Of all these forces which have operation on the mind, and +with which scientific appliances for the human mind should be +compounded, he can only 'insist upon some one or two as an example of +the rest.' + +That was all that a writer, who was at the same time a public man, +could venture on,--a writer who had once been under violent political +suspicion, and was still eagerly watched, and especially by one class +of public functionaries, who seemed to feel, that with all his +deference to their claims, there was something there not quite +friendly to them, this was all that he could undertake to insist upon +'in that place.' But a writer who had the advantage of being already +defunct--a writer whose estate on the earth was then already done, and +who was in no kind of danger of losing either his head or his place, +could of course manage this part of the subject differently. _He_ +would not find it too long to prosecute all, perhaps. And if he had at +the same time the advantage of a foreign name and seignorie, he could +come out in England at this very crisis with the freest exhibitions of +the points which are _here_ only _indicated_. He could even put them +down openly in his table of contents, every one of them, and make them +the titles of his chapters. + +There was a work published in England, in that age, in which these +forces, of which only the _catalogue_ is inserted here, these forces +which _are_ in our power, which we _can_ alter, forces from which the +mind _suffereth_, which have operation upon the mind to affect the +will and appetite, are directly dealt with in the most subtle and +artistic manner, in the form of literary _essay_; and in the bolder +chapters, the author's observations and criticisms are clearly put +down; his scientific suggestions of alterations and new compounds, his +scientific doctrine of _careful alterations_, his scientific doctrine +of surgery, and adaptation of regimen, and cure to different ages, and +differing social conditions, are all promiscuously filed in, and the +English public swallows it without any difficulty at all, and +perceives nothing disagreeable or dangerous in it. + +_This_ work contains, also, some of those other parts of the new +science which have just been reported as wanting, parts which are said +by the inventor of this science, to have a great ministry to policy, +as well as morality, and the natural history of the creature, which it +is here proposed to reform, is brought out without any regard whatever +to considerations which would inevitably affect a moralist, looking at +the subject from any less earnest and practical--from any less +_elevated_ point of view. + +Of course, it was perfectly competent for a Gascon whose gasconading +was understood to be without any motive beyond that of vanity and +egotism, and without any incidence to effects, to say, in the way of +mere foolery, many things which an English statesman could not then so +well endorse. And in case his personality were called in question, +there was the mountain to retreat to, and the saint of the mount, in +whose behalf the goose is annually sacrificed by the English people, +the saint under whose shield and name the great English philosopher +sleeps. In fact, this personage is not so limited in his quarters as +the proper name might seem to imply. One does not have to go to the +south of France to find him. But it is certainly remarkable, that a +work in Natural History, composed by the inventors of the science of +observation, and the first in the field, containing their observations +in that part of the field too, in which the deficiency appeared to +them most important, should have been able to pass so long under so +thin a disguise, under this merest gauze of _egotism_, unchallenged. + +These _essaies_, however, have not been without result. They have been +operating incessantly, ever since, directly upon the leading minds, +and indirectly upon the minds of men in general, (for many who had +never read the book, have all their lives felt its influence), and +tending gradually to the clearing up of the human intelligence in 'the +practice part of life' in general, and to the development of a common +sense on the topics here handled, much more creditable to the species +than anything that the author could find stirring in his age. When the +works which the propounders of the Great Instauration took pains to +get composed by way of filling up their plan of it, a little, corn to +be collected and bound, this one will have to find its place among +them. + +But here, at home, in his own historical name and figure, in his own +person, instead of conducting his magnificent scientific experiments +on that scale which the genius of his activity, and the largeness of +his good will, would have prescribed to him, instead of founding his +House of Solomon as he would have founded it, (as that proximity to +the throne, when it was the throne of an absolute monarch might have +enabled him to found it, if the monarch he found there had been, +indeed, what he claimed to be, a lover of learning), instead of such +large help and countenance as that of the king, to whom this great +proposition was addressed, the philosopher of that time could not even +venture on a literary essay in this field under that protection; it +was as much as he could do, it was as much as his favor with the king +was worth, to slip in here, in this conspicuous place, where it would +be sure to be found, sooner or later, the index of his _essaies_. + +'It would be too _long_,' he says, 'to inquire here into the operation +of all these social forces that are making men, that are doing more to +make them what they are, than nature herself is doing,' for, 'know +thou,' the Poet of this Philosophy says, 'know thou MEN ARE as the +TIME IS.' He has included here, in these points which he would have +scientifically handled, that which makes _times_, that which _can be +altered_, that which Advancements of Learning, however, set on foot at +first, are sure in the end to _alter_. 'We will insist upon some one +or two as an example of the rest.' And we find that the points he +resumes to speak of here, are, indeed, points of primary consequence; +social forces that do indeed need a scientific control, effects +reported, and precepts concluded. Custom and Habit, Books and Studies, +and then a kind of culture, which he says, 'seemeth to be more +accurate and elaborate than the rest,' which we find, upon +examination, to be a strictly religious culture, and lastly the method +to which he gives the preference, as the most compendious and summary +in its formative or reforming influence, 'the _electing_ and +propounding unto a man's self _good and virtuous ends of his life_, +such as may be in a _reasonable sort within his compass to attain_.' +He says enough under these heads to show the difficulty of writing on +a subject where the science has been reported wanting, while the 'Art +and Practice' is prescribed. + +He lays much stress on CUSTOM and HABIT, and gives some few precepts +for its management, 'made out of the pith and heart of sciences,' but +he speaks briefly, and chiefly for the purpose of indicating the value +he attaches to this point, for he concludes his precepts and +observations on it, thus: 'Many other axioms there are, touching the +managing of exercise and custom, which being _so conducted_,-- +scientifically conducted--do prove, _indeed_ ANOTHER NATURE' ['almost, +can _change_ the stamp of nature,'--is Hamlet's word on _this_ +point]; 'but being governed by _chance_, doth commonly prove but AN +APE of nature, and bringeth forth that which is _lame and +counterfeit_.' For not less than that is the difference between the +scientific administration of these things, from which the mind +_suffereth_, and the blind, hap-hazard one. + +But in proceeding to the next point on which he ventures to offer some +suggestions, that of BOOKS and STUDIES, we shall do well to take with +us that general doctrine of _cure_, founded upon the nature of things, +which he produces under the head of the cure of the body, with a +distinct allusion to its proper application here. And it is well to +observe how exactly the tone of the criticism in _this department_, +chimes in with that of the criticism already reported here. 'In the +consideration of the _cures of diseases_, I find a deficiency in the +receipts of _propriety_ respecting the _particular_ cures of diseases; +for the physicians _have frustrated the fruit of tradition, and +experience_, by their _magistralities_ in _adding and taking out_, and +changing _quid pro quo_ in their receipts _at their pleasure_, +COMMANDING SO OVER THE MEDICINE, as the medicine _cannot command over +the disease_:' that is a piece of criticism which appears to belong to +the general subject of cure; and here is one which he himself stops to +apply to a different branch of it. + +'But, lest I grow more particular than _is agreeable_, either to my +intention or _proportion_, I will conclude this part with the note of +one deficiency more, which seemeth to me of GREATEST consequence, +which is, that the _prescripts_ in use are too COMPENDIOUS TO ATTAIN +THEIR END; for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering +opinion to think any _medicine_ can be so sovereign, or so happy, as +that the receipt or use of it can work any great effect upon the body +of man: it were a strange _speech_, which spoken, or spoken oft, +should reclaim a man from a vice to which he were _by nature subject_; +it is _order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application_ WHICH +IS MIGHTY IN NATURE,' (and it is _power_ we are inquiring for here) +'which, although it requires more exact _knowledge_ in prescribing, +and more precise _obedience_ in observing, yet it is recompensed with +the magnitude of effects.' + +Possessed now of his general theory of cure, we shall better +understand his particular suggestions in regard to these medicines and +alteratives of the mind and manners, which are here under +consideration. + +'So if we should handle BOOKS and STUDIES,' he continues, having +handled custom and habit a little and their powers, in that profoundly +suggestive manner, 'so if we should handle books and studies, and what +influence and operation _they_ have upon manners, are there not divers +precepts of _great caution_ and _direction_?' A question to be asked. +And he goes on to make some further enquiries and suggestions which +have considerably more in them than meets the ear. They appear to +involve the intimation that many of our books on moral philosophy, +come to us from the youthful and poetic ages of the world, ages in +which sentiment and spontaneous conviction supplied the place of +learning; for the accumulations of ages of experiment and conclusion, +tend to maturity and sobriety of judgment in the race, as do the +corresponding accumulations in the individual experience and memory. +'And the reason why books' (which are adapted to the popular belief in +these early and unlearned ages) 'are of so little effect towards +_honesty of life_, is that they are not read and +_revolved_--revolved--as they should be, by _men in mature years_.' +But unlearned people are always beginners. And it is dangerous to put +them upon the task, or to leave them to the task of remodelling their +beliefs and adapting them to the advancing stages of human +development. He, too, thinks it is easier to overthrow the old +opinions, than it is to discriminate that which is to be conserved in +them. The hints here are of the most profoundly cautious kind--as they +have need to be--but they point to the danger which attends the +advancement of learning when rashly and unwisely conducted, and the +danger of introducing opinions which are in advance of the popular +culture; dangers of which the history of former times furnished +eminent examples and warnings then; warnings which have since been +repeated in modern instances. He proposes that books shall be tried by +their effects on manners. If they fail to produce HONESTY OF LIFE, and +if certain particular forms of truth which were once effective to that +end, in the course of a popular advancement, or change of any kind, +have lost that virtue, let them be examined; let the translation of +them be scientifically accomplished, so that the main truth be not +lost in the process, so that men be not compelled by fearful +experience to retrace their steps in search of it, even, perhaps, to +the resuming of the old, dead form again, with all its cumbrous +inefficacies; for the lack of a leadership which should have been able +to discriminate for them, and forestall this empirical procedure. + +Speaking of books of Moral science in general, and their adaptation to +different ages, he says--'Did not one of the _fathers_, in great +indignation, call POESY "_vinum demonum_," because it increaseth +_temptations_, _perturbations_, and _vain opinions_? Is not the +opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, "That +_young men_ are no fit _auditors_ of moral philosophy," because they +are not settled from the boiling heat of their _affections_, nor +attempered with _time_ and _experience_?' [And our Poet, we may remark +in passing, seems to have been struck with that same observation; for +by a happy coincidence, he appears to have it in his commonplace book +too, and he has not only made a note of it, as this one has, but has +taken the trouble to translate it into verse. He does, indeed, go a +little out of his way _in time_, to introduce it; but he is a poet who +is fond of an anachronism, when it happens to serve his purpose-- + + 'Paris and Troilus, you have both said well; + And on the cause and question now in hand + Have _glozed_; but, superficially, not much + Unlike _young men_ whom _Aristotle_ thought + Unfit to hear _moral philosophy_.'] + +The question is, then, as to the adaptations of forms, of moral +instruction to different _ages_ of the human development. For when a +decided want of 'honesty of life' shows itself, in any very general +manner, under the fullest operation of _any_ given doctrine which is +the received one, it is time for men of learning to begin to look +about them a little; and it is a time when directions so cautious as +these should not by any means be despised by those on whom the +responsibility of direction, here, is in any way devolved. + +'And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and +discourses of the ancient writers, _whereby_ they have _persuaded unto +virtue most effectually_, by representing her in _state_ and +_majesty_, and popular opinions against virtue in their _parasites' +coats_, fit to be scorned and derided, are of so little effect towards +honesty of life-- + + [_Polonius.--Honest_, my lord? + _Hamlet_.--Ay, honest.] + +'--because they are not read and _revolved_ by men, in their mature +and settled years, but confined almost _to boys and beginners_? But is +it not true, also, that _much less_ young men are fit auditors of +_matters of policy_ till they have been _thoroughly seasoned_ in +_religion and morality_, lest their judgments be corrupted, and made +apt to think that there are no true differences of things, but +according to utility and fortune.' + +By putting in here two or three of those 'elegant sentences' which the +author has taken out from their connections in his discourses, and +strung together, by way of making more perceptible points and stronger +impressions with them, according to that theory of his in regard to +aphorisms already quoted, we shall better understand this passage, for +the connection in which it is introduced here tends somewhat to +involve and obscure the meaning. 'In removing superstitions,' he tells +us, then, in this so pointed manner, 'care should be had _the good_ be +not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done _when the people +is the physician_.' '_Things will have_ their _first_ or _second_ +agitation.' [Prima Philosophia--pith and heart of sciences: the author +of this aphorism is sound and grounded.] 'If they be not tossed on the +waves of _counsel_, they will be _tossed on the waves of fortune_.' +That last 'tossing' requires a second cogitation. There might have +been a more direct way of expressing it; but this author prefers +similes in such cases, he tells us. But here is more on the same +subject. 'It were good that men in their RENOVATIONS follow the +example of time itself, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but +quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived;' and 'Discretion in +speech is more than eloquence.' These are the sentiments and opinions +of that man of science, whose works we are now opening, not caring +under what particular name or form we may find them. One or two of +these observations do not sound at all like prescience _now_; but at +the time when they were given out as precepts of direction, it +required that acquaintance with the nature of things in general which +is derived from a large and studious observation of particulars, to +put them into a form so oracular. + +But this general suggestion with regard to our books of moral +philosophy, and their adaptation to the largest effect on the will and +appetite under the given conditions of time--conditions which involve +the instruction of masses of men, in whom _affection_ predominates-- +men in whom judgment is not yet matured--men not attempered with the +time and experience of ages, by means of those preservations of it +which the traditions of learning make; beside this general suggestion +in regard to these so potent instrumentalities in manners, he has +another to make, one in which this general proposition to substitute +learning for preconception in _practical matters_,--at least, as far +as may be, comes out again in the form of criticism, and of a most +specially significant kind. It is a point which he touches lightly +here; but one which he touches again and again in other parts of +this work, and one which he resumes at large in his practical ethics. + +'Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines +of moralities themselves, some kinds of them, lest they make men too +_precise, arrogant, incompatible_, as Cicero saith of Cato, in _Marco +Catone_: "Haec bona quae videmus divina et egregia ipsius scitote esse +propria: quae nonnunquam requirimus, ea sunt omnia non a natura, sed a +magistro?"' + +And after glancing at the specific subject of remedial agencies which +_are_ within the scope of our revision and renovation, under some +other heads, concluding with that which is of all others the most +compendious and summary, and again the most noble and effectual to the +reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate, he concludes this +whole part, this part in which the points and outlines of the new +science--that radical human science which he has dared to report +deficient, come out with such masterly grasp and precision,--he +concludes this _whole part_ in the words which follow,--words which it +will take the author's own doctrine of interpretation to open. For +this is one of those passages which he commends to the second +cogitation of the reader, and he knew if 'the times that were nearer' +were not able to read it, 'the times that were farther off' would find +it clear enough. + +'Therefore I do conclude this part of Moral _Knowledge_ concerning the +culture and regiment of the Mind; wherein if any man, _considering the +facts thereof which I have enumerated_, do judge that _my labour is_ +to COLLECT INTO AN ART OR SCIENCE, that which hath been _pretermitted +by others_, as matters of common sense and experience, he judgeth +well.' The practised eye will detect on the surface here, some marks +of that style which this author recommends in such cases: especially +where such strong pre-occupations exist; already we perceive that this +is one of those sentences which is addressed to the skill of the +interpreter; in which, by means of a careful selection and collocation +of words, two or more meanings are conveyed under one form of +expression. And it may not be amiss to remember here, that this is a +style, according to the author's own description of it elsewhere, in +which the more involved and enigmatical passages sometimes admit of +_several_ readings, each having its own pertinence and value, +according to the mental condition of the reader; and that it is a +style in which even the _delicate, collateral sounds_, that are +distinctly included in this art of tradition, must come in sometimes +in the more critical places, in aid of the interpretation. 'But what +if it be an harangue whereon his life depends?' + +l.--If any man considering the parts thereof, which I have enumerated, +do judge that MY LABOUR IS to _collect into an_ ART or SCIENCE that +which hath been PRETER-MITTED by others, _he_ judgeth well. + +2.--If any man do judge that my labour is to collect into an ART or +SCIENCE that which hath been pretermitted by others AS MATTERS OF +COMMON SENSE and EXPERIENCE, _he_ judgeth well. + +3.--If any man _considering_ the PARTS THEREOF WHICH I HAVE +ENUMERATED, do judge that my labor is to collect into an ART or +SCIENCE, that which hath been pretermitted _by_ OTHERS, as matters of +common sense and experience, _he_ judgeth well. + +But if there be any doubt, about the more critical of these meanings, +let us read on, and we shall find the criticism of this great and +greatest proposition, the proposition to substitute learning for +preconception, in the main department of human practice, brought out +with all the emphasis and significance which becomes the close of so +great a period in sciences, and not without a little flowering of that +rhetoric, in which beauty is the incident, and discretion is more than +eloquence. + +'But as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes you may not marvel, +Athenians, that _Demosthenes_ and I do differ, for _he_ drinketh +water, and _I_ drink wine. And like as we read of an ancient parable +of the two gates of sleep-- + + Sunt geminae somni portae, quarum altera fertur + Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris: + Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto, + Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes. + +'So if we put on _sobriety and attention_ we shall find it a sure +maxim in knowledge, _that the more pleasant liquor of wine is the more +vaporous_, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth forth the falser +dreams.' + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +METHOD OF CONVEYING THE WISDOM OF THE MODERNS + + + It is a basilisk unto mine eyes,-- + _Kills me to look_ on't, + + This fierce abridgment + Hath to it circumstantial branches, which + Distinction should be rich in. + + _Cymbeline_. + +This whole subject is introduced here in its natural and inevitable +connection with that special form of Delivery and Tradition which it +required. For we find that connection indicated here, where the matter +of the tradition, and that part of it which specially requires this +form is treated, and we find the form itself specified here +incidentally, but not less unmistakeably, that it is in that part of +the work where the Art of Tradition is the primary subject. In +bestowing on 'the parts' of this science, which the propounder of it +is here enumerating--that consideration which the concluding paragraph +invites to them, we find, not only the fields clearly marked out, in +which he is labouring to collect into an art and science, that which +has hitherto been conducted without art or science, and left to common +sense and experience, the fields in which these goodly observations +grow, of which men have hitherto been content to gather a poesy to +carry in their hands,--(observations which he will bring home to his +confectionery, in such new and amazing prodigality and selection), but +we find also _the very form_ which these new collections, with the new +precepts concluded on them, would naturally take, and that it is one +in which these new parts of the new science and its art, which he is +labouring to constitute, might very well come out, at such a time, +without being recognised as philosophy at all,--might even be brought +out by _other_ men without science, as matters of common sense and +experience; though the world would have to concede, and the longer the +study went on, the more it would be inclined to concede, that the +common sense and experience was upon the whole somewhat uncommon, and +some who perceived its reaches, without finding that it was _art or +science_, would even be inclined to call it preternatural. + +And when he tells us, that the first step in the New Science is _the +dissection_ of _character_, and the production and exhibition of +certain scientifically constructed portraits, by means of which this +may be effected, portraits which shall represent in their type-form by +means of 'illustrious instances,' the several characters and tempers +of men's _natures_ and _dispositions_ 'that the _secret disposition of +each particular man_ may be laid open, and from a knowledge of the +whole, the precepts concerning the cures of the mind may be more +rightly concluded,'--surely _here_, to a man of learning, _the +form_,--the form in which these artistically composed diagrams will be +found, is not doubtfully indicated. + +And when, at the next step, we come to the history of 'the +affections,' and are told distinctly that _here_ philosophy, the +philosophy of practice, must needs descend from the abstraction, and +generalities of the ancient morality, for those observations and +experiments which it is the legitimate business of the poet to +conduct, though the poet, in conducting these observations and +experiments, has hitherto been wanting in the rigor which science +requires, when we are told that philosophy must _inevitably_ enter +here, that department of learning, of which the true poet is 'the +doctor,'--surely here at least, we know where we are. Certainly it is +not the fault of the author of the Great Instauration if we do _not_ +know what department of learning the collections of the new learning +which he claims to have made will be found in--if found at all, _must_ +be found in. It is not his fault if we do not know in what department +to look for the applications of the Novum Organum to those 'noblest +subjects' on which he preferred to try its powers, he tells us. Here +at least--the Index to these missing books--is clear enough. + +But in his treatment of Poetry, as one of the three grand departments +of Human Learning, for not less noble than that is the place he openly +assigns to it, though that open and primary treatment of it, is +superficially brief, he contrives to insert in it, his deliberate, +scientific preference of it, as a means of effective scientific +exhibition, to either of the two graver parts, which he has associated +with it--to history on the one hand, as corresponding to the faculty +of memory, and to philosophy or mere abstract statement on the other, +as corresponding to the faculty of Reason; for it is that great +radical department of learning, which is referred to the Imagination, +that constitutes in this distribution of learning the third grand +division of it. He shows us here, in a few words, under different +points and heads, what masterly facilities, what indispensable, +incomparable powers it has for that purpose. There is a form of it, +'which is as A VISIBLE HISTORY, and is an image of actions as if _they +were present_, as history is, of actions that _are past_.' There is a +form of it which is applied only to express some _special purpose_ or +_conceit_, which was used of old by _philosophers_ to express any +point of _reason_ more sharp and subtle than the vulgar, and, +nevertheless, _now and at all times_ these _allusive parabolical_ +poems do retain much life and vigour because--note it,--note that +because,--that _two-fold because_, because REASON CANNOT be so +SENSIBLE, nor EXAMPLES SO FIT. And he adds, also, 'there remains +another use of this poesy, opposite to the one just mentioned, for +that use tendeth to _demonstrate_ and _illustrate_ that which is +taught or delivered; and this other to _retire_ and _obscure_ it: that +is, when the secrets and mysteries of _religion, policy or philosophy_ +are involved in fables and parables.' + +But under the cover of introducing the 'Wisdom of the Ancients,' and +the form in which that was conveyed, he explains more at large the +conditions which this kind of exhibition best meets; he claims it as a +proper form of _learning_, and tells us outright, that the New Science +_must be_ conveyed in it. He has left us here, all prepared to our +hands, precisely the argument which the subject now under +consideration requires. + +'Upon deliberate consideration, my judgment is, that a _concealed +instruction_ and _allegory_, was originally intended in many of the +ancient fables; observing that some fables discover a great and +evident similitude, relation, and connection with the things they +signify, as well in the _structure of the fable_, as in the _propriety +of the names_ whereby _the persons or actors are characterised_, +insomuch that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning to be +from the first intended and purposely shadowed out in them'; and he +mentions some instances of this kind; and the first is a very +explanatory one, tending to throw light upon the proceedings of men +whose rebellions, so far as political action is concerned, have been +successfully repressed. And he takes occasion to introduce this +particular fable repeatedly in similar connections. 'For who can hear +that _Fame_, after the giants were destroyed, sprung up as their +_posthumous sister_, and not apply it to the clamour of _parties_, and +the seditious rumours which commonly fly about upon the _quelling of +insurrections_. _Or_ who, upon hearing that memorable expedition of +the gods against the giants, when the braying of _Silenus' ass_ +greatly contributed in putting the giants to flight, does not clearly +conceive that this directly _points_ to the _monstrous_ enterprises of +_rebellious subjects_, which are frequently disappointed and +frustrated by _vain fears and empty rumours_. Nor is it wonder if +sometimes a _piece of history_ or other things are introduced by way +of ornament, or if _the times_ of the action are confounded,' [the +very likeliest thing in the world to happen; things are often 'forced +in _time_' as he has given us to understand in complimenting a king's +book where the person was absent but not the occasion], 'or if part of +one fable be tacked to another, for all this must necessarily happen, +as the fables were the invention of men who lived in _different ages_, +and had _different views_, some of them being _ancient_, others more +_modern_, some having an eye to _natural philosophy_, _others_ to +_morality_ and _civil policy_.' + +This appears to be just the kind of criticism we happen to be in need +of in conducting our present inquiry, and the passage which follows is +not less to the purpose. + +For, having given some other reasons for this opinion he has expressed +in regard to the concealed doctrine of the ancients, he concludes in +this manner: 'But if any one shall, notwithstanding this, contend that +allegories are always adventitious, and no way native or _genuinely_ +contained in them, we _might here leave him undisturbed in the gravity +of that judgment_, though we cannot but think it somewhat dull and +phlegmatic, and, _if it were worth the trouble_, proceed to another +_kind_ of argument.' And, apparently, the argument he proceeds to, is +worth some trouble, since he takes pains to bring it out so +cautiously, under so many different heads, with such iteration and +fulness, taking care to insert it so many times in his work on the +Advancement of Learning, and here producing it again in his +Introduction to the Wisdom of the Ancients, accompanied with a +distinct assurance that it is _not_ the wisdom of the _ancients_ he is +concerning himself about, and _their_ necessities and helps and +instruments; though if any one persists in thinking that it _is_, he +is not disposed to disturb him in the gravity of that judgment. He +honestly thinks that they had indeed such intentions as those that he +describes; but that is a question for the curious, and he has other +work on hand; he happens to be one, whose views of learning and its +uses, do not keep him long on questions of mere curiosity. It is with +the Moderns, and not with the Ancients that he has to deal; it is the +present and the future, and not the past that he 'breaks his sleeps' +for. Whether the Ancients used those fables for purposes of +innovation, and gradual encroachment on error or not, here is a +Modern, he tells us, who for one, cannot dispense with them in _his_ +teaching. + +For having disposed of his _graver_ readers--those of the dull and +phlegmatic kind--in the preceding paragraph, and not thinking it worth +exactly that kind of trouble it would have cost then to make himself +more explicit for the sake of reaching _their_ apprehension, he +proceeds to the following argument, which is not wanting in clearness +for 'those who happen to be of his ear.' + +'Men have proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by the +use of Parables, for parables serve as well to instruct and +illustrate, as to wrap up and envelope:' [and what is more, they serve +at once that double purpose] 'so that for _the present we drop the +concealed use_, and suppose the _ancient fables_ to be vague +undeterminate things _formed for amusement, still the other use must +remain_, and can never be given up. And every man of any learning must +readily allow that THIS METHOD of INSTRUCTION is grave, sober, +exceedingly useful, and _sometimes necessary in the sciences_, as it +opens an easy and familiar passage to the human understanding, IN ALL +NEW DISCOVERIES that are abstruse and _out of the road of vulgar +opinion_. Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and +conclusions of the human reason as are _now_ trite and common, were +rare and little known, all things abounded with fables, parables, +similes, comparisons, allusions, which were not intended to _conceal_, +but to _inform and teach_, whilst the minds of men continued rude and +unpractised in matters of subtlety and speculation, and even +impatient, and in a manner _incapable of receiving such things as did +not directly fall under and strike the senses_.' [And those ages were +not gone by, it seems, for these are the very men of whom Hamlet +speaks, 'who for the most part are capable of nothing but +_inexplicable dumb-shows_ and _noise_.'] 'For as hieroglyphics were in +use before writings, so were parables in use _before argument_. _And +even to this day_, if any man would let NEW LIGHT IN upon the human +understanding, [who was it that proposed to do that?] and _conquer +prejudices without raising animosities_, OPPOSITION, or +DISTURBANCE--[who was it that proposed to do that precisely]--he _must +still_--[note it]--he _must still go in the same path_, and have +recourse _to the like method_.' Where are they then? Search and see. +Where are they?--The lost Fables of the New Philosophy? 'To conclude, +the knowledge of the earlier ages was either great or happy; _great_, +if _by design_ they made use of tropes and figures; happy, if whilst +_they had other views_ they afforded _matter_ and _occasion_ to such +_noble contemplations_. Let either be the case, _our_ pains perhaps +will not be misemployed, _whether we illustrate_ ANTIQUITY _or_ [hear] +THINGS THEMSELVES. + +But he complains of those who have attempted such interpretations +hitherto, that 'being _unskilled in nature_, and _their learning_ no +more than that of common-place, they have applied the sense of the +parables to certain _general_ and _vulgar_ matters, without reaching +to their real purport, genuine interpretation and full depth;' +certainly it would not be _that kind_ of criticism, then, which would +be able to bring out _the_ subtleties of the _new learning_ from those +popular embodiments, which he tells us it will have to take, in order +to make some impression, at least, on the common understanding. +'Settle that question, then, in regard to the old Fables as you will, +_our_ pains will not perhaps be misemployed, whether we illustrate +antiquity or things themselves,' and to that he adds, 'for _myself, +therefore, I expect to appear_ NEW in THESE COMMON THINGS, because, +leaving untouched such as are sufficiently plain and open, I _shall +drive only those_ that are either deep or rich.' 'For myself?'--I?--'I +expect to appear new in these common things.' But elsewhere, where he +lays out the argument of them, by the side of that 'resplendent and +lustrous mass of matter,' those _heroical_ descriptions of virtue, +duty, and felicity, that _others_ have got glory from, it is some +_Poet_ we are given to understand that is going to be found _new_ in +them. _There_, the argument is all--_all_--_poetic_, and it is a theme +for one who, if he know how to handle it, need not be afraid to put in +his modest claim, with those who sung of old, the wrath of heroes, and +their arms. + +Any one who does not perceive that the passages here quoted were +designed to introduce more than 'the wisdom of the ancients', the +reader who is disposed to conclude after a careful perusal of these +reiterated statements, in regard to the form in which doctrines +differing from received opinions must be delivered, taken in +connexion, too, with that draught of the new science of the _human +culture_ and its parts and points, which has just been produced +here,--the reader who concludes that _this_ is, after all, a science +that _was_ able to dispense with this method of appeal to the senses +and the imagination; that it was _not_ obliged to have recourse to +that path;--that the NEW LEARNING, 'the NEW DISCOVERY,' had here no +fables, no particular topics, and methods of tradition; that it +contented itself with abstractions and generalities, with 'the husks +and shells of sciences,'--such an one ought, undoubtedly, to be left +undisturbed in that opinion. He belongs precisely to that class of +persons which this author himself deliberately proposed to leave to +such conclusions. He is one whom this philosopher himself would not +take any trouble at all to enlighten on such points. The other +reading, with all its _gravity_, was designed for him. The time for +such an one to adopt the reading here produced, will be, when 'those +who are incapable of receiving such things as do not directly fall +under and strike the senses,' have, at last, got hold of it; when 'the +groundlings, who, for the most part are capable of nothing but dumb +show and noise,' have had their ears split with it, it will be time +enough for him. + +This Wisdom of the Moderns, then, to resume with those to whom the +appeal is made, this new learning which the Wise Man and Innovator of +the Modern Ages tells us must be clothed in fable, and adorned with +verse, this learning that must be made to fall under and strike the +senses; this dumb show of science, that is but show to him who cannot +yet take the player's own version of what it means; this illustrated +tradition, this beautiful tradition of the New Science of Human +Nature,--where is it? This historical collection, this gallery that +was to contain scientific draughts and portraitures of the human +character, that should exhaust its varieties,--where is it? These new +Georgics of the mind whose _argument is here_,--where are they? This +new Virgil who might promise himself such glory,--such new glory in +the singing of them,--where is he? Did he make so deep a summer in his +verse, that the track of the precept was lost in it? Were the flowers, +and the fruit, so thick, there; was the reed so sweet that the +argument of that great husbandry could no point,--could leave no +furrow in it? + + 'Where souls do couch, on flowers, we'll hand in hand, + And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze: + Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops, + And all the haunt be ours.' + +'The neglect of our times,' says this author, in proposing this great +argument, this new argument, of the application of SCIENCE to the +Culture and Cure of the Mind, 'the neglect of _our times_, wherein +_few men do hold any consultations_ touching the _reformation of their +lives, may_ make _this part_ seem superfluous. As Seneca excellently +saith, "De partibus vitae quisquae deliberat, de summa nemo."' And is +that, after all,--is that the trouble still? Is it, that that +characteristic of Elizabeth's time--that same thing which Seneca +complained of in Nero's,--is it that _that_ is not yet obsolete? Is +that the reason, this so magnificent part, this radical part of the +new discovery of the Modern Ages, is still held 'superfluous?' 'De +partibus vitae quisquae deliberat, de summa nemo.' 'Now that we have +spoken, and spoken for so many ages, of this fruit of life, it +remaineth to speak of the husbandry thereunto.' That is the scientific +proposition which has waited now two hundred and fifty years, for a +scientific audience. The health of the soul, the scientific promotion +of it, the FRUIT OF LIFE, and the observations of its husbandry. 'And +if it be said,' he continues, anticipating the first inconsiderate +objection, 'if it be said that the cure of mens' minds belongeth to +sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet, moral philosophy may be +preferred unto her, as a wise servant and humble handmaid. For as the +Psalm saith, that the eyes of the handmaid look perpetually towards +the _mistress_, and yet, no doubt, many things are left to the +_discretion_ of the handmaid, to _discern of the mistress' will_; so +ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines +of divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself, within due limits, +many sound and profitable directions.' + +For the times that were 'far off' when that proposition was made, it +is brought out anew and reopened. Oh, people of the ages of arts and +sciences that are called by this man's name, shall we have the fruits +of his new doctrine of KNOWLEDGE, brought to our relief in all other +fields, and reject it in this, which he himself laid out, and claimed +as its only worthy field? Instructed now in the validity of its +claims, by its 'magnitude of effects' in every department of the human +practice to which it has yet been applied, shall we permit the +department of it, on which _his_ labour was expended, to escape that +application? Shall we suffer that wild barbaric tract of the human +life which the will and affections of man create,--that tract which he +seized,--which it was his labour to collect into an art or science, to +lie unreclaimed still? + +Oh, Man of the new ages of science, will you have the new +fore-knowledge, the magical command of effects, which the scientific +inquiry into causes as they are actual in nature, puts into our hands, +in every other practice, in every other culture and cure,--will you +have the rule of this knowledge imposed upon your fields, and +orchards, and gardens, to assist weak nature in her 'conservations' +and 'advancements' in these,--to teach her to bring forth here the +latent ideals, towards which she struggles and vainly yearns, and can +only point to, and wait for, till science accepts her hints;--will you +have the Georgics of this new Virgil to load your table with its magic +clusters;--will you take the Novum Organum to pile your plate with its +ideal advancements on spontaneous nature and her perfections;--will +you have the rule of that Organum applied in its exactest rigors, to +all the physical oppositions of your life, to minister to your +physical safety, and comfort, and luxury, and never relax your +exactions from it, till the last conceivable degree of these has been +secured; and in this department of art and science,--this, in which +the sum of our good and evil is contained,--in a mere oversight of it, +in a disgraceful indifference and carelessness about it, be content to +accept, without criticism, the machinery of the +past--instrumentalities that the unlearned ages of the world have left +to us,--arts whose precepts were concluded ages ere we knew that +_knowledge_ is power. + +Shall we be content to accept as a science any longer, a science that +leaves human life and its actualities and particulars, unsearched, +uncollected, unreduced to scientific nomenclature and axiom? Shall we +be content any longer with a knowledge that is _power_,--shall we +boast ourselves any longer of a scientific _art_ that leaves _human_ +nature,--that makes over human nature to the tampering of an +unwatched, unchecked empiricism, that leaves our own souls it may be, +and the souls in which ours are garnered up, all wild and hidden, and +gnarled within with nature's crudities and spontaneities, or choked +and bitter with artificial, but unscientific, unartistic repression? + +Will you have of that divinely appointed and beautiful 'handmaid,' +that was brought in on to this Globe Theatre, with that upward +look,--with eyes turned to that celestial sovereignty for her +direction, with the sum of good in her intention, with the universal +doctrine of practice in her programme, with the relief 'of man's +estate and the Creator's glory' put down in her role,--with her _new +song_--with her song of man's nature and life _as it is,_ on her +lips--will you have of her, only the minister to your physical +luxuries and baser wants? Be it so: but in the name of that truth +which is able to survive ages of misunderstanding and detraction, in +the name of that honor which is armed with arts of self-delivery and +tradition, that will enable it to live again, 'though all the earth +o'erwhelm it to men's eyes,' while this Book of the Advancemement of +Learning stands, do not charge on this man henceforth, that election. + +The times of that ignorance in which it could be thus accredited, are +past; for the leader of this Advancement is already unfolding his +tradition, and opening his books; and he bids us debase his name no +longer, into a name for these sordid fatuities. The Leader of ages +that are yet to be,--ages whose nobler advancements, whose rational +and scientific advancements to the dignity and perfection of the human +form, it was given to him and to his company to plan and initiate,--he +declines to be held any longer responsible for the blind, demoniacal, +irrational spirit, that would seize on his great instrument of +science, and wrest it from its nobler object and intent, and debase it +into the _mere_ tool of the senses; the tool of a materialism more +base and sordid than any that the world has ever known; more sordid, a +thousand-fold, than the materialism of ages, when there was yet a god +in the wood and the stone, when there was yet a god in the brick and +the mortar. This '_broken science_' that has no end of ends, this +godless science, this railway learning that travels with restless, +ever quickening speed, no whither,--these dead, rattling 'branches' +and slivers of arts and sciences, these _modern_ arts and sciences, +hacked and cut away from that tree of sciences, from which they +sprang, whereon they grew, are _his_ no longer. He declines to be held +any longer responsible for a materialism that shelters itself under +the name of philosophy, and identifies his own name with it. Call it +science, if you will, though science be the name for unity and +comprehension, and the spirit of life, the spirit of the largest +whole; call it philosophy if you will, if you think philosophy is +capable of being severed from that common trunk, in which this +philosopher found its pith and heart,--call it science,--call it +philosophy,--but call it not, he says,--call it not henceforth +'_Baconian_.' + +For _his_ labor is to collect into an art or science the doctrine of +_human_ life. He, too, has propounded that problem,--he has translated +into the modern speech, that problem, which the inspired Leader of +men, of old propounded. 'What is a man profited if he should gain the +whole world and lose his own soul; or what can a man give in exchange +for his soul?' He, too, has recognized that ideal type of human +excellence, which the Great Teacher of old revealed and exemplified; +he has found scientifically,--he has found in the universal law,--that +divine dogma, which was taught of old by One who spake as having +authority--One who also had looked on nature with a loving and +observant eye, and found in its source, the Inspirer of his doctrine. +In his study of that old book of divinity which he calls the book of +God's Power this Modern Innovator has found the scientific version of +that inspired command 'Be ye therefore perfect.' This new science of +morality, which is '_moral knowledge_,' is able to recognise the +inspiration and divinity of that received platform and exemplar of +good, and pours in on it the light of a universal illustration. And in +his new scientific policy, in his scientific doctrine of success, in +his doctrine of the particular and private good, when he brings out at +last the rule which shall secure it from all the blows of fortune, +what is it but that same old '_Primum qućrite_' which he +produces,--clothing it with the authority and severe exaction of a +scientific rule in art,--that same '_Primum qućrite_' which was +published of old as a doctrine of faith only. 'But let men rather +build,' he says, 'upon that foundation, which is as a corner-stone of +divinity and _philosophy, wherein they join close; namely_, that _same +'Primum qućrite_.' For divinity saith, 'Seek first the kingdom of God, +and all other things shall be added to you'; and philosophy saith, +'Primum qućrite bona animi cćtera aut aderunt, aut non oberunt.' + +And who will now undertake to say that it is, indeed, written in the +Book of God,--in the Book of the Providential Design, and Creative +Law, or that it is written in the Revelation of a divine good will to +men; that those who cultivate and cure the soul--who have a divine +appointment to the office of its cure--shall thereby be qualified to +ignore its actual laws, or that they shall find in the scientific +investigation of its actual history, or in this new--so new, this so +wondrous and beautiful science, which is here laid out in all its +parts and points on the basis of a universal science of practice,--no +'ministry' to their end? Who shall say that the Regimen of the mind, +that its Education and healthful culture, as well as its cure, shall +be able to accept of no instrumentalities from the _advancement_ of +learning? Who shall say that this department of the human life--_this_ +alone, is going to be held back to the past, with bonds and cramps of +iron, while all else is advancing; that this is going to be held +forever as a place where the old Aristotelian logic, which we have +driven out of every other field, can keep its hold unchallenged +still,--as a place for the metaphysics of the school-men, the empty +conceits, the old exploded inanities of the Dark Ages, to breed and +nestle in undisturbed? + +Who shall claim that this department is the only one, which that gift, +that is the last gift of Creation and Providence to man is forbidden +to enter? + +Surely it is the authorised doctrine of a supernatural aid, that it is +never brought in to sanction indolence and the neglect of means and +instruments already in our power; and in that book of these new ages +in which the doctrine of a successful human practice was promulgated, +is it not written that in no department of the human want, 'can those +noble effects, which God hath set forth to be bought as the price of +labour, be obtained as the price of a few easy and slothful +observances?' + +And who that looks on the world as it is at this hour, with all our +boasted aids and instrumentalities,--who that hears that cry of sorrow +which goes up from it day and night,--who that looks at these masses +of men as they are,--who that dares to look at all this vice and +ignorance and suffering which no instrumentality, mighty to relieve, +has yet reached, shall think to put back,--as if we had no need of +it,--this great gift of light and healing,--this gift of _power_, +which the scientific ages are bringing in; this gift which the ages of +'anticipation,' the ages of inspiration and spontaneous affirmation, +could only divinely--diviningly--foresee and promise;--this gift which +the knowledge of the creative laws, the historic laws, the laws of +kind, as they are actual in the human nature and the human life, puts +into our hands? Who shall think himself competent to oppose this +benefaction? Alas for such an one! let us take up a lamentation for +him. He has stayed too long. The constitution of things, the universal +laws of being, and the Providence of this world are against him. The +track of the advancing ages goes over him. He is at variance with that +which was and shall be. The world's wheel goes over him. And whosoever +falls on that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it falls it +shall grind him to powder. + +It is by means of the scientific Art of Delivery and Tradition, that +this doctrine of the scientific Culture and Cure of the Mind, which is +the doctrine of the scientific ages, has been made over to us in the +abstract; and it is by means of the rule of interpretation, which this +Art of Delivery prescribes, it is by means of the secret of an +Illustrated Tradition, or Poetic Tradition of this science, that we +are now enabled to unlock at last those magnificent collections in +it--those inexhaustible treasures and mines of it--which the +Discoverer, in spite of the time, has contrived to leave us, in that +form of Fable and Parable in which the advancing truth has always been +left,--in that form of Poesy in which the highest truth has, from of +old, been uttered. For over all this ground lay extended, then, in +watchful strength all safe and unespied, the basilisk of whom the +Fable goes, if he sees you first, you die for it,--_but_ if YOU SEE +HIM FIRST, HE DIES. And this is the Bishop who fought with a _mace_, +because he would _kill_ his enemy and not _wound_ him. + + + + +BOOK II. + +ELIZABETHAN 'SECRETS OF MORALITY AND POLICY'; + +OR, + +THE FABLES OF THE NEW LEARNING. + + +Reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit. +_Advancement of Learning._ + +INTRODUCTORY. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE DESIGN. + + +The object of this Volume is merely to open _as a study_, and a study +of primary consequence, those great Works of the Modern Learning which +have passed among us hitherto, for lack of the historical and +scientific key to them, as Works of Amusement, merely. + +But even in that superficial acquaintance which we have had with them +in that relation, they have, all the time, been subtly operating upon +the minds in contact with them, and perpetually fulfilling the first +intention of their Inventor. + +'For,' says the great Innovator of the Modern Ages,--the author of the +_Novum_ Organum, and of the _Advancement_ of Learning,--in claiming +this department of Letters as the necessary and proper instrumentality +of a new science,--of a science at least, 'foreign to opinions +received,'--as he claims elsewhere that it is, under all conditions, +the inevitable essential form of this science in particular. 'Men have +proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by the use of +parables, for they serve as well to _instruct_ and _illustrate_ as to +_wrap up and envelope_, so that, though for the present, we drop the +concealed use, and suppose them to be _vague undeterminate things_, +formed for AMUSEMENT merely, still the other _use_ remains. 'And every +man of _any_ learning must readily concede,' he says, 'the value of +that use of them as a method of popular instruction, grave, sober, +exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the _sciences_, as it +opens an easy and _familiar_ passage to the human understandings in +_all new_ discoveries, that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar +opinion. They were used of old by _philosophers_ to express any point +of reason more sharp and subtle than the vulgar, and nevertheless +_now_, and _at all times_, these allusive parabolical forms retain +much life and vigor, because _reason_ cannot be _so sensible_ nor +_examples so fit_.' That philosophic use of them was to inform and +teach, whilst the minds of men continued rude and unpractised in +matters of subtilty and speculation, and even impatient and in a +manner incapable of receiving anything that did not directly fall +under and strike the senses. 'And, even to this day, if any man would +let new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer prejudices +without raising animosities, opposition, or _disturbance_, he must +still go in _the same path_ and have recourse to the like method.' + +That is the use which the History and Fables of the New Philosophy +have already _had_ with us. We have been feeding without knowing it, +on the 'principal and supreme sciences'--the 'Prima Philosophia' and +its noblest branches. We have been taking the application of the +Inductive Philosophy to the principal concerns of our human life, and +to the phenomena of of the human nature itself, as mere sport and +pastime; though the precepts concluded, the practical axioms inclosed +with it have already forced their way into our learning, for all our +learning is, even now, inlaid and glittering with those 'dispersed +directions.' + +We have profited by this use of them. It has not been pastime merely +with us. We have not spent our time in vain on this first stage of an +Advancing Learning, a learning that will not cease to advance until it +has invaded all our empiricisms, and conquered all our practice; a +learning that will recompence the diligence, the exactitude, the +severity of observance which it will require here also (when it comes +to put in its claim here, as Learning and not Amusement merely), with +that same magnitude of effects that, in other departments, has already +justified the name which its Inventor gave it--a Learning which will +give us here, also, in return for the severity of observance it will +require, what no ceremonial, however exacting can give us, that +control of effects, with which, even in its humblest departments, it +has already fulfilled, in the eyes of all the world, the prophecy +which its Inventors uttered when they called it the NEW MAGIC. + +That first use of the Histories and Fables of the Modern Learning, we +have had already; and it is not yet exhausted. But in that rapid +development of a common intelligence, to which the new science of +practice has itself so largely contributed, even in its lower and +limited developments, we come now to that other and so important use +of these Fables, which the philosophic Innovator proposed to drop for +the time, in his argument--that use of them, in which they serve 'to +wrap up and conceal' for the time, or to limit to the few, who are +able to receive them, those new discoveries which are as yet too far +in advance of the common beliefs and opinions of men, and too far +above the mental habits and capacities of the masses of men, to be +safely or profitably communicated to the many in the abstract. + +But in order to arrive at this second and nobler use of them, it will +be necessary to bestow on them a very different kind of study from any +that we have naturally thought it worth while to spend on them, so +long as we regarded them as works of pastime merely; and especially +while that insuperable obstacle to any adequate examination of them, +which the received history of the works themselves created, was still +operating on the criticism. The truths which these Parabolic and +Allusive Poems wrap up and conceal, have been safely concealed +hitherto, because they are not those common-place truths which we +usually look for as the point and moral of a tale which is supposed to +have a moral or politic intention,--truths which we are understood to +be in possession of beforehand, while the parable or instance is only +designed to impress the sensibility with them anew, and to reach the +will that would not take them from the reason, by means of the senses +or the imagination. It is not that spontaneous, intuitive knowledge, +or those conventional opinions, those unanalysed popular beliefs, +which we usually expect to find without any trouble at all, on the +very surface of any work that has morality for its object, it is not +any such coarse, lazy performance as that, that we need trouble +ourselves to look for here. This higher intention in these works +'their real import, genuine interpretation, and full depth,' has not +yet been found, _because_ the science which is wrapped in them, though +it is the principal science in the plan of the Advancement of +Learning, has hitherto escaped our notice, and _because_ of the +exceeding subtlety of it,--because the truths thus conveyed or +concealed are new, and recondite, and out of the way of any casual +observation,--because in this scientific collection of the phenomena +of the human life, designed to serve as the basis of new social arts +and rules of practice, the author has had occasion to go behind the +vague, popular, unscientific terms which serve well enough for +purposes of discourse, and mere oratory, to those principles which are +actual and historical, those simple radical forms and differences on +which the doctrine of power and practice must be based. + +It is pastime no longer. It is a study, the most patient, the most +profoundly earnest to which these works now invite us. Let those who +will, stay in the playground still, and make such sport and pastime of +it there, as they may; and let those who feel the need of inductive +rules here also,--here on the ground which this pastime covers--let +those who perceive that we have as yet, set our feet only on the +threshold of the Great Instauration, find here with diligent research, +the ascent to the axioms of practice,--that ascent which the author of +the science of practice in general, made it _his labour_ to hew out +_here_, for _he_ undertook 'to collect here into an art or science, +that which had been pretermitted by others as matters of common sense +and experience.' + +It does not consist with the design of the present work to track that +draught of a new science of morality and policy, that 'table' of an +inductive science of human nature, and human life, which the plan of +the Advancement of Learning contains, with all the lettering of its +compartments put down, into these systematic scientific collections, +which the Fables of the Modern Learning,--which these magnificent +Parabolical Poems have been able hitherto to wrap up and conceal. + +This work is merely introductory, and the design of it is to remove +that primary obstacle to the diligent study of these works, which the +present theory of them contains; since that concealment of their true +intention and history, which was inevitable at the time, no longer +serves the author's purpose, and now that the times are ripe for the +learning which they contain, only serves indeed to hinder it. And the +illustrations which are here produced, are produced with reference to +that object, and are limited strictly to the unfolding of those +'_secrets of policy_,' which are the necessary introduction to that +which follows. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MISSING BOOKS OF THE GREAT INSTAURATION; +OR, PHILOSOPHY ITSELF. + + +Did it never occur to the student of the _Novum Organum_ that the +constant application of that '_New Machine_' by the inventor of it +himself, to one particular class of subjects, so constant as to +produce on the mind of the careless reader the common impression, that +it was intended to be applied to that class only, and that the relief +of the human estate, in that one department of the human want, +constituted its whole design: did it never occur to the curious +inquirer, or to the active experimenter in this new rule of learning, +that this apparently so rigorous limitation of its applications in the +hands of its author is--under all the circumstances--a thing worthy of +being inquired into? Considering who the author of it is, and that it +is on the face of it, a new method of dealing with facts in general, a +new method of obtaining axioms of practice from history in general, +and not a specific method of obtaining them from that particular +department of history from which his instances are taken; and, +considering, too, that the author was himself aware of the whole sweep +of its applications, and that he has taken pains to include in his +description of its powers, the assertion,--the distinct, deliberate +assertion--that it is capable of being applied as _efficiently_, to +those nobler departments of the human need, which are marked out for +it in the Great Instauration--those very departments in which he was +known himself to be so deeply interested, and in which he had been all +his life such a diligent explorer and experimenter. Did it never occur +to the scholar, to inquire why he did not apply it, then, himself to +those very subjects, instead of keeping so stedfastly to the physical +forces in his illustration of its powers? And has any one ever read +the plan of this man's works? Has any one seen the scheme of that +great enterprise, for which he was the responsible person in his own +time--that scheme which he wrote out, and put in among these published +acknowledged works of his, which he dared to produce in his own name, +to show what parts of his '_labor_,'--what part of chief consequence +was _not_ thus produced? Has any one seen that plan of a new system of +Universal Science, which was published in the reign of James the +First, under the patronage of that monarch? And if it has been seen, +what is the reason there has been no enquiry made for those works, in +which the author openly proposes to apply his new organum in person to +these very subjects; and that, too, when he takes pains to tell us, in +reference to that undertaking, that he is _not_ a vain promiser. + +There is a pretence of supplying that new kind of history, which the +new method of discovery and invention requires as the first step +towards its conclusions, which is put down as the THIRD PART of the +Instauration, though the natural history which is produced for that +purpose is very far from fulfilling the description and promise of +that division. But where is the FOURTH part of the Great Instauration? +Has anybody seen the FOURTH part? Where is that so important part for +which all that precedes it is a preparation, or to which it is +subsidiary? Where is that part which consists of EXAMPLES, that are +nothing but a _particular_ application of the SECOND; that is, the +Novum Organum,--'and to _subjects of the noblest kind_?' Where is +'that part of our work which enters upon PHILOSOPHY ITSELF,' instead +of dealing any longer, or professing to deal, with THE METHOD merely +of finding that which man's relief requires, or instead of exhibiting +that method any longer _in the abstract_? Where are the works in which +he undertakes to show it in operation, with its new 'grappling hooks' +on the matter of the human life--applied by the inventor himself to +'the noblest subjects?' Surely that would be a sight to see. What is +the reason that our editors do not produce these so important works in +their editions? What is the reason that our critics do not include +them in their criticism? What is the reason that our scholars do not +quote them? Instead of stopping with that mere report of the condition +of learning and its deficiences, and that outline of what is to be +done, which makes the FIRST PART or Introduction to this work; or +stopping with the description of the new method, or the Novum Organum, +which makes the SECOND; why don't they go on to the 'new philosophy +itself,' and show us that as well,--the very object of all this +preparation? When he describes in the SECOND part his _method_ of +finding true terms, or rather the method of his school, when he +describes this new method of finding '_ideas_,' ideas as they are in +nature, powers, causes, the elements of history, or _forms_, as he +more commonly calls them, when he describes this new method of +deducing axioms, axioms that are ready for practice, he does, indeed, +give us _instances_; but it so happens, that the instances are all of +_one kind_ there. They are the physical powers that supply his +examples in that part. + +In describing this method merely, he produces what he calls his Tables +of Invention, or Tables of REVIEW OF INSTANCES; but where is that part +in which he tells us we shall find these same tables again, with 'the +nobler subjects' on them? He produces them for careful scrutiny in his +second part; and he makes no small parade in bringing them in. He +shews them up very industriously, and is very particular to direct the +admiring attention of the reader to their adaptation as means to an +end. But certainly there is nothing in that specimen of what can be +done with them which he contents himself with there, that would lead +any one to infer that the power of this invention, which is the +novelty of it, was going to be a dangerous thing to society, or, +indeed, that they were not the most harmless things in the world. It +is the true cause of HEAT, and the infallible means of producing that +under the greatest variety of conditions, which he appears to be +trying to arrive at there. But what harm can there be in that, or in +any other discovery of that kind. And there is no real impression made +on any one's mind by that book, that there is any other kind of +invention or discovery intended in the practical applications of this +method? The very free, but of course not pedantic, use of the new +terminology of a new school in philosophy, in which this author +indulges--a terminology of a somewhat figurative and poetic kind, one +cannot but observe, for a philosopher of so strictly a logical turn of +mind, one whose thoughts were running on abstractions so entirely, to +construct; his continued preference for these new scholastic terms, +and his inflexible adherence to a most profoundly erudite mode of +expression whenever he approaches 'the part operative' of his work, is +indeed calculated to awe and keep at a distance minds not yet prepared +to grapple formally with those 'nobler subjects' to which allusion is +made in another place. King James was a man of some erudition himself; +but he declared frankly that for his part he could not understand this +book; and it was not strange that he could not, for the author did not +intend that he should. The philosopher drops a hint in passing, +however, that all which is essential in this method, might perhaps be +retained without quite so much formality and fuss in the use of it, +and that the proposed result might be arrived at by means of these +same tables, without any use of technical language at all, under other +circumstances. + +The results which have since been obtained by the use of this method +in that department of philosophy to which it is specially applied in +the Novum Organum, give to the inquirer into the causes of the +physical phenomena now, some advantages which no invention could +supply them. That was what the founders of this philosophy expected +and predicted. They left this department to their school. The author +of the Novum Organum orders and initiates this inquiry; but the basis +of the induction in this department is as yet wanting; and the +collections and experiments here require combinations of skill and +labour which they cannot at once command. They will do what they can +here too, in their small way, just to make a beginning; but they do +not lay much stress upon any thing they can accomplish with the use of +their own method in this field. It serves, however, a very convenient +purpose with them; neither do they at all underrate its intrinsic +importance. + +But the man who has studiously created for himself a social position +which enables him to assume openly, and even ostentatiously, the +position of an innovator--an innovator _in the world of letters_, an +advancer of--_learning_--is compelled to introduce his innovation with +the complaint that he finds the mind of the world so stupified, so +bewildered with evil, and so under the influence of dogmas, that the +first thing to be done is to get so much as a thought admitted of the +possibility of a better state of things. 'The present system of +philosophy,' he says, 'cherishes in its bosom certain positions or +dogmas which it will be found, are calculated to produce a full +conviction that no difficult, commanding, and powerful operation on +nature _ought_ to be anticipated, through the means of art.' And, +therefore, after criticising the theory and practice of the world as +he finds it, reporting as well as he can,--though he can find no +words, he says, in which to do justice to his feeling in regard to +it--_the deficiencies_ in its learning, he devotes a considerable +portion of the description of his new method to the grounds of 'hope' +which he derives from this philosophic survey, and that that hope is +not a hope of a better state of things in respect to the physical +wants of man merely, that it is not a hope of a renovation in the arts +which minister to those wants exclusively, any very careful reader of +the first book of the Novum Organum will be apt on the whole to infer. +But the statements here are very general, and he refers us to another +place _for particulars_. + +'Let us then speak of _hope_' he says, '_especially_ as we are not +vain promisers, nor are willing to enforce or ensnare men's judgments; +but would rather lead them _willingly_ forward. And although we shall +employ the most cogent means of _enforcing hope when we bring them_ TO +PARTICULARS, and _especially_ those which are digested and arranged in +our Tables of Invention, the subject partly of the SECOND, +but--_principally_--mark it, _principally_ of the FOURTH part of the +Instauration, which are, indeed, rather the very objects of our hopes +than hope itself.' Does he dare to tell us, in this very connection, +that he is _not_ a vain promiser, when no such PART as that to which +he refers us here is to be found anywhere among his writings--when +this _principal_ part of his promise remains unfulfilled. 'The FOURTH +part of the Instauration,' he says again in his formal description of +it, 'enters upon philosophy itself, furnishing _examples of inquiry +and investigation_, according to our own method, _in certain subjects +of the noblest kind_, but greatly differing from each other, that a +specimen may be had of _every sort_. By these examples, we mean _not +illustrations of rules and precepts_,' [He will show the facts in such +order, in such scientific, select, methodical arrangements, that rules +and precepts will be forced from them; for he will show them, on the +tables of invention, and rules and precepts are the vintage that flows +from the illustrious instances--the prerogative instances--the ripe, +large, cleared, selected clusters of facts, the subtle prepared +history which the tables of invention collect. The definition of the +simple original elements of history, the pure definition is the first +vintage from these; but 'that which in speculative philosophy +corresponds to the cause, in practical philosophy becomes the rule' +and _the axiom of practice_, ready for use, is the final result.] 'but +perfect models, which will exemplify the SECOND PART of this work, and +represent, as it were, to _the eye_ the whole progress of the mind, +and _the continued structure and order of invention_ in THE MORE +CHOSEN SUBJECTS'--note it, in the _more_ chosen subjects; but this is +not at all--'_after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate +the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics_.' But in +another place he tells us, that the poetic form of demonstration is +the form to which it is necessary to have recourse on these subjects, +_especially_ when we come to these more abstruse and subtle +demonstrations, as it opens an easy and familiar passage to the human +understanding in all new discoveries, that are abstruse and out of the +road of vulgar opinion; and that at the time he was writing out this +plan of his works, any one, who would let in new light on the human +understanding, and conquer prejudices, without raising animosity, +opposition, or disturbance, had no choice--_must go in that same +path_, or none. Where are those diagrams? And what does he mean, when +he tells us in this connection that he is not a vain promiser? Where +are those particular cases, in which this method of investigation is +applied to the noblest subjects? Where are the diagrams, in which the +order of the investigation is represented, as it were, to the eye, +which serve the same purpose, 'that globes and machines serve in the +more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics?' We are all +acquainted with one poem, at least, published about that time, in +which some very abstruse and subtle investigations appear to be in +progress, _not_ without the use of diagrams, and very lively ones too; +but one in which the intention of the poet appears to be to the last +degree 'enigmatical,' inasmuch as it has engaged the attention of the +most philosophical minds ever since, and inasmuch as the most able +critics have never been able to comprehend that intention fully in +their criticism. And it is bound up with many others, in which the +subjects are not less carefully chosen, and in which the method of +inquiry is the same; in which that same method that is exhibited in +the 'Novum Organum' in the abstract, or in its application to the +investigation of the physical phenomena, is everywhere illustrated in +the most chosen subjects--in subjects of the noblest kind. This +volume, and another which has been mentioned here, contain the THIRD +and FOURTH PARTS of the Great Instauration, whether this man who +describes them here, and who forgot, it would seem, to fulfil his +promise in reference to them, be aware of it or not. + +That is the part of the Great Instauration that we want now, and we +are fairly entitled to it, because these are not 'the next ages,' or +'the times which were nearer,' and which this author seldom speaks of +without betraying his clear foresight of the political and social +convulsions that were then at hand. These are the times, which were +farther off, to which he appeals from those nearer ages, and to which +he expressly dedicates the opening of his designs. + +Now, what is it that we have to find? What is it that is missing out +of this philosophy? Nothing less than the 'principal' part of it. All +that is good for anything in it, according to the author's own +estimate. The rest serves merely 'to pass the time,' or it is good as +it serves to prepare the way for this. What is it that we have to look +for? The 'Novum Organum,' that severe, rigorous method of scientific +inquiry, applied to _the more chosen subjects_ in the reigns of Queen +Elizabeth and James I. Tables of Review of Instances, and all that +Logic which is brought out in the doctrine of the PREROGATIVE +INSTANCES, whereby the mind of man is prepared for its encounter with +fact in general, brought down to particulars, and applied to the +noblest subjects, and to every sort of subject which the philosophic +mind of that age _chose_ to apply it to. That is what we want to find. + +'The prerogative instances' in 'the _more_ chosen subjects.' The whole +field which that philosophy chose for its field, and called the +noblest, the principal, the chosen, the more chosen one. Every part of +it reduced to scientific inquiry, put under the rule of the 'Novum +Organum'; that is what we want to find. We know that no such thing +could possibly be found in the acknowledged writings of this author. +Nothing answering to that description, composed by a statesman and a +philosopher, with an avowed intention in his writing--an intention to +effect changes, too, in the actual condition of men, and 'to suborn +practice and actual life,' no such work by such an author could by any +means have been got through the press then. No one who studies the +subject will think of looking for that FOURTH PART of the Instauration +among the author's acknowledged writings. Does he give us any hint as +to where we are to look for it? Is there any intimation as to the +particular form of writing in which we are to find it? for find it we +must and shall, because he is _not_ a vain promiser. The _subject_ +itself determines the form, he says; and the fact that the whole +ground of the discovery is ground already necessarily comprehended in +the preconceptions of the many--that it is ground covered all over +with the traditions and rude theories of unlearned ages, this fact, +also, imperiously determines the method of the inculcation. Who that +knows what the so-called Baconian method of learning really is, will +need to be told that the principal books of it will be--books of +INSTANCES and PARTICULARS, SPECIMENS--living ones, and that these will +occupy the prominent place in the book; and that the conclusions and +precepts will come in as abstractions from these, drawn freshly and on +the spot from particulars, and, therefore, ready for use, 'knowing the +way to particulars again?' Who would ever expect to find the principal +books of this learning--the books in which it enters upon philosophy +itself, and undertakes to leave a specimen of its own method in the +noblest subjects in its own chosen field--who would ever expect to +find these books, books of abstractions, books of precepts, with +instances or examples brought in, to illustrate or make them good? For +this is not a point of method merely, but a point of substance, as he +takes pains to tell us. And who that has ever once read his own +account of the method in which he proposes to _win_ the human mind +from its preconceptions, instead of undertaking to overcome it with +Logic and sharp disputations,--who that knows what place he gives to +Rhetoric, what place he gives to the Imagination in his scheme of +innovation, will expect to find these books, books of a dry didactic +learning? Does the student know how many times, in how many forms, +under how many different heads, he perseveringly inserts the bold +assurance, that the form of poesy and enigmatic allusive writing is +the _only_ form in which the higher applications of his discovery can +be made to any purpose in that age? Who would expect to find this part +in any professedly scientific work, when he tells us expressly, +'Reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit,' as the examples +which his scientific terminology includes in the department of +_Poesy?_ + +All the old historical wisdom was in that form, he says; all the first +philosophy was poetical; all the old divinity came in history and +parable; and even to this day, he who would let in new light upon the +human understanding, without raising opposition or disturbance, must +still go in the same path, and have recourse to the like method. + +He was an innovator; he was _not_ an agitator. And he claims that mark +of a divine presence in his work, that its benefactions come, without +noise or perturbation, _in aura leni_. Of innovations, there has been +none in history like that which he propounded, but neither would he +strive nor cry. There was no voice in the streets, there was no red +ensign lifted, there was no clarion-swell, or roll of the conqueror's +drum to signal to the world that entrance. He, too, claims a divine +authority for his innovation, and he declares it to be of God. It is +the providential order of the world's history which is revealed in it; +it is the fulfilment of ancient prophecy which this new chief, laden +with new gifts for men, openly announces. + +'Let us begin from God,' he says, when he begins to open his ground of +_hope_, after he has exposed the wretched condition of men as he finds +them, without any scientific knowledge of the laws and institutes of +the universe they inhabit, engaged in a perpetual and mad collision +with them; 'Let us begin from God, and show that our pursuit, from its +exceeding goodness, _clearly_ proceeds from Him, the Author of GOOD +and Father of LIGHT. Now, _in all divine works_, the smallest +beginnings lead assuredly to some results; and the rule in spiritual +matters, that the Kingdom of God cometh without observation, is also +found to be true _in every great work of_ PROVIDENCE, so that +everything glides in quietly, without confusion or noise; and the +matter is achieved before men even think of perceiving that it is +commenced.' 'Men,' he tells us, 'men should imitate Nature, who +innovateth _greatly_ but _quietly_, and by degrees scarce to be +perceived,' who will not dispense with the old form till the new one +is finished and in its place. + +What is that we want to find? We want to find the new method of +scientific inquiry applied to the questions in which men are most +deeply interested--questions which were then imperiously and instantly +urged on the thoughtful mind. We want to see it applied to POLITICS in +the reign of James the First. We want to see it applied to the open +questions of another department of inquiry,--certainly not any less +important,--in that reign, and in the reign which preceded it. We want +to see the facts sifted through those scientific tables of review, +from which the true form of SOVEREIGNTY, the _legitimate_ sovereignty, +is to be inducted, and the scientific axioms of government with it. We +want to see the science of observation and experiment, the science of +nature in general, applied to the cure of the common-weal in the reign +of James the First, and to that particular crisis in its disease, in +which it appeared to the observers to be at its last gasp; and that, +too, by the principal doctors in that profession,--men of the very +largest experience in it, who felt obliged to pursue their work +conscientiously, whether the patient _objected_ or not. But are there +any such books as these? Certainly. You have the author's own word for +it. 'Some may raise this question,' he says, 'this _question_ rather +than _objection_'--[it is better that it should come in the form of a +_question_, than in the form of _an objection_, as it would have come, +if there had been no room to '_raise the question_']--'_whether we +talk_ of perfecting _natural philosophy_' [using the term here in its +usual limited sense], 'whether we talk of perfecting natural +philosophy _alone_, according to our method, or, _the other_ +sciences--_such as_, ETHICS, LOGIC, POLITICS.' _That_ is the question +'raised.' 'We certainly intend to comprehend them ALL.' _That_ is _the +author's_ answer to it. 'And as _common logic_ which _regulates +matters by syllogism_, is applied, not only to natural, but to every +other science, _so_ our inductive method _likewise_ comprehends them +ALL.' With such iteration will he think fit to give us this point. It +is put in here for those 'who raise the question'--the question +'rather than objection.' The other sort are taken care of in other +places. '_For_,' he continues, 'we form a history and tables of +invention, for _anger, fear, shame,_ and _the like_; and _also for +examples in civil life_' [that was to be the principal part of the +science when he laid out the plan of it in the advancement of +learning] 'and the _mental_ operations of _memory, composition, +division, judgment_, and the rest; _as well_ as for _heat_ and _cold, +light_ and _vegetation_, and _the like_.' That is the plan of the new +science, as the author sketches it for the benefit of those who raise +questions rather than objections. That is its comprehension precisely, +whenever he undertakes to mark out its limits for the satisfaction of +this class of readers. But this is that same FOURTH PART to which he +refers us in the other places for the application of his method to +those nobler subjects, those more chosen subjects; and that is just +the part of his science which appears to be wanting. How happens it? +Did he get so occupied with the question of _heat_ and _cold_, _light_ +and vegetation, and _the like_, that after all he forgot this part +with its nobler applications? How could that be, when he tells us +expressly, that they are the more chosen subjects of his inquiry. This +part which he speaks of here, is the missing part of his philosophy, +unquestionably. These are the books of it which have been missing +hitherto; but in that Providential order of events to which he refers +himself, the time has come for them to be inquired for; and this +inquiry is itself a part of that movement, in which the smallest +beginnings lead assuredly to some result. For, 'let us begin from +God,' he says, 'and show that our pursuit, from its exceeding +goodness, clearly proceeds from Him, the Author of GOOD, and not of +misery; the Father of LIGHT, and not of darkness.' + +Of course, it was impossible to get out any scientific doctrine of the +human society, without coming at once in collision with that doctrine +of the divinity of arbitrary power which the monarchs of England were +then openly sustaining. Who needs to be told, that he who would handle +that argument scientifically, then, without military weapons, as this +inquirer _would_, must indeed 'pray in aid of _similes_.' And yet a +very searching and critical inquiry into the claims of that +institution, which the new philosophy found in possession of the human +welfare, and asserting a divine right to it as a thing of private +property and legitimate family inheritance,--such a criticism was, in +fact, inevitably involved in that inquiry into the principles of a +_human_ subjection which appeared to this philosopher to belong +properly to the more chosen subjects of a scientific investigation. + +And notwithstanding the delicacy of the subjects, and the extremely +critical nature of the investigation, when it came to touch those +particulars, with which the personal observations and experiments of +the founders of this new school in philosophy had tended to enrich +their collections in this department,--'and the aim is better,' says +the principal spokesman of this school, who quietly proposes to +introduce this method into _politics_, 'the aim is better _when the +mark is alive_;' notwithstanding the difficulties which appeared to +lie then in the way of such an investigation, the means of conducting +it to the entire satisfaction, and, indeed, to the large entertainment +of the persons chiefly concerned, were not wanting. For this was one +of those 'secrets of policy,' which have always required the aid of +fable, and the idea of _dramatising_ the fable for the sake of +reaching in some sort those who are incapable of receiving any thing +'which does not directly fall under, and strike the senses,' as the +philosopher has it; those who are capable of nothing but 'dumb shows +and noise,' as Hamlet has it; this idea, though certainly a very +happy, was not with these men an original one. Men, whose relations to +the state were not so different as the difference in the forms of +government would perhaps lead us to suppose,--men of the gravest +learning and enriched with the choicest accomplishments of their time, +had adopted that same method of influencing public opinion, some two +thousand years earlier, and even as long before as that, there were +'secrets of morality and policy,' to which this form of writing +appeared to offer the most fitting veil. + +Whether 'the new' philosopher,--whether 'the new magician' of this +time, was, in fact, in possession of any art which enabled him to +handle without diffidence or scruple the great political question +which was then already the question of the time; whether 'THE +CROWN'--that double crown of military conquest and priestly +usurpation, which was the one estate of the realm at that crisis in +English history, did, among other things in some way, come under the +edges of that new analysis which was severing _all_ here then, and get +divided clearly with 'the mind, that divine fire,'--whether any such +thing as that occurred here then, the reader of the following pages +will be able to judge. The careful reader of the extracts they +contain, taken from a work of practical philosophy which made its +appearance about those days, will certainly have no difficulty at all +in deciding that question. For, first of all, it is necessary to find +that political key to the Elizabethan art of delivery, which unlocks +the great works of the Elizabethan philosophy, and that is the +necessity which determines the selection of the Plays that are +produced in this volume. They are brought in to illustrate the fact +already stated, and already demonstrated, the fact which is the +subject of this volume, the fact that the new practical philosophy of +the modern ages, which has its beginning here, was not limited, in the +plan of its founders, to 'natural philosophy' and 'the part operative' +of that,--the fact that it comprehended, as its principal department, +the department in which its 'noblest subjects' lay, and in which its +most vital innovations were included, a field of enquiry which could +not then be entered without the aid of fable and parable, and one +which required not then only, 'but now, and at all times,' the aid of +a vivid poetic illustration; they are brought in to illustrate the +fact already demonstrated from other sources, the fact that the new +philosophy was the work of men able to fulfil their work under such +conditions, able to work, if not for the times that were nearer, for +the times that were further off; men who thought it little so they +could fulfil and perfect their work and make their account of it to +the Work-master, to robe another with their glory; men who could +relinquish the noblest works of the human genius, that they might save +them from the mortal stabs of an age of darkness, that they might make +them over unharmed in their boundless freedom, in their unstained +perfection, to the farthest ages of the advancement of learning,--that +they might 'teach them how to live and look fresh' still, + + 'When tyrants' crests, and tombs of brass are spent.' + +That is the one fact, the indestructible fact, which this book is to +demonstrate. + + + + +PART I. + +LEAR'S PHILOSOPHER + + 'Thou'dst shun a bear; + But if thy way lay towards the raging sea, + Thou'dst meet the bear i' the mouth.' + +CHAPTER I. + +PHILOSOPHY IN THE PALACE. + + + 'I think the king is but a man, as I am.'--_King Henry_. + 'They told me I was everything.'--_Lear_. + +OF course, it was not possible that the prerogative should be openly +dealt with at such a time, questioned, discussed, scientifically +examined, in the very presence of royalty itself, except by persons +endowed with extraordinary privileges and immunities, persons, indeed, +of quite irresponsible authority, whose right to do and say what they +pleased, Elizabeth herself, though they should enter upon a critical +analysis of the divine rights of kings to her face, and deliberately +lay bare the defects in that title which she was then attempting to +maintain, must needs notwithstanding, concede and respect. + +And such persons, as it happened, were not wanting in the retinue of +that sovereignty which was working in disguise here then, and laying +the foundations of that throne in the thoughts of men, which would +replace old principalities and powers, and not political dominions +merely. To the creative genius which waited on the philosophic mind of +that age, making up in the splendour of its gifts for the poverty of +its exterior conditions, such persons,--persons of any amount or +variety of capacity which the necessary question of its play might +require, were not wanting:--'came with a thought.' + +Of course, poor Bolingbroke, fevered with the weight of his ill-got +crown, and passing a sleepless night in spite of its supposed +exemptions, unable to command on his state-bed, with all his royal +means and appliances, the luxury that the wet sea boy in the storm +enjoys,--and the poet appears, to have had some experience of this +mortal ill, which inclines him to put it down among those which ought +to be excluded from a state of supreme earthly felicity,--the poor +guilty disgusted usurper, discovering that this so blessed 'invention' +was not included in the prerogative he had seized, under the +exasperation of the circumstances, might surely be allowed to mutter +to himself, in the solitude of his own bed-chamber, a few general +reflections on the subject, and, indeed, disable his own position to +any extent, without expecting to be called to an account for it, by +any future son or daughter of his usurping lineage. That +extraordinary, but when one came to look at it, quite incontestable +fact, that nature in her sovereignty, imperial still, refused to +recognize this artificial difference in men, but still went on her way +in all things, as if 'the golden standard' were not there, classing +the monarch with his 'poorest subject;'--the fact that this charmed +'round of sovereignty,' did not after all secure the least exemption +from the common _individual_ human frailty, and helplessness,--this +would, of course, strike the usurper who had purchased the crown at +such an expense, as a fact in natural history worth communicating, if +it were only for the benefit of future princes, who might be disposed +to embark in a similar undertaking. Here, of course, the moral was +proper, and obvious enough; or close at hand, and ready to be +produced, in case any serious inquiry should be made for it; though +the poet might seem, perhaps, to a severely critical mind, disposed to +pursue his philosophical inquiry a little too curiously into the awful +secrets of majesty, retired within itself, and pondering its own +position;--openly searching what Lord Bacon reverently tells us, the +Scriptures pronounce to be inscrutable, namely, _the hearts_ of +_kings_, and audaciously laying bare those private passages, those +confessions, and misgivings, and frailties, for which policy and +reverence prescribe concealment, and which are supposed in the play, +indeed, to be shrouded from the profane and vulgar eye, a circumstance +which, of course, was expected to modify the impression. + +So, too, that profoundly philosophical suspicion, that a rose, or a +violet, did actually smell, to a person occupying this sublime +position, very much as it did to another; a suspicion which, in the +mouth of a common man, would have been literally sufficient to 'make a +star-chamber matter of'; and all that thorough-going analysis of the +trick and pageant of majesty which follows it, would, of course, come +only as a graceful concession, from the mouth of that genuine piece of +royalty, who contrives to hide so much of the poet's own 'sovereignty +of nature,' under the mantle of his free and princely humours, the +brave and gentle hero of Agincourt. + +'Though _I_ speak it to you,' he says, talking in the disguise of a +'private,' '_I think the King is but a man as I am_, the violet smells +to him as it doth to me; all his senses, _have but human conditions_. +His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness, he appears but a man; and +though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they +stoop, they stoop with the like wing. When he sees reason of fears, as +we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are'; +and in the same scene, thus the royal philosopher versifies, and +soliloquises on the same delicate question. + +'And what have _kings_ that "_privates_" have not, too, save +ceremony,--save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou _idol +ceremony?_--_What is_ thy _soul_ of _adoration_?' + +A grave question, for a man of an inquiring habit of mind, in those +times: let us see how a Poet can answer it. + + 'Art thou aught else but _place, degree_ and _form_, + Creating awe and fear in _other men?_ + Wherein, thou _art less happy, being feared_, + _Than they in fearing_? + +[Again and again this man has told us, and on his oath, that he +cherished no evil intentions, no thought of harm to the king; and +those who know what criticisms on the state, as it was then, he had +authorised, and what changes in it he was certainly meditating and +preparing the way for, have charged him with falsehood and perjury on +that account; but this is what he means. He thinks that wretched +victim of that most irrational and monstrous state of things, on whose +head the crown of an arbitrary rule is placed, with all its +responsibilities, in his infinite unfitness for them, is, in fact, the +one whose case most of all requires relief. He is the one, in this +theory, who suffers from this unnatural state of things, not less, but +more, than his meanest subject. 'Thou art less happy being feared, +than they in fearing.'] + + What drink'st thou oft _instead of homage sweet_ + But _poison'd flattery_? O! be sick, great greatness, + And bid thy _ceremony_ give thee _cure_. + Thinkest thou the _fiery fever will go out_ + With _titles blown from adulation_? + Will it give place to flexure and low bending? + +Interesting physiological questions! And though the author, for +reasons of his own, has seen fit to put them in blank verse here, it +is not because he does not understand, as we shall see elsewhere, that +they are questions of a truly scientific character, which require to +be put in prose in his time--questions of vital consequence to all +men. The effect of 'poisoned flattery,' and 'titles blown from +adulation' on the minds, of those to whose single will and caprice the +whole welfare of the state, and all the gravest questions for this +life and the next, were then entrusted, naturally appeared to the +philosophical mind, perseveringly addicted to inquiries, in which the +practical interests of men were involved, a question of gravest +moment. + +But here it is the physical difference which accompanies this so +immense human distinction, which he appears to be in quest of; it is +the control over nature with which these '_farcical titles_' invest +their possessor, that he appears to be now pertinaciously bent upon +ascertaining. For we shall find, as we pursue the subject, that this +is not an accidental point here, a casual incident of the character, +or of the plot, a thing which belongs to the play, and not to the +author; but that this is a poet who is somehow perpetually haunted +with the impression that those who assume a divine right to control, +and dispose of their fellow-men, ought to exhibit some sign of their +authority; some superior abilities; some magical control; some light +and power that other men have not. How he came by any such notions, +the critic of his works is, of course, not bound to show; but that +which meets him at the first reading is the fact, the incontestable +fact, that the Poet of Shakspere's stage, be he who he may, is a poet +whose mind is in some way deeply occupied with this question; that it +is a poet who is infected, and, indeed, perfectly possessed, with the +idea, that the true human leadership ought to consist in the ability +to extend the empire of man over nature,--in the ability to unite and +control men, and lead them in battalions against those common evils +which infest the human conditions,--not fevers only but 'worser' +evils, and harder to be cured, and to the conquest of those supernal +blessings which the human race have always been vainly crying for. 'I +am a king that find thee,' he says. + +And having this inveterate notion of a true human regality to begin +with, he is naturally the more curious and prying in regard to the +claims of the one which he finds in possession; and when by the +mystery of his profession and art, he contrives to get the cloak of +that factitious royalty about him, he asks questions under its cover +which another man would not think of putting. + +'Canst thou,' he continues, walking up and down the stage in King +Hal's mantle, inquiring narrowly into its virtues and taking advantage +of that occasion to ascertain the limits of the prerogative--that very +dubious question then,-- + + 'Canst thou when thou command'st the beggar's knee, + _Command the health_ of it?'-- + +_No_? what mockery of power is it then? But, this in connection with +the preceding inquiry in regard to the effect of titles on the +progress of a fever, or the amenability of its paroxysm, to flexure +and low bending, might have seemed perhaps in the mouth of a subject +to savour somewhat of irony; it might have sounded too much like a +taunt upon the royal helplessness under cover of a serious +philosophical inquiry, or it might have betrayed in such an one a +disposition to pursue scientific inquiries farther than was perhaps +expedient. But thus it is, that THE KING can dare to pursue the +subject, answering his own questions. + + 'No, thou proud dream + That _playst so subtly with a king's repose_; + _I_ am a king _that find thee_; and I know + 'Tis not the THE BALM, THE SCEPTRE, and THE BALL, + THE SWORD, THE MACE, THE CROWN IMPERIAL, + _The inter-tissued_ ROBE of _gold and pearl_, + The FARCED TITLE-- + +What is that?--Mark it:--the _farced_ TITLE!--A bold word, one would +say, even with _a king_ to authorise it. + + 'The farced TITLE running 'fore the king, + THE THRONE he sits on, nor _the tide_ of POMP + That beats upon the high shore of this world, + No, not all these, thrice gorgeous CEREMONY, + Not all these laid in BED MAJESTICAL, + Can _sleep so soundly_ as the wretched slave + Who, with a body filled, and vacant mind, + Gets him to rest crammed with distressful bread, + Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, + But like a lackey from the rise to set + Sweats in the eye of Phoebus; and all night + Sleeps in Elysium. + +Yes, there we have him, at last. There he is exactly. That is the +scientific picture of him, 'poor man,' as this poet calls him +elsewhere. What malice could a philosophic poet bear him? That is the +monarchy that men were 'sanctifying themselves with,' and 'turning up +the white of the eye to,' then. That is the figure that it makes when +it comes to be laid in its state-bed, upon the scientific table of +review, not in the formal manner of 'the second part' of this +philosophy, but in that other manner which the author of the _Novum +Organum_, speaks of so frequently, as the one to be used in applying +it to subjects of this nature. That is the anatomy of him, which +'_our_ method of inquiry and investigation,' brings out without much +trouble 'when we come to particulars.' 'Truly we were in good hands,' +as the other one says, who finds it more convenient, for his part, to +discourse on these points, from a distance. + +That is the figure the usurping monarch's pretensions make at the +first blush, in the collections from which '_the vintage_' of the true +sovereignty, and the scientific principles of governments are to be +expressed, when the true _monarchy_, the legitimate, 'one only man +power,' is the thing inquired for. This one goes to 'the negative' +side apparently. A wretched fellow that cannot so much as 'sleep o' +nights,' that lies there on the stage in the play of Henry the Fourth, +in the sight of all the people, with THE CROWN on his very pillow, by +way 'facilitating the demonstration,' pining for the 'Elysium' at his +meanest subject,--that the poor slave, 'crammed with distressful +bread,' commands; crying for the luxury that the wet seaboy, on his +high and giddy couch enjoys;--and from whose note-book came that +image, dashed with the ocean spray,--who saw that seaboy sleeping in +_that_ storm? + +But, as for this KING, it is the king which the scientific history +brings out; whereas, in the other sort of history that was in use +then, lie is hardly distinguishable at all from those Mexican kings +who undertook to keep the heavenly bodies in their places, and, at the +same time, to cause all things to be borne by the earth which were +requisite for the comfort and convenience of man; a peculiarity of +those sovereigns, of which the Man on the Mountains, whose study is so +well situated for observations of that sort, makes such a pleasant +note. + +But whatever other view we may take of it, this, it must be conceded, +is a tolerably comprehensive exhibition, in the general, of the mere +pageant of royalty, and a pretty free mode of handling it; but it is +at the same time a privileged and entirely safe one. For the liberty +of this great Prince to repeat to himself, in the course of a solitary +stroll through his own camp at midnight, when nobody is supposed to be +within hearing, certain philosophical conclusions which he was +understood to have arrived at in the course of his own regal +experience, could hardly be called in question. And as to that most +extraordinary conversation in which, by means of his disguise on this +occasion, he becomes a participator, if the Prince himself were too +generous to avail himself of it to the harm of the speakers, it would +ill become any one else to take exceptions at it. + +And yet it is a conversation in which a party of common soldiers are +permitted to 'speak their minds freely' for once, though 'the blank +verse has to halt for it,' on questions which would be considered at +present questions of 'gravity.' It is a dialogue in which these men +are allowed to discuss one of the most important institutions of their +time from an ethical point of view, in a tone as free as the president +of a Peace Society could use to-day in discussing the same topic, +intermingling their remarks with criticisms on the government, and +personal allusions to the king himself, which would seem to be more in +accordance with the manners of the nineteenth century, than with those +of the Poet's time. + +But then these wicked and treasonous grumblings being fortunately +encountered on the spot, and corrected by the king himself in his own +august person, would only serve for edification in the end; if, +indeed, that appeal to the national pride which would conclude the +matter, and the glory of that great day which was even then breaking +in the East, should leave room for any reflections upon it. For it was +none other than the field of _Agincourt_ that was subjected to this +philosophic inquiry. It was the lustre of that immortal victory which +was to England then, what Waterloo and the victories of Nelson are +now, that was thus chemically treated beforehand. Under the cover of +that renowned triumph, it was, that these soldiers could venture to +search so deeply the question of war in general; it was in the person +of its imperial hero, that the statesman could venture to touch so +boldly, an institution which gave to one man, by his own confession no +better or wiser than his neighbours, the power to involve nations in +such horrors. + +But let us join the king in his stroll, and hear for ourselves, what +it is that these soldiers are discussing, by the camp-fires of +_Agincourt_;--what it is that this first voice from the ranks has to +say for itself. The king has just encountered by the way a poetical +sentinel, who, not satisfied with the watchword--'_a friend_,'-- +requests the disguised prince 'to discuss to him, and answer, whether +he is an _officer_, or _base, common_, and _popular_,' when the king +lights on this little group, and the discussion which Pistol had +solicited, apparently on his own behalf, actually takes place, for +the benefit of the Poet's audience, and the answer to these inquiries +comes out in due order. + + _Court_. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks + yonder? + + _Bates_. I think it be, _but we have no great cause to desire the + approach of day_. + + _Will_. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall + never see the end of it. Who goes there? + + _King Henry_. A friend. + + _Will_. Under what captain serve you? + + _King_. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. + + _Will_. A good old commander, and a most kind gentleman: I pray + you, what thinks he of our estate? + + _King._ Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed + off the next tide. + + _Bates_. _He hath not told his thought to the king_? + + _King_. No; nor it is not meet that he should; for though _I speak + it to you_, I think the king is but a man as I am. + +And it is here that he proceeds to make that important disclosure +above quoted, that all his senses have but human conditions, and that +all his _affections_, though _higher mounted, stoop with the like +wing_; and therefore no man should in reason possess him with any +appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, 'should dishearten his +army.' + + _Bates_. He may show what outward courage he will; but, _I_ believe, + as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in the + Thames, up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by + him, at all adventures, so we were quit here. + + _King_. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king. I + think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is. + + _Bates_. Then would he were here alone; so should he be + sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved. + + _King_. I dare say you love him not so ill as to wish him here + alone; _howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds_; + Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the king's + company; _his cause being just, and his quarrel honorable_. + + _Will. That's more than we know._ + + _Bates_. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, + if we know we are the king's subjects; if his cause be wrong, our + obedience to the _king_ wipes the crime of it out of us. + + _Will_. But _if the cause be not good_, the _king himself hath a + heavy reckoning to make_; when all those legs and arms and heads + chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day, and + cry all--We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for a + surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them; some upon + the debts they owe; some upon their children rawly left. I am + afeared that few die well, that die in battle; for how can they + _charitably_ dispose of anything _when blood is their argument_? + Now if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for + the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were _against all + proportion of subjection_. + + _King_. So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise, + do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, + by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him: or + if a servant, under his master's command, transporting a sum of + money, be assailed by robbers, and die in many irreconciled + iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of + the servant's damnation.--But this is not so.... There is no king, + be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrament of + swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. + +But the king pursues this question of the royal responsibility until +he arrives at the conclusion that _every subject's_ DUTY is THE +KING'S, BUT EVERY SUBJECT'S SOUL IS HIS OWN, until he shows, indeed, +that there is but one ultimate sovereignty; one to which the king and +his subjects are alike amenable, which pursues them everywhere, with +its demands and reckonings,--from whose violated laws there is no +escape. + + _Will_. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his + own head--[no unimportant point in the theology or ethics of that + time]--THE KING is not to answer for it. + + _Bates_. I do not desire the king should answer for me, and yet I + determine to fight lustily for him. + + _King_. I, myself, heard the king say, he would not be ransomed. + + _Will_. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our + throats are cut, he may be ransomed and we ne'er the wiser. + + _King_. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after. + + _Will_. _Mass, you'll pay him then!_ That's a perilous shot out of + an _elder gun_, that a poor and _private_ displeasure can do against + a monarch. _You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice_, with + fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. + +And, indeed, thus and not any less absurd and monstrous, appeared the +idea of subjecting the king to any effect from the subject's +displeasure, or the idea of calling him to account--this one, +helpless, frail, private man, as he has just been conceded by the king +himself to be, for any amount of fraud or dishonesty to the nation, +for any breach of trust or honour. For his relation to the _mass_ and +the source of this fearful irresponsible power was not understood +then. The soldier states it well. One might, indeed, as well go about +to turn the sun to ice, _with fanning in his face_ with a peacock's +feather. + + 'You'll never trust his word after,' the soldier continues. + 'Come, 'tis a foolish saying.' + +'Your reproof is something _too round_,' is the king's reply. It is +indeed round. It is one of those round replies that this poet is so +fond of, and the king himself becomes 'the private' of it, when once +the centre of this play is found, and the sweep of its circumference +is taken. For the sovereignty of law, the kingship of the universal +law _in whomsoever it speaks_, awful with God's power, armed with +_his_ pains and penalties is the scientific sovereignty; and in the +scientific diagrams the passions, 'the poor and private passions,' and +the arbitrary will, in whomsoever they speak, no matter what symbols +of sovereignty they have contrived to usurp, make no better figure in +their struggles with that law, than that same which the poet's vivid +imagination and intense perception of incompatibilities, has seized on +here. The king struggles vainly against the might of the universal +nature. It is but the shot out of an '_elder gun_;' he might as well +'go about to _turn the sun to ice_ with fanning in his face with a +_peacock's_ feather.' 'I should be angry with you,' continues the +king, after noticing the roundness of that reply, 'I should be angry +with you, if _the time_ were convenient.' + +But as to the poet who composes these dialogues, of course he does not +know whether the time is convenient or not;--he has never reflected +upon any of those grave questions which are here so seriously +discussed. They are not questions in which he can be supposed to have +taken any interest. Of course he does not know or care what it is that +these men are talking about. It is only for the sake of an artistic +effect, to pass away the night, and to deepen for his hero the gloom +which was to serve as the foil and sullen ground of his great victory, +that his interlocutors are permitted to go on in this manner. + +It is easy to see, however, what extraordinary capabilities this +particular form of writing offered to one who _had_ any purpose, or to +an author, who wished on any account, to '_infold_' somewhat his +meaning;--that was the term used then in reference to this style of +writing. For certainly, many things dangerous in themselves could be +shuffled in under cover of an artistic effect, which would not strike +at the time, amid the agitations, and the skilful checks, and +counteractions, of the scene, even the quick ear of despotism itself. + +And thus King Lear--that impersonation of absolutism--the very +embodiment of pure will and tyranny in their most frantic form, taken +out all at once from that hot bath of flatteries to which he had been +so long accustomed, that his whole self-consciousness had become +saturated, tinctured in the grain with them, and he believed himself +to be, within and without, indestructibly, essentially,--'ay, every +inch A KING;' with speeches on his supremacy copied, well nigh +verbatim, from those which Elizabeth's courtiers habitually addressed +to her, still ringing in his ears, hurled out into a single-handed +contest with the elements, stripped of all his 'social and artificial +lendings,' the poor, bare, unaccommodated, individual man, this living +subject of the poet's artistic treatment,--this 'ruined Majesty' +anatomized alive, taken to pieces literally before our eyes, pursued, +hunted down scientifically, and robbed in detail of all 'the additions +of a king'--must, of course, be expected to evince in some way his +sense of it; 'for soul and body,' this poet tells us, 'rive not more +in parting than greatness going off.' + +Once conceive the possibility of presenting the action, the dumb show, +of this piece upon the stage at that time, (there have been times +since when it could not be done), and the dialogue, with its +illimitable freedoms, follows without any difficulty. For the surprise +of the monarch at the discoveries which this new state of things +forces upon him,--the speeches he makes, with all the levelling of +their philosophy, with all the unsurpassable boldness of their +political criticism, are too natural and proper to the circumstances, +to excite any surprise or question. + +Indeed, a king, who, nurtured in the flatteries of the palace, was +unlearned enough in the nature of things, to suppose that _the name_ +of a king was anything but a shadow when _the power_ which had +sustained its prerogative was withdrawn,--a king who thought that he +could still be a king, and maintain 'his state' and 'his hundred +knights,' and their prerogatives, and all his old arbitrary, despotic +humours, with their inevitable encroachment on the will and humours, +and on the welfare of others, merely on grounds of respect and +affection, or on grounds of duty, when not merely the care of 'the +state,' but the revenues and power of it had been devolved on +others--such a one appeared, indeed, to the poet, to be engaging in an +experiment very similar to the one which he found in progress in his +time, in that old, decayed, riotous form of military government, which +had chosen the moment of its utter dependence on the popular will and +respect, as the fitting one for its final suppression of the national +liberties. It was an experiment which was, of course, modified in the +play by some diverting and strongly pronounced differences, or it +would not have been possible to produce it then; but it was still the +experiment of _the unarmed prerogative_, that the old popular tale of +the ancient king of Britain offered to the poet's hands, and that was +an experiment which he was willing to see traced to its natural +conclusion on paper at least; while in the subsequent development of +the plot, the presence of an insulted trampled outcast majesty on the +stage, furnishes a cover of which the poet is continually availing +himself, for putting the case of that other outraged sovereignty, +whose cause under one form or another, under all disguises, he is +always pleading. And in the poet's hands, the debased and outcast +king, becomes the impersonation of a debased and violated state, that +had given all to its daughters,--the victim of a tyranny not less +absolute, the victim, too, of a blindness and fatuity on its own part, +not less monstrous, but not, not--_that_ is the poet's word--_not_ yet +irretrievable. + + 'Thou shalt find + I will resume that shape, which thou dost think + I have cast off for ever; thou shalt, I warrant thee.' + 'Do you mark that, my lord?' + +But the question of that prerogative, which has consumed, in the +poet's time, all the faculties of government constitutes only a +subordinate part of the action of that great play, into which it is +here incorporated; a play which comprehends in its new philosophical +reaches, in its new and before-unimagined subtilties of analysis, the +most radical questions of a practical human science; questions which +the practical reason of these modern ages at the moment of its +awakening, found itself already compelled to grapple with, and master. + + +CHAPTER II. + +UNACCOMMODATED MAN. + + +'Consider him well.--Three of us are sophisticated.' + +For this is the grand SOCIAL tragedy. It is the tragedy of an +unlearned human society; it is the tragedy of a civilization in which +grammar, and the relations of sounds and abstract notions to each +other have sufficed to absorb the attention of the learned,--a +civilization in which the parts of speech, and their relations, have +been deeply considered, but one in which the social elements, the +parts of life, and their unions, and their prosody, have been left to +spontaneity, and empiricism, and all kinds of rude, arbitrary, +idiomatical conjunctions, and fortuitous rules; a civilization in +which the learning of 'WORDS' is put down by the reporter--invented-- +and the learning of 'THINGS'--omitted. + +And in a movement which was designed to bring the human reason to bear +scientifically and artistically upon those questions in which the +deepest human interests are involved, the wrong and misery of that +social state to which the New Machine, with its new combination of +sense and reason, must be applied, had to be fully and elaborately +brought out and exhibited. And there was but one language in which the +impersonated human misery and wrong,--the speaker for countless +hearts, tortured and broken on the rude machinery of unlearned social +customs, and lawless social forces, could speak; there was but one +tongue in which it could tell its story. For this is the place where +science becomes inevitably poetical. That same science which fills our +cabinets and herbariums, and chambers of natural history, with mute +stones and shells and plants and dead birds and insects--that same +science that fills our scientific volumes with coloured pictures true +as life itself, and letter-press of prose description--that same +science that anatomises the physical frame with microscopic +nicety,--in the hand of its master, found in the soul, that which had +most need of science; and his 'illustrated book' of it, the book of +his experiments in it, comes to us filled with his yet living, 'ever +living' _subjects_, and resounding with the tragedy of their +complainings. + +It requires but a little reading of that book to find, that the author +of it is a philosopher who is strongly disposed to ascertain the +limits of that thing in nature, which men call fortune,--that is, in +their week-day speech,--they have another name for it 'o' Sundays.' He +is greatly of the opinion, that the combined and legitimate use of +those faculties with which man is beneficently 'armed against diseases +of the world,' would tend very much to limit those fortuities and +accidents, those wild blows,--those vicissitudes, that men, in their +ignorance and indolent despair, charge on Fate or ascribe to +Providence, while at the same time it would furnish the art of +_accommodating_ the human mind to that which is inevitable. It is not +fortune who is blind, but man, he says,--a creature endowed of nature +for his place in nature, endowed of God with a godlike faculty, +looking before and after--a creature who has eyes, eyes adapted to his +special necessities, but one that will not use them. + +Acquaintance with law, as it is actual in nature, and inventions of +arts based on that acquaintance, appear to him to open a large field +of relief to the human estate, a large field of encroachment on that +human misery, which men have blindly and stupidly acquiesced in +hitherto, as necessity. For this is the philosopher who borrows, on +another page, an ancient fable to teach us that that is not the kind +of submission which is pleasing to God--that that is not the kind of +'suffering' that will ever secure his favour. He, for one, is going to +search this social misery to the root, with that same light which the +ancient wise man tells us, 'is as the lamp of God, wherewith He +searcheth the inwardness of all secrets.' + +The weakness and ignorance and misery of the _natural_ man,--the +misery too of the _artificial man_ as he is,--the misery of man in +society, when that society is cemented with arbitrary customs, and +unscientific social arts, and when the instinctive spontaneous +demoniacal forces of nature, are at large in it; the dependence of the +social Monad, the constitutional specific _human_ dependence, on the +specific _human_ law,--the exquisite human liability to injury and +wrong, which are but the natural indications of those higher arts and +excellencies, those unborn pre-destined human arts and excellencies, +which man must struggle through his misery to reach;--that is the +scientific notion which lies at the bottom of this grand ideal +representation. It is, in a word, the human social NEED, in all its +circumference, clearly sketched, laid out, scientifically, as the +basis of the human social ART. It is the negation of that which man's +conditions, which the _human_ conditions require;--it is the +collection on the Table of Exclusion and Rejection, which must precede +the _practical_ affirmation. + + _King_. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it? + + _Hamlet_. None in the world. It's the image of a murder done in + Vienna. + +In the poetic representation of that state of things which was to be +redressed, the central social figure must, of course, have its place. +For it is the Poet, the Experimental Poet, unseen indeed, deep buried +in his fable, his new movements all hidden under its old garb, and +deeper hidden still, in the new splendours he puts on it--it is the +Poet--invisible but not the less truly, he,--it is the Scientific +Poet, who comes upon the monarch in his palace at noonday, and says, +'My business is with thee, O king.' It is he who comes upon the +selfish arrogant old despot, drunk with Elizabethan flatteries, +stuffed with '_titles blown_ from adulation,' unmindful of the true +ends of government, reckless of the duties which that regal assumption +of the common weal brings with it--it is the Poet who comes upon this +Doctor of Laws in the palace and prescribes to him a course of +treatment which the royal patient himself, when once it has taken +effect, is ready to issure from the hovel's mouth, in the form of a +general prescription and state ordinance. + + 'Take physic, POMP; + Expose thyself to _feel_ what wretches _feel_, + That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, + And show the heavens more just. + Oh, I have taken _too little care_ of This!' + +It is that same Poet who has already told us, confidentially, under +cover of King Hal's mantle, that 'the king himself is but a man' and +that 'all his senses have but human conditions and that his +affections, too, though higher mounted when they stoop, stoop with the +like wing; that his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears +but a man';--it is that same Poet, and, in carrying out the purpose of +this play, it has come in his way now to make good that statement. For +it was necessary to his purpose here, to show that the State is +composed throughout, down to its most loathsome unimaginable depths of +neglect and misery, of individual men, social units, clothed of nature +with the same faculties and essential human dignities and +susceptibilities to good and evil, and crowned of nature with the +common sovereignty of reason,--down-trodden, perhaps, and wrung and +trampled out of them, but elected of nature to that dignity; it was +necessary to show this, in order that the wisdom of the State which +sacrifices to the senses of _one_ individual man, and the judgment +that is narrowed by the one man's senses, the weal of the whole,--in +order that the wisdom of the State, which puts at the mercy of the +arbitrary will and passions of _the one_, the weal of _the many_, +might be mathematically exhibited,--might be set down in figures and +diagrams. For this is that Poet who represents this method of inquiry +and investigation, as it were, to _the eye_. This is that same Poet, +too, who surprises elsewhere _a queen_ in her swooning passion of +grief, and bids her murmur to us her recovering confession. + + 'No more, but e'en a woman; and _commanded_ + By such poor passion, as the maid that milks, + And does the meanest chares.' + +So busy is he, indeed, in laying by this king's 'ceremonies' for him, +beginning with the first doubtful perception of a most faint +neglect,--a falling off in the ceremonious affection due to majesty +'as well in the general dependents as in the duke himself and his +daughter,'--so faint that the king dismisses it from his thought, and +charges it on his own jealousy till he is reminded of it by +another,--beginning with that faint beginning, and continuing the +process not less delicately, through all its swift dramatic +gradations,--the direct abatement of the regal dignities,--the +knightly train diminishing,--nay, 'fifty of his followers at a clap' +torn from him, his messenger put in the stocks,--and '_it is worse +than murder_,' the poor king cries in the anguish of his slaughtered +dignity and affection, 'to do upon _respect_ such violent +outrage,'--so bent is the Poet upon this analytic process; so +determined that this shaking out of a '_preconception_,' shall be for +once a thorough one, so absorbed with the dignity of the scientific +experiment, that he seems bent at one moment on giving a literal +finish to this process; but the fool's scruples interfere with the +philosophical humour of the king, and the presence of Mad Tom in his +blanket, with the king's exposition, suffices to complete the +demonstration. For not less lively than this, is the preaching and +illustration, from that new rostrum which this 'Doctor' has contrived +to make himself master of. 'His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness +he appears but a man,' says King Hal. 'Couldst thou save nothing?' +says King Lear to the Bedlamite. 'Why thou wert better in thy grave +than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.' +'_Is man_,'--it is _the king_ who generalises, it is the king who +introduces this levelling suggestion here in the _abstract_, while the +Poet is content with the responsibility of the concrete +exhibition--'_Is man no wore than this_? Consider him well. Thou owest +the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the cat no perfume:--Ha! here's +three of us are _sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself_. +UNACCOMMODATED MAN is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal, as +thou art. Off, off, you lendings.' But 'the fool' is of the opinion +that this scientific process of unwrapping the artificial majesty, +this philosophical undressing, has already gone far enough. + +'Pry'thee, Nuncle, be contented,' he says, 'it is a naughty night to +swim in.' + +For it is the great heath wrapped in one of those storms of wind and +rain and thunder and lightning, which this wizard only of all the +children of men knows how to raise, that he chooses for his +physiological exhibition of majesty, when the palace-door has been +shut upon it, and the last 'additions of a king' have been subtracted. +It is a night-- + + 'Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, + The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf + Keep their fur dry'-- + +into which he turns his royal patient '_unbonneted_.' + +For the tyranny of wild nature in her elemental uproar must be added +to the tyranny of the human wildness, the cruelty of the elements must +conspire, like pernicious ministers, with the cruelty of arbitrary +HUMAN will and passions, the irrational, INHUMAN social forces must be +joined by those other forces that make war upon us, before the real +purpose of this exhibition and the full depth and scientific +comprehension of it can begin to appear. It is in the tempest that +Lear finds occasion to give out the Poet's text. Is _man_ no more than +this? Consider him well. Unaccommodated man in his struggle with +nature. Man without social combinations, man without arts to aid him +in his battle with the elements, or _with_ arts that fence in his +body, and robe it, it may be, in delicate and gorgeous apparelling, +arts that roof his head with a princely dome it may be, and add to his +native dignity and forces, the means and appliances of a material +civilization, but leave his nobler nature with its more living +susceptibility to injury, unsheathed, at the mercy of the brute forces +that unscientific civilizations, with their coarse laws, with their +cobwebs of WORDY learning, with their science of abstractions, +unmatched with the subtilty of THINGS, are compelled to leave at +large, uncaught, unentangled. + +Yes, it is man in his relation to nature, man in his dependence on +artificial aid, man in his two-fold dependence on art, that this +tempest, this double tempest wakes and brings out, for us to +'consider,'--to 'consider well';--'the naked creature,' that were +better in his grave than to answer with his uncovered body that +extremity of the skies, and by his side, with his soul uncovered to a +fiercer blast, his royal brother with 'the tempest in his mind, that +doth from his senses take all feeling else, save what beats there.' + +It is the _personal_ weakness, the moral and intellectual as well as +the bodily frailty and limitation of faculty, and liability to +suffering and outrage, the liability to wrong from treachery, as well +as violence, which are 'the common' specific _human_ conditions, +common to the King in his palace, and Tom o'Bedlam in his hovel; it is +this exquisite human frailty and susceptibility, still unprovided for, +that fills the play throughout, and stands forth in these two, +impersonated; it is that which fills all the play with the outcry of +its anguish. + +And thus it is, that this poor king must needs be brought out into +this wild uproar of nature, and stripped of his last adventitious aid, +reduced to the authority and forces that nature gave him, invaded to +the skin, and ready in his frenzy to second the poet's intent, by +yielding up the last thread of his adventitious and artistic defences. +All his artificial, social personality already dissolved, or yet in +the agony of its dissolution, all his natural social ties torn and +bleeding within him, there is yet another kind of trial for him, as +the elected and royal representative of the human conditions. For the +perpetual, the universal interest of this experiment arises from the +fact, that it is not as _the king_ merely, dissolving like 'a mockery +king of snow' that this illustrious form stands here, to undergo this +fierce analysis, but as the representative, 'the conspicuous +instance,' of that social name and figure, which all men carry about +with them, and take to be a part of themselves, that outward life, in +which men go beyond themselves, by means of their affections, and +extend their identity, incorporating into their very personality, that +floating, contingent material which the wills and humours and +opinions, the prejudices and passions of others, and the variable tide +of this world's fortunes make--that social Name and Figure in which +men may die many times, ere the physical life is required of them, in +which all men must needs live if they will live in it at all, at the +mercy of these uncontrolled social eventualities. + +The tragedy is complicated, but it is only that same complication +which the tragedy it stands for, is always exhibiting. The fact that +this blow to his state is dealt to him by those to whom nature herself +had so dearly and tenderly bound him, nay, with whom she had so +hopelessly identified him, is that which overwhelms the sufferer. It +is that which he seeks to understand in vain. He wishes to reason upon +it, but his mind cannot master it; under that it is that his brain +gives way,--the first mental confusion begins there. The blow to his +state is a subordinate thing with him. It only serves to measure the +wrong that deals it. The poet takes pains to clear this complication +in the experiment. It is the wound in the affections which untunes the +jarring senses of 'this _child-changed father_.' It is that which +invades his identity. + +'Are you _our_ daughter? Does anyone here know me?' That is the word +with which he breaks the silence of that dumb amazement, that +paralysis of frozen wonder which Goneril's first rude assault brings +on him. 'Why, _this is not Lear_; Ha! sure it is not so. Does any one +here know me? Who is it that can tell me _who I am_?' + +But with all her cruelty, he cannot shake her off. He curses her; but +his curses do not sever the tie. + + 'But yet _thou art_ my flesh, my blood, _my daughter_. + Or rather, a disease that's in my flesh + Which I must needs call _mine_. + Filial ingratitude! + Is _it not as this mouth should tear this hand + For lifting food to it_?' + +For that is the poet's conception of the extent of this social life +and outgoing--that is the _interior_ of that social whole, in which +the dissolution he represents here is proceeding,--and that is the +kind of new phenomenon which the science of man, when it takes him as +he is, not the abstract man of the schools, not the logical man that +the Realists and the Nominalists went to blows for, but 'the thing +itself,' exhibits. As to that other '_man_,'--the man of the old +philosophy,--he was not 'worth the whistle,' this one thinks. 'His +bones were marrowless, his blood was cold, he had no speculation in +those eyes that he did glare with.' The New Philosopher will have no +such skeletons in his system. He is getting his _general_ man out of +particular cases, building him up solid, from a basis of natural +history, and, as far as he goes, there will be no question, no two +words about it, as to whether he _is_ or _is not_. 'For I do take,' +says the Advancer of Learning, 'the _consideration_ in general, and at +large, of _Human Nature_, to be fit to be emancipated and made a +knowledge by itself.' No wonder if some new aspects of these ordinary +phenomena, these 'common things,' as he calls them, should come out, +when they too come to be subjected to a scientific inquiry, and when +the Poet of this Advancement, this so subtle Poet of it, begins to +explore them. + +And as to this particular point which he puts down with so much care, +this point which poor Lear is illustrating here, viz. 'that our +affections carry themselves beyond us,' as the sage of the 'Mountain' +expresses it, this is the view the same Poet gives of it, in +accounting for Ophelia's madness. + + 'Nature is fine in love; and where 'tis fine, + It sends some precious instance of itself, + After the thing it loves.' + +'Your old kind father,' continues Lear, searching to the quick the +secrets of this 'broken-heartedness,' as people are content to call +it, this ill to which the human species is notoriously liable, though +philosophy had not thought it worth while before 'to find it out;' + + 'Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,-- + O _that way_ madness lies; let me shun _that_, + No more of _that_.' + +And it is while he is still undergoing the last extreme of the +suffering which the human wrong is capable of inflicting on the +affections, that he comes in the Poet's hands to exhibit also the +unexplored depth of that wrong,--that monstrous, inhuman social error, +that perpetual outrage on nature in her _human_ law, which leaves the +helpless human outcast to the rough discipline of nature, which casts +him out from the family of man, from its common love and shelter, and +leaves him in his vices, and helplessness, and ignorance, to contend +alone with great nature and her unrelenting consequences. + + 'To wilful men + The injuries that they themselves procure, + Must be their school-masters,'-- + +is the point which the philosophic Regan makes, as she bids them shut +the door in her father's face; but it is the common human relationship +that the Poet is intent on clearing, while he notes the special +relationship also; he does not limit his humanities to the ties of +blood, or household sympathies, or social gradations. + +But Regan's views on this point are seconded and sustained, and there +seems to be but one opinion on the subject among those who happen to +have that castle in possession; at least the timid owner of it does +not feel himself in a position to make any forcible resistance to the +orders which his illustrious guests, who have 'taken from him the use +of his own house,' have seen fit to issue in it. 'Shut up your doors, +(says Cornwall), + + 'Shut up your doors, my lord: 'tis a wild night. + _My_ REGAN COUNSELS _well_; COME OUT O' THE STORM.' + +And it is because this representation is artistic and dramatic, and +not simply historical, and the Poet must seek to condense, and sum and +exhibit in dramatic appreciable figures, the unreckonable, undefinable +historical suffering of years, aad lifetimes of this vain human +struggle,--because, too, the wildest threats which nature in her +terrors makes to man, had to be incorporated in this great philosophic +piece; and because, lastly, the Poet would have the madness of the +human will and passion, presented in its true scientific relations, +that this storm collects into itself such ideal sublimities, and +borrows from the human passion so many images of cruelty. + +In all the mad anguish of that ruined greatness, and wronged natural +affection, the Poet, relentless as fortune herself in her sternest +moods, intent on his experiment only, will bring out his great victim, +and consign him to the wind and the rain, and the lightning, and the +thunder, and bid his _senses_ undergo _their_ 'horrible pleasure.' + +For the senses, scorned as they had been in philosophy hitherto, the +senses in this philosophy, have _their_ report also,--their full, +honest report, to make to us. And the design of this piece, as already +stated in the general, required in its execution, not only that these +two kinds of suffering, these two grand departments of human need, +should be included and distinguished in it, but that they should be +brought together in this one man's experience, so that a deliberate +comparison can be instituted between them; and the Poet will bid the +philosophic king, the living 'subject' himself, report the experiment, +and tell us plainly, once for all, whether the science of the physical +Arts only, is the science which is wanting to man; or whether +arts--scientific arts--that take hold of the moral nature, also, and +deal with that not less effectively, can be dispensed with; whether, +indeed, man is in any condition to dispense with _the_ Science and +_the_ Art which puts him into intelligent and harmonious relations +with nature in general. + +It was necessary to the purpose of the play to exhibit man's +dependence on art, by means of his senses _and_ his sensibilities, and +his intellectual conditions, and all his frailties and liabilities,-- +his dependence on art, based on the knowledge of natural laws, +universal laws,--constitutions, which _include_ the human. It was +necessary to exhibit the whole misery, the last extreme of that +social evil, to which a creature so naturally frail and ignorant is +liable, under those coarse, fortuitous, inartistic, unscientific +social conglomerations, which ignorant and barbarous ages build, and +under the tyranny of those wild, barbaric social evils, which our fine +social institutions, notwithstanding the universality of their terms, +and the transcendant nature of the forces which they are understood to +have at their disposal, for some fatal reason or other, do not yet +succeed in reducing. + +It is, indeed, the whole ground of the Scientific Human Art, which is +revealed here by the light of this great passion, and that, in this +Poet's opinion, is none other than the ground of the human want, and +is as large and various as that. And the careful reader of this +play,--the patient searcher of its subtle lore,--the diligent +collector of its thick-crowding philosophic points and flashing +condensations of discovery, will find that the _need of arts_, is that +which is set forth in it, with all the power of its magnificent poetic +embodiment, and in the abstract as well,--the need of arts infinitely +more noble and effective, more nearly matched with the subtlety of +nature, and better able to entangle and subdue its oppositions, than +any of which mankind have yet been able to possess themselves, or ever +the true intention of nature in the human form can be realized, or +anything like a truly Human Constitution, or Common-Weal, is possible. + +But let us return to the comparison, and collect the results of this +experiment.--For a time, indeed, raised by that storm of grief and +indignation into a companionship with the wind and the rain, and the +lightning, and the thunder, the king 'strives in his little world of +man,'--for that is the phrasing of the poetic report, to _out-scorn_ +these elements. Nay, we ourselves hear, as the curtain rises on that +ideal representative form of human suffering, the wild intonation of +that human defiance--mounting and singing above the thunder, and +drowning all the elemental crash with its articulation; for this is an +experiment which the philosopher will try in the presence of his +audience, and not report it merely. With that anguish in his heart, +the crushed majesty, the stricken old man, the child-wounded father, +laughs at the pains of _the senses_; the physical distress is welcome +to him, he is glad of it. He does not care for anything that the +_unconscious_, soulless elements can do to him, he calls to them from +their heights, and bids them do their worst. Or it is only as they +conspire with that _wilful human_ wrong, and serve to bring home to +him anew the depth of it, by these tangible, sensuous effects,--it is +only by that means that they are able to wound him. + + 'Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters,' + +_that_ is the argument. + +'I tax you _not_, you elements, with _unkindness_.' + +Surely that is logical; that is a distinction not without a +difference, and appreciable to the human mind, as it is +constituted,--surely that is a point worth putting in the arts and +sciences. + + 'I never gave you kingdoms, called you _children_; + You _owe_ me no subscription; why, _then_, let fall + Your horrible pleasure? Here I stand _your_ slave, + A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man; + But _yet_, I call you _servile ministers_, + That have with two pernicious daughters _joined_ + Your high, engendered battles 'gainst a head + _So old and white_ as this. O, O, '_tis foul_.' + +And in his calmer mood, when the storm has done its work upon him, and +all the strength of his great passion is exhausted,--when his bodily +powers are fast sinking under it, and like the subtle Hamlet's 'potent +poison,' it begins at last to 'o'er-crow his spirit'--when he is faint +with struggling with its fury, wet to the skin with it, and +comfortless and shivering, he still maintains through his chattering +teeth the argument; he will still defend his first position-- + + 'Thou thinkst 'tis much that this _contentious_ storm + Invades _us_ to the skin; so 'tis to thee, + But where the greater _malady_ is fixed, + The _lesser_ is scarce felt.' + + 'The tempest in my mind + Doth from my senses take all feeling else, + Save what beats there.' + + 'In _such_ a night + _To shut me out! Pour on_, I will endure. + _In such a night as this_.' + +And when the shelter he is at last forced to seek is found, at the +door his courage fails him; and he shrinks back into the storm again, +because 'it will not give him leave to think on that _which hurts him +more_.' + +So nicely does the Poet balance these ills, and report the swaying +movement. But it is a poet who does not take common-place opinions on +this, or on any other such subject. He is one whose poetic work does +not consist in illustrating these received opinions, or in finding +some novel and fine expression for them. He is observing nature, and +undertaking to report it, as it is, not as it should be according to +these preconceptions, or according to the established poetic notions +of the heroic requisitions. + +But there is no stage that can exhibit his experiment here in its real +significance, excepting that one which he himself builds for us; for +it is the vast lonely heath, and the _Man_, the pigmy man, on it--and +the KING, the pigmy king, on it;--it is all the wild roar of elemental +nature, and the tempest in that '_little world_ of man,' that have to +measure their forces, that have to be brought into continuous and +persevering contest. It is not Gloster only, who sees in that storm +what 'makes him think that _a man_ is but _a worm_.' + +Doubtless, it would have been more in accordance with the old poetic +notions, if this poor king had maintained his ground without any +misgiving at all; but it is a poet of a new order, and not the old +heroic one, who has the conducting of this experiment; and though his +verse is not without certain sublimities of its own, they have to +consist with the report of the fact as it is, to its most honest and +unpoetic, unheroic detail. + +And notwithstanding all the poetry of that passionate defiance, it is +the physical storm that triumphs in the end. The contest between that +little world of man and the great outdoor world of nature was too +unequal. Compelled at last to succumb, yielding to 'the tyranny of the +open night, that is _too rough_ for _nature to endure_--the night that +frightens the very wanderers of the dark, and makes _them_ keep their +caves, while it reaches, with its poetic combination of horrors, that +border line of the human conception which great Nature's pencil, in +this Poet's hand, is always reaching and completing,-- + + '_Man's_ nature cannot carry + The affliction nor _the fear_.' + +--Unable to contend any longer with 'the _fretful_ element'--unable to +'_outscorn_' any longer 'the to and fro conflicting wind and +rain'--weary of struggling with 'the _impetuous_ blasts,' that in +their 'eyeless _rage_' and '_fury_' care no more for age and reverence +than his _daughters_ do--that seize his white hairs, and make nothing +of them--'exposed to _feel_ what _wretches_ feel'--he finds at last, +with surprise, that art--the wretch's art--that can make vile things +_precious_. No longer clamoring for 'the additions of a king,' but +thankful for the basest means of shelter from the elements, glad to +avail himself of the rudest structure with which art '_accommodates_' +man to nature, (for that is the word of this philosophy, where it is +first proposed)--glad to divide with his meanest subject that shelter +which the outcast seeks on such a night--ready to creep with him, +under it, side by side--'fain to hovel with _swine_ and rogues +forlorn, in short and musty straw'--surely we have reached a point at +last where the _action_ of the piece itself--the mere 'dumb show' of +it--becomes luminous, and hardly needs the player's eloquence to tell +us what it means. + +Surely this is a little like 'the language' of _Periander's_ message, +when he bid the messenger observe and _report what he saw him do_. It +is very important to note that ideas may be conveyed in this way as +well as by words, the author of the Advancement of Learning remarks, +in speaking of the tradition of the principal and supreme sciences. He +takes pains to notice, also, that a representation, by means of these +'transient hieroglyphics,' is much more moving to the sensibilities, +and leaves a more vivid and durable impression on the memory, than the +most eloquent statement in mere words. 'What is _sensible_ always +strikes the memory more strongly, and sooner impresses itself, than +what is _intellectual_. Thus the memory of _brutes_ is excited by +sensible, but not by intellectual things;' and thus, also, he proposes +to impress that _class_ which Coriolanus speaks of, 'whose eyes are +more learned than their ears,' to whom 'action is eloquence.' Here we +have the advantage of the combination, for there is no part of the +dumb show, but has its word of scientific comment and interpretation. + + 'Art cold [to the Fool]? + I am cold myself. _Where is this_ STRAW, _my fellow_? + The art of our necessities is strange, + That can make vile things _precious_. Come, _your hovel_. + Come, bring us to this _hovel_.' + +For this is what that wild tragic poetic resistance and defiance comes +to--this is what the 'unaccommodated man' comes to, though it is the +highest person in the state, stripped of his ceremonies and artificial +appliances, on whom the experiment is tried. + + 'Where is this straw, my fellow? Art _cold_? I am cold _myself_. + Come, your hovel. Come, bring us to this _hovel_.' + +When that royal edict is obeyed,--when the wonders of the magician's +art are put in requisition to fulfil it,--when the road from the +palace to the hovel is laid open,--when the hovel, where Tom o' Bedlam +is nestling in the straw, is produced on the stage, and THE KING--THE +KING--stoops, before all men's eyes, to creep into its mouth,--surely +we do not need 'a _chorus_ to interpret for us'--we do not need to +wait for the Poet's own deferred exposition to seize the more obvious +meanings. Surely, one catches enough in passing, in the dialogues and +tableaux here, to perceive that there is something going on in this +play which is not all play,--something that will be earnest, perhaps, +ere all is done,--something which 'the groundlings' were not expected +to get, perhaps, in 'their sixe-penn'orth' of it at the first +performance,--something which that witty and splendid company, who +made up the Christmas party at Whitehall, on the occasion of its first +exhibition there, who sat there 'rustling in silk,' breathing +perfumes, glittering in wealth that the alchemy of the storm had not +tried, were not, perhaps, all informed of; though there might have +been one among them, 'a gentleman of blood and breeding,' who could +have told them what it meant. + +'We construct,' says the person who describes this method of +philosophic instruction, speaking of the subtle prepared history which +forces the inductions--'we construct tables and combinations of +instances, upon such a plan, and in such order, that the understanding +may be enabled to act upon them.' + +'They told me I was everything.' + +_They told me I was everything_,' says the poor king himself, long +afterwards, when the storm has had its ultimate effect upon him. + +'To say ay and no to everything that I said!--[To say] ay and no _too_ +WAS NO GOOD DIVINITY. They told me, I had _white_ hairs in my beard, +ere the _black_ ones were there. When the rain came to wet me once, +and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at +_my bidding_; there I found them, _there_ I smelt them out. Go to, +they are not men of their words: they told me I was everything; _'tis +a lie; I am not ague-proof_.' + +'_I_ think the king is but a man, as I am' [says King Hal], 'All his +_senses_ have the like conditions; and his _affections_, though higher +mounted, when they stoop, stoop with _the like wing_.' + +But at the door of that rude hut the ruined majesty pauses. In vain +his loving attendants, whom, for love's sake, this Poet will still +have with him, entreat him to enter. Storm-battered, and wet, and +shivering as he is, he shrinks back from the shelter he has bid them +bring him to. He will not '_in_.' Why? Is it because 'the tempest will +not give him leave to ponder on things would hurt him more.' That is +his excuse at first; but another blast strikes him, and he yields to +'the to and fro conflicting wind and rain,' and says-- + +'_But_ I'll go in.' + +Yet still he pauses. Why? Because he has not told us why he is +there;--because he is in the hands of the Poet of the Human Kind, the +poet of 'those common things that our ordinary life consisteth of,' +who will have of them an argument that shall shame that 'resplendent +and lustrous mass of matter' that old philosophers and poets have +chosen for theirs;--because the rare accident--the wild, poetic, +unheard-of accident--which has brought a man, old in luxuries, clothed +in soft raiment, nurtured in king's houses, into this rude, unaided +collision with nature;--the poetic impossibility, which has brought +the one man from the apex of the social structure down this giddy +depth, to this lowest social level;--the accident which has given the +'one man,' who has the divine disposal of the common weal, this little +casual experimental taste of the weal which his wisdom has been able +to provide for the many--of the weal which a government so divinely +ordered, from its pinnacle of _personal_ ease and luxury, thinks +sufficient and divine enough for _the many_,--this accident--this +grand poetic accident--with all its exquisite poetic effects, is, in +this poet's hands, the means, not the end. This poor king's great +tragedy, the loss of his social position, his broken-heartedness, his +outcast suffering, with all the aggravations of this poetic descent, +and the force of its vivid contrasts--with all the luxurious +impressions on the sensibilities which the ideal wonders of the rude +old fable yield so easily in this Poet's hands,--this rare accident, +and moving marvel of poetic calamity,--this 'one man's' tragedy is not +the tragedy that this Poet's soul is big with. It is the tragedy of +the Many, and not the One,--it is the tragedy that is the rule, and +not the exception,--it is the tragedy that is common, and not that +which is singular, whose argument this Poet has undertaken to manage. + +'Come, bring us to your hovel.' + +The royal command is obeyed; and the house of that estate, which has +no need to borrow its title of plurality to establish the grandeur of +its claim, springs up at the New Magician's word, and stands before us +on the scientific stage in its colossal, portentous, scientific +grandeur; and the king--the king--is at the door of it: the _Monarch_ +is at the door of the _Many_. For the scientific Poet has had his eye +on that structure, and he will make of it a thing of wonder, that +shall rival old poets' fancy pieces, and drive our entomologists and +conchologists to despair, and drive them off the stage with their +curiosities and marvels. There is no need of a Poet's going to the +supernatural for 'machinery,' this Poet thinks, while there's such +machinery as this ready to his hands unemployed. 'There's something in +this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.' There's no +need of going to the antique for his models; for he is inventing the +arts that will make of this an _antiquity_. + +The Monarch has found his meanest subject's shelter, but at the door +of it he is arrested--nailed with a nail fastened by the Master of +Assemblies. He has come down from that dizzy height, on the Poet's +errand. He is there to speak the Poet's word,--to illustrate that +grave abstract learning which the Poet has put on another page, with a +note that, as it stands there, notwithstanding the learned airs it +has, it is _not_ learning, but 'the husk and shell' of it. For this is +the philosopher who puts it down as a primary Article of Science, that +governments should be based on a scientific acquaintance with 'the +_natures, dispositions, necessities_ and _discontents_ of _the +people_'; and though in his book of the Advancement of Learning, he +suggests that these points '_ought to be_,' considering the means of +ascertaining them at the disposal of the government, 'considering the +variety of its intelligences, the wisdom of its observations, and the +height of the station where it keeps sentinel, _transparent as +crystal,'--here_ he puts the case of a government that had not availed +itself of those extraordinary means of ascertaining the truth at a +distance, and was therefore in the way of discovering much that was +new, in the course of an accidental personal descent into the lower +and more inaccessible regions of the _Common_ Weal it had ordered. +This is the _crystal_ which proves after all the most transparent for +him. This is the help for weak eyes which becomes necessary sometimes, +in the absence of the scientific crystal, which is its equivalent. + +The Monarch is at the hovel's door, but he cannot enter. Why? Because +he is in that school into which his own wise REGAN, that '_counsels_' +so 'well'--that _Regan_ who sat at his own council-table so long, has +turned him; and it is a school in which the lessons must be learned +'_by heart_,' and there is no shelter for him from its pitiless +beating in this Poet's economy, till that lesson he was sent there to +learn has been learned; and it was a Monarch's lesson, and at the +Hovel's door he must recite it. He _will_ not enter. Why? Because the +great lesson of state has entered his soul: with the sharpness of its +illustration it has _pierced_ him: his spirit is dilated, and moved +and kindling with its grandeur: he is thinking of 'the Many,' he has +forgotten 'the One,'--the many, all whose senses have like conditions, +whose affections stoop with the like wing. He will not enter, because +he thinks it unregal, inhuman, mean, selfish to engross the luxury of +the hovel's shelter, and the warmth of the 'precious' straw, while he +knows that he has subjects still abroad with senses like his own, +capable of the like misery, still exposed to its merciless cruelties. +It was the tenant of the castle, it was the man in the house who said, +'Come, let's be snug and cheery here. _Shut up the door_. Let's have a +fire, and a feast, and a song,--or a psalm, or a prayer, as the case +may be; only let it be _within_--no matter which it is': + + 'Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild night,-- + _My Regan counsels_ well; come out o' the storm.' + +But here it is the houseless man, who is thinking of his kindred,--his +royal family, for whom God has made him responsible, out in this same +storm unbonneted; and in the tenderness of that sympathy, in the +searching delicacy of that feeling with which he scrutinizes now their +case, they seem to him less able than himself to resist its elemental +'_tyranny_.' For in that ideal revolution--in that exact turn of the +wheel of fortune--in that experimental 'change of places,' which the +Poet recommends to those who occupy the upper ones in, the social +structure, as a means of a more particular and practical acquaintance +with the conditions of those for whom they legislate, new views of the +common natural human relations; new views of the ends of social +combinations are perpetually flashing on him; for it is the fallen +monarch himself, the late owner and disposer of the Common Weal, it is +this strangely _philosophic_, mysteriously philosophic, +king--philosophic as that Alfred who was going to succeed him--it is +the king who is chosen by the Poet as the chief commentator and +expounder of that new political and social doctrine which the action +of this play is itself suggesting. + +In that school of the tempest; in that one night's personal experience +of the misery that underlies the pompous social structure, with all +its stately splendours and divine pretensions; in that New School of +the Experimental Science, the king has been taking lessons in the art +of majesty. The alchemy of it has robbed him of the external adjuncts +and 'additions of a king,' but the sovereignty of MERCY, the divine +right of PITY, the majesty of the HUMAN KINDNESS, the grandeur of the +COMMON WEAL, 'breathes through his lips' from the Poet's heart 'like +man new made.' + + _Kent_. Good, my lord, enter here. + + _Lear_. Prythee, go in thyself. _Seek thine own ease_. + . . . . But, I'll go in. + In, boy,--_go first--[To the Fool.]_ + You, _houseless_ poverty'-- + +He knows the meaning of that phrase now. + + 'Nay get thee in. I'll PRAY, and then I'll sleep.' + + [_Fool goes in_.] + + 'Poor, naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are + That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,'-- + +There are no empty phrases in this prayer, the critic of it may +perceive: it is a learned prayer; the petitioner knows the meaning of +each word in it: the tempest is the book in which he studied it. + + 'How shall your _houseless heads_ and _unfed sides_, + Your _looped_ and _windowed raggedness_ defend you + From _seasons such as these_? O, I have taken + _Too little care of_ THIS. [Hear, hear]. Take physic, POMP; [Hear.] + Expose thyself to _feel_ what wretches _feel_, + _That thou mayest shake the superflux to them_, + _And show the_ HEAVENS _more just_.' + +That is his _prayer_. To minds accustomed to the ceremonial a +religious worship, 'with court holy water in a dry house' only, or to +those who have never undertaken to compose a prayer for the king and +all the royal family at the hovel's mouth, and in such immediate +proximity to animals of a different species, it will not perhaps seem +a very pious one. But considering that it was understood to have been +composed during the heathen ages of this realm, and before +Christianity had got itself so comfortably established as a principle +of government and social regulations, perhaps it was as good a prayer +for a penitent king to go to sleep on, as could well be invented. +Certainly the spirit of Christianity, as it appeared in the life of +its Founder, at least, seems to be, by a poetic anachronism +incorporated in it. + +But it is never the custom of this author to leave the diligent +student of his performances in any doubt whatever as to his meaning. +It is a rule, that everything in the play shall speak and reverberate +his purpose. He prolongs and repeats his burthens, till the whole +action echoes with them, till 'the groves, the fountains, every region +near, seem all one mutual cry.' He has indeed the Teacher's trick of +repetition, but then he is 'so rare a wondered teacher,' so rich in +magical resources, that he does not often find it necessary to weary +_the sense_ with sameness. He is prodigal in variety. It is a Proteus +repetition. But his charge to his Ariel in getting up his Masques, +always is,-- + + 'Bring a corollary, + Rather than want a spirit.' + +Nay, it would be dangerous, not wearisome merely, to make the text of +this living commentary continuous, or to bring too near together +'those short and pithy sentences' wherein the action unwinds and +fashions into its immortal groups. And the curtain must fall and rise +again, ere the outcast duke,--his eyes gouged out by tyranny, turned +forth to smell his way to Dover,--can dare to echo, word by word, the +thoughts of the outcast king. + +Led by one whose qualification for leadership is, that he is 'Madman +and Beggar, too,'--for as Gloster explains it to us, explaining also +at the same time much else that the scenic language of the play, the +dumb show, the transitory hieroglyphic of it presents, and _all_ the +criticism of it, + + ''T IS THE TIME'S PLAGUE WHEN MADMEN LEAD THE BLIND'-- + +groping with such leadership his way to Dover--'smelling it out'--thus +it is that his secret understanding with the king, in that mad and +wondrous philosophical humour of his, betrays itself. + + _Gloster_. Here, take this purse [to Tom o'Bedlam], _thou whom the + heaven's plagues + Have humbled to all strokes_: that I am wretched + Makes thee the happier:--_Heavens, deal so still_! + Let the _superfluous_ and lust-dieted man + That _slaves_ your ordinance, that will not SEE + _Because_ he doth not FEEL, feel your power quickly; + _So distribution should undo excess, + And each man have enough_. + + _Lear_. O I have taken + _Too little care of this._ Take physic, Pomp; + Expose thyself to FEEL what wretches FEEL, + _That_ thou may'st shake the _superflux to them, + And show the Heavens more just_. + +Truly, these men would seem to have been taking lessons in the same +school. But it is very seldom that two men in real life, of equal +learning on any topic, coincide so exactly in their trains of thought, +and in the niceties of their expression in discussing it. The emphasis +is deep, indeed, when _this_ author graves his meaning with _such_ a +repetition. But Regan's stern school-master is abroad in this play, +enforcing the philosophic subtleties, bringing home to the _senses_ +the neglected lessons of nature; full of errands to '_wilful men_,' +charged with coarse lessons to those who will learn through the senses +only great Nature's lore--that '_slave_ Heaven's ordinance--that will +not SEE, because they do not FEEL.' + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE KING AND THE BEGGAR. + + + _Armado_. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar? + + _Moth_. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages + since: but, I think, now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it + would neither serve for the writing, _nor for the tune_. + + _Armado_. I will have the subject newly writ over, _that I + may example my digression + by some mighty precedent_. + _Love's Labour's Lost._ + +But the king's philosophical studies are not yet completed; for he is +in the hands of one who does not rely on general statements for his +effects; one who is pertinaciously bent on exploring those +subterranean social depths, that the king's prayer has just glanced +at--who is determined to lay bare to the utmost, to carry the torch of +his new science into the lowest recess of that wild, nameless mass of +human neglect and misery, which the regal sympathy has embraced for +him in the general; though not, indeed, without some niceties of +detail, which shew that the eye of a true human pity has collected the +terms in which he expresses it. + +That vast, immeasurable mass of social misery, which has no learned +speech, no tragic dialect--no, or 'it would bear such an emphasis,' +that 'its phrase of sorrow might conjure the wandering stars, and bid +them stand like wonder-wounded hearers'--that misery which must get a +king's robe about it, ere, in the Poet's time, it could have an +audience, must needs be produced here, ere all this play was played, +in its own native and proper shape and costume, daring as the attempt +might seem. + +The author is not satisfied with the picturesque details of that +misery which he has already given us, with its 'looped and windowed +raggedness,' its 'houseless head,' its 'unfed sides'; it must be yet +more palpably presented. It must be embodied and dramatically +developed; it must be exhibited with its proper moral and intellectual +accompaniments, too, before the philosophic requisitions of this +design can be fulfilled. + +To the lowest deeps of the lowest depths of the unfathomed social +misery of that time, the new philosopher, the Poet of the Advancement +of Learning, will himself descend; and drag up to the eye of +day,--undeterred by any scruple of poetic sensibility,--in his own +unborrowed habiliments, with all the badges of _his_ position in the +state upon him, the creature he has selected as one of the +representatives of the social state as he finds it;--the creature he +has selected as the representative of those loathsome, unpenetrated +masses of _human_ life, which the unscientific social state must needs +generate. + +For the design of this play, in its exhibition of the true human need, +in its new and large exhibition of the ground which the Arts of a true +and rational human civilization must cover, could not but include the +_defects_ of that, which passed for civilization then. It involved +necessarily, indeed, the most searching and relentless criticisms of +the existing institutions of that time. That cry of social misery +which pervades it, in which the natural, and social, and artificial +evils are still discriminated through all the most tragic bursts of +passion--in which the true social need, in all its comprehension, is +uttered--that wild cry of human anguish, prolonged, and repeated, and +reverberated as it is--is all one outcry upon the social wisdom of the +Poet's time. It constitutes one continuous dramatic expression and +embodiment of that so deeply-rooted opinion which the New Philosopher +is known to have entertained, in regard to the practical knowledge of +mankind as he found it; his opinion of the real advances towards the +true human ends which had been made in his time; an opinion which he +has, indeed, taken occasion to express elsewhere with some +distinctness, considering the conditions which hampered the expression +of his philosophical conclusions; but it is one which could hardly +have been produced from the philosophic chair in his time, or from the +bench, or at the council-table, in such terms as we find him launching +out into here, without any fear or scruple. + +For those who persuade themselves that it was any part of this +player's intention to bring out, for the amusement of his audiences, +an historical exhibition of the Life and Times of that ancient Celtic +king of Britain, whose legendary name and chronicle he has +appropriated so effectively, will be prevented by that view of the +subject from ever attaining the least inkling of the matter here. For +this Magician has quite other work in hand. He does not put his +girdles round the earth, and enforce and harass with toil his delicate +spirits,--he does not get out his book and staff, and put on his +Enchanter's robe, for any such kind of effect as that. For this is not +any antiquary at all, but the true Prospero; and when a little more +light has been brought into his cell, his garments will be found to +be, like the disguised Edgar's--'_Persian_.' + +It is not enough, then, in the wild revolutionary sweep of this play, +to bring out the monarch from his palace, and set him down at the +hovel's door. It is not enough to open it, and shew us, by the light +of Cordelia's pity--that sunshine and rain at once--the '_swine_' in +that human dwelling, and 'the short and musty-straw' there. For the +poet himself will enter it, and drag out its living human tenant into +the day of his immortal verse. He will set him up for all ages, on his +great stage, side by side with his great brother. He will put the feet +of these two men on one platform, and measure their stature--for all +their senses have the like conditions, as we have heard already; and +he will make the king himself own the KINDRED, and interpret for him. +For this group must needs be completed _'to the eye_'; these two +extremes in the social scale must meet and literally embrace each +other, before this Teacher's doctrine of 'MAN'--'man as distinguished +from other species'--can be artistically exhibited. For it is this +picture of the unaccommodated man--'unaccommodated' still, with all +his empiric arts, with all his wordy philosophy--it is this picture of +man '_as he is_,' in the misery of his IGNORANCE, in his blind +struggle with his law of KIND, which is his law of 'BEING,'-- +unreconciled to his place in the universal order, where he must +live or have no life--for the beast, obedient to his law, rejects +from his kinds the _degenerate_ man--it is this vivid, condensed, +scientific exhibition, this scientific collection of the fact of man +as he is, in his empiric struggle with the law which universal nature +enforces, and will enforce on him with all her pains and penalties +till he learns it--it is this '_negation_' which brings out the true +doctrine of man and human society in this method of inquiry. For the +scientific method begins with negations and exclusions, and concludes +only after every species of rejection; the other, the common method, +which begins with 'AFFIRMATION,' is the one that has failed in +practice, the one which has brought about just this state of things +which science is undertaking to reform. + +But this _levelling_, which the man of the new science, with his new +apparatus, with his 'globe and his machines,' contrives to exhibit +here with so much '_facility_,' is a scientific one, designed to +answer a scientific purpose merely. The experimenter, in this case, is +one who looks with scientific forebodings, and not with hope only, on +those storms of violent political revolution that were hanging then on +the world's horizon, and threatening to repeat this process, +threatening to overwhelm in their wild crash, all the ancient social +structures--threatening 'to lay all flat'! That is not the kind of +change he meditates. His is the subtle, all-penetrating Radicalism of +the New Science, which imitates the noiseless processes of Nature in +its change and _Re-formation_. + +There is a wild gibberish heard in the straw. The fool shrieks, +'Nuncle, come not in here,' and out rushes 'Tom o Bedlam'--the naked +creature, as Gloster calls him--with his 'elf locks,' his 'blanketed +loins,' his 'begrimed face,' with his shattered wits, his madness, +real or assumed--there he stands. + +We know, indeed, in this instance, that there is gentle, nay, noble +blood, there, under that horrid guise. It is the heir of a dukedom, we +are told, but an out-cast one, who has found himself compelled, for +the sake of prolonging life, to assume that shape, as other wretches +were in the Poet's time for that same purpose,--men who had lost +_their_ dukedoms, too, as it would seem, such as they were, in some +way, and their human relationships, too. But notwithstanding this +alleviating circumstance which enables the audience to endure the +exhibition in this instance, it serves not the less effectually in the +Poet's hand, as 'THE CONSPICUOUS INSTANCE' of that lowest human +condition which this grand Social Tragedy must needs include in its +delineations. + +Here are some of the prose English descriptions of this creature, +which we find already included in the commentaries on this tragedy; +and which shew that the Poet has not exaggerated his portrait, and +that it is not by way of celebrating any Anglo-Saxon or Norman triumph +over the barbarisms of the _joint_ reigns of REGAN _and_ GONERIL, that +he is produced here. + +'I remember, before the civil wars, Tom o' Bedlams went about +begging,' Aubrey says. Randle Holme, in his 'Academy of Arms and +Blazon,' includes them in his descriptions, as a class of vagabonds +'feigning themselves mad.' 'The Bedlam is in the same garb, with a +long staff,' etc., 'but his cloathing is more fantastic and +ridiculous; for being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all +over with _rubans, feathers, cuttings_ of _cloth,_ and what not, to +make him _seem_ a madman, when he is no other than a _dissembling +knave_.' + +In the Bellman of London, 1640, there is another description of +him--'He sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talk frantickely _of +purpose; you see pinnes_ stuck in sundry places of his _naked flesh_, +especially in his armes, _which paine he gladly puts himselfe to_; +calls himself by the name of _Poore Tom_; and coming near anybody, +cries out, '_Poor Tom's a cold_.' Of these Abraham men, _some be +exceeding merry_, and doe nothing but sing songs, fashioned out of +their own braines; some will dance; others will doe nothing but either +laugh or weepe; _others are dogged_, and so _sullen_, both in looke +and speech, that spying but a small company in a house, they bluntly +and boldly enter, compelling the servants, through fear, to them what +they demand.' + +This seems very wicked, very depraved, on the part of these persons, +especially the sticking of pins in their bare arms; but even our young +dukeling Edgar says-- + + 'While I may scape, + I _will preserve myself_: and am bethought + To take _the basest_ and _most poorest shape_, + That ever _penury_, in _contempt_ of MAN, + _Brought near to beast_: my face I'll grime with filth; + Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots; + And with presented nakedness outface + The winds, and _persecutions of the sky_. + The _country gives_ me PROOF and PRECEDENT + Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, + _Strike_ in _their numb'd and mortified bare arms, + Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary_; + And with this horrible object, from low farms, + Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills, + _Sometime with lunatic bans_, sometime with prayers, + Enforce their charity.--'Poor Turlygood!' 'poor Tom!' + _Thats something yet, Edgar I nothing am_. + +But the poet is not contented with the minuteness of this description. +This character appears to have taken his eye as completely as it takes +King Lear's, the moment that _he_ gets a glimpse of him; and the poet +betrays throughout that same philosophical interest in the study, +which the monarch expresses so boldly; for beside the dramatic +exhibition, and the philosophical review of him, which King Lear +institutes, here is an autographical sketch of him, and of his mode of +living-- + +'_What_ are you there? Your _names_?' + +cries Gloster, when he comes to the heath, with his torch, to seek out +the king and his party; whereupon Tom, thinking that an occasion has +now arrived for defining his social outline, takes it upon him to +answer, for his part-- + +'Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the +wall-newt, and the water-[newt]; that in the fury of his heart, when +the _foul fiend rages_, swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; +drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; _who is whipped_ from +_tything_ to _tything_' [this is an Anglo-Saxon institution one sees]; +'and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who _hath had_ three suits to +his back' [fallen fortunes here, too] 'six shirts to his body, horse +to ride, and weapon to wear.' + +The Jesuits had been, then, recently and notoriously at work in +England, endeavouring professedly to cast out '_the fiend_' from many +possessed persons; and it appeared, to this great practical +philosopher, that this creature he has fetched up here from the +subterranean social abysses of his time, presented a very fitting +subject for the operations of practitioners professing any miraculous +or superior influence over the demons that infest human nature, or +those that have power over human fortunes. He has brought him out here +thus distinctly, for the purpose of inquiring whether there is any +exorcism which can meet his case, or that of the great human +multitude, that no man can number, of whose penury and vice he stands +here as the elected, pre-eminent, royal representative. In that survey +and report of human affairs, which this author felt himself called +upon to make, the case of this poor creature had attracted his +attention, and appeared to him to require looking to; and, +accordingly, he has made a note of it. + +He is admirably seconded in his views on this subject, by the king +himself, who, in that fine philosophic humour which his madness and +his misery have served to develop in him, stands ready to lend himself +to the boldest and most delicate philosophical inquiries. For the +point to be noted here,--and it is one of no ordinary importance,--is, +that this mad humour for philosophical investigation, which has seized +so strangely the royal mind, does not appear to be at all in the vein +of that old-fashioned philosophy, which had been rattling its +abstractions in the face of the collective human misery for so many +ages. For the helplessness of the human creature in his struggle with +the elements, and those conditions of his nature which put him so +hopelessly at the mercy of his own kind and kindred, seem to suggest +to the royal sufferer, who has the advantage of a fresh experience to +stimulate his apprehension, that there ought to be some relief for the +human condition from _this source_, that is, from PHILOSOPHY; and his +inquiries and discoveries are all stamped with the unmistakeable +impress of that fire new philosophy, which was not yet out of the mint +elsewhere--which was yet undergoing the formative process in the mind +of its great inventor;--that philosophy, which we are told elsewhere +'has for its principal object, to make _nature subservient to the +wants and state of Man_';--and which concerns itself for that purpose +with ideas as they exist in nature, as _causes_, and not as they exist +in the mind of man as _words_ merely. + +If there had been, indeed, any intention of paying a marked compliment +to the philosophy which still held all the mind of the world in its +grasp, at that great moment in history, in which Tom o' Bedlam makes +his first appearance on any stage, it is not likely that _that_ sage +would have been just the person appointed to hold the office of +Philosopher in Chief, and Councillor extraordinary to his Majesty. + +The selection is indeed made on the part of the king, in perfect good +faith, whatever the Poet's intent may be; for from the moment that +this creature makes his appearance, he has no eyes or ears for +anything else. And he will not be parted from him. For this startling +juxtaposition was not intended by the Poet to fulfil its effect as a +mere passing _tableau vivant_. The relation must be dramatically +developed; that astounding juxtaposition must be prolonged, in spite +of the horror of the spectators, and the disgust and rude displeasure +of the king's attendants. They seek in vain to _part_ these two men. +The king refuses to stir without him. 'He will _still keep with his +philosopher_.' He has a vague idea that his regal administration +stands in need of some assistance, and that philosophy ought to be +able to give it, and that the Bedlamite is in some way connected with +the subject, but confused as the association is, it is a pertinacious +one; and, in spite of their disgust the king's friends are obliged to +take this wretch with them. For Gloster does not know, after all, it +is 'his own flesh and blood' he sees there. He cannot even recognize +the common kindred in that guise, as the king does, when he +philosophises on his condition. And the rough aristocratic contempt +and indifference which is manifested by the king's party, as a matter +of course, for this poor human victim of wrong and misfortune, is made +to contrast with their boundless sympathy and tenderness for the +_king_, while the poet aiming at broader relationships, finds the +mantle of _his_ humanity wide enough for them, _both_. + +As for the king,--startled in the midst of those new views of human +wretchedness which his own sufferings have occasioned, and while those +desires to _remedy it_, with which his penitence is accompanied, are +still on his lip, by this wild apparition and embodiment of his +thought, in that new accession of his mental disorder, which the +presence of this object seems to occasion, that confounding of +proximate conceptions, which leads him to regard this man as a source +of new light on human affairs, is one of those exquisite physiological +exhibitions of which only this scientific artist is capable. + +And, in fact, it must be confessed, that this 'learned Theban' +himself, notwithstanding the unexpected dignity of his promotion, does +not appear to be altogether wanting in a taste, at least, for that new +kind of philosophical investigation, which seems to be looked for at +his hands. The king's inquiries appear to fall in remarkably with the +previous train of his pursuits. In the course of his experiments, he +seems himself to have struck upon that new philosophic proceeding, +which has been called 'putting philosophy upon the right road again.' + +Only the philosophic domain which that new road in philosophy leads +to, appears to be very considerably broader, as 'Tom' takes it, than +that very vivid, but narrow limitation of its fields, which Mr. +Macaulay has set down in our time, would make it. Indeed, this +'philosopher,' that _Lear_ so much inclines to, appears to have +included in his investigations the two _extremes_ of the new science +of practice. He has sounded it apparently 'from its lowest note to the +top of its key.' + +'What is your study?' says the king to him, eyeing him curiously, and +apparently struck with the practical result--anxious to have a word +with him in private, but obliged to conduct the examination on the +stage. + +'How to prevent THE FIEND,' is Tom's reply. 'How to prevent the fiend +_and_ to kill vermin.' + +This is the Poet who says elsewhere, 'that without _good_ nature, +_men_ are themselves but a nobler kind of vermin.' + +One cannot but observe, however, that Poor Tom's researches in this +quite new field of a practical philosophy, do not appear to have been +followed up since his time with any very marked success. _One_ of +these departments of 'his _study_' has indeed been seized, and is now +occupied by whole troops of modern philosophers; but their inquiries, +though very interesting and doubtlessly useful, do not appear to +exhibit that direct and palpable bearing on practice, to which Tom's +programme so severely inclines. For he is one who would make 'the art +and practic part of life, the mistress to his theoric.' And as to that +other mysterious object of his inquiries, Mr. Macaulay is not the only +person who appears to think, that that does not come within the range +of anything human. Many of our scholars are still of the opinion that, +'court holy water' is the best application in the world for _him_; and +the fact that he does not appear to get '_prevented_' with it; it is a +fact which of course has nothing to do with the logical result. For +our philosophers are still determined to reason it 'thus and thus,' +without taking into account the circumstance, that 'the sequent +effect' with which 'nature finds itself scourged,' is not touched by +their _reasons_. + +King Lear's own inquiries seem also to include with great +distinctness, the two great branches of the new philosophical inquiry. +His mind is indeed very eagerly bent on the pursuit of _causes_. And +though in the paroxysms of his mental disorder, he is apt to confound +them occasionally, this very confusion, as it is managed, only serves +to develop the breadth of the philosophic conception beneath it. + +'He hath no daughters, Sir.' '_Death, traitor_! Nothing could have +subdued nature to such a lowness, but--his UNKIND _daughters_.' It is, +of course, his own new and terrible experience which points the +inquiry, and though the physical causes are not omitted in it, it is +not strange that the moral should predominate, and that his mind +should seem to be very curiously occupied in tracking the _ethical_ +phenomena to their sources '_in nature_.' + +In the midst of the uproar of the Tempest, he does indeed begin with +the physical investigation. He puts to his 'learned Theban' the +question, which no learned Theban had then ever suspected of lying +within the range of the scholar's investigations--that question which +has been put to some purpose since--'What is the cause of _thunder_?' +But his philosophic inquiry does not stop there,--where all the new +philosophy has stopped ever since, and where some of our scholars +declare it was meant to stop, notwithstanding the plainest +declarations of its inventor to the contrary--with the investigation +of physical causes. + +For, after all, it is 'the tempest in his _mind_' that most concerns +him. _His_ philosopher, his _practical_ philosopher, must be able to +explore the conditions of that, and find the conductors for its +lightnings. 'For where the greater malady is fixed, the lesser is +scarce felt.' 'Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are his daughters.' +After all, it is _Regan's_ heart that appears to him to be the +trouble--it is that which must first be laid on the table; and as soon +as he decides to have a philosopher among 'his hundred,' he gives +orders to that effect. + +'Then let them anatomise Regan; see what breeds about her heart: Is +there any CAUSE IN NATURE that makes _these hard hearts_?' + +A very fair subject for philosophical inquiry, one would say; and, on +the whole, as profitable and interesting a one, perhaps, as some of +those that engage the attention of our men of learning so profoundly +at present. In these days of enlightened scientific procedure, one +would hardly undertake the smallest practical affair with the aid of +any such vague general notions or traditional accounts of the +properties to be dealt with, as those which our learned Thebans appear +to find all-sufficient for their practices, in that particular +department which Lear seems inclined to open here as a field for +scientific exploration. + +And it is perfectly clear that the author, whoever he may be, is very +much of Lear's mind on this point, for he does not depend upon Lear +alone to suggest his views upon it. There is never a person of this +drama that does not do it. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE USE OF EYES. + + +'All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but--_blind men_.' + +The Play is all strewn throughout, and tinctured in the grain, with +the finest natural philosophy, of that new and very subtle and +peculiar kind, which belongs to the earlier stages of the physical +inquiry, and while it was still in the hands of its original +inventors. Even in physics, there are views here which have not been +developed any further since this author's time. It is not merely in +the direct discourse on questions of physical science, as in the +physician's report of the resources of his art, or in Cordelia's +invocation to 'all the _blessed secrets_--the _unpublished_ virtues of +the earth,' that the track of the new physiological science, which +this work embodies, may be seen. It runs through it all; it betrays +itself at every turn. But the subtle and occult relations of the moral +and physical are noted here, as we do not find them noted elsewhere, +in less practical theories of nature. + +That there is something in the design of this play which requires an +elaborate and systematic exhibition of the '_special_' human +relationships, natural and artificial, political, social, and +domestic, almost any reading of it would show. And that this design +involves, also, a systematic exhibition of the social _consequences_ +arising from the violation of the natural laws or duties of these +relationships, and that this violation is everywhere systematically +aggravated,--carried to its last conceivable extreme, so that all the +play is filled with the uproar of one continued outrage on _humanity_; +this is not less evident for the Poet is not content with the material +which his chronicle offered him, already invented to his hands for +this purpose, but he has deliberately tacked to it, and intricately +connected with it throughout, another plot, bearing on the surface of +it, and in the most prominent statements, the author's intention in +this respect; which tends not only in the most unequivocal manner to +repeat and corroborate the impressions which the story of Lear +produces, but to widen the dramatic exhibition, so as to make it +capable of conveying the whole breadth of the philosophic conception. +For it is the scientific doctrine of MAN that is taught here; and that +is, that man must be _human_ in _all_ his relations, or '_cease to +be_.' It is the violation of the ESSENTIAL humanity. It is a +DEGENERACY which is exhibited here, and the 'SEQUENT EFFECTS' which +belong naturally to the violation of a law that has the force of the +universe to sustain it. And it is not by accident that the story of +the illegitimate Edmund begins the piece; it is not for nothing that +we are compelled to stop to hear that, before even Lear and his +daughters can make their entrance. The whole story of the _base_ and +base-born one, who makes what he calls _nature_--the rude, brutal, +spontaneous nature--his goddess and his law, and ignores the human +distinction; this part was needed in order to supply the deficiences +in the social diagrams which the original plot presented; and, indeed, +the whole story of the Duke of Gloster, which is from first to last a +clear Elizabethan invention, and of which this of Edmund is but a +part, was not less essential for the same purpose. + +Neither does one need to go very far beneath the surface, to perceive +a new and extraordinary treatment of the ethical principle in this +play throughout; one which the new, artistic, practical 'stand-point' +here taken naturally suggested, but one which could have proceeded +only from the inmost heart of the new philosophy. It is just the kind +of treatment which the proposal to introduce the Inductive method of +inquiry into this department of the human practice inevitably +involved. A disposition to go behind the ethical phenomena, to pursue +the investigation to its scientific conclusion, a refusal to accept +the facts which, to the unscientific observation, appear to be the +ultimate ones--a refusal to accept the coarse, vague, spontaneous +notions of the dark ages, as the solution of these so essential +phenomena, is everywhere betraying and declaring itself. Cordelia's +agonised invocation and summons to the unpublished forces of nature, +to be aidant and remediate to the good man's distress, is continually +echoed by the poet, but with a broader application. It is not the +bodily malady and infirmity only--it is not that kind of madness, only +with which the poor king is afflicted in the later stages of the play, +which appears to him to need scientific treatment--it is not for the +cure of these alone that he would open his Prospero book, 'nature's +infinite book of secresy,' as he calls it in Mark Antony--'the true +magic,' as he calls it _elsewhere_--the book of the unpublished +laws--the scientific book of 'KINDS'--the book of 'the historic +laws'--'the book of God's power.' + +All the _interior_ phenomena which attend the violation of duty are +strictly omitted here. That psychological exhibition of it belongs to +other plays; and the Poet has left us, as we all know, no room to +suspect the tenderness of his moral sensibility, or the depth of his +acquaintance with these subjective phenomena. The _social_ +consequences of the violation of duty in all the human relationships, +the consequence to _others_, and the _social reaction_, limits the +exhibition here. The object on which our sympathies are chiefly +concentrated is, as he himself is made to inform us-- + + 'One more sinned _against_, than sinning.' + 'Oh, these eclipses do portend these divisions,' + +says the base-born Edmund, sneeringly. '_Fa sol la mi_,' he continues, +producing that particular conjunction of sounds which was forbidden by +the ancient musicians, on account of its unnatural discord. The +monkish writers on music call it diabolical. It is at the conclusion +of a very long and elaborate discussion on this question, that he +treats us to this prohibited piece of harmony; and a discussion in +which Gloster refers to the influence of the _planets_, this +_unnaturalness_ in all the human relations--this universal +jangle--'this ruinous disorder, that hunts men disquietly to their +graves.' But the 'base' Edmund is disposed to acquit the celestial +influences of the evil charged on them. He does not believe in men +being-- + + 'Fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves and thieves, by spherical + predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced + obedience of planetary influence; and all that they are evil in, + by a divine thrusting on.' + +He has another method of accounting for what _he_ himself is. He does +not think it necessary to go quite so far, to find the origin of his +own base, lawless, _inhuman, unconscionable_ dispositions. But the +inquiries, which are handled so boldly in the soliloquies of Edmund, +are started again and again elsewhere; and the recurrence is too +emphatic, to leave any room to doubt that the author's intention in +the play is concerned in it; and that this question of 'the several +dispositions and characters of men,' and the inquiry as to whether +there be '_any causes in_ nature' of these _degenerate_ tendencies, +which he is at such pains to exhibit, is, for some reason or other, a +very important point with him. That which in _contemplative +philosophy_ corresponds to the _cause_, in _practical philosophy_ +becomes the _rule_, the _founder_ of it tells us. But the play cannot +be studied effectually without taking into account the fact, that the +author avails himself of the date of his chronicle to represent that +stage of human development in which the mysterious forces of nature +were still blindly deified; and, therefore, the religious invocations +with which the play abounds, are _not_, in the modern sense of the +term, _prayers_, but only vague, poetic appeals to the unknown, +unexplored powers in nature, which we call _second causes_. And when, +as yet, there was no room for science in the narrow premature theories +which men found imposed on them--when the new movement of human +thought was still hampered by the narrowness of 'preconceived +opinions,' the poet was glad to take shelter under the date of his +legend now and then, here, as in Macbeth and other poems, for the sake +of a little more freedom in this respect. He is very far from +condemning '_presuppositions_' and '_anticipations_' but only wishes +them kept in their proper places, because to bring them into the +region of fact and induction, and so to falsify the actual condition +of things--to undertake to face down the powers of nature with them, +is a merely mistaken mode of proceeding; because these powers are +powers which do not yield to the human beliefs, and the _practical_ +doctrine must have respect to them. The great battle of that age--the +battle of the second causes, which the new philosophers were compelled +to fight in behalf of humanity at the peril of their lives--the battle +which they fought in the open field with Aristotle and Plato--fills +all this magnificent poetry with its reverberations. + +It must be confessed, that those terrible appeals to the heavens, into +which King Lear launches out in his anguish now and then, are anything +but pious; but the boldness which shocks our modern sensibilities +becomes less offensive, if we take into account the fact that they are +not made to the object of our present religious worship, but are mere +vague appeals, and questioning addresses to the unknown, unexplored +causes in nature--the powers which lie behind the historical +phenomena. + +For that divine Ideal of Human Nature to which 'our large temples, +crowded with the shows of peace,' are built now, had not yet appeared +at the date of this history, in that form in which we now worship it, +with its triumphant assurance that it came forth from the heart of +God, and declared Him. Paul had not yet preached his sermon at Athens, +in the age of this supposed King of Britain; and though the author was +indeed painting his own age, and not that, it so happened that there +was such a heathenish and inhuman, and, as he intimates, indeed, quite +'_fiendish_' and diabolical state of things to represent here then, +that this discrepancy was not so shocking as it might have been if he +had found a divine religion in full operation here. + +'If it be you,' says Lear, falling back upon the theory, which Edmund +has already discarded, of a divine thrusting on-- + + 'If it be _you_ that _stir these daughters' hearts_ + Against their father, fool _me_ not so much + To bear it tamely; _touch me_ with noble anger.' + +And here is an echo of the 'spherical predominance' which Gloster goes +into so elaborately in the outset, confessing, much to the amusement +of his graceless offspring, that he is disposed to think, after all, +there may be something in it. 'For,' he says, 'though the _wisdom_ of +_nature_ [the spontaneous wisdom] can REASON IT _thus and thus, yet_ +nature _finds itself scourged_ by THE SEQUENT EFFECT;' and he is +talking under the dictation of a philosopher who, though he ridicules +the pretensions of astrology in the next breath, lays it down as a +principle in the scientific Art, as a chief point in the science of +Practice and Relief, that the _sequent effects_, with which nature +finds itself scourged, are a better guide to the _causes_ which the +_practical_ remedy must comprehend, than anything which the wisdom of +nature can undertake to reason out _beforehand_, without any respect +to the sequent effect--'_thus_, and--_thus_.' But here is the +confirmation of Gloster's view of the subject, which the sound-minded +Kent, who is not at all metaphysical, finds himself provoked to utter; +and though this is in the Fourth Act, and Gloster's opinions are +advanced in the First, the passages do, notwithstanding, 'look towards +each other.' + + 'It is _the stars_. + The stars above us govern our conditions, + Else one self mate and mate could not beget + Such different issues.' + +Of course, it is not the astrological theory of the constitutional +original differences in the human dispositions which the honest Kent +is made to advocate here, literally and in earnest. It is rather the +absence of any known cause, and the necessity of supposing one in a +case where this difference is so obtrusive and violent, which he +expresses; the stars being the natural resort of men in such +circumstances, and when other solutions fail; though Poor Tom appears +to be in possession of a much more orthodox theory for the peculiar +disorders in _his_ moral constitution: but, at the same time, it must +be conceded that it is one which does not appear to have led, in his +case, to any such felicitous practical results as the supposed origin +of it might have seemed to promise. + +For, indeed, this point of natural differences in the human +dispositions, though, of course, quite overlooked in the moral regimen +which is based on _a priori_ knowledge, and is able to dispense with +science, and ride over the actual laws; this point of _difference_-- +not in the dispositions of individuals only, but the differences +which manifest themselves under the varying conditions of age and +bodily health, of climate, or other physical differences in the same +individual, as well as under the varying moral conditions of +differing social and political positions and relations; this so +essential point, overlooked as it is in the ordinary practice, has +seized the clear eye of this great scientific practitioner, this +Master of Arts, and he is making a radical point of it in his new +speculation; he is making collections on it, and he will make a main +point of it in 'the part operative' of his New Science, when he comes +to make out the outline of it elsewhere, referring us distinctly to +this place for his collections in it, for his collections on this +point, as well as on others not less radical. + +Lear himself, in his madness, appears, as we have seen already, much +disposed to speculate upon this same particular question, which +Gloster and Edmund and Kent have already indicated as 'a necessary +question of the play'; namely, the question as to '_the causes in +nature_' of the phenomena which the social condition of man exhibits; +that is, the causes of that degeneracy, that violation of the +essential human law to which all the evil is tracked here; and it is +the scientific doctrine, that the _nature_ of a thing cannot be +successfully studied in itself alone. It is not in water or in air +only, or in any other single substance, that we find the nature of +_oxygen_, or _hydrogen_, or any other of those principles in nature, +which the application of this method to another department evolves +from things which present themselves to the unscientific experience as +most dissimilar. 'It is the greatest proof of want of skill to +investigate _the nature_ of any object in itself alone; for _the same +nature_ which seems concealed and hidden in some instances, is +manifest and almost palpable in others; and, in general, those very +things which are considered as secret, are manifest and common in +other objects, but will never be clearly seen if the experiments and +conclusions of men be directed to themselves alone': for it is a part +of this doctrine, that man is not omitted in the order of nature--that +the term HUMAN NATURE is _not_ a misnomer. The doctrine of this Play +is, that those same powers which are at work in man's life, are at +work without it also; that they are powers which belong, in their +highest form, to the nature of things in general; and that man +himself, with all his special distinctions, is under the law of that +universal constitution. The scientific remedy for the state of things +which this play exhibits is the knowledge of 'causes in nature,' which +must be found here, as in the other case, by scientific +investigation--the spontaneous method leading to no better result here +than in the other case. Under cover of the excitements of this play, +this inquiry is boldly opened, and the track of the new science is +clearly marked in it. + +Poor Lear is, indeed, compelled to leave the practical improvement of +_his_ hints for another; and when it comes to the open question of the +remedy for this state of things, which is the term of the inquiry, +when he undertakes to put his absolute power in motion for the avowed +purpose of effecting an improvement here, he appears indeed disposed +to treat the subject in the most savage and despairing manner--that +is, on his own account; but the vein of the scientific inquiry still +runs unbroken through all this burst of passion. For in his scorn for +that failure in human nature and human life of which society, as he +finds it, stands convicted--that failure to establish the distinctive +law of the human kind--that failure from which he is suffering so +deeply--and in his struggle to express that disgust, he proposes, as +an improvement on the state of things he finds, a law which shall +obliterate that human distinction; though certainly _that_ is anything +but the Poet's remedy; and the poor king himself does not appear to be +in earnest, for the moral disgust in which the distinctive sentiment +of the nobler nature, and the knowledge of _human_ good and evil +betrays itself, breaks forth in floods of passion that overflow all +the bounds of articulation before he can make an end of it. + +But the radical nature of this question of _natural causes_, which the +practical theory of the social arts must comprehend, is already +indicated in this play, in the very beginning of the action. + +This author is everywhere bent on graving the scientific distinction +between those instinctive affections in which men degenerate, and tend +to the rank of lower natures, and the noble natural, distinctively +human affections; and when, in the first scene, the king betrays the +selfishness of that fond preference for his younger daughter,--tender, +and paternal, and deep as it was,--and the depth of those hopes he was +resting on her kind care and nursery, by the very height of that +frenzied paroxysm of rage and disappointment, which her unflattering +and, as it seems to him, her unloving reply, creates;--when that +'small fault, which showed,' he tells us, 'so ugly' in _her_ whom 'he +loved _most_'--which turned, in a moment, all the sweetness of his +love for her '_to gall_, and like an engine, wrenched his _nature from +its firm place_';--these are the terms in which he undertakes to annul +the natural tie, and _disown_ her-- + + _Lear_. So young, and so untender? + + _Cordelia_. So young, my lord, and true. + + _Lear_. Let it be so.--Thy truth then be thy dower: + For, by the _sacred radiance of the sun_; + _The mysteries_ of _Hecate_, and _the night_; + _By all the operations_ of _the orbs, + From whom we do exist, and cease to be, + Here I disclaim all my paternal care_, + Propinquity and property of blood, + And as a stranger to my heart and me + Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian, + Or he that makes his generation messes + To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom + Be _as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved_, + As thou, _my sometime daughter_. + +And when + + 'This even-handed justice + Commends the ingredients of his poisoned chalice + To his own lips'-- + +when his 'dog-hearted daughters' have returned to his own bosom the +cruel edge of that _unnatural_ wrong which he has impiously dared to +summon nature herself--violated nature--to witness, this is the +greeting which the _unnatural_ Goneril receives, on her return to her +husband, when she complains to him of her welcome-- + + _Goneril_. I have been worth the whistle. + + _Albany_. O Goneril! + You are not worth _the dust which the rude wind + Blows in your face_.--I fear your _disposition: + That nature, which contemns_ ITS ORIGIN, + CANNOT BE BORDERED CERTAIN IN ITSELF; + She that herself will _sliver and disbranch_ + From her MATERIAL SAP, PERFORCE MUST WITHER, + _And come to deadly use_. + +[_Prima Philosophia_. Axioms which are not limited to the particular +parts of sciences, but 'such as are more common, and of a higher +stage.'] + + _Goneril_. No more; _the text_ is foolish. + _Albany_. Tigers, not daughters,-- + +[You have practised on yourself--you have destroyed in yourself the +nobler, fairer nature which the law of _human_ kind--the law of human +duty and affection--would have given you. Not DAUGHTERS,--_Tigers_.] + + 'A _father, and a gracious aged man_, + Whose reverence the head-lugged bear would lick, + Most barbarous, most DEGENERATE!'-- + +[_degenerate_--that is the point--most degenerate]-- + + 'have you _madded_. + If that the _heavens_ do not _their_ visible spirits + Send quickly down, to _tame these vile offences_ + 'Twill come, + HUMANITY _must perforce prey on itself_, + Like monsters of the deep.' + +[the land refuses a parallel.] + +And it is the scientific distinction between man and the brute +creation--it is the law of nature in the human kind, which the Poet is +getting out scientifically here, in the face of that terrific failure +and degeneration in the kind--which he paints so vividly, for the +purpose of inquiring whether there is not, perhaps, after all, some +more potent provisioning and arming of man for his place in nature, +than this state of things would lead one to suppose--whether there are +not, perhaps, some more efficacious 'humanities' than those mild ones +which appear to operate so lamely on this barbaric, _degenerate_ +thing. 'Milk-liver'd man!' replies Goneril, speaking not on her own +behalf only, for the words have a double significance; and the Poet +glances through them at that sufferance with which the state of things +he has just noted was endured-- + + '_Milk-livered man_, + That bear'st a _cheek for blows_, a HEAD _for_ WRONGS; + Who hast not _in thy brows an eye_ discerning + Thine honour from thy sufferance; that not know'st, + FOOLS do those villains pity, _who are punished + Before they have done their mischief_. Where's thy _drum_? + France spreads his banners in _our noiseless land; + With plumed helm_ thy _slayer_ begins threats; + _Whilst thou_, a _Moral Fool_, sit'st still, and _cry'st, + Alack_! why does he so?' + +This is found to be an appeal of the Poet's own when all is done, and +one that goes far into the necessary questions of the play. + +But Albany, in his rejoinder, returns to the idea of the lost, +_degenerate_, dissolute _Humanity_ again. He has talked of tigers, and +_head-lugged_ bears (and it was necessary to combine the proverbial +sensitiveness of that animal to that particular mode of treatment, +with the natural amiability of his disposition in general, in order to +do justice to the Poet's conception here);--he has called upon 'the +monsters of the deep,' and quoted the laws of their societies, in +illustration of the state of things to which the unscientific human +combination appears to him to be visibly tending. But this human +_degeneracy_ and deformity, which the action of the play exhibits in +diagrams--the _descent_ to the _lower_ nature from the higher; the +_voluntary_ descent; the voluntary blindness and narrowness; the +rejection of the distinctive human law--of VIRTUE and DUTY, as reason +and conscience interpret it--appears to the scientific mind to require +yet _other_ terms and comparisons. These conceits and comparisons, +drawn from the habits of innocent, though not to man agreeable, +animals, who have no law but blind instinct, do not suffice to convey +the Poet's idea of this human failing; and, accordingly, he instructs +this gentle and noble man, whom this criticism best becomes, to +complete this view of the subject, in his attempt to express the +disgust with which this _inhuman_, this _more_ than brutal conduct, in +his high-born, and gorgeously-robed, and delicately-featured spouse, +inspires him-- + + 'See thyself, devil!'-- + +nay, he corrects himself-- + + _Proper deformity_ [DE-FORMITY] seems _not_ in the _fiend_ + _So_ horrid, as in woman. + + _Goneril_. O vain fool! + + _Albany_. Thou _changed_ and _self-covered thing_. For shame, + Be-monster not thy _feature_. Were it my FITNESS'-- + +for here it is the _human_, and not the instinctive element--not '_the +blood_' element that rules-- + + 'Were it my FITNESS + To _let_ these hands _obey_ my blood, + _They_ are _apt_ enough to _dislocate_ and _tear_ + Thy _flesh_ and _bones_,' + +Rather tiger-like impulses for so mild a gentleman to own to; but the +process which he confesses his hands are already inclined to +undertake, is not half so cruel as the one which this woman has +practised on herself while she was meditating only wrong to another, +and pursuing her 'horrible pleasure' at the expense of madness and +death to another; not half so cruel and injurious, for in that act she +has trampled down, and torn, and dislocated, she has slaughtered in +cold blood, the divine, angelic form of womanhood--that form of worth +and celestial aspiration which great nature stamped upon her, and gave +to her for her law in nature, her type, her essence, her ORIGINAL. She +has desecrated, not that common form of humanity only which the common +human sentiment of reason, which the human sentiment of duty is +everywhere struggling to fulfil, but that lovelier soul of +humanity--that softer, subtler, more gracious, more celestial, more +commanding spirit of it, which the form of womanhood in its integrity +must carry with it--which the form of womanhood will carry with it, if +it be not counterfeit or degenerate, gone down into a lower range, +'be-monstered'--'a changed and _self-covered_ thing.' That is the +Poet's reading. + +'Howe'er,' the Duke of Albany concludes, after that struggle with his +hands he speaks of--chivalrously refusing to let them obey that +impulse of 'blood,' as a gentleman in such circumstances, under any +amount of provocation, should--true to himself, true to his manliness +and to his gentle breeding, though his wife is false to hers, and +'false to her nature'-- + + 'Howe'er thou _art_ a, _fiend, + A woman's shape doth shield thee. + + Goneril_. Marry! YOUR MANHOOD NOW.' + +This is indeed a discourse in which the reader must have '_the text_,' +or ever he can begin to catch the meaning of those philosophic points +with which this orator, who _talks_ so 'pressly,' studs his lines. + +For the passage which Goneril dismisses with such scorn is indeed the +text, or it will be, when the word which her commentary on it contains +has been added to it: for it is '_the foolishness_' of struggling with +great Nature, and her LAW of KINDS--it is the folly of ignorance, the +stupidity of living without respect to nature and its sequent effects, +as well as its preformed decree-- + + (_'Perforce must_ wither, + And come to deadly use'--) + +which this discourse is intended to illustrate. And one who has once +tracked the dramatic development of this text, through all this moving +exhibition of human society, and its violated rule in nature, will be +at no loss to conjecture out of what 'New' book it comes, if indeed +that book has ever been opened to him. + +The whole subject is treated here scientifically--that is, from +without. The generalizations of the higher stages of philosophy--the +axioms of a universal philosophy--with all the force of their +universality, must be brought to bear upon it, through all its +developments. The universal historical laws, in that modification of +them which the speciality of the human kind creates, must be +impartially set forth here. The law of DUTY, as the NATURAL LAW of +human society; the law of humanity, as the law, nay, THE FORM, of the +HUMAN kind, stamped on it with the Creator's stamp, that _order_ from +the universal law of kinds that gives to all life its SPECIAL bounds, +its '_border_ in _itself_'--that form so _essential_, that there is no +_humanity_ or _kind-ness_ where that is not--that law which we hear so +much of, in its narrower aspects, under various names, in all men's +speech, is produced here, in its broader relations, as the necessary +basis of a scientific social art. And it is this author's deliberate +opinion as a Naturalist, it is the opinion of this School in Natural +Science, from which this work proceeds, that those who undertake to +compose human societies, large or small, whether in families, or +states, or empires, without recognising this principle--those who +undertake to compose UNIONS, human unions and societies, on any other +principle--will have a diabolical jangle of it when all is done. For +this law of _unity_, which is written on the soul of man, this law of +CONSCIENCE _within, is written without also_; and to erase it _within_ +is to get the lesson from _without_ in that universal and downright +speech and language which the axioms of nature are taught in--it is to +get it in that fearful school in which nature _repeats_ the doctrine +of her violated law, for those who are not able to solve and +comprehend the science of it as it is _written_--written +beforehand--in the natural law and constitutions of the human soul. + + 'That nature which, contemns its ORIGIN + Cannot be _bordered_ certain _in itself_.' + +[These are the mysteries of day and night, that Lear, in his +ignorance, vainly invokes, the operations of the orbs from _whom we do +exist and cease to be_.] + + 'She that herself will _sliver_ and _disbranch_ + From her _material_ sap, _perforce must_ wither, + And come to _deadly_ use.' + 'The text is--FOOLISH.' + +The teacher who takes it upon himself to get out this text from the +text-book of Universal Laws, for the purpose of conducting it to its +practical application in human affairs, for the purpose of suggesting +the true remedy for those great human wants which he exhibits here, is +_not_ one of those 'Milk-livered men,' those _Moral Fools_, that +_Goneril_ delicately alludes to, who bear a cheek for blows, a _head_ +for wrongs; who have not in their brows an _eye_ discerning their +_honour_ from their sufferance; who think it enough to sit still under +the murderous blows of what they call misfortune, fate, _Providence_, +when it is their own im-_providence_; who think it is enough to sit +still, and cry, _Alack_! without inquiring what it is that makes that +_lack_; without ever putting the question in earnest, '_Why does he +so_?' His Play is all full of the _practical application_ of the text, +the application of it which Gloster sums up in a word-- + + ''T is the Time's plague when MADMEN _lead_ THE BLIND.' + + + 'I will preach to thee. Mark me: [says Lear] + When we are born, we cry that we are come + To this great stage of FOOLS. [Mark me!'] + + +The whole Play is one magnificent intimation, on the part of the Poet, +that eyes are made to see with; and that there is no so natural and +legitimate use of them as that which human affairs were crying for, +through all their lengths and breadths, in his time. It is that _eye_ +which is one of the distinctive features of the human kind; that eye +which looks before and after, which extends human vision so far beyond +individual sensuous experience, which is able to converge the light of +universal truth upon particular experience, which is able to bring the +infallible guidance of universal axioms into all the particulars of +human conduct--that is the eye which he finds wanting in human +affairs. The play is pointing everywhere with the Poet's scorn of +'_Blind Men_,' 'who will not see because they do not feel,'--who wait +for the blows of 'fortune,' to teach them the lesson of Nature's +laws--who wait to be scourged, or dashed to pieces with 'the sequent +effect,' instead of making use of their faculty of reason to ascend to +causes, and _so_ 'to trammel up the consequence.' + +It is that same combination of human faculties, that same combination +of sense and reason, which the Novum Organum provides for; it is that +same scorn of abstract wordy speculation, on the one hand, and blind +experimental groping, on the other, that is everywhere _suggested_ +here. But with the aid of the persons of the Drama, and their +suggestions, the new philosophy is carried into departments which it +would have cost the Author of the Novum Organum and the Advancement of +Learning his head to look into. He might as well have proposed to +impeach the Government in Parliament outright, as to offer to advance +his Novum Organum into these fields; fields which it enters safely +enough under the cover of a spontaneous, inspired, dramatic +philosophy, though it is a philosophy which overflows continually with +those practical axioms, those aphorisms, which the Author of the +Advancement of Learning assures us 'are made of the pith and heart of +sciences'; and that 'no man can write who is not sound and grounded.' +But then, if they are only written in 'with a goose-pen,' they pass +well enough for unconscious, unmeaning, spontaneous felicities. + +'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of his face?' +says the Fool, in the First Act, by way of entertaining his master, +when the poor king's want of foresight and 'prudence' begins to tell +on his affairs a little. 'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the +middle of his face?' 'No.' 'Why, to keep his eyes on either side of +it, that what a man _cannot smell out_ he may _spy into_.' + + _Fool_. Canst tell how _an oyster_ makes _his_ shell?' + + _Lear_. No. + + _Fool_. Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house. + + _Lear_. Why? + + _Fool_. Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his + daughters, and leave his horns without a case. + + _Lear_. ... Be my horses ready? + + _Fool_. Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars + are no more than seven, is a pretty reason. + + _Lear_. Because they are not eight? + + _Fool_. Yes, indeed: Thou wouldest make a good--fool. + +He cannot tell how an _oyster_ makes his shell, but the nose has not +stood in the middle of _his_ face for nothing. There has been some +prying on either side of it, apparently; and he has pried to such good +purpose, that some of the prime secrets of the new philosophy appear +to have turned up in his researches. 'To take it again _perforce_,' +mutters the king. 'If thou wert my fool, Nuncle, I'd have thee beaten +_for being_ OLD _before thy time_.' [This is a wit 'of the self-same +colour' with that one who discovered that the times from which the +world's practical wisdom was inherited, were the times when the world +was young. 'They told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black +ones were there!'] 'I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy +time.'--'_How's_ that?'--'Thou shouldst _not_ have been OLD _before +thou hadst been_ WISE.' + +And it is in the Second Act that poor Kent, in his misfortunes, +furnishes occasion for another avowal on the part of this same learned +critic, of a preference for a practical philosophy, though borrowed +from the lower species. He comes upon the object of his criticism as +he sits in the stocks, because he could not adopt the style of his +time with sufficient earnestness, though he does make an attempt 'to +go out of his dialect,' but was not more happy in it than some other +men of his politics were, in the Poet's time. + + 'Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity, + _Under the allowance of your grand aspect, + Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire + On flickering Phebus' front--_ + + _Cornwall_. 'What mean'st by this?' + + _Kent_. 'To go out of my dialect, _which you discommend so much_. + +[Halting in his blank verse for the explanation]:--It is from that +seat, to which the plainness of this man, with the official dignities +of his time, has conducted him, that he puts the inquiry to that keen +observer, whose observations in natural history have just been +quoted,-- + + _Kent_. How chances that the _king comes with so small a train_? + + _Fool_. An thou had'st been set in the stocks for that question, + _thou, had'st well deserved it_. + + _Kent_. Why, fool? + + _Fool_. We'll set thee _to school to an ant_, to teach thee there + is no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are _led + by their eyes_, but--BLIND MEN. + + _Kent_. Where learned'st thou _that_, fool? + + _Fool_. Not in the stocks, _fool_. + +[Not from being punished with the sequent effect; not in consequence +of an improvidence, that an _ant_ might have taught me to avoid.] + +'I have no _way_, and _therefore_ want no eyes,' says another duke, +who is also the victim of that '_absolute_' authority which is abroad +in this play. 'I stumbled when I _saw_,' and this is _his prayer_. + + Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man + That slaves your ordinance; that will not SEE + Because he doth not FEEL, _feel_ your power quickly. + +'Thou seest how this world goes,' says the outcast king, meeting this +poor outcast duke, just after his eyes had been taken out of his head, +by the persons then occupying the chief offices in the state. 'Thou +seest how this world goes.' 'I SEE it FEELINGLY,' is the duke's reply. + + _Lear_. What! art _mad_? A man may _see_ how this world goes with + _no_ eyes. Look with thine _ears_. + +And his account of how it goes is--as we shall see--one that requires +to be looked at with _ears_, for it contains, what one calls elsewhere +in this play,--_ear-kissing_ arguments.--'Get thee _glass_ eyes,' he +says, in conclusion, 'and like a scurvy _politician_ pretend to SEE, +the things thou dost not.' And that was not the kind of politician, +and that was not the kind of political eye-sight, to which this +statesman, and seer, proposed to leave the times, that his legacy +should fall on, whatever he might be compelled to tolerate in his own. + + 'Upon _the crown_ o' the cliff. What _thing_ was that + Which parted from you?' + + '_A poor unfortunate beggar_.' [Softly.] + '_As I stood here_ BELOW, methought his eyes + Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses. + Horns welked and waved, like the enridged _sea_.' + +'Now, Sir, what are you?' says the poor outcast duke to his true son, +when in disguise he offers to attend him. 'A most poor man,' is the +reply, 'made _lame_ by fortune's blows; who, by the ART of KNOWN AND +FEELING SORROWS, am _pregnant_ to _good_ PITY. Give me your hand, +_I'll_ lead you to some BIDING. Bear _free_ and _patient thoughts_,' +is his whisper to him. + +Surely this is a poet that has got an inkling, in some way, of the new +idea of an _experimental philosophy_,--of a combination of the human +faculties of sense and reason in some organum; one, too, whose eye +passes lightly over the architectonic gifts of _univalves_ and +_bivalves_, and _entomological_ developments of skill and forethought, +intent on that great chrysalis, which has never been able to publish +yet its Creator's glory. Here is a naturalist who would not think it +enough to combine reason with experiment, in wind, and rain, and fire, +and thunder, who would not think it enough to bring all the +unpublished virtues of the earth, to the relief of the bodily human +maladies. It is the Poet, who says elsewhere, 'Can'st thou not +minister to a _mind_ diseased? No? Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none +of it.' It is the poet who says, 'Nor wind, rain, fire, thunder, are +my daughters.' '_Nothing_ could have brought him to such a lowness in +nature, but his un-_kind_ daughters.' It is the naturalist who says, +'Then let Regan's heart be anatomized, and see what _it_ is that +breeds about it. Is there any cause in NATURE that makes these hard +hearts?' + +In short, this play is from the hand of one who thinks that the human +affairs are of a kind to require scientific investigation, scientific +foresight and conduct. He is much of Lear's opinion on many points, +and evidently judges that there would be no harm in getting a +philosopher enrolled among the king's hundred. Not a logician, not a +metaphysician, according to the common acceptance of these terms; not +merely a natural philosopher, in the low and limited sense of that +term, in which we use it; but a man of science--one who is able, by +some method or other, to ascend to the actual principles of things, +and so to base his remedies for the social evils, on the forms which +are _forms_, which have efficacy in nature as _such_, instead of +basing them on certain chimeras, or so-called logical conclusions of +the human mind--conclusions which the logic of nature contradicts-- +conclusions to which the universal consent of _things_ is wanting. + +_Nature_, in the sense in which _Edmund_ uses that term, is _not_ this +poet's _goddess_, or his LAW; though he regards 'the plague of CUSTOM' +and 'the curiosity of nations,' and all their fantastic and arbitrary +sway in human affairs, with an eye quite as critical--though he looks +at 'that old Antic, the law,' as he expresses it elsewhere, with an +eye quite as severe, on the world's behalf, as that which Edmund turns +on it, on his own; he is very far from contending for the freedom of +that savage, selfish, unreclaimed, spontaneous nature,--that lawless +nature, to which the natural son of Gloster claims 'his services are +due.' The poet teaches that the true and successful Social Art is, and +must be scientific. That it must be based on the science of nature in +general, and on the science of human nature in particular, on a +science that recognizes the double _nature_ in man, that takes in, its +heights as well as its depths, and its depths as well as its heights, +that sounds it 'from its lowest note to the top of its key;' but it is +one thing to quarrel with the unscientific, _imperfect_ social arts, +and it is another to prefer nature in man _without_ arts. The picture +of 'the Unaccommodated Man,' which forms so prominent a part of the +representation here,--'the _thing itself_,' stripped of its social +lendings, or setting at nought the social restraints, is not by any +means an attractive one, as this philosopher does it for us. The +scientific artist is no better pleased, than the king is with this +kind of '_nature_.' It is the imperfection of the civilization which +still generates, or leaves unchecked these savage evils, that he +exposes. + +But it is impossible, that the true social arts should be smelt out, +or stumbled on, by accident, or arrived at by any kind of empirical +groping; just as impossible as it is, on the other hand, that 'the +wisdom of nature,' by throwing itself on its own internal resources, +and reasoning it '_thus and thus_,' without taking into account the +actual forces, should be able to invent them. Those forces which enter +into all the plot of our human life, unworthy of philosophic note as +they had seemed hitherto, those terrific, unmeasured strengths, +against which the human kind are continually dashing themselves in +their blind experiments,--those engines on which the human heart is +racked, 'and stretched out so long,'--those rocky structures on which +its choicest treasures are so wildly wrecked, these natural +forces,--no matter what artificial combinations of them may have been +accomplished,--'the causes _in nature_,' of the phenomena of human +life, appeared to this philosopher a very fitting subject for +philosophy, and one quite too important in its relation to human +well-being and the Arts that promote it, to be left to mere blundering +experiment; quite too subtle to be reached by any kind of empirical +groping, quite too subtle to be entangled with the conclusions of the +_philosophy_ which he found in vogue in his time, whose social +efficacies and gifts in exorcisms, he has taken leave to connect in +some way, with the appearance of Tom o' Bedlam in his history; a +philosophy which had built up its system in defiant scorn of the +nature of things; as if 'by reasoning it _thus_ and _thus_,' without +any respect to the actual conditions, it could undertake to bridle the +might of nature, and put a hook in the nose of her oppositions. + +It did not seem to this philosopher well, that men who have eyes--eyes +that are great nature's gift to them,--her gift to them in +chief,--eyes that were meant to see with, should go on in this +groping, star-gazing, fatally-stumbling fashion any longer. + +_Lear_. [To the Bedlamite.] I do not like the fashion of your +garments. _You will say that they are--Persian:--but_ let them be +ALTERED. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE STATESMAN'S NOTE-BOOK--AND THE PLAY. + + + _Brutus._ How I have thought of this, and of _these times_, + I shall recount _hereafter_. + + _Hamlet_. The Play's the thing. + + _Brutus_. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. + _Casca_. I can as well _be hanged_ as tell _the manner_ + of it. + + _Posthumus_. 'Shall's have _a Play of this_.-- + +The fact that the design of this play, whatever it may be, is one deep +enough to go down to that place in the social system which Tom o' +Bedlam was then peacefully occupying,--thinking of anything else in +the world but a social revolution on his behalf--to bring him up for +observation; and that it is high enough to go up to that apex of the +social structure on which the crown was then fastened, to fetch down +the impersonated state itself, for an examination not less curious and +critical; the fact, too, that it was subtle enough to penetrate the +retirement of the domestic life, and bring out its innermost passages +for scientific criticism;--the fact that the relation of the Parent to +the Child, and that of the Child to the Parent, the relation of +Husband and Wife, and Sister and Brother, and Master and Servant, of +Peasant and Lord, nay, the transient relation of Guest and Host, have +each their place and part here, and the question of their duty marked +not less clearly, than that prominent relation of the King and his +Subjects;--the fact that these relations come in from the first, along +with the political, and demand a hearing, and divide throughout the +stage with them; the fact of the mere range of this social criticism, +as it appears on the surface of the play, in these so prominent +points,--is enough to show already, that it is a _Radical_ of no +ordinary kind, who is at work behind this drop-scene. + +It was evident, at a glance, that this so extensive bill of grievances +was not one which any immediate or violent political revolution, or +any social reformation which was then in contemplation, would be able +to meet; and that very circumstance gave to the whole essay its +profoundly quiet, conservative air. It passed only for one of those +common outcries on the ills of human life, which men in general are +expected, or permitted to make, according to their several abilities; +one of those 'Alacks!'--'why does he so'? which, by relieving the mind +of the complainant, tend to keep things quiet on the whole. This Poet, +whoever he was, was making rather more ado about it than usual, +apparently: but Poets are useful for that very purpose; they express +other men's emotions for them, in a higher key than they could manage +it themselves. + +It was the breadth then,--the philosophic comprehension of this great +philosophic design, which made it possible for the Poet to introduce +into it, and exhibit in it, so glaringly, those evils of his time that +were crying out to Heaven then, for redress, and could not wait for +philosophic revolutions and reformations. + +Tom o' Bedlam, strictly speaking, does appear, indeed, to have been +one of those Elizabethan institutions which were modified or annulled, +in the course of the political changes that so soon followed this +exhibition of his case. 'Tom' himself, in his own proper person, +appears to have been left--by accident or otherwise--on the other side +of the Revolutionary gulf. 'I remember,' says Aubrey, '_before the +civil wars_, Tom o' Bedlams went about begging,' etc.--but one cannot +help remarking that a very numerous family connection of the +collateral branches of his house--bearing, on the whole, a +sufficiently striking family resemblance to this illustrious subject +of the Poet's pencil,--appear to have got safely over all the +political and social gulfs that intervene between our time and that. +And, as to some of those other social evils which are exhibited here +in their ideal proportions, they are not, perhaps, so entirely among +the former things which have passed away with our reformations, that +we should have to go to Aubrey's note book to find out what the Poet +means. As to some of these, at least, it will not be necessary to hunt +up an antiquary, who can remember whether any such thing ever was +really in existence here, '_before the civil wars_.' And, +notwithstanding all our advancements in Natural Science, and in the +Arts which attend these advancements; notwithstanding the strong +recommendations of the inventors of this Science,--Regan's heart, and +that which breeds about it, appear, by a singular oversight, to have +escaped, hitherto, any truly scientific inquiry; and the arts for +improving it do not appear, after all, to have been very materially +advanced since the time when this order was issued. + +But notwithstanding that the subject of this piece appears to be so +general,--notwithstanding the fact, that the social evils which are +here represented include, apparently, the universal human conditions, +and include evils which are still understood to be inherent in the +nature of man, and, irreclaimable, or not, at least a subject for +Art,--and notwithstanding the fact that this exhibition professes to +borrow all its local hues and exaggerations from the barbaric times of +the Ancient Britons--it is not very difficult to perceive that it +does, in fact, involve a local exhibition of a different kind; and +that, under the cover of that great revolution in the human estate, +which the philosophic mind was then meditating,--_so broad_, that none +could perceive its _project_,--another revolution,--that revolution +which was then so near at hand, was clearly outlined; and that this +revolution, too, is, after all, one towards which this Poet appears to +'_incline_,' in a manner which would not have seemed, perhaps, +altogether consistent with his position and assumptions elsewhere, if +these could have been produced here against him; and in a manner, +perhaps, somewhat more decided than the general philosophic tone, and +the spirit of those large and peaceful designs to which he was chiefly +devoted, might have led us to anticipate. This Play was evidently +written at a time when the conviction that the state of things which +it represents could not endure much longer, had taken deep hold of the +Poet's mind; at a time when those evils had attained a height so +unendurable--when that evil which lay at the heart of the commonweal, +poisoning all the social relations with its infection, had grown so +fearful, that it might well seem, even to the scientific mind, to +require the fierce '_drug_' of the political revolution,--so fearful +as to make, even to such a mind, the rude surgery of the civil wars at +last welcome. + +For, indeed, it cannot be denied that the state of things which this +Play represents, is that with which the author's own experience was +conversant; and that all the terrible tragic satire of it, points--not +to that age in the history of Britain in which the Druids were still +responsible for the national culture,--not to that time when the +Celtic Triads, clothed with the sanctities of an unknown past, still +made the standard works and authorities in learning, beyond which +there was no going,--not to the time when the national morality was +still mystically produced at Stonehenge, in those national colleges, +from whose mysterious rites the awful sanctities of the oak and the +mistletoe drove back in confusion the sacrilegious inquirer,--not to +that time, but to the _Elizabethan_. + +That instinctive groping and stumbling in all human affairs, that +pursuit of human ends without any science of the natures to be +superinduced, and without any science of the natures that were to be +subjected,--those eyes of moonshine speculation, those glass eyes with +which the scurvy politician affects to see the things he does +not--those thousand noses that serve for eyes, and horns welked and +waved like the enridged sea, and all the wild misery of that unlearned +fortuitous human living, that waits to be scourged with the sequent +effect, and knows not how to ascend to the cause--colossally +exaggerated as it seems here--heightened everywhere, as if the Poet +had put forth his whole power, and strained his imagination, and +availed himself of his utmost poetic license, to give it, through all +its details, its last conceivable hue of violence, its pure ideal +shape, is, after all, but a copy an historical sketch. The ignorance, +the stupidity, 'the _blindness_,' that this author paints, was his own +'Time's plague'; 'the madness' that 'led it,' was the madness of which +he was himself a mute and manacled spectator. + +By some singular oversight or caprice of tyranny, or on account of +some fastidious scruple of the imagination perhaps, it does _not_ +appear, indeed, to have been the fashion, either in the reigns of the +Tudors or the Stuarts, to pluck out the living human eye as Gloster's +eyes were plucked out; and that of itself would have furnished a +reason why this poor duke should have been compelled to submit to that +particular operation, instead of presenting himself to have his ears +cut off in a sober, decent, civilized, Christian manner; or to have +them grubbed out, if it happened that the operation had been once +performed already; or to have his hand cut off, or his head, with his +eyes in it; or to be roasted alive some noon-day in the public square, +eyes and all, as many an honest gentleman was expected to present +himself in those times, without making any particular demur or fuss +about it. _These_ were operations that Englishmen of every rank and +profession, soldiers, scholars, poets, philosophers, lawyers, +physicians, and grave and reverend divines, were called on to undergo +in those times, and for that identical offence of which the Duke of +Gloster stood convicted, opposition to the will of a lawless usurping +tyranny,--to its merest caprice of vanity or humour, perhaps,--or on +grounds slighter still, on bare suspicion of a disposition to oppose +it. + +But then that, of course, was a thing of _custom_; so much so, that +the victims themselves often took it in good part, and submitted to it +as a divine institution, part of a sacred legacy, handed down to them, +as it was understood, from their more enlightened ancestors. + +Now, if the Poet, in pursuance of his more general philosophic +intention, which involved a moving representation of the helplessness +of the Social Monad--that bodily as well as moral susceptibility and +fragility, which leaves him open to all kinds of personal injury, not +from the elements and from animals of other species merely or chiefly, +but chiefly from his own kind,--if the Poet, in the course of this +exhibition, had caused poor Gloster to be held down in his chair on +the stage, for the purpose of having his _ears_ pared off, what kind +of sensation could he hope to produce with that on the sensibility of +an audience, who might have understood without a commentator an +allusion to 'the tribulation of Tower Hill'--spectators accustomed to +witness performances so much more thrilling, and on a stage where the +Play was in earnest. And as to that second operation before referred +to, which might have answered the poetic purpose, perhaps; who knows +whether that may not have been a refinement in civilization peculiar +to the reign of that amiable and handsome Christian Prince, who was +still a minor when this Play was first brought out at Whitehall? for +it was in _his_ reign that that memorable instance of it occurred, +which the subsequent events connected with it chanced to make so +notorious. It was a learned and very conscientious lawyer, in the +reign of Charles the First, whose criticism upon some of the +fashionable amusements of the day, which certain members of the royal +family were known to be fond of, occasioned the suggestion of this +mode of satisfying the outraged Majesty of the State, when the prying +eye of Government discovered, or thought it did, remains enough of +those previously-condemned appendages on this author's person, to +furnish material for a second operation. 'Methinks Mr. Prynne _hath_ +ears!' does not, after all, sound so very different from--'going to +pluck out Gloster's _other_ eye,' as that the governments under which +these two speeches are reported, need to be distinguished, on that +account only, by any such essential difference as that which is +supposed to exist between the human and _divine_. Both these +operations appear, indeed to the unprejudiced human mind, to savour +somewhat of the diabolical--or of the Dark Ages, rather, and of the +Prince of Darkness. And, indeed, that '_fiend_' which haunts the +Play--which the monster, with his moonshine eyes, appeared to have a +vague idea of--seems to have been as busy here, in this department, as +he was in bringing about poor Tom's distresses. + +But in that steady persevering exhibition of the liabilities of +individual human nature, the COMMON liabilities which throw it upon +the COMMON, the distinctive law of humanity for its WEAL--in that +continuous picture of the suffering and ignominy, and mutilation to +which it is liable, moral and intellectual, as well as physical, where +that law of humanity is not yet scientifically developed and +scientifically sustained--the Poet does not always go quite so far to +find his details. It is not from the Celtic Regan's time that he +brings out those ancient implements of state authority into which the +feet of the poor Duke of Kent, travelling on the king's errands, are +ignominiously thrust; while the Poet, under cover of the Fool's jests, +shows prettily their relation to the human dignity. + +But then it is a Duke on whom this indignity is practised; for it is +to be remarked, in passing, that though this Poet is evidently bent on +making his exhibition a thorough one, though he is determined not to +leave out anything of importance in his diagrams, he does not appear +inclined to soil his fingers by meddling with the lower orders, or to +countenance any innovation in his art in that respect. Whenever he has +occasion to introduce persons of this class into his pieces, they come +in and go out, and perform their part in his scene, very much as they +do elsewhere in his time. Even when his Players come in, they do not +speak many words on their own behalf. They stand civilly, and answer +questions, and take their orders, and fulfil them. That is all that is +looked for at their hands. For this is not a Poet who has ever given +any one occasion in his own time, to distinguish him as the Poet of +the People. It is always from the highest social point of observation +that he takes those views of the lower ranks, which he has occasion to +introduce into his Plays, from the mobs of 'greasy citizens' to the +details of the sheep-shearing feast; and even in Eastcheap he keeps it +still. + +There never was a more aristocratic poet apparently, and though the +very basest form of outcast misery 'that ever penury in contempt of +man brought near to beast,' though the basest and most ignoble and +pitiful human liabilities, are every where included in his plan; he +will have nothing but the rich blood of dukes and kings to take him +through with it--he will have nothing lower and less illustrious than +these to play his parts for him. + +It is a king to whom 'the _Farm House_,' where _both_ fire and food +are waiting, becomes a royal luxury on his return from the _Hovel's_ +door, brought in chattering out of the tempest, in that pitiful stage +of human want, which had made him ready to share with Tom o' Bedlam, +nay, with the _swine_, their rude comforts. 'Art cold? I am cold +myself. Where is this straw, my fellow. Your _hovel_:--come bring us +to your _hovel_.' + +It is a king who gets an ague in the storm, who finds the tyranny of +the night too rough for nature to endure; it is a king on whose +desolate outcast head, destitution and social wrongs accumulate their +results, till his wits begin to turn, till his mind is shattered, and +he comes on to the stage at last, a poor bedlamite. + +Nay, 'Tom' himself, is a duke's son, we are told; though that +circumstance does not hinder him from giving, with much frankness and +scientific accuracy, the particulars of those personal pursuits, and +tastes, and habits, incidental to that particular station in life to +which it has pleased Providence to call _him_. + +And so by means of that poetic order, which is the Providence of this +piece, and that design which 'tunes the harmony of it,' it is a duke +on whom that low correction, 'such as basest and most contemned +wretches are punished with,' is exhibited, in spite of his indignant +protest. + + _Kent_. Call not your stocks for me. _I_ serve the king, + On _whose employment_ I was sent to you. + You shall do small _respect_, show too bold malice + Against the _grace_ and _person_ of my master, + Stocking his messenger. + + _Cornwall_. Fetch forth the stocks. + As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon.' + + _Regan_. Till noon,--till night my lord, and all night too. + +[In vain the prudent and loyal Gloster remonstrates] + + --The king must take it ill + That _he_, so slightly valued in his messenger, + Should have him thus restrained. + + _Cornwall_. I'll answer that. + + _Regan_. Put in his legs. + +But then it must be confessed that the poet was not without some kind +of precedent for this bold dramatic proceeding. He had, indeed, by +means of the culture and diligent use of that gift of forethought, +with which nature had so largely endowed him, been enabled thus far to +keep his own person free from any such tangible encumbrance, though +the '_lameness_' with which fortune had afflicted him personally, is +always his personal grievance; but he had seen in his own time, +ancient men and reverend,--men who claimed to be the ministers of +heaven, and travelling on its errands, arrested, and subjected to this +ludicrous indignity: he had seen this open stop, this palpable, +corporeal, unfigurative arrest put upon the activity of scholars and +thinkers in his time, conscientious men, between whose master and the +state, there was a growing quarrel then, a quarrel that these +proceedings were not likely to pacify. From noon till night, they, +too, had sat thus, and all night too, they had endured that shameful +lodging. + +'When a man is _over_ lusty at legs,' says the Fool, who arrives in +time to put in an observation or two on this topic, and who seems +disposed to look at it from a critical point of view, concluding with +the practical improvement of the subject, already quoted--'When a man +is over lusty at legs'--(when his will, or his higher intelligence, +perhaps, is allowed to govern them too freely,) 'he wears wooden +nether stocks,' or 'cruel garters,' as he calls them again, by way of +bestowing on this institution of his ancestors as much variety of +poetic imagery as the subject will admit of. '_Horses_ are tied by the +head, _dogs_ and _bears_ by the neck, _monkeys_ by the loins, and +_men_ by the legs'; and having ransacked his memory to such good +purpose, and produced such a pile of learned precedents, he appears +disposed to rest the case with these; for it is a part of the play to +get man into his place in the scale of nature, and to draw the line +between him and the brutes, if there be any such thing possible; and +the Fool seems to be particularly inclined to assist the author in +this process, though when we last heard of him he was, indeed, +proposing to send the principal man of his time 'to school to an ant,' +to improve his sagacity; intimating, also, that another department of +natural science, even conchology itself, might furnish him with some +rather more prudent and fortunate suggestions than those which his own +brain had appeared to generate; and it is to be remarked, that in his +views on this point, as on some others of importance, he has the +happiness to agree remarkably with that illustrious yoke-fellow of his +in philosophy, who was just then turning his attention to the 'practic +part of life' and _its_ 'theoric,' and who indulges himself in some +satires on this point not any less severe, though his pleasantries are +somewhat more covert. But the philosopher on this occasion, having +produced such a variety of precedents from natural history, appears to +be satisfied with the propriety and justice of the proceeding, +inasmuch as beasts and men seem to be treated with impartial +consideration in it; and though a certain distinction of form appears +to obtain according to the species, the main fact is throughout +identical. + +'Then comes the time,' he says, in winding up that knotted skein of +prophecy, which he leaves for Merlin to disentangle, for 'he lives +before his time,' as he takes that opportunity to tell us-- + + 'Then comes the time, who lives to see't, + That _going shall be used with feet_.' + +Yes, it is a duke who is put in the stocks; it is a duke's son plays +the bedlamite; it is a king who finds the hovel's shelter 'precious'; +and it is a queen--it is a king's wife, and a daughter of kings--who +is hanged; nay more, it is Cordelia--it is Cordelia, and none other, +whom this inexorable Poet, primed with mischief, bent on outrage, +determined to turn out the heart of his time, and show, in the +selectest form, the inmost lining of its lurking humanities--it is +Cordelia whom he will hang--And we forgive him still, and bear with +him in all these assaults on our taste--in all these thick-coming +blows on our outraged sensibilities; we forgive him when at last the +poetic design flashes on us,--when we come to understand the +providence of this piece, at least,--when we come to see at last that +there is a meaning in it _all_, a meaning deep to justify even this +procedure. + +'We are not the _first_ who, with _the best_ meaning, have _incurred +the worst_,' says the captive queen herself; nor was she the last of +that good company, as the Poet himself might have testified;-- + + Upon such sacrifices the gods themselves _throw incense_. + +We forgive the Poet here, as we forgive him in all these other pitiful +and revolting exhibitions, because we know that he who would undertake +the time's cure--he who would undertake the relief of the human estate +in any age, must probe its evil--must reach, no matter what it costs, +its deadliest _hollow_. + +And in that age, there was no voice which could afford to lack 'the +courtier's glib and oily art.' 'Hanging was the word' then, for the +qualities of which this princess was the impersonation, or almost the +impersonation, so predominant were they in her poetic constitution. +There was no voice, gentle and low enough, to speak outright such +truth as hers; and 'banishment' and 'the stocks' would have been only +too mild a remedy for 'the plainness' to which Kent declares, even to +the teeth of majesty, 'honour's bound, when majesty stoops to folly.' + +The kind, considerate Gloster, with all his loyalty to the powers +which are able to show the divine right of possession, and with all +his disposition to conform to the times, is greatly distressed and +perplexed with the outrages which are perpetrated, as it were, under +his own immediate sanction and authority. He has a hard struggle to +reconcile his duty as the subject of a state which he is not prepared +to overthrow, with his humane impulses and designs. He goes pattering +about for a time, remonstrating, and apologizing, and trying 'to +smooth down,' and 'hush up,' and mollify, and keep peace between the +offending parties. He stands between the blunt, straightforward +manliness of the honest Kent on the one hand, and the sycophantic +servility and self-abnegation, which knows no will but the master's, +as represented by the Steward, on the other. + +'I am sorry for thee,' he says to Kent, after having sought in vain to +prevent this outrage from being perpetrated in his own court-- + + 'I am sorry for thee, friend: _tis the duke's pleasure, + Whose disposition all the world well knows, + Will not be rubbed or stopped_'-- + +as he found to his cost, poor man, when he came to have his own eyes +gouged out by it. He 'saw it _feelingly_' then, as he remarked +himself. + +'I'll entreat for thee,' he continues, in his conversation with the +disguised duke in the stocks. 'The duke's to blame in this. '_Twill be +ill taken_.' + +And when the king, on his arrival, kept waiting in the court, in his +agony of indignation and grief, is told that Regan and Cornwall are +'sick,' 'they are weary,' 'they have travelled hard to-night,' +denounces these subterfuges, and bids Gloster fetch him a better +answer, this is the worthy man's reply to him-- + + 'My dear lord, + You know the fiery quality of the duke, + How unremovable and fixed he is + In his own course.' + +But Lear, who has never had any but a subjective acquaintance hitherto +with reasons of that kind, does not appear able to understand them +from this point of view-- + + _Lear_. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion! + _Fiery_?--what _quality_? Why Gloster, Gloster, + I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. + + _Gloster_. Well, my good lord, I have informed them so. + + _Lear_. Informed them? Dost thou understand me? + + _Gloster_. Ay, my good lord. + +But though Gloster is not yet ready to break with tyranny, it is not +difficult to see which way he secretly inclines; and though he still +manages his impulses cautiously, and contrives to succour the +oppressed king by stealth, his courage rises with the emergency, and +grows bold with provocation. For he is himself one of the finer and +finest proofs of the times which the Poet represents; one, however, +which he keeps back a little, for the study of those who look at his +work most carefully. This man stands here in the general, indeed, as +the representative of a class of men who do not belong exclusively to +this particular time--men who do not stand ready, as Kent and his +class do, to fly in the face of tyranny at the first provocation; they +are not the kind of men who 'make mouths,' as Hamlet says, 'at the +invisible event;'--they are the kind who know beforehand that to break +with the powers that are, single-handed, is to sit on the stage and +have your eyes gouged out, or to undergo some process of mutilation +and disfigurement, not the less painful and oppressive, by this Poet's +own showing, because it does not happen, perhaps, to be a physical +one, and not the less calculated, on that account, to impair one's +usefulness to one's species, it may be. + +But besides that more general bearing of the representation, the part +and disposition of Gloster afford us from time to time, glimpses of +persons and things which connect the representation more directly with +the particular point here noted. Men who found themselves compelled to +occupy a not less equivocal _position_ in the state, look through it a +little now and then; and here, as in other parts of the play, it only +wants the right key to bring out suppressed historical passages, and a +finer history generally, than the chronicles of the times were able to +take up. + +'Alack, alack, Edmund,' says Gloster to his natural son, making _him_ +the confidant of his nobler nature, putting what was then the perilous +secret of his humanity, into the dangerous keeping of the base-born +one--for this is the Poet's own interpretation of his plot; though +Lear is allowed to intimate on his behalf, that the loves and +relations which are recognised and good in courts of justice, are not +always secured by that sanction from similar misfortune; that they are +not secured by that from those penalties which great Nature herself +awards in those courts in which her institutes are vindicated. + +'Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not THIS UNNATURAL DEALING! When I +desired _their leave that I might pity him_, they took from me _the +use of mine own house_, and charged me on pain of their perpetual +displeasure, _neither to speak_ of him, _entreat for him, nor in any +way to sustain him_.' + + _Edmund_. Most _savage and unnatural_. + + _Gloster_. Go to, say you nothing. + +[And say you nothing, my contemporary reader, if you perceive that +this is one of those passages I have spoken of elsewhere, which +carries with it another application besides that which I put it to]. + +'There is division between the dukes--and a worse matter than that: I +have received a letter this night,--'tis dangerous to be spoken;--I +have _locked_ the letter in my _closet: these injuries the king now +bears_, will be revenged _at home_' [softly--say you nothing]. +'_There_ is _part of a power already footed_: we _must incline to the +king. I_ will seek him and _privily relieve him_. _Go you and maintain +talk with the duke_, that my charity be not of him perceived. If he +ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it,--_as no less +is threatened me_,--_the king, my old master_--MUST BE RELIEVED. There +is some strange thing toward, Edmund. Pray you be careful.' + +Even Edmund himself professes to be not altogether without some +experience of the perplexity which the claims of apparently clashing +duties, and relations in such a time creates, though he seems to have +found an easy method of disposing of these questions. _Nature_ is his +goddess and his law (that is, as _he_ uses the term, the baser nature, +the degenerate, which is not nature for man, which is _unnatural_ for +the human kind), and in his own 'rat'-like fashion, 'he bites the holy +cords atwain.' + +'How, my lord,' he says, in the act of betraying his father's secret +to the Duke of Cornwall, in the hope of 'drawing to himself what his +father loses'--'how I may be censured that NATURE, thus gives way to +LOYALTY, _something fears me to think of_.' And again, 'I will +persevere in my course of _loyalty_, though the conflict be sore +between that and my _blood_.' + +'_Know thou this_,' he says afterwards, to the officer whom he employs +to hang Cordelia, 'THAT MEN ARE AS THE TIME IS. Thy great employment +will not bear question. About it, I say, instantly, and carry it so as +I have set it down.' 'I cannot _draw a cart_, nor _eat dried oats_,' +is the officer's reply, who appears to be also in the poet's secret, +and ready to aid his intention of carrying out the distinction between +the human kind and the brute, 'I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried +oats;--if it be MAN'S WORK I will do it.' + +But it is the steward's part, as deliberately explained by Kent +himself, which furnishes in detail the ideal antagonism of that which +Kent sustains in the piece; for beside those active demonstrations of +his disgust, which the poetic order tolerates in him, though some of +the powers within appear to take such violent offence at it, besides +these tangible demonstrations, and that elaborate criticism, which the +poet puts into his mouth, in which the steward is openly treated as +the representative of a class, who seem to the poet apparently, to +require some treatment in his time, Kent himself is made to notice +distinctly this literally striking opposition. + +'No _contraries_ hold more _antipathy_ than I, and such a knave,' he +says to Cornwall, by way of explaining his apparently gratuitous +attack upon the steward. + +No one, indeed, who reads the play with any care, can doubt the poet's +intention to incorporate into it, for some reason or other, and to +bring out by the strongest conceivable contrasts, his study of loyalty +and service, and especially of regal counsel, and his criticism of it, +as it stood in his time in its most approved patterns. 'Such smiling +rouges as these' ('that _bite_ the _holy cords atwain_'). + + 'Smooth every _passion_ + That in the _nature of their lord rebels_; + Bring oil to fire, snow _to their_ colder moods; + Revenge, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks + With every _gale_ and _vary_ of their masters, + As _knowing nought_ like _dogs_ but--_following_.' + +Such ruses as this would not, of course, be wanting in such a _time_ +as that in which this piece was planned, if Edmund's word was, indeed, +the true one. 'Know thou this, _men_ are as the time is.' + +And even amidst the excitement and rough outrage of that scene--in +which Gloster's trial is so summarily conducted, even in that so rude +scene--the relation between the _guest_ and his _host_, and the +relation of the _slave_ to his _owner_, is delicately and studiously +touched, and the human claim in both is boldly advanced, in the face +of an absolute authority, and _age_ and _personal dignity_ put in +their claims also, and demand, even at such a moment, their full +rights of reverence. + + [_Re-enter servants with_ GLOSTER.] + + _Regan_. Ingrateful fox! 'tis he. + + _Cornwall_. Bind fast his _corky_ arms. + + _Gloster_. What mean your graces?--Good my friends, _consider_. + _You are my guests_: do me no foul play, _friends_. + + _Cornwall_. Bind him, I say. + + _Regan_. Hard, hard:--O filthy traitor! + + _Gloster_. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none. + + _Cornwall_. To this chair bind him:--Villain, thou shalt + find--[REGAN _plucks his beard_]. + + _Gloster_. By the KIND gods [_for these are the gods, whose + 'Commission' is sitting here_]'tis most _ignobly_ done, + To pluck me by the beard. + + _Regan_. So white, and such a traitor! + + _Gloster_. Naughty lady, + _These hairs_, which thou dost ravish from my chin, + Will quicken and accuse thee. + _I am your host_: + With _robber hands_, my hospitable favours + You should not _ruffle_ thus. + +Tied to the stake, questioned and cross-questioned, and insulted, +finally, beyond even his faculty of endurance, he breaks forth, at +last, in strains of indignation that overleap all arbitrary and +conventional bounds, that are only the more terrible for having been +so long suppressed. Kent himself, when he 'came between the dragon and +his wrath,' was not so fierce. + + _Cornwall_. Where hast thou sent the king? + + _Gloster_. _To Dover_. + + _Regan_. Wherefore + To Dover, was't thou not charged at peril?-- + + _Cornwall. Wherefore to Dover?_ Let him first answer that. + + _Regan_. Wherefore _to Dover?_ + + _Gloster_. Because I would not see thy cruel nails + Pluck out his poor old eyes, _nor thy fierce sister_ + In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs. + + ... + + _Regan_. One side will mock another; the other too. + + _Cornwall_. If you 'see vengeance.' + + _Servant_. Hold your hand, my lord: + _I have served you ever since I was a child_; + But _better service_ have I never done you, + Than now _to bid you hold_. + + _Regan_. How now, you _dog_? + + _Servant_. If you did wear a beard upon your chin, + I'd shake it on this quarrel: _What do you mean_? + + [_Arbitrary power called to an account, requested to explain + itself_.] + + _Cornwall. My_ villain! + + _Regan_. A PEASANT _stand up thus_? + +Thus too, indeed, in that rude scene above referred to, in which the +king finds his messenger in the stocks, and Regan's door, too, shut +against him, the same ground of criticism had already been revealed, +the same delicacy and rigour in the exactions had already betrayed the +depth of the poetic design, and the real comprehension of that _law_, +whose violations are depicted here, the scientific law, the scientific +sovereignty, the law of universal nature; commanding, in the human, +that specific human excellence, for the _degenerate_ movement is in +violation of nature, that is not _nature_ but her profanation and +undoing. + +This is one of those passages, however, which admit, as the modern +reader will more easily observe than the contemporary of the Poet was +likely to of a second reading. + + _Goneril_. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance + From those that she calls servants, or from mine? + + * * * * * + + What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, + To _follow_ in a _house_, where twice so many + _Have a command to tend you_? + + _Regan_. What need one? + + _Lear_. O reason not the _need_: our basest beggars + Are in the poorest things superfluous. + + [_Poor Tom must have his 'rubans_.'] + + Allow not NATURE more than NATURE needs, + MAN'S LIFE were cheap as BEASTS [_and that's not nature_] + Thou art _a lady_; + If only to go warm were _gorgeous_, + Why, _nature_ needs not what _thou gorgeous_ wear'st, + Which scarcely keeps thee warm.--But, for TRUE NEED, + You heavens, give me THAT patience.--_Patience I need_. + +It is, indeed, the doctrine of the 'true need' that is lurking here, +and all that puts man into his true place and relations in the +creative order, whether of submission or control is included in it. It +is the doctrine of the natural human need, and the natural ground and +limits of the arts, for which nature has endowed man beforehand, with +a faculty and a sentiment corresponding in grandeur to his +need,--large as he is little, noble as he is mean, powerful as he is +helpless, felicitous as he is wretched; the faculty and the sentiment +whereby the _want_ of man becomes the measure of his wealth and +grandeur,--whereby his conscious _lowness_ becomes the means of his +ascent to his ideal type in nature, and to the scientific perfection +of his form. + +And this whole social picture,--rude, savage as it is,--savage as it +shews when its sharp outline falls on that fair ideal ground of +criticism which the doctrine of a scientific civilization creates,--is +but the Poet's report of the progress of human development as it stood +in his time, and of the gain that it had made on savage instinct then. +It is his report of the social institutions of his time, as he found +them on his map of human advancement. It is his report of the wild +social misery that was crying underneath them, with its burthen of new +advancements. It is the Poet's Apology for his new doctrine of human +living, which he is going to publish, and leave on the earth, for 'the +times that are far off.' It is the negative, which is the first step +towards that affirmation, which he is going to establish on the earth +for ever, or so long as the species, whose law he has found, endures +on it. Down to its most revolting, most atrocious detail, it is still +the Elizabethan civility that is painted here. Even Goneril's +unscrupulous mode of disposing of her rival sister, though _that_ was +the kind of murder which was then regarded with the profoundest +disgust and horror--(the queen in Cymbeline expresses that vivid +sentiment, when she says: 'If Pisanio have given his mistress that +confection which I gave him for a cordial, she is served as I would +serve a rat')--even as to that we all know what a king's favourite +felt himself competent to undertake then; and, if the clearest +intimations of such men as Bacon, and Coke, and Raleigh, on such a +question, are of any worth, the household of James the First was not +without a parallel even for that performance, if not when this play +was written, when it was published. + +It is all one picture of social ignorance, and misery, and _frantic_ +misrule. It is a faithful exhibition of the degree of personal +security which a man of honourable sentiments, and humane and noble +intentions, could promise himself in such a time. It shows what chance +there was of any man being permitted to sustain an honourable and +intelligent part in the world, in an age in which all the radical +social arts were yet wanting, in which the rude institutions of an +ignorant past spontaneously built up, without any science of the +natural laws, were vainly seeking to curb and quench the Incarnate +soul of new ages,--the spirit of a scientific human advancement; and, +when all the common welfare was still openly intrusted to the +unchecked caprice and passion of one selfish, pitiful, narrow, +low-minded man. + +To appreciate fully the incidental and immediate political application +of the piece, however, it is necessary to observe that notwithstanding +that studious exhibition of lawless and outrageous power, which it +involves, it is, after all, we are given to understand, by a quiet +intimation here and there, _a limited monarchy_ which is put upon the +stage here. It is a constitutional government, very much in the +Elizabethan stage of development, as it would seem, which these +arbitrary rulers affect to be administering. It is a government which +professes to be one of law, under which the atrocities of this piece +are sheltered. + +And one may even note, in passing, that that high Judicial Court, in +which poor Lear undertakes to get his cause tried, appears to have, +somehow, an extremely modern air, considering what age of the British +history it was, in which it was supposed to be constituted, and +considering that one of the wigs appointed to that Bench had to leave +his speech behind him for Merlin to make, in consequence of living +before his time: at all events it is already tinctured with some of +the more notorious Elizabethan vices--vices which our Poet, not +content with this exposition, contrived to get exposed in another +manner, and to some purpose, ere all was done. + + _Lear_. It shall be done, I will arraign them straight! + Come, sit thou here, _most learned Justice_. + +[_To the_ BEDLAMITE_.] + + Thou, _sapient_ Sir, sit here. [_To the_ FOOL.] + +And again,-- + + I'll see _their trial_ first. _Bring in the evidence_. + Thou _robed_ MAN of JUSTICE take _thy_ place. + +[_To_ TOM O'BEDLAM.] + + And _thou_, his _yoke fellow_ of EQUITY _bench by his side_. + +[_To the_ FOOL.] + + You are of '_the Commission_'--sit _you too_. + +[_To_ KENT.] + +Truly it was a bold wit that could undertake to constitute that bench +on the stage, and fill it with those speaking forms,--speaking to the +eye the unmistakeable significance, for these judges, two of them, +happened to be on the spot in full costume,--and as to the third, he +was of '_the commission_.' 'Sit you, too.' Truly it was a bold +instructor that could undertake 'to facilitate' the demonstration of +'the more chosen subjects,' with the aid of diagrams of this kind. + +Arms! Arms! Sword, fire! CORRUPTION IN THE PLACE! _False justicer, why +hast thou let her scape_? + +The tongues of these ancient sovereigns of Britain, 'tang' throughout +with Elizabethan 'arguments of state,' and even Goneril, in her +somewhat severe proceedings against her _father_, justifies her course +in a very grave and excellent speech, enriched with the choicest +phrases of that particular order of state eloquence, in which majesty +stoops graciously to a recognition of the subject nation;--a speech +from which we gather that the '_tender of a wholesome weal_' is, on +the whole, the thing which she has at heart most deeply, and though +the proceeding in question is a painful one to her feelings, a state +necessity appears to prescribe it, or at least, render it +'_discreet_.' + +Even in Gloster's case, though the process to which he is subjected, +is, confessedly, an extemporaneous one, it appears from the Duke of +Cornwall's statement, that it was only the _form_ which was wanting to +make it legal. Thus he apologizes for it.-- + + Though well we may not pass upon his life + Without the form of justice, yet our _power_ + Shall do a _courtesy_ to _our wrath_, which men + May blame, _but not control_. + +Goneril, however, grows bolder at the last, and says outright, 'Say if +I do, the _laws_ are _mine_ NOT THINE.' But it is the law which is +_thine_ and _mine_, it is the law which is for Tom o' Bedlam and for +thee, that great nature speaking at last through her interpreter, and +explaining all this wild scene, will have vindicated. + +_Most_ MONSTROUS, exclaims her illustrious consort; but at the close +of the play, where so much of the meaning sometimes comes out in a +word, he himself concedes that the government which has just devolved +upon him is an _absolute_ monarchy. + +'For us,' he says, 'WE WILL RESIGN, during the life of this old +Majesty, OUR ABSOLUTE POWER.' + +So that there seems to have been, in fact,--in the minds, too, of +persons who ought, one would say, to have been best informed on this +subject,--just that vague, uncertain, contradictory view of this +important question, which appears to have obtained in the English +state, during the period in which the material of this poetic +criticism was getting slowly accumulated. But of course this play, so +full of the consequences of arbitrary power, so full of Elizabethan +politics, with its 'ear-kissing arguments,' could not well end, till +that word, too, had been spoken outright; and, in the Duke of Albany's +resignation, it slips in at last so quietly, so properly, that no one +perceives that it is not there by accident. + +This, then, is what the play contains; but those that follow the +_story_ and the superficial plot only, must, of course, lose track of +the interior identities. It does not occur to these that the Poet is +occupied with principles, and that the change of _persons_ does not, +in the least, confound his pursuit of them. + +The fact that tyranny is in one act, or in one scene, represented by +Lear, and in the next by his daughters;--the fact that the king and +the father is in one act the tyrant, and in another, the victim of +tyranny, is quite enough to confound the criticism to which a work of +mere amusement is subjected; for it serves to disguise the philosophic +purport, by dividing it on the surface: and the dangerous passages are +all opposed and neutralised, for those who look at it only as a piece +of dramatized, poetic history. + +For this is a philosopher who prefers to handle his principles in +their natural, historical combinations, in those modified unions of +opposites, those complex wholes, which nature so stedfastly inclines +to, instead of exhibiting them scientifically bottled up and labelled, +in a state of fierce chemical abstraction. + +His characters are not like the characters in the old 'Moralities,' +which he found on the stage when he first began to turn his attention +to it, mere impersonations of certain vague, loose, popular notions. +Those sickly, meagre forms would not answer his purpose. It was +necessary that the actors in the New Moralities he was getting up so +quietly, should have some speculation in their eyes, some blood in +their veins, a kind of blood that had never got manufactured in the +Poet's laboratory till then. His characters, no matter how strong the +predominating trait, though '_the conspicuous instance_' of it be +selected, have all the rich quality, the tempered and subtle power of +nature's own compositions. The expectation, the interest, the surprise +of life and history, waits, with its charm on all their speech and +doing. + +The whole play tells, indeed, its own story, and scarcely needs +interpreting, when once the spectator has gained the true dramatic +stand-point; when once he understands that there is a teacher here,--a +new one,--one who will not undertake to work with the +instrumentalities that his time offered to him, who begins by +rejecting the abstractions which lie at the foundation of all the +learning of his time, which are not scientific, but vague, loose, +popular notions, that have been collected without art, or scientific +rule of rejection, and are, therefore, inefficacious in nature, and +unavailable for 'the art and practic part of life;' a teacher who will +build up his philosophy anew, from the beginning, a teacher who will +begin with history and particulars, who will abstract his definitions +from nature, and have _powers_ of them, and not _words_ only, and make +_them_ the basis of his science and the material and instrument of his +reform. 'I will teach you _differences_,' says Kent to the steward, +alluding on the part of his author, for he does not profess to be +metaphysical himself to another kind of distinction, than that which +obtained in the schools; and accompanying the remark, on his own part, +with some practical demonstrations, which did not appear to be taken +in good part at all by the person he was at such pains to instruct in +his doctrine of distinctions. + +The reader who has once gained this clue, the clue which the question +of design and authorship involves, will find this play, as he will +find, indeed, all this author's plays, overflowing every where with +the scientific statement,--the finest abstract statement of that which +the action, with its moving, storming, laughing, weeping, praying +diagrams, sets forth in the concrete. + +But he who has not yet gained this point,--the critic who looks at it +from the point of observation which the traditionary theory of its +origin and intent creates, is not in a position to notice the +philosophic expositions of its purport, with which the action is all +inwoven. No,--though the whole structure of the piece should +manifestly hang on them, though the whole flow of the dialogue should +make one tissue of them, though every interstice of the play should be +filled with them, though the fool's jest, and the Bedlamite's +gibberish, should point and flash with them at every turn;--though the +wildest incoherence of madness, real or assumed, to its most dubious +hummings,--its snatches of old ballads, and inarticulate mockings of +the blast, should be strung and woven with them; though the storm +itself, with its wild accompaniment, and demoniacal frenzies, should +articulate its response to them;--keeping open tune without, to that +human uproar; and howling symphonies, to the unconquered demoniacal +forces of human life,--for it is the Poet who writes in 'the storm +continues,'--'the storm continues,'--'the storm continues;'--though +even Edmund's diabolical '_fa, sol, lah, mi_,' should dissolve into +harmony with them, while Tom's five fiends echo it from afar, and 'mop +and mow' their responses, down to the one that '_since possesses +chambermaids_;' nobody that takes the play theory, and makes a matter +of faith of it merely; nobody that is willing to shut his eyes and +open his mouth, and swallow the whole upon trust, as a miracle simply, +is going to see anything in all this, or take any exceptions at it. + +Certainly, at the time when it was written, it was not the kind of +learning and the kind of philosophy that the world was used to. Nobody +had ever heard of such a thing. The memory of man could not go far +enough to produce any parallel to it in letters. It was manifest that +this was _nature_, the living nature, the thing itself. None could +perceive the tint of the school on its robust creations; no eye could +detect in its sturdy compositions the stuff that books were made of; +and it required no effort of faith, therefore, to believe that it was +not that. It was easy enough to believe, and men were glad, on the +whole, to believe that it was not that--that it was not learning or +philosophy--but something just as far from that, as completely its +opposite, as could well be conceived of. + +How could men suspect, as yet, that this was the new scholasticism, +the New Philosophy? Was it strange that they should mistake it for +rude nature herself, in her unschooled, spontaneous strength, when it +had not yet publicly transpired that something had come at last upon +the stage of human development, which was stooping to nature and +learning of her, and stealing her secret, and unwinding the clue to +the heart of her mystery? How could men know that this was the +subtlest philosophy, the ripest scholasticism, the last proof of all +human learning, when it was still a secret that the school of nature +and her laws, that the school of natural history and natural +philosophy, too, through all its lengths and breadths and depths, was +open; and that '_the schools_'--the schools of old chimeras and +notions--the schools where the jangle of the monkish abstractions and +the 'fifes and the trumpets of the Greeks' were sounding--were going +to get shut up with it. + +How should they know that the teacher of the New Philosophy was Poet +also--must be, by that same anointing, a singer, mighty as the sons of +song who brought their harmonies of old into the savage earth--a +singer able to sing down antiquities with his new gift, able to sing +in new eras? + +But these have no clue as yet to track him with: they cannot collect +or thread his thick-showered meanings. He does not care through how +many mouths he draws the lines of his philosophic purpose. He does not +care from what long distances his meanings look towards each other. +But these interpreters are not aware of that. They have not been +informed of that particular. On the contrary, they have been put +wholly off their guard. Their heads have been turned, deliberately, in +just the opposite direction. They have no faintest hint beforehand of +the depths in which the philosophic unities of the piece are hidden: +it is not strange, therefore, that these unities should escape their +notice, and that they should take it for granted that there are none +in it. It is not the mere play-reader who is ever going to see them. +It will take the philosophic student, with all his clues, to master +them. It will take the student of the New School and the New Ages, +with the torch of Natural Science in his hand, to track them to their +centre. + +Here, too, as elsewhere, it is the king himself on whom the bolder +political expositions are thrust. But it is not his royalty only that +has need to be put in requisition here, to bring out successfully all +that was working then in this Poet's mind and heart, and which had to +come out in some way. It was something more than royalty that was +required to protect this philosopher in those astounding freedoms of +speech in which he indulges himself here, without any apparent scruple +or misgiving. The combination of distresses, indeed, which the old +ballad accumulates on the poor king's head, offers from the first a +large poetic license, of which the man of art--or '_prudence_,' as he +calls it--avails himself somewhat liberally. + +With those _daughters_ in the foreground always, and the parental +grief so wild and loud--with that deeper, deadlier, infinitely more +cruel _private_ social wrong interwoven with all the political +representation, and overpowering it everywhere, as if that inner +social evil were, after all, foremost in the Poet's thought--as if +that were the thing which seemed crying to him for redress more than +all the rest--if, indeed, any thought of 'giving losses their +remedies' could cross a Player's dream, when, in the way of his +profession, 'the _enormous state_' came in to fill his scene, and open +its subterranean depths, and let out its secrets, and drown the stage +with its elemental horror;--with his daughters in the foreground, and +all that magnificent accompaniment of the elemental war without--with +all nature in that terrific uproar, and the Fool and the Madman to +create a diversion, and his friends all about him to hush up and make +the best of everything--with that great storm of pathos that the +Magician is bringing down for him--with the stage all in tears, by +their own confession, and the audience sobbing their responses--what +the poor king might say between his chattering teeth was not going to +be very critically treated; and the Poet knew it. It was the king, in +such circumstances, who could undertake the philosophical expositions +of the action; and in his wildest bursts of grief he has to manage +them, in his wildest bursts of grief he has to keep to them. + +But it is not until long afterwards, when the storm, and all the +misery of that night, has had its ultimate effect--its chronic +effect--upon him, that the Poet ventures to produce, under cover of +the sensation which the presence of a mad king on the stage creates, +precisely that exposition of the scene which has been, here, insisted +on. + +'They flattered me like a dog; they told me I had _white_ hairs in my +beard, ere the _black_ ones were there. To say _Ay_ and _No_ to +everything _I_ said!--Ay and No too was no good DIVINITY. _When the +rain came to wet me once_, and _the wind made me chatter; when the +thunder would not peace at my bidding,--there_ I found them, _there I +smelt them out_. Go to, they are not men of their words. _They told me +I was everything: 'tis a lie. I am not ague-proof_.' + + _Gloster_. The trick of that voice I do well remember: + +Is't not THE KING? + + _Lear_. _Ay_, every inch _a King_: + + When _I_ do stare, _see, how the subject quakes_. + +But it is a subject he has conjured up from his brain that is quaking +under his regal stare. And it is the impersonation of God's authority, +it is the divine right to rule men at its pleasure, _with or without +laws, as it sees fit_, that stands there, tricked out like Tom +o'Bedlam, with A CROWN of noisome _weeds_ on its head, arguing the +question of the day, taking up for the divine right, defining its own +position:-- + + _Is't not the king_? + + Ay every inch a king: + + _When I do stare, see how the subject quakes_. + +_See_; yes, _see_. For that is what he stands there for, or that you +may see _what it is_ at whose stare _the subject_ quakes. He is there +to 'represent to the eye,' because impressions on the senses are more +effective than abstract statements, the divine right and sovereignty, +the majesty of the COMMON-weal, the rule that protects each helpless +individual member of it with the strength of all, the rule awful with +great nature's sanction, enforced with her dire pains and penalties. +He is there that you may see whether _that_ is it, or not; that one +poor wretch, that thing of pity, which has no power to protect itself, +in whom _the law_ itself, the sovereignty of reason, is dethroned. +That was, what all men thought it was, when this play was written; for +the madness of arbitrary power, the impersonated will and passion, was +the _state_ then. That is the spontaneous affirmation of rude ages, on +this noblest subject,--this chosen subject of the new +philosophy,--which stands there now to facilitate the demonstration, +'as globes and machines do the more subtle demonstrations in +mathematics.' It is the 'affirmation' which the Poet finds +pre-occupying this question; but this is the table of _review_ that he +stands on, and this 'Instance' has been subjected to the philosophical +tests, and that is the reason that all those dazzling externals of +majesty, which make that 'IDOL CEREMONY' are wanting here; that is the +reason that his crown has turned to weeds. This is the popular +affirmative the Poet is dealing with; but it stands on the scientific +'Table of _Review_,' and the result of this inquiry is, that it goes +to 'the table of NEGATIONS.' And the negative table of science in +these questions is Tragedy, the World's Tragedy. 'Is't not the king?' +'Ay, every inch--_a King_. When I do stare, see how the subject +quakes.' But the voice within overpowers him, and the axioms that are +the vintage of science, the inductions which are the result of that +experiment, are forced from his lips. 'To say ay and no to everything +that _I_--that _I_--said! To say _ay_ and _no_ too, was no GOOD +DIVINITY. They told me that I was everything. 'T IS A LIE. I am not +_ague proof_.' 'T is A LIE'--that is, what is called in other places a +'_negative_.' + +In this systematic exposure of 'the particular and private nature' in +the human kind, and those SPECIAL susceptibilities and liabilities +which qualify its relationships; in this scientific exhibition of its +_special_ liability to suffering from the violation of the higher law +of those relationships--its _special_ liability to injury, moral, +mental, and physical--a liability from which the very one who usurps +the place of that law has himself no exemption in this exhibition,-- +which requires that the king himself should represent that liability +in chief--it was not to be expected that this particular ill, this +ill in which the human wrong in its extreme capes is so wont to +exhibit its consummations, should be omitted. In this exhibition, +which was designed to be scientifically inclusive, it would have +been a fault to omit it. But that the Poet should have dared to +think of exhibiting it dramatically in this instance, and that, +too, in its most hopeless form--that he should have dared to think +of exhibiting the personality which was then 'the state' to the +eye of 'the subject' labouring under that personal disability, in the +very act, too, of boasting of its kingly terrors--this only goes to +show what large prerogatives, what boundless freedoms and immunities, +the resources of this particular department of art could be made to +yield, when it fell into the hands of the new Masters of Arts, when it +came to be selected by the Art-king himself as his instrument. + +But we are prepared for this spectacle, and with the Poet's wonted +skill; for it is _Cordelia_, her heart bursting with its stormy +passion of filial love and grief, that, REBEL-LIKE, seeks to be QUEEN +o'er her, though she queens it still, and 'the smiles on her ripe lips +seem not to know what tears are in her eyes,' for she has had her hour +with her subject grief, and 'dealt with it alone,'--it is this child +of truth and duty, this true Queen, this impersonated sovereignty, +whom her Poet crowns with his choicest graces, on whom he devolves the +task of prefacing this so critical, and, one might think, perhaps, +perilous exhibition. But her description does not disguise the matter, +or palliate its extremity. + + 'Why, he was met even now, + Mad as the _vexed sea_, singing aloud;' + +_Crowned_--. + + 'Crowned with _rank fumiter_, and _furrow weeds_, + With hardocks, _hemlock_, _nettles_, cuckow flowers, + _Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow + In our sustaining corn_.' + +That is the crown; and a very extraordinary symbol of sovereignty it +is, one cannot help thinking, for the divine right to get on its head +by any accident just then. Surely that symbol of power is getting +somewhat rudely handled here, in the course of the movements which the +'necessary questions of this Play' involve, as the critical mind might +begin to think. In the botanical analysis of that then so dazzling, +and potent, and compelling instrument in human affairs, a very careful +observer might perhaps take notice that the decidedly hurtful and +noxious influences in nature appear to have a prominent place; and, +for the rest, that the qualities of _wildness_ and idleness, and +encroaching good-for-nothingness, appear to be the common and +predominating elements. It is when the Tragedy reaches its height that +this _crown_ comes out. + +A hundred men are sent out to pursue this majesty; not now to wait on +him in idle ceremony, and to give him the 'addition of a king'; +but--to catch him--to search every acre in the high-grown field, and +bring him in. He has evaded his pursuers: he comes on to the stage +full of self-congratulation and royal glee, chuckling over his +_prerogative_:-- + +'No; they cannot touch _me_ for COINING. _I am the king himself_.' + +'O thou side-piercing sight!' [Collateral meaning.] + +'_Nature's above Art_ in that respect.' ['So _o'er_ that art which you +say adds to nature, is an art that Nature makes.'] 'There's your press +money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a +clothier's yard.--Look, look, a mouse! _Peace, peace_; this piece of +toasted cheese will do't.--There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it on a +giant_.' + +But the messengers, who were sent out for him, are on his track. + + _Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants_. + + _Gent_. O here he is, lay hand upon him. Sir, + Your most dear daughter-- + + _Lear_. No rescue? What, a _prisoner_? I am even + _The natural fool of fortune_! Use me well; + You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon, + I am cut to the brains. + + _Gent_. You shall have anything. + + _Lear_. No seconds? All myself? + + _Gent_. Good Sir,-- + + _Lear_. I will die bravely, like a bridegroom: What? + I will be _jovial_. Come, come; _I am a king, + My masters_; know you _that_? + + _Gent_. _You are_, a royal one, _and we obey you_. + + _Lear_. Then _there's life in it_. Nay, an you get it, you shall + get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa. [_Exit, running; Attendants_ + FOLLOW.] ['Transient hieroglyphic.'] + + _Gent_. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch; + _Past speaking of, in_ A KING! + + [not past exhibiting, it seems, however.] + +But, of course, there was nothing that a king, whose mind was in such +a state, could not be permitted to say with impunity; and it is in +this very scene that the Poet puts into his mouth the boldest of those +philosophical suggestions which the first attempt to find a theory for +the art and practical part of life, gave birth to: he skilfully +reserves for this scene some of the most startling of those social +criticisms which the action this play is everywhere throwing out. + +For it is in this scene, that the outcast king encounters the victim +of tyranny, whose eyes have been plucked out, and who has been turned +out to beggary, as the penalty of having come athwart that disposition +in 'the duke,' that 'all the world well knows will not be rubbed or +stopped';--it is in this scene that Lear finds him smelling his way to +_Dover_, for that is the name in the play--the play name--for the +place towards which men's hopes appear to be turning; and that +conversation as to how the world goes, to which allusion has been +already made, comes off, without appearing to suggest to any mind, +that it is other than accidental on the part of the Poet, or that the +action of the play might possibly be connected with it! For +notwithstanding this great stress, which he lays everywhere on +_forethought_ and a deliberative _rational_ intelligent procedure, as +_the distinctive human mark_,--the characteristic feature of _a +man_,--the poor poet himself, does not appear to have gained much +credit hitherto for the possession of this human quality.-- + + _Lear_. Thou seest how this world goes? + + _Gloster_. I see it feelingly. + + _Lear_. What, art mad?-- + +[have you not the use of your reason, then? Can you not _see_ with +that? _That_ is the kind of sight we talk of here. It's the want of +that which makes these falls. We have eyes with which to foresee +effects,--eyes which outgo all the senses with their range of +observation, with their range of certainty and foresight.] + +'What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look +with thine--_ears: see_ how yon justice rails upon yon _simple thief_. +Hark, in thine ear: Change _places_, and, handy-dandy, _which is the +justice, and which is_ THE THIEF?' [Searching social questions, as +before. 'Thou robed man of _justice_ (to the Bedlamite), take thy +place; and thou, his yoke-fellow of _equity_ (to the Fool), _bench by +his side_. Thou, _sapient_ sir, sit here.'] + +So that it would seem, perhaps, as if wisdom, as well as honesty, +might be wanting there--the searching subtle wisdom, that is matched +in subtlety, with nature's forces, that sees true differences, and +effects true reformations. '_Change places. Hark, in thine ear_.' +Truly this is a player who knows how to suit the word to the action, +and the action to the word; for there has been a revolution going on +in this play which has made as complete a social overturning--which +has shaken kings, and dukes, and lordlings out of their 'places,' as +completely as some later revolutions have done. 'Change places!' With +one duke in the stocks, and another wandering blind in the +streets--with a dukeling, in the form of mad Tom, to lead him, with a +king in a hovel, calling for the straw, and a queen hung by the neck +till she is dead--with mad Tom on the bench, and the Fool, with his +cap and bells, at his side--with Tom at the council-table, and +occupying the position of chief favourite and adviser to the king, and +a distinct proposal now that the thief and the justice shall change +places on the spot--with the inquiry as to which is _the justice_, and +which is the _thief_, openly started--one would almost fancy that the +subject had been exhausted here, or would be, if these indications +should be followed up. What is it in the way of social alterations +which the player's imagination could conceive of, which his scruples +have prevented him from suggesting here? + +But the mad king goes on with those new and unheard-of political and +social suggestions, which his madness appears to have had the effect +of inspiring in him-- + + _Lear_. Thou hast seen a farmer's _dog_ bark at a _beggar_? + + _Gloster_. Ay, sir. + + _Lear_. And the _creature_ run from the _cur? There_ might'st thou + behold _the great image of_ AUTHORITY: _a dog's obeyed in office_. + Through tattered robes _small vices_ do appear; + _Robes_, and _furred gowns, hide all_. + [_Robes,--robes_, and _furred gowns_!] + Plate sin with gold, + And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; + Arm it with rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. + +But that was before Tom got his seat on the bench--that was before Tom +got his place at the council-table. + + 'None does offend,--_none_--' + +[unless you will begin your reform at the beginning, and hunt down the +great rogues as well as the little ones; or, rather, unless you will +go to the source of the evil, and take away the evils, of which these +crimes, that you are awarding penalties to, are the result, let it all +alone, I say. Let's have no more legislation, and no more of _this_ +JUSTICE, _this_ EQUITY, that takes the vices which come through the +tattered robes, and leaves the great _thief_ in his purple untouched. +Let us have no more of this mockery. Let us be impartial in our +justice, at least.] 'None does offend. _I say none. I'll_ able 'em.' +[I'll show you the way. Soft. _Hark, in thine ear_.] 'Take that of +_me_, my friend, _who have the power_ TO SEAL THE ACCUSER'S LIPS.' +[Soft, _in thine ear_.]-- + + 'Get thee _glass_ eyes, + And like a scurvy _politician_, seem + To see the things thou dost not.--_Now, now, now_, NOW. + * * * * * + I know thee well enough. Thy name is--Gloster. + _Thou must be patient_; we came crying hither. + Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air + We wawl and cry. I will _preach_ to thee; _mark me_. + + _Gloster. Alack, alack, the day!_ + + _Lear_. When we are born, we cry that we are come + To this great stage of--_Fools_. + [Mark me, for I _preach_ to thee--of _Fools_. + I am even the _natural fool of fortune_.] + --'O matter and impertinency, mixed + Reason in madness.'-- + +--is the Poet's concluding comment on this regal boldness, a safe and +saving explanation; 'for to define true madness,' as Polonius says, +'what is it but to _be_ nothing else but mad.' If the 'all licensed +fool,' as Goneril peevishly calls him, under cover of his assumed +imbecility, could carry his traditional privilege to such dangerous +extremes, and carp and philosophize, and fling his bitter jests about +at his pleasure, surely downright madness might claim to be invested +with a privilege as large. But madness, when conjoined with royalty, +makes a _double_ privilege, one which this Poet finds, however, at +times, none too large for his purposes. + +Thus, Hamlet, when his mind is once in a questionable state, can be +permitted to make, with impunity, profane suggestions as to certain +possible royal progresses, and the changes to which the dust of a +Cćsar might be liable, without being reminded out of the play, that to +follow out these suggestions 'would be' indeed, 'to consider too +curiously,' and that most extraordinary humour of his enables him also +to relieve his mind of many other suggestions, 'which reason and +sanity,' in his time, could not have been 'so prosperously delivered +of.' + +For what is it that men can set up as a test of _sanity_ in any age, +but their own common beliefs and sentiments. And what surer proof of +the king's madness,--what more pathetic indication of its midsummer +height could be given, than those startling propositions which the +poet here puts into his mouth, so opposed to the opinions and +sentiments, not of kings only, but of the world at large; what madder +thing could a poet think of than those political axioms which he +introduces under cover of these suggestions,--which would lay the axe +at the root of the common beliefs and sentiments on which the social +structure then rested. How could he better show that this poor king's +wits had, indeed, 'turned;' how could he better prove that he was, +indeed, past praying for, than by putting into his mouth those bitter +satires on the state, those satires on the 'one only man' power +itself,--those wild revolutionary proposals, 'hark! in thine +ear,--_change places_. Softly, in thine ear,-- _which is the_ JUSTICE, +and which is THE THIEF?' 'Take that of _me_ who have the power to +_seal the accuser's lips_. None does offend. I say none. I'll able +'em. Look when I stare, see how the subject quakes.' These laws have +failed, you see. They shelter the most frightful depths of wrong. That +Bench has failed, you see; and that Chair, with all its adjunct +divinity. Come here and look down with me from this pinnacle, into +these abysses. Look at that wretch there, in the form of man. Fetch +him up in his blanket, and set him at the Council Table with his elf +locks and begrimed visage and inhuman gibberish. Perhaps, he will be +able to make some suggestion there; and those five fiends that are +talking in him at once, would like, perhaps, to have a hearing there. +Make him 'one of your hundred.' You are of '_the commission_,' let him +bench with _you_. Nay, change places, let him try your cause, and tell +us which is the justice, which is _the thief_, which is the sapient +Sir, and which is the Bedlamite. Surely, the man who authorizes these +suggestions must be, indeed, 'far gone,' whether he be 'a king or a +yeoman.' And mad indeed he is. Writhing under the insufficiency and +incompetency of these pretentious, but, in fact, ignorant and usurping +institutions, his heart of hearts racked and crushed with their +failure, the victim of this social empiricism, cries out in his +anguish, under that safe disguise of the Robes that hide all: 'Take +these away at least,--that will be something gained. Let us have no +more of this mockery. None does offend--none--I say _none_.' Let us go +back to the innocent instinctive brutish state, and have done with +this vain disastrous struggle of nature after the human form, and +_its_ dignity, and perfection. Let us talk no more of law and justice +and humanity and DIVINITY forsooth, _divinity_ and the celestial +graces, that divinity which is the end and perfection of the _human_ +form.--Is not womanhood itself, and the Angel of it +_fallen_--degenerate?--That is the humour of it.--That is the meaning +of the savage edicts, in which this _human_ victim of the _inhuman_ +state, the subject of a social state which has failed in some way of +the human end, undertakes to utter through the king's lips, his sense +of the failure. For the Poet at whose command he speaks, is the true +scientific historian of nature and art, and the rude and struggling +advances of the _human_ nature towards its ideal type, though they +fall never so short, are none of them omitted in his note-book. He +knows better than any other, what gain the imperfect civilization he +searches and satirizes and lays bare here, _has made_, with all its +imperfections, on the spontaneities and aids of the individual, +unaccommodated man: he knows all the value of the accumulations of +ages; he is the very philosopher who has put forth all his wisdom to +guard the state from the shock of those convulsions, that to his +prescient eye, were threatening then to lay all flat. + +'O let him _pass_!' is the Poet's word, when the loving friends seek +to detain a little longer, the soul on whom this cruel time has done +its work,--its elected sufferer. + + 'O let him pass! _he hates him_ + That would upon the rack of this tough world, + Stretch him out longer.' + [Tired with all these, he cries in his own behalf.] + 'Tired with all these, for _restful death_ I cry. + Thou seest how this world goes. I see it _feelingly_.' + + _Albany_. The weight of this sad time _we must obey_, + _Speak_ WHAT WE FEEL, _not what we ought to say_, + The oldest hath borne most: we that are young + Shall never see so much, nor live so long. + +It needs but a point, a point which the Poet could not well put +in,--one of those points which he speaks of elsewhere so +significantly, to make the unmeaning line with which this great social +Tragedy concludes, a sufficiently fitting conclusion to it; +considering, at least, the pressure under which it was written; and +the author has himself called our attention to that, as we see, even +in this little jingle of rhymes, put in apparently, only for +professional purposes, and merely to get the curtain down decently. It +is a point, which it takes the key of the play--Lord Bacon's key, of +'Times,' to put in. It wants but a comma, but then it must be a comma +in the right place, to make English of it. Plain English, unvarnished +English, but poetic in its fact, as any prophecy that Merlin was to +make. + + 'The oldest hath borne most, we that are _young_ + Shall never see so much, nor live so long.' + +There were boys 'in England then a-bed;' nay, some of them might have +been present that day, for aught we know, on which one of the Managers +of the Surrey Theatre, the owner of the wardrobe and stage-properties, +and himself an actor, brought out with appropriate decorations and +dresses, for the benefit of his audience on the Bankside, this little +ebullition of his genius;--there were boys present then, perhaps, +whose names would become immortal with the fulfilment of that +prophecy;--there was one at Whitehall, when it was brought out there, +whose name would be for ever linked with it. 'We that are young,--the +oldest hath _borne_ most. We that are young shall never _see_ so much' +[I _see_ it feelingly], + + 'Shall never _see_ so much, nor live so _long_.' + +So. + +But there were evils included in that tragic picture, which those who +were young then, would _not_ outlive; evils which the times that were +near with their coarse, fierce remedies, would not heal; evils which +the Seer and Leader of the Times that were far off, would himself make +over to _their_ cure;--evils in whose cure the Discoverer of the +science of Nature, and the inventor of the New Magic which is the part +operative of it, expected to be called upon for an opinion, when the +time for that extension of his science, 'crushed together and infolded +within itself in these books of Nature's learning,' should fully come. + +Nothing almost sees MIRACLES _but_ MISERY, says poor Kent, in the +stocks, waiting for the 'beacon' of the morning, by whose +_comfortable_ beams, he might peruse his letter. 'I know,' he says, + + ''Tis from Cordelia, + Who hath most fortunately been informed + Of my obscured course, and shall find _time + From this enormous state_--seeking--TO GIVE + LOSSES THEIR REMEDIES.' + +There is no attempt to demonstrate that the work here proposed as a +study, worthy the attention of the philosophical student, is not, +notwithstanding a Poem, and a Poet's gift, not to his contemporaries +only, but to his kind. What is claimed is, indeed, that it is a Poem +which, with all its overpowering theatrical effects, does, in fact, +reserve its true poetic wealth, for those who will find the springs of +its inmost philosophic purport. There is no attempt to show that this +play belongs to the category of scientific works, according to our +present limitation of the term, or that there could be found any niche +for it, on those lower platforms and compartments of the new science +of nature, which our modern works of natural science occupy. + +It was inevitably a Poem. There was the essence of all Tragedy in the +purely scientific exhibition, which the purpose of it required. The +intention of the Poet to exhibit the radical idea of his plot +impressively, so as to reach the popular mind through its appeal to +the sensibilities, involved, of course, the finest series of +conjunctions of artistic effects, the most exquisite characterization, +the boldest grouping, the most startling and determined contrasts, +which the whole range of his art could furnish. + +But that which is only the incident of a genuine poetic inspiration, +the effect upon the senses, which its higher appeals are sure to +involve, becomes with those delighting in, and capable of +appreciating, that sensuous effect merely, its sufficient and only +end, and even a doctrine of criticism based on this inversion will not +be wanting. But the difficulty of unlocking the great Elizabethan +poems with any such theory of Art, arises from the fact that it is not +the theory of Art, which the great Elizabethan Poets adopted, and +whether we approve of theirs or not, we must take it, such as it was, +for our torch in this exploration. As to that spontaneity, that +seizure, that Platonic divination, that poetic 'fury,' which our prose +philosopher scans in so many places so curiously, which he defines so +carefully and strictly, so broadly too, as the _poetic_ condition that +thing which he appears to admire so much, as having something a little +demoniacal in it withal, that same 'fine' thing which the Poet himself +speaks of by a term not any less questionable,--as to this poetic +inspiration, it is not necessary to claim that it is a thing with +which this Poet, the Poet of a new era, the Poet, the deliverer of an +Inductive Learning, has had himself, personally, no acquaintance. He +knows what it is. But it is a Poet who is, first of all, a man, and he +takes his humanity with him into all things. The essential human +principle is that which he takes to be the law and limit of the human +constitution. He is perfectly satisfied with 'the measure of a man,' +and he gives the preference deliberately, and on principle to the +sober and rational state in the human mind. All the elements which +enter into the human composition, all the states, normal or otherwise, +to which it is liable, have passed under his review, and this is his +conclusion; and none born of woman, ever had a better chance to look +at them, for all is alike heightened in him,--heightened to the ideal +boundary of nature, in the human form; but that which seems to be +heightened, most of all, that in which he stands preeminent and +singular in the natural history of man, would seem to be the +proportion of this heightening. It is what we have all recognized it +to be, Nature's largest, most prodigal demonstration of her capacities +in the human form, but it is, at the same time, her most excellent and +exquisite balance of composition--her most subdued and tempered work. +And the reason is, that he is not a particular and private man, and +the deficiencies and personalities of those from whom he is +abstracted, are studiously, and by method, kept out of him. For this +is the 'Will' not of one man only; it is the scientific abstract of a +philosophic union. It is a will that has a rule in art as well as +nature. + +Certainly he is the very coolest Poet; and the fullest of this common +earth and its affairs, of any sage that has ever showed his head upon +it, in prose or metre. The sturdiness with which he makes good his +position, as an inhabitant, for the time being, of this terrestrial +ball, and, by the ordinance of God, subject to its laws, and liable to +its pains and penalties, is a thing which appears, to the careful +reviewer of it, on the whole, the most novel and striking feature of +this demonstration. He objects, on principle, to seizures and +possessions of all kinds. He refuses to be taken off his feet by any +kind of solicitation. He is a man who is never ashamed to have a +reason,--one that he can produce, and make intelligible to common +people, for his most exquisite proceedings; that is, if he chooses: +but, 'if reasons were plentiful as blackberries,' he is not the man to +give them on 'compulsion.' His ideas of the common mind, his notion of +the common human intelligence, or capacity for intelligence, appears +to be somewhat different from that of the other philosophers. The +common sense--the common form--is that which he is always seeking and +_identifying_ under all the differences. It is _that_ which he is +bringing out and clothing with the 'inter-tissued robe' and all the +glories which he has stripped from the extant majesty. 'Robes and +furred gowns hide all' no longer. + +He is not a bard who is careful at all about keeping his singing robes +about him. He can doff them and work like a 'navvy' when he sees +reason. He is very fond of coming out with good, sober, solid prose, +in the heart of his poetry. He can rave upon occasion as well as +another. Spontaneities of all kinds have scope and verge enough in his +plot; but he always keeps an eye out, and they speak no more than is +set down for them. His Pythoness foams at the mouth too, sometimes, +and appears to have it all her own way, perhaps; but he knows what she +is about, and there is never a word in the oracle that has not +undergone his revision. He knows that Plato tells us 'it is in vain +for a sober man to knock at the floor of the Muses'; but he is one who +has discovered, scientifically, the human law; and he is ready to make +it good, on all sides, against all comers. And, though the Muses +knocked at his door, as they never had at any other, they could never +carry him away with them. They found, for once, a sober man within, +one who is not afraid to tell them, to their teeth, 'Judgment holds in +me, always, a magisterial seat;'--and, with all their celestial graces +and pretensions, he fetters them, and drags them up to that tribunal. +He superintends all his inspirations. + +There never was a Poet in whom the poetic spontaneities were so +absolutely under control and mastery; and there never was one in whose +nature all the spontaneous force and faculty of genius showed itself +in such tumultuous fulness, ready to issue, at a word, in such +inexhaustible varieties of creative energy. + +Of all the spirits that tend on mortal thoughts there is none to match +this so delicate and gorgeous Ariel of his,--this creature that he +keeps to put his girdles round the earth for him, that comes at a +thought, and brings in such dainty banquets, such brave pageants in +the earth or in the air; there is none other that knows so well the +spells 'to make this place Paradise.' But, for all that, he is the +merest tool,--the veriest drudge and slave. The magician's collar is +always on his neck; in his airiest sweeps he takes his chain with him. +Caliban himself is not more sternly watched and tutored; and all the +gorgeous masque has its predetermined order, its severe economy of +grace; through all the slightest minutić of its detail, runs the +inflexible purpose, the rational _human_ purpose, the common human +sense, the common human aim. + +Yes, it is a Play; but it is the play of a mind sobered with all human +learning. Yes, it is spontaneous; but it is the spontaneity of a heart +laden with human sorrow, oppressed with the burthen of the common +weal. Yes, indeed, it is a Poet's work; but it is the work of one who +consciously and deliberately recognizes, in all the variety of his +gifts, in all his natural and acquired power, under all the +disabilities of his position, the one, paramount, human law, and +essential obligation. Of 'Art,' as anything whatever, but an +instrumentality, thoroughly subdued, and subordinated to _that_ end, +of Art as anything in itself, with an independent tribunal, and law +with an ethic and ritual of its own, this inventor of the one Art, +that has for its end the relief of the human estate and the Creator's +glory, knows nothing. Of any such idolatry and magnifying of the +creature, of any such worship of the gold of the temple to the +desecration of that which sanctifieth the gold, this Art-King in all +his purple, this priest and High Pontiff of its inner mysteries +knows--will know--nothing. + +Yes, it is play; but it is not child's play, nor an _idiot's_ play, +nor the play of a 'jigging' Bacchanal, who comes out on this grave, +human scene, to insult our sober, human sense, with his mad humour, +making a Belshazzar's feast or an Antonian revel of it; a creature who +shows himself to our common human sense without _any_ human aim or +purpose, ransacking all the life of man, exploring all worlds, +pursuing the human thought to its last verge, and questioning, as with +the cry of all the race, the infinities beyond, diving to the lowest +depths of human life and human nature, and bringing up and publishing, +the before unspoken depths of human wrong and sorrow, wringing from +the hearts of those that died and made no sign, their death-buried +secrets, articulating everywhere that which before had no word--and +all for an artistic effect, for an hour's entertainment, for the +luxury of a harmonized impression, or for the mere ostentation of his +frolic, to feed his gamesome humour, to make us stare at his +unconsciousness, to show what gems he can crush in his idle cup for a +draught of pleasure, or in pure caprice and wantonness, confounding +all our notions of sense, and manliness, and human duty and respect, +with the boundless wealth and waste of his gigantic fooleries. + +It is play, but let us thank God it is no such play as that; let our +common human nature rejoice that it has not been thus outraged in its +chief and chosen one, that it has not been thus disgraced with the +boundless human worthlessness of the creature on whom its choicest +gifts were lavished. It is play, indeed; but it is no such Monster, +with his idiotic stare of unconsciousness, that the opening of it will +reveal to us. Let us all thank God, and take heart again, and try to +revive those notions of human dignity and common human sense which +this story sets at nought, and see if we cannot heal that great jar in +our abused natures which this chimera of the nineteenth century makes +in it--this night-mare of modern criticism which lies with its dead +weight on all our higher art and learning--this creature that came in +on us unawares, when the interpretation of the Plays had outgrown the +Play-tradition, when '_the Play_' had outgrown '_the Player_.' + +It is a play in which the manliest of human voices is heard sounding +throughout the order of it; it is a play stuffed to its fool's gibe, +with the soberest, deepest, maturest human sense; and 'the tears of +it,' as we who have tested it know, 'the tears of it are wet.' It is a +play where the choicest seats, the seats in which those who see it +_all_ must sit, are 'reserved;' and there is a price to be paid for +these: 'children and fools' will continue to have theirs for nothing. +For after so many generations of players had come and gone, there had +come at last on this human stage--on 'this great stage of fools,' as +the Poet calls it--this stage filled with 'the natural fools of +fortune,' having eyes, but seeing not--there had come to it at last a +MAN, one who was--take him _for all in all_--that; one who thought +it--for a man, enough to be truly that--one who thought he was +fulfilling his part in the universal order, in _seeking to be_ +modestly and truly that; one, too, who thought it was time that the +_human_ part on the stage of this Globe Theatre should begin to be +reverently studied by man himself, and scientifically and religiously +ordered and determined through all its detail. + +For it is the movement of the new time that makes this Play, and all +these Plays: it is the spirit of the newly-beginning ages of human +advancement which makes the inspiration of them; the beginning ages of +a rational, instructed--and not blind, or instinctive, or +demoniacal--human conduct. + +It is such play and pastime as the prophetic spirit and leadership of +those new ages could find time and heart to make and leave to them, on +that height of vision which it was given to it to occupy. For an age +in human advancement was at last reached, on whose utmost summits men +could begin to perceive that tradition, and eyes of moonshine +speculation, and a thousand noses, and horns welked and waved like the +enridged sea, when they came to be jumbled together in one 'monster,' +did not appear to answer the purpose of human combination, or the +purpose of human life on earth; appeared, indeed to be still far, 'far +wide' of the end which human society is everywhere blindly pushing and +groping for, _en masse_. + +There was a point of observation from which this fortuitous social +conjunction did not appear to the critical eye or ear to be making +just that kind of play and music which human nature--singularly +enough, considering what kind of conditions it lights on--is +constitutionally inclined to expect and demand; not that, or indeed +any perceptible approximation to a paradisaical state of things. There +_was_, indeed, a point of view--one which commanded not the political +mysteries of the time only, but the household secrets of it, and the +deeper secrets of the solitary heart of man, one which commanded alike +the palace and the hovel, to their blackest recesses--there was a +point of view from which these social agencies appeared to be making +then, in fact, whether one looked with eyes or ears, a mere diabolical +jangle, and '_fa, sol, la, mi_', of it, a demoniacal storm music; and +from that height of observation all ruinous disorders could be seen +coming out, and driving men to vice and despair, urging them to +self-destruction even, and hunting them disquietly to their graves. +'Nothing almost sees miracles but misery;' and this was the Age in +which the New Magic was invented. + +It was the age in which that grand discovery was made, which the Fool +undertakes to palm off here as the fruit of his own single invention; +and, indeed, it was found that the application of it to certain +departments of human affairs was more successfully managed by this +gentleman in his motley, than by some of his brother philosophers who +attempted it. It was the age in which the questions which are inserted +here so safely in the Fool's catechism, began to be started secretly +in the philosophic chamber. It was the age in which the identical +answers which the cap and bells are made responsible for here, were +written down, but with other applications, in graver authorities. It +is the philosophical discovery of the time, which the Fool is +undertaking to translate into the vernacular, when he puts the +question, 'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of his +face?' And we have all the Novum Organum in what he calls, in another +place, 'the boorish,' when he answers it; and all the choicest gems of +'the part operative' of the new learning have been rattling from his +rattle in everybody's path, ever since he published his digests of +that doctrine: 'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of +his face?' 'No.' 'Why, to keep his eyes on either side of it, that +what he cannot _smell out_ he may _spy into_.' And 'all that follow +their noses are led by their eyes, but--_blind men_.' And 'the reason +why the seven stars are seven, is because they are not eight;' and the +king who makes that answer 'would have made a good--_fool_,' for it's +'a very pretty reason.' And neither times nor men should be 'old +before their time'; neither times nor men should be revered, or +clothed with authority or command in human affairs, 'till they are +_wise_.' ['Thou _sapient_ sir, sit _here_.'] And it is a mistake for a +leader of men to think that he 'has _white_ hairs in his beard, before +the _black_ ones are there.' And 'ants,' and 'snails,' and 'oysters,' +are wiser than men in their arts, and practices, and pursuits of ends. +It was the age in which it was perceived that 'to say ay and no to +everything' that a madman says, 'is _no good divinity_,' and that it +is 'the time's plague when Madmen lead the Blind;' and that, instead +of good men sitting still, like 'moral fools,' and crying out on wrong +and mischief, 'Alack, why does it so?' it would be wiser, and more +pious, too, to make use of the faculty of learning, with which the +Creator has armed Man, 'against diseases of the world,' to ascend to +the cause, and _punish_ that--punish _that_, 'ere it has done its +mischief.' It was the age in which it was discovered that 'the sequent +effect, with which nature finds itself scourged,' is not in the least +touched by any kind of reasoning 'thus and thus,' except that kind +which proceeds first by negatives, that kind which proceeds by a +method so severe that it contrives to _exclude_ everything but the +'the _cause in nature_' from its affirmation, which 'in practical +philosophy becomes _the rule_'--that is, the critical method,--which +is for men, as distinguished from the spontaneous affirmation, which +is for gods. + +It is the beginning of these yet beginning Modern Ages, the ages of a +practical learning, and scientific relief to the human estate, which +this Pastime marks with its blazoned, illuminated initial. It is the +opening of the era in which a common human sense is developed, and +directed to the common-weal, which this Pastime celebrates; the +opening of the ages in which, ere all is done, the politicians who +expect mankind to entrust to them their destinies, will have to find +something better than 'glass eyes' to guide them with; in which it +will be no longer competent for those to whom mankind entrusts its +dearest interests to go on in their old stupid, conceited, heady +courses, their old, blind, ignorant courses,--stumbling, and +staggering, and groping about, and smelling their way with their own +narrow and selfish instincts, when it is the common-weal they have +taken on their shoulders;--running foul of the nature of +things--quarrelling with eternal necessities, and crying out, when the +wreck is made, 'Alack! why does it so?' + +This Play, and all these plays, were meant to be pastime for ages in +which state reasons must needs be something else than 'the pleasure' +of certain individuals, 'whose disposition, all the world well knows, +will not be rubbed or stopped;' or 'the quality,' 'fiery' or +otherwise, of this or that person, no matter 'how unremoveable and +fixed' he may be 'in his own course.' + +It was to the 'far off times;' and not to the 'near,' it was to the +advanced ages of the Advancement of Learning, that this Play was +dedicated by its Author. For it was the spirit of the modern ages that +inspired it. It was the new Prometheus who planned it; the more +aspiring Titan, who would bring down in his New Organum a new and more +radiant gift; it was the Benefactor and Foreseer, who would advance +the rude kind to new and more enviable approximations to the celestial +summits. He knew there would come a time, in the inevitable +advancements of that new era of scientific 'prudence' and forethought +which it was given to him to initiate, when all this sober historic +exhibition, with its fearful historic earnest, would read, indeed, +like some old fable of the rude barbaric past--some Player's play, +bent on a feast of horrors--some Poet's impossibility. And _that_--was +the Play,--that was the Plot. He knew that there would come a time +when all this tragic mirth--sporting with the edged tools of +tyranny--playing around the edge of the great axe itself--would be +indeed safe play; when his Fool could open his budget, and unroll his +bitter jests--crushed together and infolded within themselves so +long--and have a world to smile with him, and not the few who could +unfold them only. And that--that was 'the humour of it.' + +Yes, with all their philosophy, these plays are Plays and Poems still. +There's no spoiling the 'tragical mirth' in them. But we are told, on +the most excellent contemporaneous authority--on the authority of one +who was in the inmost heart of all this Poet's secrets--that 'as we +often judge of the greater by the less, so the very pastimes of great +men give an honourable idea to the clear-sighted of THE SOURCE FROM +WHICH THEY SPRING.' + + + + +PART II. + +JULIUS CAESAR; + +OR, + +THE EMPIRICAL TREATMENT IN DISEASES OF THE COMMON-WEAL EXPLAINED. + +Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and +a worse, as it happened with Caesar's killers, who brought the +republic to such a pass that they had reason to repent their meddling +with it.... It must be examined in what condition THE ASSAILANT +is.--_Michael de Montaigne_. + + _Citizen_. I fear there will a worse one come in his place. + _Cassius_. He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE DEATH OF TYRANNY; OR, THE QUESTION OF THE PREROGATIVE. + + + _Casca_. 'Tis Caesar that you mean: Is it _not_, Cassius? + _Cassius_. Let it be WHO IT is, for Romans _now_ + Have thewes and limbs like to _their_ ancestors. + + We all stand up against the _spirit_ of Caesar. + _Julius Caesar_. + +Yes, when that Royal Injunction, which rested alike upon the +Play-house, the Press, the Pulpit, and _Parliament_ itself, was still +throttling everywhere the free voice of the nation--when a single +individual could still assume to himself, or to herself, the exclusive +privilege of deliberating on all those questions which men are most +concerned in--questions which involve all their welfare, for this life +and the life to come, certainly '_the Play, the Play was the thing_.' +It was a vehicle of expression which offered incalculable facilities +for evading these restrictions. It was the only one then invented +which offered then any facilities whatever for the discussion of that +question in particular--which was already for that age the question. +And to the genius of that age, with its new _historical, +experimental_, practical, determination--with its transcendant poetic +power, nothing could be easier than to get possession of this +instrument, and to exhaust its capabilities. + +For instance, if a Roman Play were to be brought out at all,--and with +that mania for classical subjects which then prevailed, what could be +more natural?--how could one object to that which, by the supposition, +was involved in it? And what but the most boundless freedoms and +audacities, on this very question, could one look for here? What, by +the supposition, could it be but one mine of poetic treason? If Brutus +and Cassius were to be allowed to come upon the stage, and discuss +their views of government, deliberately and confidentially, in the +presence of an English audience, certainly no one could ask to hear +from their lips the political doctrine then predominant in England. It +would have been a flat anachronism, to request them to keep an eye +upon the Tower in their remarks, inasmuch as all the world knew that +the corner-stone of that ancient and venerable institution had only +then just been laid by the same distinguished individual whom these +patriots were about to call to an account for his military usurpation +of a constitutional government at home. + +And yet, one less versed than the author in the mystery of theatrical +effects, and their combinations--one who did not know fully what kind +of criticism a mere _Play_, composed by a professional play-wright, in +the way of his profession, for the entertainment of the spectators, +and for the sake of the pecuniary result, was likely to meet with;--or +one who did not know what kind of criticism a work, addressed so +strongly to the imagination and the feelings in any form, is likely to +meet with, might have fancied beforehand that the author was venturing +upon a somewhat delicate experiment, in producing a play like this +upon the English stage at such a crisis. One would have said +beforehand, that 'there were things in this comedy of Julius Caesar +that would never please.' It is difficult, indeed, to understand how +such a Play as this could ever have been produced in the presence of +either of those two monarchs who occupied the English throne at that +crisis in its history, already secretly conscious that its foundations +were moving, and ferociously on guard over their prerogative. + +And, indeed, unless a little of that same sagacity, which was employed +so successfully in reducing the play of Pyramus and Thisbe to the +tragical capacities of Duke Theseus' court, had been put in +requisition here, instead of that dead historical silence, which the +world complains of so much, we might have been treated to some very +lively historical details in this case, corresponding to other details +which the literary history of the time exhibits, in the case of +authors who came out in an evil hour in their own names, with +precisely the same doctrines, which are taught here word for word, +with impunity; and the question as to whether this Literary Shadow, +this Name, this Veiled Prophet in the World of Letters, ever had any +flesh and blood belonging to him anywhere, (and from the tenor of his +works, one might almost fancy sometimes that that might have been the +case), this question would have come down to us experimentally and +historically settled. For most unmistakeably, the claws of the young +British lion are here, under these old Roman togas; and it became the +'masters' to consider with themselves, for there is, indeed, 'no more +fearful wild fowl living' than your lion in such circumstances; and if +he should happen to forget his part in any case, and 'roar too loud,' +it would to a dead certainty 'hang them all.' + +But it was only the faint-hearted tailor who proposed to 'leave out +the killing part.' Pyramus sets aside this cowardly proposition. He +has named the obstacles to be encountered only for the sake of +magnifying the fertility of his invention in overcoming them. He has a +device to make all even. 'Write me a prologue,' he says, 'and let the +prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our _swords_; and for +the more assurance, tell them that _I, Pyramus, am not_ Pyramus, but +_Bottom, the Weaver; that will put them out of fear_.' And as to the +lion, there must not only be 'another prologue, to tell that he is not +a lion,' but 'you must name his name, and half his face must be seen +through the lion's neck, and he himself must speak through, saying +thus, or to the same _defect_, Ladies, or fair ladies, my life for +yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life.' + +To such devices, in good earnest, were those compelled to resort who +ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic +entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in +case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so +fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate his +voice so effectually, giving you one moment the pitch of 'the sucking +dove,' or 'roaring you like any nightingale,' and the next, 'the +Hercle's vein,'--with a genius who knew how to play, not 'the tyrant's +part only,' but 'the lover's, which is more condoling,' and whose +suggestion that the audience should look to their eyes in that case, +was by no means a superfluous one; with a genius who had all passions +at his command, who could drown, at his pleasure, the sharp critic's +eye, or blind it with showers of pity, or 'make it water with the +merriest tears, that the passion of loud laughter ever shed,' with +such resources, prince's edicts could be laughed to scorn. It was vain +to forbid such an one, to meddle with anything that was, or had been, +or could be. + +But does any one say--'To what purpose,' if the end were concealed so +effectually? And does any one suppose, because no faintest suspicion +of the true purpose of this play, and of all these plays, has from +that hour to this, apparently ever crossed the English mind, at home +or abroad, though no suspicion of the existence of any purpose in them +beyond that of putting the author in easy circumstances, appears as +yet to have occurred to any one,--does any one suppose that this play, +and all these plays, have on that account, failed of their purpose; +and that they have not been all this time, steadily accomplishing it? +Who will undertake to estimate, for instance, the philosophical, +educational influence of this single Play, on every boy who has +spouted extracts from it, from the author's time to ours, from the +palaces of England, to the log school-house in the back-woods of +America? + +But suppose now, instead of being the aimless, spontaneous, miraculous +product of a stupid, 'rude mechanical' bent on producing something +which should please the eye, and flatter the prejudices of royalty, +and perfectly ignorant of the nature of that which he had +produced;--suppose that instead of appearing as the work of +Starveling, and Snout, and Nick Bottom, the Weaver, or any person of +that grade and calibre, that this play had appeared at the time, as +the work of an English scholar, as most assuredly it was, profoundly +versed in the history of states in general, as well as in the history +of the English state in particular, profoundly versed in the history +of nature in general, as well as in the history of human nature in +particular. Suppose, for instance, it had appeared as the work of an +English statesman, already suspected of liberal opinions, but +stedfastly bent for some reason or other, on advancement at court, +with his eye still intently fixed, however secretly, on those +insidious changes that were then in progress in the state, who knew +perfectly well what crisis that ship of state was steering for; +_query_, whether some of the passages here quoted would have tended to +that 'advancement' he '_lacked_.' Suppose that instead of Julius +Caesar, 'looking through the lion's neck,' and gracefully rejecting +the offered prostrations, it had been the English courtier, condemned +to these degrading personal submissions, who 'roared you out,' on his +own account, after this fashion. Imagine a good sturdy English +audience returning the sentiment, thundering their applause at this +and other passages here quoted, in the presence of a Tudor or a +Stuart. + +One might safely conclude, even if the date had not been otherwise +settled, that anything so offensive as this never was produced in the +presence of Queen Elizabeth. King James might be flattered into +swallowing even such treasonable stuff as this; but in her time, the +poor lion was compelled to aggravate his voice after another fashion. +Nothing much above the sucking-dove pitch, could be ventured on when +her quick ears were present. He 'roared you' indeed, all through her +part of the Elizabethan time; but it was like any nightingale. The +clash and clang of these Roman Plays were for the less sensitive and +more learned Stuart. + + _Metellus Cimber_. Most high, most mighty, + And most puissant Caesar; + Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat + An humble heart:--[_Kneeling_.] + + _Caesar_. I must prevent thee, Cimber. + _These couchings and these lowly courtesies: + Might_ fire the blood of ordinary men; + AND TURN PRE-ORDINANCE, and FIRST DECREE, + INTO THE LAW OF CHILDREN. + Be not fond + To think that CAESAR bears _such_ REBEL _blood_, + That will be thawed from the _true quality_, + With that which melteth FOOLS. (?) I mean, _sweet words, + Low, crooked curtsies_, and _base spaniel fawning. + Thy brother_ by _decree_ is banished; + If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for _him, + I spurn thee like a cur_, out of my way. + Know CAESAR DOTH NOT WRONG. + +To appreciate this, one must recall not merely the humiliating +personal prostrations which the ceremonial of the English Court +required then, but that base prostration of truth and duty and honour, +under the feet of vanity and will and passion, which they symbolized. + +Thus far _Caesar_, but the subject's views on this point, as here set +forth, are scarcely less explicit, but then it is a _Roman_ subject +who speaks, and the Roman costume and features, look savingly through +the lion's neck. + +One of the radical technicalities of that new philosophy of the human +nature which permeates all this historical exhibition, comes in here, +however; and it is one which must be mastered before any of these +plays can be really read. The radical point in the new philosophy, as +it applies to the human nature in particular, is the pivot on which +all turns here,--here as elsewhere in the writings of this +school,--the distinction of 'the double self,' the distinction between +the particular and private nature, with its unenlightened instincts of +passion, humour, will, caprice,--that self which is changeful, at war +with itself, self-inconsistent, and, therefore, truly, no SELF,--since +the true self is the principle of identity and immutability,--the +distinction between that 'private' _nature_ when it is developed +instinctively as 'selfishness,' and that rational immutable self which +is constitutionally present though latent, in all men, and one in them +all; that noble _special_ human form which embraces and reconciles in +its intention, the private good with the good of that worthier whole +whereof we are individually parts and members; 'this is the +distinction on which all turns here.' For this philosophy refuses, on +philosophical grounds, to accept this low, instinctive private nature, +in any dressing up of accidental power as the god of its idolatry, in +place of that 'divine or angelical nature, which is the perfection of +the human form,' and the true sovereignty. Obedience to that +nature,--'the approach to, or assumption of,' that makes, in this +philosophy, the end of the human endeavour, 'and the error and false +imitation of that good, is that which is the tempest of the human +life.' + +But let us hear the passionate Cassius, who is full of individualities +himself, and ready to tyrannize with them, but somehow, as it would +seem, not fond of submitting to the 'single self' in others. + + 'Well, honour _is_ the subject of my story.-- + I can not tell what you, and other men, + Think of this life; but for my _single self_, + I had as lief not BE, as live to be + In awe of such a thing _as I myself_. + I was _born_ free as Caesar; so were you. + We both have fed as well: and we can both + Endure the winter's cold as well as he.'-- + +And the proof of this personal equality is then given; and it is +precisely the one which Lear produces, 'When the wind made me chatter, +there I found them,--there I smelt them out.'-- + + 'For once upon a raw and gusty day, + The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, etc. + * * * * * + --Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink. + --And this man + Is now become a god, and Cassius is + A wretched creature, and _must bend his body_, + If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. + He had a fever when he was in Spain, + And when the fit was on him--_I did mark + How he did shake_: 'tis true, this god did shake.' + +[This was a pretty fellow to have about a king's privacy taking notes +of this sort on his tablets. Among 'those saw and forms and pressures +past, which youth and observatior copied there,' all that part +reserved for _Caesar_ and his history, appears to have escaped the +sponge in some way. + + 'They told me I was every thing, 'tis a lie! I am not _ague_ + proof.'--_Lear_. + + His coward lips did from their colour fly. + 'And that same _eye whose bend doth awe the world, + Did lose his lustre!--Julius Caesar_. + + '--When I do stare see how _the subject_ quakes.--'_Lear_.] + + I did hear him groan: + Aye, and that tongue of his _that bade the Romans + Mark him, and write his speeches in their books_. + Alas! it cried, '_Give me some drink_, Titinius,' + As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, + A man of _such a feeble temper should + So get the start of the majestic world_, + And bear the palm alone. + + _Brutus_. Another _general shout_! + I do believe that these applauses are + For some new honours that are heap'd on Caesar. + + _Cassius_. Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world, + Like a Colossus: and we petty men + Walk under his huge legs; and peep about + To find ourselves DISHONOURABLE GRAVES. + Men, at _some time_, are _masters of their fates, + The fault, dear Brutus_, IS NOT _in our_ STARS, + But in ourselves that we are underlings. + _Brutus_ and _Caesar_: What should be in that _Caesar_? + * * * * * + Now in the names of all the gods at once, + _Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed + That he is grown so great_? AGE, thou art shamed: + _Rome, thou_ hast lost the breed of noble bloods! + When went there by an age, since the great flood, + But it was famed with more than with _One man_? + When could they say, till now, that talked of Rome, + That her wide walls encompass'd but _One man_? + Now is it Home indeed, and room enough, + When there is in it but one only man. + [When there is in it (truly) but _One only_,--MAN]. + O! you and I have heard our fathers say, + There _was a Brutus once_, that would have brook'd + The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome, + As easily as _a king_. + + _Brutus_. What you have said, + I will consider;--what you have to say + I will with patience hear: and _find a time_ + Both _meet to hear, and answer such high things_. + Till then, my noble friend, CHEW UPON THIS;-- + Brutus had rather be a _villager_, + Than to _repute_ himself a SON of ROME. + Under these hard conditions, as _this_ time + Is like to lay upon us. [Chew upon this]. + + _Cassius_. I am glad that my weak words + Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus. + [Re-enter Caesar and his train.] + + _Brutus_. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. + + _Cassius_. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; + And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you + What hath proceeded worthy note to-day. + + _Brutus_. I will do so:--But look you, Cassius, + _The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow. + And all the rest look like a chidden train_: + Calphurnia's cheek is pale; and _Cicero_ + Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, + As we have seen him in the Capitol, + Being crossed in conference by some senators. + + _Cassius_. Casca will tell us what the matter is. + + _Caesar_. Antonius. + + _Antony_. Caesar. + + _Caesar_. Let me have men about me that are fat; + Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: + Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look. + _He thinks too much: such men are dangerous_. + + _Antony_. Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous: + He is a noble Roman, and well given. + + _Caesar_. Would he were fatter:--But I fear him not; + Yet if my name were liable to fear, + I do not know the man I should avoid + So soon as that spare Cassius. _He reads much: + He is a great observer, and he looks + Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays, + As thou dost Antony_; he hears no music: + Seldom he smiles; and smiles _in such a sort, + As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit + That could be moved to smile at any thing_. + Such men as he are never at heart's ease, + Whiles they behold a _greater than themselves_; + And therefore are they very dangerous, + I rather tell thee _what is to be feared_, + Than what _I_ fear, FOR ALWAYS I AM CAESAR. + _Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf_, + And tell me _truly_ what thou think'st of him. + + [_Exeunt Caesar and his train. Casca stays behind_.] + + _Casca_. You pulled me by the _cloak_: would you speak with me? + + _Brutus_. Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanced to-day, + That Caesar looks so sad. + + _Casca_. Why you were with him. Were you not? + + _Brutus_. I should not then ask Casca what hath chanced. + + _Casca_. Why there was a crown offered him: and, being offered, he + put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell + a shouting. + + _Brutus_. What was the second noise for? + + _Casca_. Why for that too. + + _Brutus_. They shouted thrice. What was the last cry for? + + _Casca_. Why for that too. + + _Brutus_. Was the crown offered him thrice? + + _Casca_. Ay marry was't. And he put it by thrice, every time gentler + than the other; and at every putting by, mine honest neighbours + shouted. + + _Cassius_. _Who offered him the crown_? + + _Casca_. Why, Antony. + + _Brutus_. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. + + _Casca_. I can as well be _hanged_ as tell the manner of it. It was + mere foolery. I did not mark it. I saw _Mark Antony_ offer him a + crown; yet 't was not a crown;--neither 't was one of these + coronets;--and, as I told you, he put it by once; but, for all + that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it + to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was + very both to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the + third time; he put it the third time by; and still, as he refused + it, the rabblement hooted, and clapped their chapped hands, and + threw up their sweaty night caps, and uttered such a deal of + stinking breath, because Caesar refused the crown, that it had + almost choked Caesar; for he swooned and fell down at it: and, for + mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and + receiving the bad air. + + _Cassius_. But soft, I pray you: WHAT? DID CAESAR SWOON? + + _Casca_. _He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, + and was speechless_. + + _Brutus_. 'Tis very like; he hath the falling sickness. + + _Cassius_. No, Caesar hath it not; but you, and I, + And honest Casca, _we have the falling sickness_. + + _Casca_. _I know not what you mean by that_: but I am sure, Caesar + fell down. If the _tag-rag people_ did not clap him and hiss him, + _according as he pleased and displeased them_, as they use to do + the Players in the theatre, I am no true man. + + _Brutus_. What said he, when he came unto himself. + + _Casca_. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the _common + herd_ was glad when he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his + doublet, and offered them his throat to cut.--An I had been a man + of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word; I would + I might go to hell among the rogues: and so he fell. When he came + to himself again, he said, if he had done or said anything amiss, + he desired their worships to think it was _his infirmity_. Three or + four wenches, where I stood, cried, 'Alas, good soul!'--and forgave + him with all their hearts: But there's no heed to be taken of + them; _if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no + less_. + + _Brutus_. And after that, he came thus sad away? + + _Casca_. Ay. + + _Cassius_. Did _Cicero say anything_? + + _Casca_. Ay, _he spoke Greek_. + + _Cassius_. To what effect? + + _Casca_. _Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face + again. But those that understood him, smiled at one another, and + shook their heads_: but for mine own part, it was _Greek to me_. I + could tell you more news, too: Marullus and Flavius, for _pulling + scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence_. Fare you well. + There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it. + +Brutus says of Casca, when he is gone, 'He was quick mettle _when he +went to school_'; and Cassius replies, '_So he is now_--however he +puts on this _tardy form_. This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, +which gives men stomach _to digest_ his words with better appetite.' +'_And so it_ is,' Brutus returns;--and so it is, indeed, as any one +may perceive, who will take the pains to bestow upon these passages +the attention which the author's own criticism bespeaks for them. + +To the ear of such an one, the roar of the blank verse of Cassius is +still here, subdued, indeed, but continued, through all the humour of +this comic prose. + +But it is Brutus who must lend to the Poet the sanction of his name +and popularity, when he would strike home at last to the heart of his +subject. Brutus, however, is not yet fully won: and, in order to +secure him, Cassius will this night throw in at his window, '_in +several hands--as if they came from several citizens_--writings, in +which, OBSCURELY, CAESAR'S AMBITION SHALL BE GLANCED AT.' And, 'After +this,' he says,-- + + 'Let Caesar seat him sure, + For we will shake him, or worse days endure.' + +But in the interval, that night of wild tragic splendour must come, +with its thunder-bolts and showers of fire, and unnatural horror. For +these elements have a true part to perform here, as in Lear and other +plays; they come in, not merely as subsidiary to the 'artistic +effect'--not merely because their wild Titanic play forms an imposing +harmonious accompaniment to the play of the human passions and their +'wildness'--but as a grand scientific exhibition of the element which +the Poet is pursuing under all its Protean forms--as a most palpable +and effective exhibition to the sense of that identical thing against +which he has raised his eternal standard of revolt, refusing to own, +under any name, its mastery. + +But one can hear, in that wild lurid night, in the streets of Rome, +amid the cross blue lightnings, what could not have been whispered in +the streets of England then, or spoken in the ear in closets. + + _Cicero_. [Encountering Casca in the street, with his sword drawn.] + Good-even, Casca; brought you Caesar home? + Why are you breathless? and why stare you so? + + _Casca_. Are _you_ not moved, _when all the sway of earth + Shakes like a thing unfirm_? O Cicero, + I have seen tempests, when the _scolding winds_ + Have rived the _knotty oaks_; and I have seen + The _ambitious ocean swell, and rage and foam_, + To be exalted with the threatening clouds; + But never till to-night, never till now, + Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. + Either there is a _civil strife in heaven_; + Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, + Incenses them to send destruction. + +But the night has had other spectacles, it seems, which, to his eye, +appeared to have some relation to the coming struggle; in answer to +Cicero's '_Why_, saw you anything more wonderful?' Thus he describes +them. + + '_A common slave,--you know him, well by sight_, + Held up his _left hand_, which did flame and burn + _Like twenty torches join'd. + Against the Capitol_ I met a lion, + Who glared upon me, and went _surly by_.' + + [And he had seen, 'drawn on a head,'] + + 'A hundred ghastly _women, + Transformed with their fears_; who swore they saw + Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets. + And, yesterday, the _bird_ of _night_ did sit, + Even _at noon-day, upon the market-place_, + Hooting, and shrieking.' + +An ominous circumstance,--that last. A portent sure as fate. When such +things begin to appear, 'men need not go to heaven to predict imminent +changes.' + +Cicero concedes that 'it is indeed a strange disposed time?' and +inserts the statement that 'men may construe things after _their_ +fashion, clean from the purpose of the things themselves.' But this is +too disturbed a sky for _him_ to walk in, so exit Cicero, and enter +one of another kind of mettle, who thinks 'the night a very pleasant +one to honest men;' who boasts that he has been walking about the +streets 'unbraced, baring his bosom to the thunder stone,' and playing +with 'the cross blue lightning;' and when Casca reproves him for this +temerity, he replies, + + 'You are dull, Casca, and those _sparks of life_ + That should be in a Roman, you do want, + Or else you use not.' + +For as to these extraordinary phenomena in nature, he says, 'If you +would consider the true cause + + Why all these things change, from their _ordinance_, + Their _natures_ and _fore-formed faculties_, + To _monstrous_ quality; why, you shall find, + That heaven hath _infused_ them with these spirits, + To make them instruments of fear, and warning, + Unto _some_ MONSTROUS STATE. + Now could _I_, Casca, + Name to _thee_ a man _most like this dreadful night_; + That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars + As doth the lion in the Capitol: + _A man no mightier than thyself_, or _me_, + _In personal action_; yet _prodigious grown_, + And _fearful_, as these _strange eruptions are_. + + _Casca_. 'Tis _Caesar_ that you mean: Is it not, Cassius? + + _Cassius_. LET IT BE WHO IT is: for Romans _now_ + Have _thewes_ and _limbs_ like to their ancestors; + But, woe the while! our fathers' _minds_ are dead, + And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits; + Our yoke and sufferance shows us womanish. + + _Casca_. Indeed, they say, the senators to-morrow + Mean to establish Caesar as a king. + And he shall wear his crown by sea, and land, + In every place, save here in Italy. + + _Cassius_. I know where I will wear this dagger then; + Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius: + Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong; + Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat: + Nor STONY TOWER, nor walls of beaten brass, + Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, + Can be _retentive to the strength of spirit_. + If I know this, know all the world besides, + That part of tyranny, that _I_ do bear, + _I_ can shake off at pleasure. + + _Casca_. So can _I_; + So every bondman _in his own hand bears_ + The power to cancel his captivity. + + _Cassius_. _And_ why _should Caesar be a tyrant_ then? + Poor man! I know, _he would not be a wolf, + But that he sees the Romans are but sheep + He were no lion, were not Romans hinds_. + Those that with haste will make a mighty fire, + Begin it with weak straws: _What trash is Rome, + What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves + for the base matter to illuminate + So vile a thing as Caesar_? But, O grief! + _Where_ hast thou led me? _I_ perhaps, _speak this_ + BEFORE A WILLING BONDMAN: But I am arm'd + And dangers are to me indifferent. + + _Casca_. You speak to Casca; and to such a man, + That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold my hand: + _Be factious for redress of all these griefs_: + And _I will set this foot of mine as far, + As who goes farthest_. + + _Cassius_. There's a bargain made. + +This is sufficiently explicit, an unprejudiced listener would be +inclined to say--indeed, it is difficult to conceive how any more +positively instructive exhibition of the subject, could well have been +made. Certainly no one can deny that this fact of the personal +helplessness, the physical weakness of those in whom this arbitrary +power over the liberties and lives of others is vested, seems for some +reason or other to have taken strong possession of the Poet's +imagination. For how else, otherwise should he reproduce it so often, +so elaborately under such a variety of forms?--with such a +stedfastness and pertinacity of purpose? + +The fact that the power which makes these personalities so +'prodigious,' so 'monstrous,' overshadowing the world, '_shaming the +Age_' with their 'colossal' individualities, no matter what new light, +what new gifts of healing for its ills, that age has been endowed +with, levelling all to their will, contracting all to the limit of +their stinted nature, making of all its glories but 'rubbish, offal to +illuminate their vileness,'--the fact that the power which enables +creatures like these, to convulse nations with their whims, and deluge +them with blood, at their pleasure,--which puts the lives and +liberties of the noblest, always most obnoxious to them, under their +heel--the fact that this power resides after all, _not in these +persons themselves_,--that they are utterly helpless, pitiful, +contemptible, in themselves; but that it exists in the 'thewes and +limbs' of those who are content to be absorbed in their personality, +who are content to make muscles for them, in those who are content to +he mere machines for the 'only one man's' will and passion to operate +with,--the fact that this so fearful power lies all in the consent of +those who suffer from it, is the fact which this Poet wishes to be +permitted to communicate, and which he will communicate in one form or +another, to those whom it concerns to know it. + +It is a fact, which he is not content merely to state, however, in so +many words, and so have done with it. He will impress it on the +imagination with all kinds of vivid representation. He will exhaust +the splendours of his Art in uttering it. He will leave a statement on +this subject, profoundly philosophical, but one that all the world +will be able to comprehend eventually, one that the world will never +be able to unlearn. + +The single individual helplessness of the man whom the multitude, in +this case, were ready to arm with unlimited power over their own +welfare--that physical weakness, already so strenuously insisted on by +Cassius, at last attains its climax in the representation, when, in +the midst of his haughtiest display of will and personal authority, +stricken by the hands of the men he scorned, by the hand of one 'he +had just spurned like a cur out of his path,' he falls at the foot of +Pompey's statue--or, rather, 'when at the base of Pompey's statue he +lies along'--amid all the noise, and tumult, and rushing action of the +scene that follows--through all its protracted arrangements, its +speeches, and ceremonials--not unmarked, indeed,--the centre of all +eyes,--but, mute, motionless, a thing of pity, 'A PIECE OF BLEEDING +EARTH.' + +That helpless cry in the Tiber, 'Save me, Cassius, or I sink!'--that +feeble cry from the sick man's bed in Spain, 'Give me some drink, +Titinius!'--and all that pitiful display of weakness, moral and +physical, at the would-be coronation, which Casca's report conveys so +unsparingly--the falling down in the street speechless, which Cassius +emphasises with his scornful '_What? did_ CAESAR SWOON?'--all this +makes but a part of the exhibition, which the lamentations of Mark +Antony complete:-- + + 'O mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low? + Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, + Shrunk to _this little measure_?' + +_This_? and 'the eye' of the spectator, more learned than 'his ear,' +follows the speaker's eye, and measures it. + + '_Fare thee well_. + But yesterday the word of Caesar might + Have stood against the world: now lies he _there_. + And _none so poor, to do him reverence_.' + +The Poet's tone breaks through Mark Antony's; the Poet's finger +points, '_now lies he there'--there_! + +That form which 'lies there,' with its mute eloquence speaking this +Poet's word, is what he calls 'a Transient Hieroglyphic,' which makes, +he says, 'a deeper impression on minds of a certain order, than the +language of arbitrary signs;' and his 'delivery' on the most important +questions will be found, upon examination, to derive its principal +emphasis from a running text in this hand. '_For_, in such business,' +he says, '_action_ is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant more +_learned_ than the ears.' + +Or, as he puts it in another place: 'What is sensible always strikes +the memory more strongly, and sooner _impresses_ itself, than what is +intellectual. Thus the memory of _brutes_ is excited by sensible, but +not by intellectual things. And therefore it is easier to retain the +image of a _sportsman hunting_, than of the corresponding notion of +_invention_--of an apothecary ranging his boxes, than of the +corresponding notion of _disposition_--of an orator making a speech, +than of the term Eloquence--or _a boy repeating verses_, than the term +_Memory_--_or_ of A PLAYER acting his part, than the corresponding +notion of--ACTION.' + +So, also, '_Tom o' Bedlam_' was a better word for 'houseless misery,' +than all the king's prayer, good as it was, about 'houseless heads, +and unfed sides,' in general, and 'looped, and windowed raggedness.' + +'We construct,' says this author, in another place--rejecting the +ordinary history as not suitable for scientific purposes, because it +is 'varied, and diffusive, and confounds and disturbs the +understanding, unless it be fixed and exhibited in due order'--we +construct 'tables and _combinations_ of _instances_, upon such a plan +and in such order, that the understanding be enabled to act upon +them.' + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CAESAR'S SPIRIT. + + +_I'll_ meet thee at Phillippi. + +In Julius Caesar, the most splendid and magnanimous representative of +arbitrary power is selected--'the foremost man of all the +world,'--even by the concession of those who condemn him to death; so +that here it is the mere abstract question as to the expediency and +propriety of permitting _any one man_ to impose his individual will on +the nation. Whatever personalities are involved in the question +_here_--with Brutus, at least--tend to bias the decision in his +favour. For so he tells us, as with agitated step he walks his orchard +on that wild night which succeeds his conference with Cassius, +revolving his part, and reading, by the light of the exhalations +whizzing in the air, the papers that have been found thrown in at his +study window. + + 'It must be by his death: and, _for my part_, + I know _no personal cause_ to spurn at him, + BUT FOR THE GENERAL. He would be crown'd:-- + How _that might change his nature, there's the question. + It is the bright day that brings forth the adder_; + And that _craves wary walking_. Crown him? That;-- + And then, _I grant_, we put a sting in him, + That _at his will_ he may do danger with. + The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins + _Remorse from power_: And, to speak truth of _Caesar_, + I have not known when _his affections_ sway'd + More than his _reason_. But 't is a common proof, + That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, + Whereto the climber upward turns his face: + But when he once attains _the utmost round_, + He then unto the ladder turns his back, + Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees + By which he did ascend: So Caesar may; + Then, lest he may, PREVENT. And, since the quarrel, + Will bear no colour for the thing he is, + Fashion it thus; that _what he is, augmented_, + Would run to _these, and these extremities_: + And _therefore_ think him as a serpent's egg, + Which, _hatch'd_, would, AS HIS KIND, grow mischievous; + AND KILL HIM IN THE SHELL.' + +Pretty sentiments these, to set before a king already engaged in so +critical a contest with his subjects; pleasant entertainment, one +would say, for the representative of a monarchy that had contrived to +wake the sleeping Brutus in its dominions,--that was preparing, even +then, for its own death-struggle on this very question, which _this_ +Brutus searches to its core so untenderly. + +'Have you heard the argument?' says the 'bloat king' in Hamlet. 'Is +there no offence in it?' + +Now, let the reader suppose, for one instant, that this work had been +produced from the outset openly, for what any reader of common sense +will perceive it to be, with all its fire, an elaborate, scholarly +composition, the product of the profoundest philosophic invention, the +fruit of the ripest scholarship of the age;--let him suppose, for +argument's sake, that it had been produced for what it is, the work of +a scholar, and a statesman, and a courtier,--a statesman already +jealously watched, or already, perhaps, in deadly collision with this +very power he is defining here so largely, and tracking to its +ultimate scientific comprehensions;--and then let the reader imagine, +if he can, Elizabeth or James, but especially Elizabeth, listening +entranced to such passages as the one last quoted, with an audience +disposed to make points of some of the 'choice Italian' lines in it. + +Does not all the world know that scholars, men of reverence, men of +world-wide renown, men of every accomplishment, were tortured, and +mutilated, and hung, and beheaded, in both these two reigns, for +writings wherein Caesar's ambition was infinitely more obscurely +hinted at--writings unspeakably less offensive to majesty than this? + +But, then, a Play was a Play, and old Romans would be Romans; there +was, notoriously, no royal way of managing them; and if kings would +have tragical mirth out of them, they must take their treason in good +part, and make themselves as merry with it as they could. The poor +Poet was, of course, no more responsible for these men than Chaucer +was for his pilgrims. He but reported them. + +And besides, in that broad, many-sided view of the subject which the +author's evolution of it from the root involves,--in that pursuit of +tyranny in essence through all its disguises,--other exhibitions of it +were involved, which might seem, to the careless eye, purposely +designed to counteract the effect of the views above quoted. + +The fact that mere arbitrary will, that the individual humour and +bias, is incapable of furnishing a _rule_ of _action_ anywhere,--the +fact that mere will, or blind passion, whether in the _One_, or the +_Few_, or the _Many_, should have no part, above all, in the business +of the STATE,--should lend no colour or bias to its +administration,--the fact that 'the general good,' 'the common weal,' +which is justice, and reason, and humanity,--the 'ONE ONLY +MAN,'--should, in some way, under some form or other, get to the head +of that and _rule_, this is all which the Poet will contend for. + +But, alas, HOW? The unspeakable difficulties in the way of the +solution of this problem,--the difficulties which the radical bias in +the individual human nature, even under its noblest forms, +creates,--the difficulties which the ignorance, and stupidity, and +passion of the multitude created then, and still create, appear here +without _any mitigation_. They are studiously brought out in their +boldest colours. There's no attempt to shade them down. They make, +indeed, the TRAGEDY. + +And it is this general impartial treatment of his subjects which makes +this author's writings, with all their boldness, generally, so safe; +for it seems to leave him without any bias for any person or any +party--without any _opinion_ on any topic; for his truth embraces and +resolves all partial views, and is as broad as nature's own. + +And how could he better neutralise the effect of these patriotic +speeches, and prove his loyalty in the face of them, than to show as +he does, most vigorously and effectively, that these patriots +themselves, so rebellious to tyranny, so opposed to the one-man power +in others, so determined to die, rather than submit to the imposition +of the humours of any man, instead of law and justice,--were +themselves but men, and were as full of will and humours, and as ready +to tyrannise with them, too, upon occasion, as Caesar himself; and +were no more fit to be trusted with absolute power than he was, nor, +in fact, half so fit. + +Caesar does, indeed, send word to the senate--'_The cause is in_ MY +WILL, _I will not come_; (_That_ is enough,' he says, '_to satisfy the +senate_.') And while the conspirators are exchanging glances, and the +daggers are stealing from their sheaths, he offers the strength of his +decree, the immutability 'of his absolute shall,' to the suppliant for +his brother's pardon. + +But then Portia gives us to understand, that she, too, has her private +troubles;--that even that excellent man, Brutus, is not without his +moods in his domestic administrations,--for on one occasion, when he +treats her to 'ungentle looks,' and 'stamps his foot,' and angrily +gesticulates her out of his presence, she makes good her retreat, +thinking 'it was but the effect of humour, which,' she says, 'sometime +hath his hour with every man'; and, good and patriotic as Brutus truly +is, Cassius perceives, upon experiment, that after all _he_ too is but +a man, and, with a particular and private nature, as well as a larger +one 'which is the worthier,' and not unassailable through that 'single +I myself': he, too, may be 'thawed from the true quality with that +which melteth fools,'--with words that flatter 'his particular.' In +his conference with him, Cassius addresses himself skilfully to this +weakness;--he poises the name of Caesar with that of Brutus, and, at +the last, he clinches his patriotic appeal, with an appeal to his +personal sentiment, of baffled, mortified emulation; for those +writings, thrown in at his window, purporting to come from several +citizens, 'all tended to the great opinion that Rome held of _his_ +name;' and, alas! the Poet will not tell us that this did not +unconsciously wake, in that pure mind, the feather's-weight that was +perhaps needed to turn the scale. + +And the very children know, by heart, what a time there was between +these two men afterwards, these men that had 'struck the foremost man +of all the world,' and had congratulated themselves that it was not +murder, and that they were not villains, because it was for justice. +Precious disclosures we have in this scene. It is this very Cassius, +this patriot, who had as lief _not_ BE as submit to injustice; who +brings his avaricious humour, 'his itching palm,' into the state, and +'sells and marts his offices for gold, to undeservers.' Brutus does +indeed come down upon him with a most unlimited burst of patriotic +indignation, which looks, at first, like a mere frenzy of honest +disgust at wrong in the abstract, in spite of the partiality of +friendship; but, when Cassius charges him, afterwards, with +exaggerating his friend's infirmities, he says, frankly, 'I did not, +_till you practised them on_ ME.' And we find, as the dialogue +proceeds, that it is indeed a personal matter with him: Cassius has +refused him gold to pay his legions with. + +And see, now, what kind of taunt it is, that Brutus throws in this +same patriot's face after it had been proclaimed, by his order, +through the streets of Rome, that Tyranny 'is dead': after Cassius had +shouted through his own lungs. + +'Some to the common pulpits, and cry out LIBERTY, FREEDOM, +ENFRANCHISEMENT.' (_Enfranchisement_?) + +It would have been strange, indeed, if in so general and philosophical +a view of the question, that sacred, domestic institution, which, +through all this sublime frenzy for equal rights, maintained itself so +peacefully under the patriot's roof, had escaped without a touch. + +Brutus says:-- + + 'Hear me, for I will speak. + Must I give way and room to your rash choler? + Shall I be frighted _when a madman stares_?' + + 'Look when I stare, see how the subject quakes.' + +This sounds, already, as if Tyranny were not quite dead. + + '_Cassius_. O ye gods, ye gods, must I endure all this! + + _Brutus_. All this? ay more: Fret till your proud heart break; + _Go, show_ YOUR SLAVES _how choleric you are_, + And bid YOUR BONDMEN tremble. Must _I_ budge? + Must _I_ observe _you_? Must _I stand_ and _crouch + Under your testy humour_? By the gods, + You shall digest the venom of your spleen + Though it do split you.' + +So it was a mistake, then, it seems; and, notwithstanding that shout +of triumph, and that bloody flourishing of knives, Tyranny _was not_ +dead. + +But one cannot help thinking that that shout must have sounded rather +strangely in an English theatre just then, and that it was a somewhat +delicate experiment to give Brutus his pulpit on the stage, to +harangue the people from. But the author knew what he was doing. That +cold, stilted harangue, that logical chopping on the side of freedom, +was not going to set fire to any one's blood; and was not there Mark +Antony that plain, blunt man, coming directly after Brutus,--'with his +eyes as red as fire with weeping,' with 'the mantle,' of the military +hero, the popular favourite, _in his hand_, with his glowing oratory, +with his sweet words, and his skilful appeal to the passions of the +people, under his plain, blunt professions,--to wipe out every trace +of Brutus's _reasons_, and lead them whither he would; and would not +the moral of it all be, that with such A PEOPLE,--with such a power as +that, behind the state, there was no use in killing Caesars--that +Tyranny could not die. + + 'I fear there will a worse one come in his place.' + +But this is Rome in her decline, that the artist touches here so +boldly. But what now, if old Rome herself,--plebeian Rome, in the +deadliest onset of her struggle against tyranny, Rome lashed into fury +and conscious strength, rising from under the hard heel of her +oppressors; what if Rome, in the act of creating her Tribunes; or, if +Rome, with her Tribunes at her head, wresting from her oppressors a +constitutional establishment of popular rights,--what if this could be +exhibited, by permission; what bounds as to the freedom of the +discussion would it be possible to establish afterwards? There had +been no National Latin Tragedy, Frederic Schlegel suggests,--because +no Latin Dramatist could venture to do this very thing; but of course +Caesar or Coriolanus on the Tiber was one thing, and Caesar or +Coriolanus on the Thames was another; and an English author might be +allowed, then, to say of the one, with impunity, what it would +certainly have cost him his good right hand, or his ears, or his head, +to say of the other,--what it did cost the Founder of this school in +philosophy his head, to be suspected of saying of the other. + +Nevertheless, the great question between an arbitrary and a +constitutional government, the principle of a government which vests +the whole power of the state in the uncontrolled will of a single +individual member of it; the whole history and philosophy of a +military government, from its origin in the heroic ages,--from the +crowning of the military hero on the battle field in the moment of +victory, to the final consummation of its conquest of the liberty of +the subject, could be as clearly set forth under the one form as the +other; not without some startling specialities in the filling up, too, +with a tone in the details now and then, to say the least, not +exclusively antique, for this was a mode of treating classical +subjects in that age, too common to attract attention. + +And thus, whole plays could be written out and out, on this very +subject. Take, for instance, but these two, Coriolanus and Julius +Caesar,--plays in which, by a skilful distribution of the argument and +the action, with a skilful interchange of parts now and then,--the +boldest passages being put alternately into the mouths of the Tribunes +and Patricians,--that great question, which was so soon to become the +outspoken question of the nation and the age, could already be +discussed in all its vexed and complicated relations, in all its +aspects and bearings, as deliberately as it could be to-day; exactly +as it was, in fact, discussed not long afterwards in swarms of English +pamphlets, in harangues from English pulpits, in English parliaments +and on English battle-fields,--exactly as it was discussed when that +'lofty Roman scene' came 'to be acted over' here, with the +cold-blooded prosaic formalities of an English judicature. + + + +CORIOLANUS + +THE QUESTION OF THE CONSULSHIP; + +OR, + +THE SCIENTIFIC CURE OF THE COMMON-WEAL PROPOUNDED. + + 'Well, march we on + To give obedience where 'tis truly owed: + Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal, + And _with him_, pour we in our country's purge + _Each drop of us_. + Or so much as it needs + To dew the sovereign Flower, _and drown the weeds_'--_Macbeth_. + + 'Have you heard the argument?' + +CHAPTER I. + +THE ELIZABETHAN HEROISM. + + + 'Mildly is the word.' + 'In a better hour, + Let what _is meet_ be said it must be _meet_, + And throw their power in the dust.' + +It is the Military Chieftain of ancient Rome who pronounces here the +words in which the argument of the Elizabethan revolutionist is so +tersely comprehended. + +It is the representative of an heroic aristocracy, not one of ancient +privilege merely, not one armed with parchments only, claiming descent +from heroes; but the yet living leaders of the rabble people to +military conquest, and the only leaders who are understood to be able +to marshal from their ranks an effective force for military defence. + +But this is not all. The scope of the poetic design requires here, +under the sheath which this dramatic exhibition of an ancient +aristocracy offers it, the impersonation of another and more sovereign +difference in men; and this poet has ends to serve, to which a mere +historical accuracy in the reproduction of this ancient struggle of +state-factions, in an extinct European common-wealth, is of little +consequence; though he is not wanting in that either, or indifferent +to it, when occasion serves. + +From the _speeches_ inserted here and there, we find that this is at +the same time an aristocracy of learning which is put upon the stage +here, that it is an aristocracy of statesmanship and civil ability, +that it is composed of the select men of the state, and not its elect +only; that it is the true and natural head of the healthful body +politic, and not 'the horn of the monster' only. This is the +aristocracy which appears to be in session in the background of this +piece at least, and we are not without some occasional glimpses of +their proceedings, and this is the element of the poetic combination +which comes out in the _dialogue_, whenever the necessary question of +the play requires it. + +For it is the collision between the civil interests and the interests +which the unlearned heroic ages enthrone, that is coming off here. It +is the collision between the government which uneducated masses of men +create and confirm, and recreate in any age, and the government which +the enlightened man 'in a better hour' demands, which the common sense +and sentiment of man, as distinguished from the brute, demands, +whether in the one, or the few, or the many.--This is the struggle +which is getting into form and order here,--here _first_. These are +the parties to it, and in the reign of the last of the Tudors and the +first of the Stuarts, they must be content to fight it out on any +stage which their time can afford to lease to them for that +performance, without being over scrupulous as to the names of the +actors, or the historical correctness of the costumes, and other +particulars; not minding a little shuffling in the parts, now and +then, if it suits their poet's convenience, who has no conscience at +all on such points, and who is of the opinion that this is the very +stage which an action of such gravity ought to be exhibited on, in the +first place; and that a very careful and critical rehearsal of it +here, ought to precede the performance elsewhere; though a contrary +opinion was not then without its advocates. + +It is as the mouth-piece of this intellectual faction in the state, +while it is as yet an _aristocracy_, contending with the physical +force of it, struggling for the mastery of it with its numerical +majority; it is the Man in the state, the new MAN struggling with the +chief which a popular ignorance has endowed with dominion over him; it +is the HERO who contends for the majesty of reason and the kingdom of +the mind, it is the new speaker, the new, and now at last, commanding +speaker for that law, which was old when this myth was named, which +was not of yesterday when Antigone quoted it, who speaks now from this +Roman's lips, these words of doom,--the reflection on the 'times +deceased,' the prophecy of 'things not yet come to life,' the word of +new ages. + + 'In A REBELLION, + When what's not MEET, but what must be, was law, + THEN WERE THEY CHOSEN: in a better hour + Let what _is meet_ be said it must be _meet_, + And throw their power in the dust.' + +_Not_ in the old, sombre, Etruscan streets of ancient Rome, _not_ +where the _Roman_ market-place, joined the Capitoline hill and began +to ascend it, crossed the road from Palatinus thither, and began to +obstruct it, not in the courts and colonnades of the primeval hill of +palaces, were the terms of this proposal found. And not from the old +logician's chair, was the sweep of their comprehension made; not in +any ancient school of rhetoric or logic were they cast and locked in +that conjunction. It was another kind of weapon that the old _Roman_ +Jove had to take in hand, when amid the din of the Roman forum, _he_ +awoke at last from his bronze and marble, to his empirical struggle, +his unlearned, experimental struggle with the wolf and her nursling, +with his own baptized, red-robed, usurping Mars. It was not with any +such subtlety as this, that the struggle of state forces which, under +one name or another, sooner or later, in the European states is sure +to come, had hitherto been conducted. + +And not from the lips of the haughty patrician chief, rising from the +dust of ages at the spell of genius, to encounter his old plebeian +vanquishers, and fight his long-lost battles o'er again, at a +showman's bidding, for a showman's greed--to be stung anew into +patrician scorn--to repeat those rattling volleys of the old martial +Latin wrath, 'in states unborn' and 'accents then unknown,' for an +hour's idle entertainment, for 'a six-pen'orth or shilling's worth' of +gaping amusement to a playhouse throng, not--NOT from any such source +came that utterance. + +It came from the council-table of a sovereignty that was plotting here +in secret then the empire that the sun shall not set on; whose +beginning only, we have seen. It came from the secret chamber of a new +union and society of men,--a union based on a new and, for the first +time, scientific acquaintance with the nature that is in men, with the +sovereignty that is in all men. It was the Poet of this society who +put those words together--the Poet who has heard all its _pros_ and +_cons_, who reports them all, and gives to them all their exact weight +in the new balance of his decisions. + +Among other things, it was understood in this association, that the +power, which was at that time supreme in England, was in fact, though +not in name, a _popular_ power,--a power, at least, sustained only by +the popular will, though men had not, indeed, as yet, begun to +perceive that momentous circumstance,--a power which, being 'but the +horn and noise o' the monster,' was able to oppose its '_absolute +shall_' to the embodied wisdom of the state,--not to its ancient +immemorial government only, but to 'its _chartered_ liberties in the +body of the weal,' and 'to a graver bench than ever frowned in +Greece'; and the Poet has put on his record of debates on those +'questions of gravity,' that were agitating then this secret Chamber +of Peers, a distinct demand on the part of this ancient +leadership,--the leadership of 'the honoured number,' the honourable +and right honourable few, that this mass of ignorance, and stupidity, +and blind custom, and incapacity for rule,--this combination of mere +instinctive force, which the physical majority in unlearned times +constitutes, which supplies, in its want, and ignorance, and +passivity, and in its passionate admiration of heroism and love of +leadership, the ready material of tyranny, shall be annihilated, and +cease to have any leadership or voice in the state; and this demand is +put by the Poet into the mouth of one who cannot see from his point of +observation--with his ineffable contempt for the people--what the Poet +sees from his, that the demand, as he puts it, is simply 'the +impossible.' For this is a question in the mixed mathematics, and 'the +_greater part_ carries it.' + +That instinctive, unintelligent force in the state--that blind +volcanic force--which foolish states dare to keep pent up within them, +is that which the philosopher's eye is intent on also; he, too, has +marked this as the primary source of mischief,--he, too, is at war +with it,--he, too, would annihilate it; but he has his own mode of +warfare for it; he thinks it must be done with Apollo's own darts, if +it be done when 'tis done, and not with the military chieftain's +weapon. + +This work is one in which the question of heroism and nobility is +scientifically treated, and in the most rigid manner, 'by line and +level,' and through that representative form in which the historical +pretence of it is tried,--through that scientific negation, with its +merely instinctive, vulgar, unlearned ambition--with its monstrous +'outstretching' on the one hand, and its dwarfish limitations on the +other,--through all that finely drawn, historic picture of that which +claims the human subjection, the clear scientific lines of the true +ideal type are visible,--the outline of the true nobility and +government is visible,--towering above that detected insufficiency, +into the perfection of the _human_ form,--into the heaven of the true +divineness,--into the chair of the perpetual dictatorship,--into the +consulship whose year revolves not, whose year is _the state_. + +Neither is this true affirmation here in the form of a scientific +abstraction merely. It is not here in the general merely. 'The +Instance,' the particular impersonation of nobility and heroism, which +this play exhibits, is, indeed, the false heroism and nobility. It is +the hitherto uncriticised, and, therefore, uncorrected, popular +affirmation on this subject which is embodied here, and this turns out +to be, as usual, the clearest scientific negative that could be +invented. But in the design, and in all the labour of this piece,--in +the steadfast purpose that is always working out that definition, with +its so exquisite, but thankless, unowned, unrecognised toil, graving +it and pointing it with its pen of diamond in the rock for ever, +approving itself 'to the Workmaster' only,--in this incessant +design,--in this veiled, mysterious authorship,--an historical +approximation to the true type of magnanimity and heroism is always +present. But there is more in it than this. + +It is the old popular notion of heroism which fills the foreground; +but the Elizabethan heroism is always lurking behind it, watching its +moment, ready to seize it; and under that cover, it contrives to +advance and pronounce many words, which, in its own name and form, it +could not then have been so prosperously delivered of. Under the +disguise of that historical impersonation--under the mask of that old +Roman hero, other, quite other, heroic forms--historic forms--not +_less_ illustrious, not less memorable, from time to time steal in; +and ere we know it, the suppressed Elizabethan men are on the stage, +and the Theatre is, indeed, the Globe; and it is shaking and flashing +with the iron heel and the thunder of their leadership; and the +thrones of oppression are downfalling; and the ages that seemed 'far +off,' the ages that were nigh, are there--are there as they are +_here_. + +The historical position of the men who could entertain the views which +this Play embodies, in the age in which it was written--the whole +position of the men in whom this idea of nobility and government was +already struggling to become historical--flashes out from that obscure +back-ground into the most vivid historical representation, when once +the light--'the great light' which 'the times give to _true_ +interpretations'--has been brought to bear upon it. And it does so +happen, that _that_ is the light which we are particularly directed to +hold up to this particular play, and, what is more, to this particular +point in it. 'So _our_ virtues,' says the old Volscian captain, Tullus +Aufidius, lamenting the limitations of his historical position, and +apologizing for the figure he makes in history-- + + 'So _our virtues_ + Lie in the interpretation of THE TIMES.' + +['THE TIMES, in many cases, give great light to true +_interpretations_,' says the other, speaking of books, and the method +of reading them; but this one applies that suggestion particularly to +_lives_.] + + 'And power, unto itself most commendable, + Hath not a tomb so evident as a hair + To extol what it hath done.' + +The spirit of the Elizabethan heroism is indeed here, and under the +cover of this old Roman story; and under cover of those so marked +differences in the positions which suffice to detain the unstudious +eye, through the medium of that which is common under those +differences, the history of the Elizabethan heroism is here also. The +spirit of it is here, not in that subtler nature only--that yet, +perhaps, subtler, calmer, stronger nature, in which 'blood and +judgment were so well co-mingled'--so well, in such new degree and +proportion, that their balance made a new force, a new generative +force, in history--not in that one only, the one in whom this new +historic form is visible and palpable already, but in the haughtier +and more unbending historic _attitude_, at least, of his great +'co-mate and brother in exile.' It is here in the form of the great +military chieftain of that new heroic line, who found himself, with +all his strategy, involved in a single-handed contest with the state +and its whole physical strength, in his contest with that personal +power in whose single arm, in whose miserable finger-joints, the state +and all its force then lay. Under that old, threadbare, martial +cloak,--under the safe disguise of martial tyranny in 'the +few,'--whenever the business of the play requires it, whenever 'his +cue comes,' _he_ is there. Under that old, rusty Roman helmet, his +smothered speech, his 'speech of fire,' his passionate speech, 'forbid +so long,' drops thick and fast, drops unquenched at last, and glows +for ever. It is the headless Banquo--'the blood-boltered Banquo'--that +stalks through that shadowy background all unharmed; _his Fleance_ +lives, and in him 'Nature's copy _is_ eterne.' + +His house of kings, with gold-bound brows, and sceptres in their +hands, with _two-fold_ balls and sceptres in their hands--are here +filling the stage, and claiming it to the crack of doom; and now he +'smiles,' he _smiles_ upon his baffled foe, 'and points at them for +HIS.' + +The whole difficulty of this great Elizabethan position, and the moral +of it, is most carefully and elaborately exhibited here. No plea at +the bar was ever more finely and eloquently laboured. It was for the +bar of 'foreign nations and future ages' that this defence was +prepared: the speaker who speaks so 'pressly,' is the lawyer; and +there is nothing left unsaid at last. But it is not exhibited in words +merely. It is acted. It is brought out dramatically. It is presented +to the eye as well as to the ear. The impossibility of any other mode +of proceeding under those conditions is not demonstrated in this +instance by a diagram, drawn on a piece of paper, and handed about +among the jury; it is not an exact drawing of the street, and the +house, and the corner where the difficulty occurred, with the number +of yards and feet put down in ink or pencil marks; it is something +much more lively and tangible than that which we have here, under +pardon of this old Roman myth. + +For the story, as to this element of it, is indeed not new. The story +of the struggle of the few with the many, of the one with the many, of +the one with 'the many-headed,' is indeed an old one. Back into the +days of demi-gods and gods it takes us. It is the story of the +celestial Titan, with his benefactions for men, and force and +strength, with art to aid them--reluctant art--compelled to serve +their ends, enringing his limbs, and driving hard the stakes. Here, +indeed, in the Fable, in the proper hero of it, it is the struggle of +the 'partliness' of pride and selfish ambition, lifting itself up in +the place of God, and arraying itself against the common-_weal_, as +well as the common-will; but the physical relation of the one to the +many, the position of the individual who differs from his time on +radical questions, the relative strength of the parties to this war, +and the weapons and the mode of warfare inevitably prescribed to the +minority under such conditions--all this is carefully brought out from +the speciality of this instance, and presented in its most general +form; and the application of the result to the position of the man who +contends _for_ the common-weal, against the selfish will, and passion, +and narrowness, and short-sightedness of the multitude, is distinctly +made. + +Yes, the Elizabethan part is here; that all-unappreciated and odious +part, which the great men of the Elizabethan time found forced upon +them; that most odious part of all, which, the greatest of his time +found forced upon _him_ as the condition of his greatness. It is here +already, negatively defined, in this passionate defiance, which rings +out at last in the Roman street, when the hero's pride bursts through +his resolve, when he breaks down at last in his studied part, and all +considerations of policy, all regard to that which was dearer to him +than 'his _single mould_,' is given to the winds in the tempest of his +wrath, and he stands at bay, and confronts _alone_ 'the beast with +many heads.' + +It is thus that he measures the man he contends with, the antagonist +who is but 'the horn and noise of the monster':-- + + 'Thou injurious TRIBUNE! + Within thine eyes sat _twenty thousand_ deaths, + In thy hands clenched _as many millions_, in + Thy lying tongue _both numbers_, I would say, + Thou liest, unto thee, with voice as free + As I do pray the gods.' + +But there was a heroism of a finer strain than that at work in England +then, imitating the graces of the gods to better purpose; a heroism +which must fight a harder field than that, which must fight its own +great battles through alone, without acclamations, without spectators; +which must come off victorious, and never count its 'cicatrices,' or +claim 'the war's garland.' + +If we would know the secret of those struggles, those hard conflicts +that were going on here then, in whose results all the future ages of +mankind were concerned, we must penetrate with this Poet the secret of +the Roman patrician's house; we must listen, through that thin poetic +barrier, to the great chief himself, the chief of the unborn age of a +new civilization--the leader, and hero, and conqueror of the ages of +Peace--as he enters and paces his own hall, with the angry fire in his +eyes, and utters there the words for which there is no utterance +without--as he listens there anew to the argument of that for which he +lives, and seeks to reconcile himself anew to that baseness which his +time demands of him. + +We must seek, here, not the part of him only who endured long and +much, but was, at last, provoked into a premature boldness, and +involved in a fatal collision with the state, but that of him who +endured to the end, who played his life-long part without +self-betrayal. We must seek, here, not the part of the great martial +chieftain only, but the part of that heroic chief and leader of men +and ages, who discovered, in the sixteenth century, when the chivalry +of the sword was still exalting its standard of honour as supreme, +when the law of the sword was still the world's law, that brute +instinct was not the true valour, that there was a better part of it +than instinct, though he knows and confesses,--though he is the first +to discover, that instinct is a great matter. We must seek, here, _the +words_, the very words of that part which we shall find _acted_ +elsewhere,--the part of the chief who was determined, for his part, +'to live and fight another day,' who was not willing to spend +_him_self in such conflicts as those in which he saw his most +illustrious contemporaries perish at his side, on his right hand and +on his left, in the reign of the Tudor, and in the reign of the +Stuart. And he has not been at all sparing of his hints on this +subject over his own name, for those who have leisure to take them. + +'The moral of this fable is,' he says, commenting in a certain place, +on the wisdom of _the Ancients_, 'that men should not be confident of +themselves, and imagine that a discovery of their excellences will +always render them acceptable. _For this can only succeed_ according +to _the nature_ and _manners_ of the person they _court or_ solicit, +who, if he be a man not of the same gifts and endowments, but +altogether of a haughty and insolent behaviour--(_here_ represented by +_the person of Juno_)--_they must entirely drop the character_ that +carries the least show of worth or gracefulness; if they proceed upon +_any other_ footing it is _downright folly. Nor_ is it sufficient to +_act_ the deformity of _obsequiousness_, unless they _really change +themselves_, and _become_ abject and contemptible _in their persons_.' +This was a time when abject and contemptible _persons_ could do what +others could not do. Large enterprises, new developments of art and +science, the most radical social innovations, were undertaken and +managed, and very successfully, too, in that age, by persons of that +description, though not without frequent glances on their part, at +that little, apparently somewhat contradictory circumstance, in their +history. + +But the fables in which the wisdom of the Moderns, and the secrets of +_their_ sages are lodged, are the fables we are unlocking here. Let us +listen to these 'secrets of policy' for ourselves, and not take them +on trust any longer. + + _A room in Coriolanus's house_. + + [_Enter Coriolanus and Patricians_.] + + _Cor_. Let them _pull all about mine ears_, present me + _Death on the wheel_, or at wild horses' heels, + Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock + That the precipitation might down stretch + Below the beam of sight, yet will I still + _Be thus to them_. + + [Under certain conditions that is heroism, no doubt.] + + _First Patrician. You do the nobler_. + + [For the question is of NOBILITY.] + + _Cor_. I muse my mother + Does not approve me further. + I talk of _you_. [_To Volumnia_.] + Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me + _False to my nature_? Rather say _I play + The man I am_. + + _Vol_. O sir, sir, sir, + I _would have had you put your power well on + Before you had worn it out_. + Lesser had been + The thwarting of your dispositions, if + You had _not show'd them how you were disposed, + Ere they lacked power to cross you_. + + * * * * * + + [_Enter Menenius and Senators_.] + + _Men_. Come, come, you have been too rough + Something too rough; + You must return, and mend it. + + _1 Sen_. _There's no remedy, + Unless_, by _not_ so doing, _our good city + Cleave in the midst and perish_. + + _Vol_. Pray be counselled: + _I_ have a _heart_ as little apt as yours + But yet _a brain_ [hear] that leads my use of anger + To better _vantage_. + + _Men_. Well said, _noble_ woman; + _Before he should thus stoop to the_ herd, but that + The VIOLENT PIT O' THE TIME, _craves it as_ PHYSIC + For the WHOLE STATE, _I_ would put _mine_ armour on, + Which I can scarcely bear. + + [It is the diseased common-weal whose case this Doctor + is undertaking. _That_ is our subject.] + + _Cor_. What must I do? + + _Men_. Return to the Tribunes. + + _Cor_. Well, + What then? what then? + + _Men_. Repent what you have spoke. + + _Cor_. For them? I _can not do it to the gods_: + Must I then do't to _them_? + + _Vol_. You are too _absolute_; + _Though_ therein you can never be _too noble + But when extremities speak_. I have heard you say, + HONOR _and_ POLICY [hear] like unsevered friends + _I' the war_ do grow together: _Grant that_, and tell me. + In peace, what _each_ of them by the other loses + That they combine not there? + + _Cor_. Tush; tush! + + _Men_. _A good demand_. + + _Vol_. If _it be honor_, in your wars, to seem + The same you are not, (which FOR YOUR BEST ENDS + _You adopt your policy_), how is it _less_, or _worse_ + That it shall hold companionship in peace + With honor, as in war; _since that to both + It stands in like request_? + + _Cor_. Why _force you this_? [Truly.] + + _Vol_. _Because_ that _now_, IT LIES ON YOU to speak + _To the people, not_ by _your own instruction_, + Nor by the _matter which your heart prompts you_ to, + But with such words that are but rated _in_ + _Your tongue_ though but bastards and syllables + _Of no_ allowance, to _your bosom's truth_. + Now this no more dishonors you at all, + Than to take in _a town_ with _gentle words_, + Which else would put you to your fortune, and + THE HAZARD of MUCH BLOOD.--[Hear.] + I would dissemble _with my nature_, where + _My fortune and my friends at stake_ required + _I should do so in honor_. _I am_ in this; + Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles, + And you will rather show our _general lowts_ + How you can frown, than spend a _fawn_ upon them. + For the _inheritance_ of their loves, and _safe-guard_ + Of _what that want might ruin_ [hear] + NOBLE lady! + + _Come go with us_. Speak fair: you may salve so, + + [It is the diseased common-weal we talk of still.] + + You may salve so, + + Not what is dangerous present, _but_ the _loss_ + Of what is past. + + [That was this Doctor's method, who was a Doctor of Laws + as well as Medicine, and very skilful in medicines 'palliative' + as well as 'alterative.'] + + _Vol_. I pry'thee now, my son, + Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand, + And thus far having stretched it (_here_ be with them), + Thy _knee bussing the stones_, for in such business + _Action_ is eloquence, and the _eyes_ of _the ignorant_ + More _learned_ than the _ears_--waving thy head, + Which often thus, correcting thy stout heart, + Now humble as the ripest mulberry + That will not hold the handling: or say to them: + Thou art _their_ soldier, and _being bred in broils_, + Hast not the soft way, which thou dost confess + _Were fit for thee to use_, as _they to claim_, + In asking _their good_ loves; but thou wilt frame + Thyself _forsooth hereafter theirs_, so far + As thou hast power and person. + + Pry'thee now + _Go and be ruled: although I know_ thou hadst rather + Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf + Than flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius. + + [_Enter Cominius_.] + + _Com. I have been i' the market-place_, and, sir, _'tis fit_ + You make STRONG PARTY, _or_ defend yourself + By CALMNESS, or by ABSENCE. ALL's in anger. + + _Men. Only fair speech. + I think 'twill serve, if he + Can thereto frame his spirit_. + + _Vol_. He must, and will. + Pry'thee now _say_ you will _and go about it_. + + _Cor_. Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce? _Must I_ + With _my base tongue, give to my noble heart + A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't: + Yet were there but this single plot to lose, + This mould of Marcius_, they, to dust should grind it, + And throw it against the wind;--to the market-place; + You have put me now to such a part, which never + _I_ shall discharge _to the life_. + + _Com_. Come, come, we'll prompt you. + + _Vol_. I pry'thee now, sweet son, as thou hast said, + _My_ praises made thee first a soldier [--_Volumnia_--], so + To have my praise for this, _perform a part + Than hast not done before_. + + _Cor_. Well, I must do't. + _Away my disposition_, and possess me + Some harlot's spirit! _My throat_ of _war_ be turned, + Which quired with my _drum_ into a pipe! + Small as an eunuch's or the virgin voice + That babies lulls asleep! The smiles of _knaves_ + Tent in my cheeks; and school-boy's tears take up + The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue + Make _motion through my lips_; and my _arm'd knees + Who bowed but in my stirrup, bend like his_ + That _hath received an alms_. I will not do't, + Lest I _surcease_ to _honor mine own truth_, + And _by my body's action teach my mind_ + A most _inherent baseness_. + + _Vol_. At thy choice, then; + To beg of thee, it is my more dishonor + Than thou of them. Come _all to ruin_; let + _Thy mother_ rather _feel thy pride_, than fear + Thy dangerous stoutness, for _I_ mock at death + With as big a heart as thou. Do as thou list. + Thy _valiantness was mine_, thou suck'dst it from me, + But _owe thy pride thyself_. + + _Cor_. Pray be content. + _Mother_ I _am going to the market place_, + Chide me no more. I'll _mountebank their loves_, + Cog their hearts from them, _and come back beloved_ + _Of all the trades in Rome_.--[That he will--] Look I am going. + Commend me to my wife. I'll return Consul [--That he will--] + Or never trust to what my tongue can do, + _I' the way of flattery further_. + + _Vol. Do your will. [Exit_.] + + _Com_. Away, the tribunes do attend you: _arm yourself_ + To answer _mildly_; for they are prepared + With accusations as I hear more strong + Than are upon you yet. + + _Cor_. _The word is mildly_: Pray you let us go, + Let them accuse me by _invention_, I + Will answer in mine honor. + + _Men_. _Ay, but mildly_. + + _Cor_. Well, mildly be it then, mildly. + + [_The Forum. Enter Coriolanus and his party_.] + + _Tribune_. Well, here he comes. + + _Men_. _Calmly_, I do beseech you. + + _Cor. Ay, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece + Will bear the knave by the volume_. + The honoured gods + Keep Rome in safety, and the CHAIRS of _justice_ + Supplied with WORTHY MEN; _plant_ LOVE among us. + _Throng_ OUR LARGE TEMPLES _with the shows_ of PEACE, + _And_ NOT _our_ STREETS _with_ WAR. + + _Sen_. AMEN! AMEN! + + _Men_. A NOBLE wish. + +Thus far the Poet: but the mask through which he speaks is wanted for +other purposes, for these occasional auto-biographical glimpses are +but the side play of the great historical exhibition which is in +progress here, and are introduced in entire subordination to its +requisitions. + +It is, indeed, an old story into which all this Elizabethan history is +crowded. That mimic scene in which the great historic instances in the +science of human nature and human life were brought out with such +scientific accuracy, and with such matchless artistic power and +splendour, was, in fact, what the Poet himself, who ought to know, +tells us it is; with so much emphasis,--not merely the mirror of +nature in general, but the daguerreotype of the then yet living age, +the plate which was able to give to the very _body_ of it, its _form +and pressure_. That is what it was. And what is more, it was the only +Mirror, the only Spectator, the only Times, in which the times could +get reflected and deliberated on then, with any degree of freedom and +vivacity. And yet there were minds here in England then, as acute, as +reflective, as able to lead the popular mind as those that compose our +leaders and reviews today. There was a mind here then, reflecting not +'ages past' only, but one that had taken its knowledge of the past +from the present, that found 'in all men's lives,' a history figuring +the nature of the times deceased; prophetic also: and this was the +mind of the one who writes 'spirits are not finely touched but to fine +issues.' + +They had to take old stories,--these sly, ambitious aspirants to +power, who were not disposed to give up their natural right to +dictate, for the lack of an organ, or because they found the proper +insignia of their office usurped: it was necessary that they should +take old stories, or invent new ones, 'to make those slights upon the +banks of Thames, that so did take' not 'Eliza and our James' only, but +that people of whom 'Eliza and our James' were only 'the outstretched +shadows,' 'the monster,' of whose 'noise' these sovereigns, as the +author of this play took it, were 'but the horn.' + +They had to take old stories of one kind and another, as they happened +to find them, and vamp them up to suit their purposes; stories, old or +new, they did not much care which. + +Old and memorable ones, so memorable that the world herself with her +great faculty of oblivion, could not forget them, but carried them in +her mind from age to age,--stories so memorable that all men knew them +by heart,--so the author could find one to his purpose,--were best for +some things,--for many things; but for others new ones must be +invented; and certainly there would be no difficulty as to that, for +lack of gifts at least, in the mind whence these old ones were coming +out so freshly, in the gloss of their new-coined immortality. + +It is, indeed, an old story that we have here, a story of that ancient +Rome, whose 'just, free and flourishing state,' the author of this new +science of policy confesses himself,--under his _universal_ name,--so +childishly enamoured of, that he interests himself in it to a degree +of passion, though he 'neither loves it in its _birth_ or its +_decline_,'--[under its kings or its emperors.]--It is a story of +_Republican_ Rome, and the difference, the radical difference, between +the civil magistracy which represented the Roman people, and that +unconstitutional popular power which the popular tyranny creates, is +by no means omitted in the exposition. That difference, indeed, is +that which makes the representation possible; it is brought out and +insisted on, '_they_ choose their officers;' it is a difference which +is made much of, for it contains one of the radical points in the +poetic intention. + +But without going into the argument, the large and comprehensive +argument, of this most rich and grave and splendid composition, +crowded from the first line of it to the last, with the results of a +political learning which has no match in letters, which had none then, +which has none now; no, or the world would be in another case than it +is, for it is a political learning which has its roots in the new +philosophy, it is grounded in the philosophy of the nature of things, +it is radical as the _Prima Philosophia_,--without attempting to +exhaust the meaning of a work embodying through all its unsurpassed +vigor and vivacity of poetic representation, the new philosophic +statesman's ripest lore, the patient fruits of 'observation +strange,'--without going into his argument of the whole, the reader +who merely wishes to see for himself, at a glance, in a word, as a +matter of curiosity merely; whether the view here given of the +political sagacity and prescience of the Elizabethan Man of Letters, +is in the least chargeable with exaggeration, has only to look at the +context of that revolutionary speech and proposal, that revolutionary +burst of eloquence which has been here claimed as a proper historical +issue of the age of Elizabeth. He will not have to read very far to +satisfy himself as to that. It will be necessary, indeed, for that +purpose, that he should have eyes in his head, eyes not purely +idiotic, but with the ordinary amount of human speculation in them, +and, moreover, it will be necessary that he should use them,--as eyes +are ordinarily used in such cases,--nothing more. But unfortunately +this is just the kind of scrutiny which nobody has been able to bestow +on this work hitherto, on account of those historical obstructions +with which, at the time it was written, it was found necessary to +guard such discussions, discussions running into such delicate +questions in a manner so essentially incomparably free. + +For, in fact, there is no plainer piece of English extant, when one +comes to look at it. All that has been claimed in the Historical part +of this work, [not published in this volume] may be found here without +any research, on the mere surface of the dialogue. Looking at it never +so obliquely, with never so small a fraction of an eye, one cannot +help seeing it. + +The reader who would possess himself of the utmost meaning of these +passages, one who would comprehend their farthest reaches, must indeed +be content to wait until he can carry with him into all the parts that +knowledge of the authors general intention in this work, which only a +most thorough and careful study of it will yield. + +It is, indeed, a work in which the whole question of government is +seized at its source--one in which the whole difficulty of it is +grappled with unflinching courage and veracity. It is a work in which +that question of classes in the state, which lies on the surface of +it, is treated in a general, and not exclusive manner; or, where the +treatment is narrowed and pointed, as it is throughout in the running +commentary, it is narrowed and pointed to the question of the then yet +living age, and to those momentous developments of it which, 'in their +weak beginnings,' the philosophic eye had detected, and not to a state +of things which had to cease before the first Punic war could be +begun. + +The question of _classes_, and their respective claims in governments, +is indeed incidentally treated here, but in this author's own +distinctive manner, which is one that is sure to take out, +always--even in his lightest, most sportive handling--the heart of his +subject, so as to leave little else but gleanings to the author who +follows in that track hereafter. + +For this is one of those unsurpassably daring productions of the +Elizabethan Muse, which, after long experiment, encouraged by that +protracted immunity from suspicion, and stimulated by the hurrying on +of the great crisis, it threw out at last in the face and eyes of +tyranny, Things which are but intimated in the earlier plays-- +political allusions, which are brought out there amid crackling +volleys of conceits, under cover of a battery of quips and jests-- +political doctrines, which lie there wrapped in thickest involutions +of philosophic subtleties, are all unlocked and open here on the +surface: he that runs may take them if he will. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CRITICISM OF THE MARTIAL GOVERNMENT. + + + 'Would you proceed _especially_ against _Caius_ MARCIUS?' + 'Against him FIRST: He's a _very dog_ to THE COMMONALTY.' + +In this exhibition of the social orders to which human society +instinctively tends, and that so-called _state_ into which human +combinations in barbaric ages rudely settles, the _principle_ of the +combination--the principle of gradation, and subjection, and +permanence--is called in question, and exposed as a purely instinctive +principle, as, in fact, only a principle of revolution disguised; and +a higher one, the distinctively human element, the principle of KIND, +is now, for the first time, demanded on scientific grounds, as the +essential principle of any permanent human combination--as the natural +principle, the only one which the science of nature can recognise as a +principle of STATE. + +It is the PEACE principle which this great scientific war-hater and +captain of the ages of peace is in search of, with his new _organum_; +though he is philosopher enough to know that, in diseased states, wars +are nature's own rude remedies, her barbarous surgery, for evils yet +more unendurable. He has found himself chosen a justice of the +peace--the world's peace; and it is the principle of permanence, of +law and subjection--in a word, it is the principle of _state_, as +opposed to revolution and dissolution--which he is judging of in +behalf of his kind. And he makes a business of it. He goes about in +his own fashion. He gets up this great war-piece on purpose to find +it. + +He has got a state on his stage, which is ceasing to be a _state_ at +the moment in which he shows it to us; a state which has the war +principle--the principle of conquest within no longer working in it +insidiously as government, but developed as war; for it has just +overstepped the endurable point in its mastery. It is a revolution +that is coming off when the curtain rises. For the government has been +gnawing the Roman common-weal at home, with those same teeth it +ravened the Volscians with abroad, till it has reached the vitals at +last, and the common-weal has betaken itself to the Volscian's +weapons:--the people have risen. They are all out when the play begins +on an armed hunt for their rat-like, gnawing, corn-consuming rulers. +They are determined to 'kill them,' and have 'corn at their own +price.' 'If the _wars_ eat us not, _they_ will,' is the word; 'and +there's all THE LOVE _they_ bear us.' '_Rome_ and _her rats_ are at +the point of battle,' cries the Poet. The _one_ side _shall have +bale_, is his prophecy. 'Without _good nature_,' he says elsewhere, +using the term _good_ in its scientific sense, '_men_ are only a +NOBLER kind of VERMIN'; and he makes a most unsparing application of +this principle in his criticisms. Many a splendid historical figure is +made to show its teeth, and rat-like mien and propensities, through +all the splendour of its disguises, merely by the application of his +simple philosophical tests. For the question, as he puts it, is the +question between animal instinct, between mere appetite, and reason; +and the question incidentally arises in the course of the exhibition, +whether the common-weal, when it comes to anything like common-sense, +is going to stand being gnawed in this way, for the benefit of any +individual, or clique, or party. + +For the ground on which the classes or estates, and their respective +claims to the government, are tried here, is the ground of the +_common_-weal; and the question as to the fitness of any existing +class in the state for an exclusive, unlimited control of the welfare +of the whole, is more than suggested. That which stops short of the +weal of the whole for its end, is that which is under criticism here; +and whether it exist in 'the one,' or 'the few,' or 'the many,'--and +these are the terms that are employed here,--whether it exist in the +civil magistracy, sustained by a popular submission, or in the power +of the victorious military chief, at the head of his still extant and +resistless armament, it is necessarily rejected as a principle of +sovereignty and permanence, in this purely scientific view of the +human conditions of it. It is a question which this author handles +with a thorough impartiality, in all his political treatises, let them +come in what name and form they will, with more or less clearness, +indeed, as the circumstances seem to dictate. + +But _nowhere_ is the whole history of the military government, +collected from the obscurity of the past, and brought out with such +inflexible design--with such vividness and strength of historic +exhibition, as it is _here_. It is traced to its beginnings in the +distinctions which nature herself creates,--those physical, and moral, +and intellectual distinctions, with which she crowns, in her happier +moods, the large resplendent brows of her born kings and masters. It +is traced from its origin in the crowning of the victorious chief on +the field of battle, to the moment in which the sword of military +conquest is turned back on the conquerors by the chief into whose +hands they gave it; and the sword of conquest abroad becomes, at home, +the sword of state. + +Nay, this Play goes farther, and embraces the contingency of a foreign +rule--one, too, in which the _conqueror_ takes his surname from the +_conquest_; it brings home 'the enemy of the whole state,' as a king, +in triumph to the capital, whose streets he has filled with mourning; +and though the author does not tell us in this case, at he does in +another, that the nation was awed 'with an offertory of standards' in +the temple, and that 'orisons and Te Deums were again sung,'--the +victor 'not meaning that the people _should forget_ too soon _that he +came in by battle_'--points, not much short of that, in the way of +speciality, are not wanting. More than one conqueror, indeed, looks +out from this old chieftain's Roman casque. 'There is a little touch +of _Harry_ in the scene'; and though the author goes out of his way to +tell us that 'he must by no means say his hero is _covetous_,' it will +not be the Elizabethan Philosopher's fault, if we do not know _which_ +Harry it is that says-- + + _If you have writ your annals true_,'tis there, + That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I + Flutter'd your Volsces in Corioli: + _Alone_, I did it. + + * * * * * + + _Auf_. Read it, noble lords; + But tell _the traitor_, in the _highest degree_ + He hath abused your powers. + + _Cor_. Traitor!--How now? + + _Auf_. Ay, _traitor_, Marcius. + + _Cor_. _Marcius_! + + _Auf_. AY, _Marcius, Caius_ Marcius; Dost thou think + I'll grace thee with THAT ROBBERY, _thy_ STOLEN NAME + CORIOLANUS in CORIOLI?'--[_the conqueror in the conquest_.] + +Never, indeed, was 'the garland of war,' whether glistening freshly on +the hero's brow on the fresh battle-field, or whether glittering, +transmuted into civic gold and gems, on the brow of his hereditary +successor, subjected to such a searching process before, as that with +which the Poet, under cover of an _aristocrat's_ pretensions, and +especially under cover of his pretensions to an elective magistracy, +can venture to test it. + +This _hero_, who 'speaks of the people as if he were a _god_ to +punish, and not a man of their infirmity,' is on trial for that +pretension from the first scene of this Play to the last. The author +has, indeed, his own views of the fickle, ignorant, foolish +multitude,--such views as any one, who had occasion to experiment on +it personally, in the age of Elizabeth, would not lack the means of +acquiring; and amidst those ebullitions of wrath, which he pours from +his haughty hero's lips, one hears at times a tone that sounds a +little like some other things from the same source, as if the author +had himself, in some way, been brought to look at the subject from a +point of observation, not altogether unlike that from which his hero +speaks; or as if he might, at least, have known how to sympathise with +the haughty and unbending nature, that had been brought into such +deadly collision with it. But in the dramatic representation, though +it is far from being a flattering one, we listen in vain for any echo +of this sentiment. In its rich and kindly humour there is no sneer, no +satire. It is the loving eye of nature's own great pupil--it is the +kindly human eye, that comes near enough to point those jests, and +paint so truly; there is a great human heart here in the scene +embracing the lowly. It was the heart that was putting forth then its +silent but resistless energies into the ages of the human advancement, +to take up the despised and rejected masses of men from their misery, +and make of them truly one _kind_ and kindred. + +And though he has had, indeed, his own private experiences with the +multitude, and the passions are, as he intimates--at least as strong +in him as in another, he has his own view, also, of the common +pitifulness and weakness of the human conditions; and he has a view +which is, in his time, all his own, of the instrumentalities that are +needed to reach that level of human nature, and to lift men up from +the mire of these conditions, from the wrong and wretchedness into +which, in their unaided, unartistic, unlearned struggle with +nature,--within and without,--_the kind_ are fallen. And so strong in +him is the sense of this pitifulness, that it predominates over the +sharpness of his genius, and throws the divinest mists and veils of +compassion over the harsh, scientific realities he is constrained to +lay bare. + +And, in fact, it takes this monstrous pretence, and claim to _human +leadership_, which he finds passing unquestioned in his time, to bring +him out on this point fairly. The statesmanship of the man who +undertakes to make his own petty personality the measure of a _world_, +who would make, not that reason which is in us _all_, and embraces the +_world_, and which is _not_ personal,--not that conscience which is +the sensibility to reason, and is as broad and impartial as +that--which goes with the reason, and embraces, like that, without +bias, the common weal,--but that which is particular, and private, and +limited to the individual,--his senses,--his passions, his private +affections,--his mere caprice,--his mere will; the motive of the +public action;--the statesmanship of the man who dares to offer these +to an insulted world, as reasons of state; who claims a divine +prerogative to make his single will good against reason; who claims a +divine right to make his private interest outweigh the weal of the +whole; who asks men to obliterate, in their judgment, its essential +principle, that which makes them men, the eternal principle of the +whole;--this is the phenomenon which provokes at last, in this author, +the philosophic ire. The moment this thing shows itself on his stage, +he puts his pity to sleep. He will show up, at last, without any +mercy, in a purely scientific manner, as we see more clearly +elsewhere, the common pitifulness of the human conditions, in the +person of him who claims exemption from them,--who speaks of the +people as if he were a god to punish, and not a man of their +infirmity. + +'There is formed in every thing a _double nature_';--this author, who +is the philosopher of _nature_, tells us on another page,--'there is +formed in _every thing_ a double nature OF GOOD, the one as everything +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, because it _tends to the conservation of a +more general form_. Therefore we see the iron in _particular sympathy_ +moving to the loadstone; but yet, if _it exceed a certain quantity_, +it forsakes the affection to the loadstone, and, like a good patriot, +moves to the earth. This double nature of good is MUCH MORE +(hear)--much _more_ ENGRAVEN on MAN, if he _de_GENERATE not--(decline +not from the law of his _kind_--for that _more_ is SPECIAL) unto whom +the conservation of DUTY to the PUBLIC ought to be much more +_precious_ than the conservation of life and being, according to that +memorable speech of Pompey THE GREAT, [the truly great, for this is +the question of greatness,] when BEING IN COMMISSION OF PURVEYANCE FOR +A FAMINE AT ROME, and being dissuaded, with great vehemency and +instance, by his friends about him, that he should not hazard himself +to sea in an extremity of weather, answered, 'Necesse est ut eam, non +ut vivam.' + +But we happen to have set out here, in our play, at the very beginning +of it, the specific case alluded to, in this general exhibition of the +radical human law, viz., the case of a famine in Rome, which we shall +find differently treated, in this instance, by the person who aspires +to 'the helm o' the state.' + +When the question is of the true nobility and greatness, of the true +statesmanship, of the personal fitness of an individual to assume the +care of the public welfare, the question, of course, as to this double +nature, comes in. We wish to know--if any thing is going to depend +upon his single _will_ in the matter, we must know, which of these two +natures is SOVEREIGN in himself,--which good he supremely +affects,--that of his senses, passions, and private affections, that +good which ends in his private and particular nature,--a good which +has its _due_ place in this system, and is not unnaturally mortified +and depressed, as it is in less scientific ones,--or that good of the +_whole_, which is each man's highest good;--whether he is, in fact, a +_man_, or whether, in the absence of that perfection of the human +form, which should be the end of science and government, he +approximates at all,--or undertakes to approximate at all, to the true +human type;--whether he be, indeed, a man, in the higher sense of that +word, or whether he ranks in the scale of nature, as 'only a _nobler_ +kind of vermin,' a _man_, a _noble man_, a man with a divine ideal and +ambition, _degenerate_ into that. + +When it is a candidate for the chief magistracy, a candidate for the +supreme power in the state, who is on his trial, of course that +question as to the balance between the public and private affections, +which, those who know how to trace this author's hand, know he is so +fond of trying elsewhere, is sure to come up. The question is, as to +whether there is any affection in this claimant for power, so large +and so noble, that it can embrace heartily the common weal, and take +_that_ to be _its_ good. The trial will be a sharp one. The trial of +human greatness which is magnanimity, must needs be. The question is, +as to whether this is a nature capable of pursuing that end for its +own sake, without respect to its pivate and merely selfish recompence; +whether it is one which has any such means of egress from its +particular self, any such means of coming out of its private and +exclusive motivity, that it can persevere in its care of the Common +Weal, through good and through ill report, through personal wrong and +ingratitude,--abandoning its private claim, and ascending by that +conquest to the divineness. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +INSURRECTION'S ARGUING. + + + 'What is granted them?' + 'Five Tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms.' + + 'The rabble should have first unroofed the city, + Ere so prevailed with me.' + +The common people themselves have some inkling of this. This Roman who +has established his claim to rule Romans at home, by killing Volscians +abroad, appears to their simple apprehension, at the moment, at least, +when they find themselves suffering the gnawings of hunger through his +legislation, to have established but a questionable claim to their +submission. + +And before ever he shows his head on the stage, this question, which +is the question of the play, is already started. For it is the people +who are permitted to come on first of all and explain their wants, and +discuss the military hero's qualifications for rule in that relation, +and that, too, in a not altogether foolish manner. For though the +author knows how to do justice to the simplicity of their politics, he +knows how to do justice also to that practical determination and +straightforwardness and largeness of sense, which even in the common +sense of uneducated masses, is already struggling a little to declare +itself. + +They have one great piece of political learning which their lordly +legislators lack, and for lack of sense and comprehension cannot have. +They are learned in the doctrine of their own political and social +want; they are full of the most accurate and vivid impressions on that +subject. Their notions of it are altogether different from those vague +general abstract conceptions of it, which the brains of their refined +lordly rulers stoop to admit. The terms which that legislation deals +with, are one thing in the patrician's vocabulary, and another and +quite different thing in the plebeian's; hunger means one thing in the +'patrician's vocabulary,' and another and very different thing in the +plebeian's. They know, too, 'that meat was made for mouths,' and 'that +the gods sent not corn for the rich men only.' They are under the +impression that there ought to be bread for them by some means or +other, when the storehouses that their toil has filled are +overflowing, and though they are not clear as to the process which +should accomplish this result, they have come to the conclusion that +there must be some error somewhere in the legislation of those learned +_few_, to whom they have resigned the task of governing them. They are +strongly of opinion that there must be some mistake in the +calculations by which those venerable wise men and _fathers_, do so +infallibly contrive to sweep the results of the poor man's toil and +privation into their own garners,--calculations which enable the +legislator to enjoy in lordly ease and splendour, the sight of the +plebeian's misery, which enable him to lavish on his idlest whims, to +give to his dogs that which would save lifetimes of unreckoned human +misery. These are their views, and when the play begins, they have +resolved themselves into a committee of the whole, and are out on a +commission of inquiry and administrative reform, armed with bats and +clubs and other weapons,--such as came first to hand, intending to +make short work of it. This is their peace budget, and as to war, they +have some rude notions on that subject, too;--some dim impression that +nature intended them for some other ends than to be sold in the +shambles, as the purchase of some lordly chieftain's title. There's an +incipient statesmanship struggling there in that rude mass, though it +does not as yet get fairly expressed. It will take the tribuneship and +the refinements of the aristocratic leisure, to make the rude wisdom +of want and toil eloquent. But it has found a tribune at last, who +will be able to speak for it, through one mouth or another, +scientifically and to the purpose too, ere all is done. + +'Before we proceed any further, _hear me speak_,' he cries, through +the Roman leader's lips; for his Rome, too, if it be not yet 'at the +point of battle,' is drifting towards it rapidly, as he sees well +enough when this speech begins. + +But let us take the Play as we find it. Take the first scene of it. +The stage is filled with the people,--not with their representatives, +--but with the people themselves, in their own persons, in the act of +taking the government into their own hands. They are hurrying sternly +and silently through the city streets. There has been no practising of +'goose step,' to teach them that movement. They are armed with clubs, +staves and other weapons, peace weapons, but there is an edge in them +now, fine enough for their purpose. The word of the play is the word +that arrests that movement. The voice of the leader rings out,--it is +a HALT that is ordered. + +'BEFORE WE PROCEED ANY FURTHER, HEAR ME SPEAK,' cries one from the +mass. + +'Speak! speak!' is the reply. They are ready to hear reason. They want +a speaker. They want a voice, though never so rude, to put their stern +inarticulate purpose 'into some frame.' + +'You are all resolved rather TO DIE than TO FAMISH,' continues the +first speaker. Yes, that is it precisely; he has spoken the word. + +'RESOLVED! RESOLVED!' is the common response; for the revolutionary +point is touched here. + +'FIRST, _you know_, Caius Marcius is CHIEF ENEMY to the people'--a +rude grasp at causes. This captain will establish a common +_intelligence_ in his company _before they proceed any further_; that +their acting may be one, and to purpose. For there is no command but +that here. + +_Cit._ We know't, we know't. + +_First Cit._ Let us _kill him_, and we'll have corn at our own price. +Is't a verdict? + +_Cit. No _more talking on't_. Let it bone done: away, away. + +'_One word_, good citizens,' cries another, 'who thinks that the thing +will bear, perhaps, a little further discussion. And this is the hint +for the first speaker to produce his cause more fully. 'GOOD +CITIZENS,' is the word he takes up. "_We_ are _accounted_ POOR +CITIZENS; the patricians GOOD.' [That is the way the account stands, +then.] 'What AUTHORITY _surfeits_ on would relieve us. If they would +yield us _but the superfluity_ while it were _wholesome_, we might +guess they relieved us _humanely_; but they think we are _too dear_.' +[They love us as we are too well. They want poor people to reflect +their riches. It takes plebeians to make patricians; it takes our +valleys to make their heights.] + +'The leanness that _afflicts us_, the object of _our_ misery, is as an +_inventory_ to particularize _their abundance_. _Our_ sufferance is a +gain to _them_.--Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become +rakes: for the gods know, I speak this in _hunger_ for bread, and not +in _thirst_ for _revenge_. + +_Second Cit_. Would you proceed _especially_ against Caius Marcius? + +_First Cit_. Against him _first_;--he's a _very dog_ to the +commonalty. + +_Second Cit_. Consider you what _services_ he has done for _his +country_? + +[That is one of the things which are about to be 'considered.'] + +_First Cit. Very well_, and could be content to give him good report +for'it, but that he _pays himself_ with _being proud_. + +_Second Cit_. Nay, but speak not maliciously. + +_First Cit_. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he _did it to +that end_: though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was +for HIS COUNTRY, he did it to _please his mother_, and to be _partly_ +proud; which he is, even to the _altitude of his virtue_. + +_Second Cit_. What he _cannot help_ IN HIS NATURE, you account a +_vice_ in him. You _must in no way_ say he is covetous. + +_First Cit. If I must not_, I need not be barren of accusations; he +hath faults with surplus to tire _in repetition_. [_Shouts within_.] +What shouts are these? The other side o' the city is risen. Why stay +we prating here? _To the Capitol_! + +_Cit_. Come, come. + +_First Cit_. Soft; who comes here? + +[_Enter Menenius Agrippa_.] + +_Second Cit_. Worthy Menenius Agrippa, one that hath always _loved the +people_. + +_First Cit_. He's one _honest_ enough [--_honest_--a great word in the +Shakspere philosophy]; would _all the rest_ were so. + +[That is a good prayer when it comes to be understood.] + +_Men_. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you, With bats +and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you. + +_First Cit. Our business is not unknown to_ THE SENATE [Hear]; they +have had _inkling_ this fortnight what we intend to do, which now +we'll show 'em in deeds. They say, poor suitors have strong breaths; +they shall know we have _strong arms, too_. + +_Men_. Why, _masters_, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will +you undo yourselves_? + +_First Cit. We cannot, sir; we are undone already_. [Revolution.] + + _Men_. I tell you, friends, _most charitable care_ + Have the _patricians_ of you. For your WANTS,--Your + suffering in this dearth, you may as well + _Strike at the heavens_ with your staves, as lift them + Against the Roman State, whose course _will on + The way it takes_, cracking ten thousand curbs + Of more strong link asunder, than can ever + Appear in your impediment. For the dearth, + The _gods, not_ the _patricians_, make it; and + _Your knees_ to them, _not arms, must_ help. + +[This sounds very pious, but it is not the piety of the new school. +The doctrine of submission and suffering is indeed taught in it, and +scientifically reinforced; but then it is the patient suffering of the +harm 'which is not within our power' which is commendable, according +to its tenets, and 'a wise and industrious suffering' of it, too. It +is a wise 'accommodating of the nature of man to those points of +nature and fortune which we cannot control,' that is pleasing to God, +according to this creed.] + + Alack! + You are transported by calamity, + Thither where more attends you; and you slander + The helms o' the state, who care for you like _fathers_, + When you curse them as enemies. + +_First Cit_. CARE FOR us! _True_, INDEED! They ne'er cared for us yet. +SUFFER us TO FAMISH, and _their_ store-houses CRAMMED WITH GRAIN! +_Make edicts for usury, to support usurers_! Repeal daily any +WHOLESOME ACT _established against the rich_, and provide more +piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor! If the WARS +eat us not up, THEY WILL; and there's _all the love_ they bear us. + +Menenius attempts to counteract these impressions; but his story and +his arguments appear to have some applications which he is not aware +of, and are much more to the purpose of the party in arms than they +are to his own. For it is a story in which the natural subordination +of the parts to the whole in the fabric of human society is +illustrated by that natural instance and symbol of unity and +organization which the single human form itself present; and that +condition of the state which has just been exhibited--one in which the +body at large is dying of inanition that a part of it may +_surfeit_--is a condition which, in the light of this story, appears +to need help of some kind, certainly. + +But the platform is now ready. It is the hero's entrance for which we +are preparing. It is on the ground of this sullen want that the author +will exhibit him and his dazzling military virtues. It is as the +doctor of this _diseased common-weal_ that he brings him in with his +sword; + +'_Enter_ CAIUS MARCIUS.' + +and that idea--the idea of the diseased commonwealth, which Menenius +has already set forth--that notion of _parts_ and _partiality_, and +dissonance and dissolution, which is a radical idea in the play, and +runs into its minutest points of phraseology, breaks out at once in +his rough speech. + + _Men_. Hail, noble Marcius! + + _Mar_. Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, + That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, + Make _yourselves_ scabs. + +[It is the _common-weal_ that must be made _whole_ and comely. +OPINION! your opinion.] + + _First Cit_. We have ever your good word. + + _Mar_. In that will give good words to _thee_, will flatter + Beneath abhorring.--What would you have, you _curs_, + That like nor peace, nor war? the one affrights you, + The other makes you proud. _He_ that trusts you, + _Where he should find you lions, finds you hares_. + _Where foxes, geese_! You are no surer, no + Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, + Or hail-stone in the sun. Your _virtue_ is, + To make _him worthy_ whose _offence subdues him_, + And curse that _justice_ did it. Who deserves greatness + Deserves your hate: and your affections are + A sick man's appetite, who desires most that + Which would increase his evil. _He_ that _depends_ + Upon your favours, _swims with_ fins of lead, + And hews down _oaks_ with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye? + With every minute you do change a mind; + +[This is not the principle of _state_, whether in the many or the +one]. + + And call _him_ noble, that was now your hate, + _Him_ vile, that was your garland. _What's the matter_, + That in these several places of the city + You cry against the noble senate, who, + Under the gods, keep you in awe, _which else + Would feed on one another_?--What's their seeking? + + _Men_. For corn at their own rates; _whereof, they say, + The city is well stor'd_. + + _Mar_. HANG 'EM! THEY SAY? + THEY'LL SIT BY THE FIRE, and PRESUME to KNOW + WHAT'S DONE I' THE CAPITOL: who's like to rise, + Who thrives, and who declines: side factions, and give out + _Conjectural marriages; making parties strong_, + And _feebling_ such _as stand not in their liking_, + Below their cobbled shoes. _They say, there's grain enough_? + Would the nobility lay aside their ruth, + And let me use my sword, _I'd make a quarry + With thousands of these quartered slaves_, AS HIGH + As I could _prick my lance_. + +[The _altitude_ of his virtue;--the _measure_ of his greatness. That +is the tableau of the first scene, in the first act of the play of the +cure of the Common-weal and the Consulship.] + + _Men_. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded; + For though abundantly they lack discretion, + Yet are they passing cowardly. But I beseech you, + What says the other troop? + + _Mar_. They are _dissolved_: Hang 'em! [Footnote] + _They said, they were an hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs_;-- + That _hunger broke stone walls_; that, _dogs_ must eat; + That _meat was made for mouths_; THAT THE GODS SENT NOT + CORN FOR THE RICH MEN ONLY:--With these shreds + They vented their complainings; which being answer'd, + And a petition granted them, _a strange one_, + (To break the _heart of generosity_, + _And make bold power look pale_,) they threw their caps + As they would hang them on the horns o'the moon, + _Shouting their emulation_. + +[Footnote: 'The History of Henry VII.,' produced in the Historical +Part of this work, but omitted here, contains the key to these +readings.] + + _Men_. What is granted them. + + _Mar_. Five tribunes _to defend their vulgar wisdoms_, + Of their own choice: One's Junius Brutus, + Sicinius Velutus, and I know not--'Sdeath! + The rabble should have first unroof'd the city; + Ere so prevail'd with me; _it will in time + Win upon POWER, and throw forth greater themes_ + For INSURRECTION'S arguing. + + [Yes, surely it will. It cannot fail of it.] + + _Men_. This is strange. + _Mar_. Go, get you _home_, you _fragments_! [_fragments_.] + + [_Enter a Messenger_.] + + _Mes_. Where's Caius Marcius? + _Mar_. Here; What's the matter? + _Mes_. The news is, Sir, the Volces are in arms. + _Mar_. I am glad on't; then we shall have means _to vent + Our musty superfluity:_--See, our best elders. + + [The procession from the Capitol is entering with two of the + new officers of the commonwealth, and the two chief men of + the army, with other senators.] + + _First Sen_. Marcius, 'tis true, that you have lately told us; + The Volsces are in arms. + + _Mar_. They have a leader, + Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to't. + I sin in envying _his nobility_: + And were I anything but what I am, + I would wish me only he. + + _Com_. You have fought together. + + _Mar_. Were half to half the world by the ears, and _he + Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make + Only my wars with him_ [Hear, hear]. + He is a lion. + That I am proud to _hunt_. + + _First Sen_. _Then_, WORTHY _Marcius_, + Attend upon Cominius to these wars. + +It is the relation of the spirit of military conquest, the relation of +the military hero, and his government, to the true human need, which +is subjected to criticism here; a criticism which is necessarily an +after-thought in the natural order of the human development. + +The transition 'from the casque to the cushion,' that so easy step in +the heroic ages, whether it be 'an entrance by conquest,' foreign or +otherwise, or whether the chieftain's own followers bring him home in +triumph, and the people, whose battle he has won, conduct him to their +chair of state, in either case, that transition appears, to this +author's eye, worth going back, and looking into a little, in an age +so advanced in civilization, as the one in which he finds himself. + +For though he is, as any one who will take any pains to inquire, may +easily satisfy himself,--the master in chief of the new science of +nature,--and the deepest in its secrets of any, his views on that +subject appear to be somewhat broader, his aspirations altogether of +another kind, from those, to which his school have since limited +themselves. He does not content himself with pinning butterflies and +hunting down beetles; his scientific curiosity is not satisfied with +classifying ferns and lichens, and ascertaining the proper historical +position of pudding-stone and sand-stone, and in settling the +difference between them and their neighbours. Nature is always, in all +her varieties wonderful, and all 'her infinite book of secrecy,' that +book which all the world had overlooked till he came, was to his eye, +from the first, a book of spells, of magic lore, a Prospero book of +enchantments. He would get the key to her cipher, he would find the +lost alphabet of her unknown tongue; there is no page of her composing +in which he would scorn to seek it--none which he would scorn to read +with it: but then he has, notwithstanding, some _choice_ in his +studies. He is of the opinion that some subjects are nobler than +others, and that those which concern specially the human kind, have a +special claim to their regard, and the secret of those combinations +which result in the varieties of shell-fish, and other similar orders +of being, do _not_ exclusively, or chiefly, engage his attention. + +There is another natural curiosity, which strikes the eye of the +founder of the Science of Nature, as quite the most curious and +wonderful thing going, so far, at least, as his observation has +extended, though he is willing to make, as he takes pains to state, +philosophical allowance for the partiality of species in determining +this judgment, and is perfectly willing to concede, that if any +particular species of shell-fish, for instance, were to undertake a +science of things in general, that particular species would, no doubt, +occupy the principal place in that system; especially if arts, tending +to the improvement and elevation of it, were necessarily based on this +larger specific knowledge. + +Men, and their proceedings and organisms, men, and their habits and +modes of combining, did appear to the eye of this scientific observer +quite as well worth observing and noting, also, as bees and beavers, +for instance, and their societies; and, accordingly, he made some +observations himself, and notes, too, in this particular department of +his general science. For, as he tells us elsewhere, he did not wish to +map out the large fields of the science of observation in general, and +exhibit to the world, in bare description, the method of it, without +leaving some specimens of his own, of what might be done with it, in +proper hands, under favourable circumstances, selecting for his +experiments the principal and noblest subjects--those of the most +immediate human concern. And he has not only very carefully laboured a +few of these; but he has taken extraordinary pains to preserve them to +us in their proper scientific form, with just as little of the +ligature of the time on them as it was possible to leave. + +It is no kind of beetle or butterfly, then, that this philosopher +comes down upon here from the heights of his universal science--his +science of the nature of things in general, but that great Spenserian +monstrosity,--that diseased product of nature, which individual human +nature, in spite of its natural pettiness and helplessness, under +certain favourable conditions of absorption and accretion, may be made +to yield. It is that dragon of lawless power which was overspreading, +in his time, all the common human affairs, and infolding in its gaudy, +baleful wings all the life of men,--it is that which takes from the +first the speculative eye of this new speculator,--this founder of the +science of things, and not of words instead of them. Here is a man of +science, a born naturalist, who understands that _this_ phenomenon +lies in his department, and takes it to be his business, among other +things, to examine it. + +It was, indeed, a formidable phenomenon, as it presented itself to his +apprehension; and his own words are always the best, when one knows +how to read them-- + +'He sits in state, like a thing made for Alexander.' 'When he walks, +he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading.' +'He talks like a knell, his hum is a battery; what he bids be done, is +finished at his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity, and +_a heaven_ to throne in.' 'Yes,' is the answer; 'yes, _mercy_, if you +paint him truly.' 'I paint him in character.' + +'Is it possible that so short a time can alter the conditions of a +_man_?' inquires the speculator upon this phenomenon, and then comes +the reply--'There's a differency between a grub and a butterfly, yet +_your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from_ MAN TO DRAGON; +he has wings, he is more than a creeping thing.' + +This is Coriolanus at the head of his army; but in Julius Caesar, it +is nature in the wildness of the tempest--it is a night of unnatural +horrors, that is brought in by the Poet to illustrate the enormity of +the evil he deals with, and its unnatural character--'to serve as +instrument of fear and warning unto _some_ MONSTROUS STATE.' + + 'Now could _I_, Casca, + Name to _thee_ a man most like this dreadful night; + That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars + As doth the lion in the Capitol: + A _man no mightier_ than thyself, or me, + In _personal action, yet prodigious grown_, + And fearful, as these strange eruptions are. + + _Casca_. Tis _Caesar_ that you mean: Is it not, Cassius? + + [I paint him in character.] + + _Cassius_. Let it be--WHO IT IS: _For Romans now_ + Have thewes and limbs like to their ancestors.' + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +POLITICAL RETROSPECT. + + + 'I think he'll be to Rome + As is the osprey to the fish, who _takes_ it + By sovereignty of nature.' + + FLOWER OF WARRIORS + +The poet finds, indeed, this monstrosity full-blown in his time. He +finds it 'in the civil streets,' 'talking plain cannon', 'humming +batteries' in the most unmistakeable manner, with no particular +account of its origin to give, without, indeed, appearing to recollect +exactly how it came there, retaining only a general impression, that a +descent from the celestial regions had, in some way, been effected +during some undated period of human history, under circumstances which +the memory of man was not expected to be able to recall in detail, and +a certificate to that effect, divinely subscribed, was understood to +be included among its properties, though it does not appear to have +been, on the face of it, so absolutely conclusive as to render a +little logical demonstration, on the part of royalty itself, +superfluous. + +It was not very far from this time, that a very able and loyal servant +of the crown undertook, openly, to assist the royal memory on this +delicate point; and, though the details of that historical +representation, and the manner of it, are, of course, quite different +from those of the Play, it will be found, upon careful examination, +not so dissimilar in purport as the exterior would have seemed to +imply. The philosopher does not feel called upon, in either case, to +begin by contradicting flatly, in so many words, the theory which he +finds the received one on that point. Even the _poet_, with all his +freedom, is compelled to go to work after another fashion. + + 'And _thus_ do we, of wisdom, and of reach, + With _windlasses_, and with ASSAYS of BIAS, + By indirections find directions out.' + +He has his own way of creating an historical retrospect. No one need +know that it _is_ a retrospect; no one will know it, perhaps, who has +not taken the author's clue elsewhere. The crisis is already reached +when the play begins. The collision between the civil want and the +military government is at its height. It is a revolution on which the +curtain rises. It is a city street filled with dark, angry swarms of +men, who have come forth to seek out this government, in the person of +its chief, who stop only to conduct their summary trial of it, and +then hurry on to execute their verdict. + +But the poet arrests this revolution. Before we proceed any further, +'Hear _me_ speak,' he cries, through the lips of the plebeian leader. +The man of science demands a hearing, before this movement proceed any +further. He has a longer story to tell than that with which Menenius +Agrippa appeases his Romans. There is a cry of war in the streets. The +obscure background of that portentous scene opens, and the long vista +of the heroic ages, with all its pomp and stormy splendours, scene +upon scene, grows luminous behind it. The foreground is the same. The +arrested mutineers stand there still, with the frown knit in their +angry brows, with the weapons of their civil warfare in their hands; +there is no stage direction for a change of costume, and none +perceives that they have grown older as they stand, and that the +shadow of the elder time is on them. But the manager of this stage is +one who knows that the elder time of history is the childhood of his +kind. + +There is a cry of war in that ancient street. The enemy of the infant +state is in arms. The people rush forth to conflict with the leader of +armies at their head. But this time, for the first time in the history +of literature, the philosopher goes with him. The philosopher, +hitherto, has been otherwise occupied. He has been too busy with his +fierce war of words; he has had too much to do with his abstract +generals, his logical majors and minors, to get them in squadrons and +right forms of war, to have any eye for such vulgar solidarities. 'All +men are mortal. Peter and John are men. Therefore Peter and John are +mortal,' he concludes; but that is his nearest and most vivacious +approach to historical particulars, and his cell is broad enough to +contain all that he needs for his processes and ends. He finds enough +and to spare, ready prepared to his hands, in the casual, rude, +unscientific observations and spontaneous distinctions of the vulgar. +His generalizations are obtained from their hasty abstractions. It has +never occurred to him, till now, that he must begin with criticising +these _terms_; that he must begin by making a new and scientific +terminology, which shall correspond to _terms in nature_, and not be +air-lines merely;--that he must take pains to collect them himself, +from severest scrutiny of particulars, before ever he can arrive at +'the notions of nature,' the universal notions, which differ from the +spontaneous specific notions of men, and their chimeras; before ever +he can put man into his true relations with nature, before ever he can +teach him to speak the word which she responds to,--the words of her +dictionary--the word which is _power_. + +This is, in fact, the first time that the philosopher has undertaken +to go abroad. It is the first time he has ever been in the army. +Softly, invisibly, he goes. There is nothing to show that he is there. +As modestly, as unnoticed, as the Times 'own correspondent,' amid all +the clang and tumult, the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, he +goes. But he is there notwithstanding. There is no breath of +scholasticism, no perfume of the cell, that the most vigorous and +robust can perceive, in his battle. The scene unwinds with all its +fierce reality, undimmed by the pale cast of thought: the shout is as +wild, the din as fearful, the martial fury rises, as if the old heroic +poet had it still in hand. + +But it is not the poet's voice that you hear, bursting forth into +those rhythmical ecstasies of heroic passion,--unless that faint tone +of exaggeration,--that slight prolonging of it, be his. That mad joy +in human blood, that wolfish glare, that lights the hero's eye, gets +no reflection in his: those fiendish boasts are not from _his_ lips. +Through all the frenzy of that demoniacal scene, he is still himself, +with all his _human_ sense about him. Through all the crowded +incidents of that day of blood--into which he condenses, with dramatic +license, the siege and assault of the city, the conquest and plunder +of it, and the conflict in the open field,--he is keeping watch on his +hero. He is eyeing him, and sketching him, as critically as if he were +indeed an entomological or botanical specimen. He is making a specimen +of him, for scientific purposes,--not 'a preservation,'--he does not +think much of dried specimens in science. He proposes to dismiss the +logical Peter and John, and the logical man himself, that abstract +notion which the metaphysicians have been at loggerheads about so +long. It is the true heroism,--it is the sovereign flower which he is +in search of. This specimen that he is taking here will, indeed, go by +the board. He is taking him on his negative table. But for _that_ +purpose,--in order to get him on his 'table of rejections,' it is +necessary to take him _alive_. The question is of government, of +supreme power, and universal _suffrage_, of the abnegation of reason, +of the annihilation of judgment, in behalf of a superiority which has +been understood, heretofore, to admit of _no_ question. The question +is of awe and reverence, and worship, and submission. The Poet has to +put his sacrilegious hand through the dust that lies on antique time, +through the sanctity of prescription and time-honoured usage, through +'mountainous error' 'too highly heaped for truth to overpeer,' in +order to make this point in his scientific table. And he wishes to +blazon it a little. He will pin up this old exploded hero--this legacy +of barbaric ages, to the ages of human advancement--in all his +actualities, in all the heroic splendours of his original, without +'diminishing one dowle that's in his plume.' + +But this retrospect has not yet reached its limit. It is not enough to +go back, in the unravelling of this business, to the full-grown hero +on the field of victory. 'For that which, in speculative philosophy, +corresponds to the cause in practical philosophy becomes the rule;' +and it is the Cure of the Common Weal, which the poet is proposing, +and having determined to proceed specially against Caius Marcius, or +against him _first_, he undertakes now to 'delve him to the root.' We +are already on the battle field; but before ever a stroke is struck +_there_, before he will attempt to show us the instinct of the warrior +in his _game_,--'he is a lion that I am proud to hunt,'--when all is +ready and just as the hunt is going to begin, he steals softly back to +Rome; he unlocks the hero's private dwelling, he lays open to us the +secrets of that domestic hearth, the secrets of that nursery in which +his hero had had his training; he shows us the breasts from which he +drew that martial fire; he produces the woman alive who sent him to +that field. [Act 1, Scene 3. _An apartment in the martial chieftain's +house; two women, 'on two low stools, sewing_.' 'There is where your +throne begins, whatever it be.'] In that exquisite relief which the +natural graces of youth and womanhood provide for it, in the young, +gentle, feminine wife, desolate in her husband's absence, starting at +the rumour of news from the camp, and driving back from her appalled +conception, the images which her mother-in-law's fearful speech +suggests to her,--in that so beautiful relief, comes out the picture +of the Roman matron, the woman in whom the martial instincts have been +educated and the gentler ones repressed, by the common sentiments of +her age and nation, the woman in whom the common standard of virtue, +the conventional virtue of her time, has annihilated the wife and the +mother. + + _Virgilia_. Had he died in the business, madam, what then? + + _Volumnia_. Then his good report should have been my son, + _I therein would have found issue_. + +It is the multiplied force of a common instinct in the nation, it is +the pride of conquest in a whole people, erected into the place of +virtue and usurping all its sanctity, which has entered this woman's +nature and reformed its yielding principles. It is the _Martial_ +Spirit that has subdued her, for she is virtuous and religious. It is +her people's god to whom she has borne her son, and in his temple she +has reared him. + +But the poet is not satisfied with all this. It is not enough to +introduce us to the hero's mother and permit us to listen to her +confidential account of his birth and training. He will produce the +little Coriolanus himself--Coriolanus in germ--he will show us the +rudiments of those instincts, which his unscientific education has +stimulated into such monstrous 'o'ergrowth' (but _not_ enlightened), +so that the hero on the battle-field who is winning there the oaken +crown, which he will transmit if he can to his posterity, is only, +after all, a boy overgrown,--a boy with his _boyishness unnaturally +prolonged by his culture_,--the impersonation of the childishness of a +childish time,--the crowned impersonation of the instinct which is +SOVEREIGN in an age of instinct. He shows us the drum and the sword in +the nursery, and the boy who would rather look at the military parade +than his schoolmaster;--he shows us the little viperous egg of a hero +torturing and tearing the butterfly, with his 'confirmed countenance, +in one of his father's moods.' + +Surely we have reached 'the grub' at last, 'the creeping thing' that +will have one day imperial armies in its wings. And we return from +this little excursion to the field again, in time for the battle; and +when we see the tiger in the man let loose _there_, and the boy's +father comes out in one of his _own_ moods, that we may note it the +better; we begin to observe where we are in the human history, and +what age of the Advancement of Learning it is that this poet is +driving at so stedfastly, and trying to get dated; and whether it is +indeed one from which the advancing ages of Learning can accept the +bourne of the human wisdom, the limit of that advance. + +'And to speak _truly_ [and that after all _is_ the best way of +speaking] _Antiquitas seculi juventus mundi_.' + +'Those times are the ancient times, when the _world_ is ancient and +not those we account ancient by a computation _backward_ from +_ourselves_.'--_Advancement of Learning_. But that was put down in a +book in which we have only general statements, very wise indeed, and +both new and true, most exactly true, but not ready for practice, as +the author stops to tell us, and it is practice he is aiming at. That +is from a book in which we have only 'the husks and shells of +sciences, _all the kernel_ being forced out,' as the author informs +us, 'by the _torture and press_ of the method.' But it was a method +which saved them, notwithstanding. This is the book that contains the +'nuts,' and _this_ is the kernel that goes in that particular shell or +a corner of it, '_Antiquitas seculi juventus mundi_.' + +There, on the spot, he shows us the process by which a king,--an +historic king,--is made. He detects and brings out and blazons, the +moment in which the inequality of fortune begins, in the division of +the spoils of victory. His hero is _not_, as he takes pains to tell +us, covetous,--_unless_ it be a sin to covet honour, if it be, he is +the most offending soul alive;--it is because he is not mercenary, +that his soldiers will enrich him. The poet shows us where the throne +begins, and the machinery of that engine which the earth shrinks from +when it moves. On his stage, it is the moment in which, the soldiers +raise their victorious leader from his feet, and carry him in triumph +above them. We are there at the ceremony, for this is selected, +illuminated history; this, too, is what he calls 'visible history,' +but amid all those martial acclamations and plaudits, the philosopher +contrives to get in a word. + + 'He that has effected his _good will_, has o'ertaken my act.' + +From the field he tracks his hero to the chair of state. First we have +the news of the victory in the city, and its effect:-- + + 'I'll report it + Where _senators_ shall mingle tears with smiles; + Where great _patricians_ shall attend, and _shrug_; + I' the end admire; where ladies shall be frighted, + And, gladly quaked, hear more; where the _dull tribunes_, + That, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours, + Shall say against their hearts, We thank the gods + _Our Rome_ hath such a soldier.' + +Then we have the hero's return--the conqueror's reception; first in +the city whose battle he has won, and afterwards his reception in the +city he has conquered. Here is the latter:-- + + 'Your native town _you_ entered _like a post_, + And had no welcomes home; but he returns, + Splitting the air with noises. + And _patient fools_, + _Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear_ + WITH GIVING HIM GLORY.' + + 'A goodly city is this Antium! City, + 'Tis _I_ that made thy widows; many an heir + Of _these fair edifices, 'fore my wars_ + Have I heard groan and droop. Then know me not, + Lest that thy wives with spits, and boys with stones, + In _puny battle slay me_.' [--_know me not--lest_--' + 'Let us kill him, and we will have _corn_, at our own price.'] + +But the Poet does not forget that it is the proof of the military +virtue, as well as the history of the military power, that he has +undertaken; 'the touch of its nobility,' as he himself words it. He is +trying it by his own exact scientific standard; he is putting the test +to it which the new philosophy, which is the philosophy of nature, +authorises. + +For, in truth, this philosopher, this civilian, is a little jealous of +this simple virtue of valour, which he finds in his time, as in the +barbaric ages, still in such esteem, as 'the chiefest virtue, and that +which most dignifies the haver.' He is of opinion, that there may be +some other profession, beside that of the sword, worth an honest man's +attention; that, if the world were more enlightened, there would be +another kind of glory, that would make 'the garland of war' shrivel. +He thinks that _Jupiter_, and _not Mars_, should reign supreme: that +there is another kind of distinction and leadership, better worth the +public esteem, better deserving the popular gratitude and reverence. + +And when he has once taken an analysis of this kind in hand, he is not +going to permit any scruples of delicacy to impair the operation. He +will invade that graceful modesty in the hero, who shrinks from +hearing his exploits narrated. He will analyse that blush, and show us +chemically what its hue is made of. He will bring out those retiring +honours from the haze and mist which the vague, unanalytic, popular +notions, have gathered about them. Tucked up in scarlet, braided with +gold, under its forest of feathers, through all its pomp and blazonry, +through all its drums; and trumpets, and clarions, undaunted by the +popular cry, undaunted by that so potent word of 'patriotism' which +guards it from invasion, he will search it out. + +For this purpose he will go a little nearer to it than is the heroic +poet's wont. When the city is wild with the news of this great +victory, and the streets are swarming at the tidings of the hero's +approach, he will take _his_ stand with _the family party_, and beckon +us to a place where we can listen to what is going on _there_, though +the heroics and the blank verse must halt for it. + +The glee and fluster might appear to a cool spectator a little +undignified; but then we are understood to be, like Menenius, old +friends of the family, and too much carried away with the excitement +of the moment to be very critical. + + _Volumnia_. Honourable Menenius, _my boy, Marcius_, approaches. For + the love of _Juno_, let's go. + + _Men_. Ha! Marcius coming home! + + _Vol_. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous _approbation_. + + _Men. Take my cap, Jupiter_, and I thank thee. _Hoo_! Marcius coming + home? + + _Two Ladies_. Nay, 't is true. + + _Vol_. Look! Here's a letter from him; _the state_ hath another, + _his wife_ another, and I think there's one at home for _you_. + + _Men_. I will make my very house reel to night:--A letter for me? + + _The Wife_. Yes, certainly, there a letter for you; I saw it. + + _Men_. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years' + health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician ... Is he + not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded. + + _The Wife_. Oh, no, no, no! + + _The Mother_. Oh, he is wounded. I thank the gods for 't. + + _Men_. So do I, too, if it be not too much:--_Brings a victory in + his pocket_: The wounds become him. + + _Vol. On's brow_, Menenius: he comes the third time home with _the + oaken garland_. + + _Men_.... Is the senate possessed of this? + + _Vol_. Good ladies, let's go! Yes, yes, yes: the senate has letters + from the general, wherein he gives _my son_ the whole name of the + war. + + _Valeria_. In truth, there's wondrous things spoke of him. + + _Men_. Wondrous, ay, I warrant you... + + _Vir_. The gods grant them true! + + _Vol_. True? Pow wow! + + _Men_. True? I'll be sworn they are true. Where's he wounded? + [To the Tribunes, who _come forward_.] Marcius is coming home: he + has--_more cause to be_--PROUD.--Where is he wounded? + + _Vol_. I' the shoulder, and i' the left arm: _There will be large + cicatrices to shew the people_, when he shall stand FOR HIS PLACE. + He received in the repulse of _Tarquin_ seven hurts i' the body. + + _Men. One_ in the neck, and _two_ in the thigh,--there's _nine_ + that _I_ know. + + _Vol_. He had, before this last expedition, _twenty-five_ wounds + upon him. + + _Men_. Now it's _twenty-seven_: every gash was an enemy's grave. + +[Of course there is no satire intended here at all. This is a Poet who +does not know what he is about.] + +But now we come to the blank verse again; for at this moment the shout +that announces the hero's entrance is heard; and, mingling with it, +the martial tones of victory. + + _shout and flourish._ + Hark! the trumpets! + + _Vol. These are the ushers of Marcius: before him_ + He carries noise; _behind him he leaves tears_. + Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie; + Which being advanced, declines, and _then men die_. + +Then comes the imposing military pageant. A sennet. Trumpets sound, +and enter the hero, '_crowned_' with his _oaken_ garland, sustained by +the generals on either hand, with the victorious soldiers, and a +herald proclaiming before him his victory. + + _Herald_. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight + Within Corioli's gates: where he hath won + With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these + In honour follows Coriolanus: + Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus! + +But while Rome is listening to this great story, and the people are +shouting his name, the demi-god catches sight of his mother and of his +wife; and full of private duty and affection, he forgets his state, +his garland stoops, the conqueror is on his knee, in filial +submission. The woman had said truly, '_my boy_ Marcius is coming +home.' And when he greets the weeping Virgilia, who cannot speak but +with her tears, these are the words with which he measures that +_private joy_-- + + Would'st thou have laughed, had I come coffin'd home, + That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear, + _Such eyes_ the _widows_ in Corioli wear, + And _mothers_ that lack _sons_. + +No; these are the Poet's words, rather--'such eyes.' + +_Such_ eyes. It was the Poet who could look through the +barriers--those hitherto impervious barriers of an _enemy's town_, and +see in it, at that moment, eyes as beautiful--eyes that had been +'dove's eyes,' too, to those who had loved them, wet with other +tears,--mothers that loved _their_ sons, and 'lacked them'; it was the +Poet to whose _human_ sense those hard hostile walls dissolved and +cleared away, till he could see the Volscian wives clasping _their_ +loves, as they 'came coffined home'; it was the Poet who dared to +stain the joy and triumph of that fond meeting, the glory and pride of +that triumphal entry, with those _human_ thoughts; it was he who heard +above the roll of the drum, and the swell of the clarions and +trumpets, and the shout of the rejoicing multitude above the herald's +voice--the groans of mortal anguish in the field, the cries of human +sorrow in the city, the shrieks of mothers that lacked sons, the +greetings of wives whose loves '_came coffined home_.' And he does not +mind aggravating the intense selfishness, and narrowness, and +stolidity of these private passions and affections of the individual +to a truly unnatural and diabolical intensity, by charging on poor +Volumnia and Marcius his own reminiscences; as if they could have +dared to heighten their joy at that moment by counting its cost--as if +they could have looked in the face--as if they could have +comprehended, in its actual dimensions, the theme of their vulgar, +_narrow_, unlearned exultation. But this is a trick this author is +much given to, we shall find, when we come to study him carefully. He +is not scrupulous on such points. He has a tolerable sense of the +fitness of things, too. His dramatic conscience is as nice as another +man's; but he is always ready to sin against it, when he sees reason. +He is much like his own Mr. Slender in one respect, 'he will do +anything in reason'; and his theory of the Chief End of Man appears to +differ essentially from the one which our modern Doctors of '_Art_' +propound incidentally in their criticisms. It is the mother who cries, +when she catches the swell of the trumpets that announce her son's +approach--'_These_ are the ushers of Marcius. Before him he carries +noise.' It is the Poet who adds, _sotto voce, 'behind him he leaves +TEARS_.' + +'You are three,' says Menenius, after some further prolongation of +these private demonstrations, addressing himself to the three +victorious generals-- + + You are three, + That Rome _should_ dote on: yet, _by the faith_ of _men_, + We _have_ some old crab-trees here at home, that will _not_ + Be grafted to your relish. Yet WELCOME, WARRIORS: + We call a _nettle_ but a _nettle_; and + The _faults_ of fools, but _folly_. + +But the herald is driving on the crowd; and considering how very +public the occasion is, and how very, very private and personal all +this chat is, it does appear to have stopped the way long enough. Thus +hurried, the hero gives hastily a hand 'to HIS WIFE and MOTHER' [stage +direction], but stops to say a word or two more, which has the merit +of being at least to the POET'S purpose, though the common-weal may +appear to be lost sight of in the HERO'S a little; and that delicacy +and reserve of manner, that modesty of nature, which is the +characteristic of this Poet's art, serves here, as elsewhere, to +disguise the internal continuities of the poetic design. The careless +eye will not track it in these finer touches. 'Where some +stretched-mouth rascal' would have roared you out his prescribed +moral, 'outscolding Termagant' with it, the Poet, who is the poet of +truth, and who would have such fellows 'whipped' out of the sacred +places of Art, with a large or small cord, as the case may be, is +content to bring in his '_delicate burdens_,' or to keep sight of +them, at least, with some such reference to them as this-- + + 'Ere in _our own house_ I do shade my head, + The good patricians must be visited; + From whom I have received not only greetings + But with them change of honours'--[_change_.] + +That is his visit to the state-house which he is speaking of. It is +the Capitol which is put down in _his_ plan of the city on his way to +his own house. 'The state has a letter from him, and his wife another; +and I think there is one for you, too.' + +Volumnia understands that delicate intimation as to _the change_ of +honours, and in return, takes occasion to express to him, on the spot, +her views about the consulship, and the use to which the new +cicatrices are to be converted. + +Coriolanus replies to this in words that admit, as this Poet's words +often do, of a double construction; for the Poet is, indeed, lurking +under all this. He is always present, and he often slips in a word for +himself, when his characters are busy, and thinking of their own parts +only. He is very apt to make use of occasions for emphasis, to put in +_one word_ for his speakers, and _two_ for himself. It is irregular, +but he does not stand much upon precedents; it was the only way he had +of writing his life then-- + + 'Know, good mother, + I had rather be _their servant in my way_, + Than _sway with them in theirs_. + _Cominius. On, to_ THE CAPITOL.' + [_Flourish Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before. The Tribunes + remain._] + +And when the great pageant has moved on 'in state, as before'--when +the shouts of the people, and the triumphal swell and din, have died +away, this is the manner in which our two tribunes look at each other. +They know their voices would not make so much as a ripple, at that +moment, in the tide of that great sea of popular ignorance, which it +is their business to sway,--the tide which is setting all one way +then, in one of _its_ monstrous swells, and bearing every living thing +with it,--the tide which is taking the military hero '_On to_ THE +CAPITOL.' But though they cannot then oppose it, they can note it. And +it is thus that they register that popular confirmation at home, of +the soldier's vote on the field. + +It is a picture of the hero's return, good for all ages in its living +outline, composed in that 'charactery' which lays the past and future +open. It is a picture good for the Roman hero's entry; 'and were now +the general of our gracious empress, as in _good time he may_, from +Ireland coming, bringing _rebellion_ broached _on his sword_'--would +it, or would it not, suit him? + +It is a picture of the hero's return, good for all ages in its main +feature, for all the ages, at least of a brutish popular ignorance, of +a merely instinctive human growth and formation; but it is a picture +taken from the life,--caught,--detained with the secret of that +palette, whose secret none has yet found, and the detail is all, not +_Roman_, but, _Elizabethan_. Those '_variable complexions_,' that one +sees, 'smothering the stalls, bulks, windows, filling the leads,' and +roofs, even to the 'ridges,' all agreeing in one expression, are +Elizabethan. It is an Elizabethan crowd that we have got into, in some +way, and it is worth noting if it were only for that. There goes 'the +seld shown flamen, _puffing_ his way to _win a vulgar station_,' here +is a 'veiled dame' who lets us see that 'war of white and damask in +her nicely gawded cheeks,' a moment;--look at that 'kitchen malkin,' +peering over the wall there with 'her richest lockram' 'pinned on her +reechy neck,' eyeing the hero as he passes; and look at this poor baby +here, this Elizabethan baby, saved, conserved alive, crying himself +'into a _rapture_' while his 'prattling nurse' has ears and eyes for +the hero only, as 'she chats him.' Look at them all, for every +creature you see here, from 'the seld shown flamen' to the 'kitchen +malkin,' belongs soul and body to 'our gracious Empress,' and Essex +and Raleigh are still winning their garlands of the war,--that is when +the scene is taken, but not when it was put in its place and framed in +this composition; for their game was up ere then. England preferred +old heroes and their claims to new ones. 'I fear there will a worse +come in his place,' was the cautious instinct. + + _Bru_. All tongues speak of him, and the _bleared sights + Are spectacled to see him_: Your _prattling_ nurse + _Into a rapture lets her baby cry_, + While she chats him: the kitchin malkin pins + Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck. + _Clambering the walls_ to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows, + Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed + With _variable complexions; all agreeing + In earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens + Do press among the popular throng, and puff + To win a vulgar station_: our veil'd dames + Commit the war of white and damask, in + Their nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil + Of Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother, + As if that whatsoever god, who leads him, + Were slyly crept into his human powers, + And gave him graceful posture. + + _Sic_. On the sudden, + I warrant him consul. + + _Bru. Then our office may, + During his power, go sleep._ + + _Sic. He cannot temperately transport his honours + .... but will + Lose that he hath won._ + + _Cru. In that there's comfort._ + + _Sic_. Doubt not, the _commoners, for whom we stand_,-- + +[While they resolve upon the measures to be taken, which we shall note +elsewhere, a messenger enters.] + + _Bru_. What's the matter? + + _Mess_. You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought, + That _Marcius_ shall be consul: I have seen + The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind + To hear him speak: The matrons flung their gloves, + _Ladies_ and _maids_ the _scarfs_ and _handkerchiefs_, + Upon him as he passed: _the nobles bended, + As to Jove's statue; and the commons made + A shower, and thunder_, with their _caps, and shouts_: + I never saw the like. + + _Bru. Lets to the Capitol; + And carry_ with us _ears and eyes for_ THE TIME, + _But hearts_ for the EVENT. + +[And let us to the Capitol also, and hear the civic claim of the oaken +garland, the military claim to dispose of the _common-weal_, as set +forth by one who is himself a general 'commander-in-chief' of Rome's +armies, and see whether or no the Poet's own doubtful cheer on the +battle-field has any echo in this place.] + + _Com. It is held, + That valour is the chiefest virtue_, and + _Most dignifies the haver_: IF IT BE, + _The man I speak_ of cannot in the world + Be _singly_ counterpois'd. + +[If it be? And he goes on to tell a story which fits, in all its +points, a great hero, a true chieftain, brave as heroes of old +romance, who lived when this was written, concluding thus--] + + _Com_. He _stopped the fliers_; + And, by his rare example, made the coward + Turn terror into sport: _as waves before + A vessel under sail_, SO MEN OBEY'D, + _And fell below his stem_: his sword, (death's stamp.) + Where it did mark, it took; _from face to foot + He was a thing of blood, whose every motion + Was timed with dying cries_: alone he enter'd + The mortal gate o'the city, which he painted + With shunless destiny, aidless came off, + And with a sudden re-enforcement struck + Corioli, like a planet: now, ALL'S HIS: + When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce + His ready sense: then straight _his doubled spirit_ + Re-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate, + And to the battle came he; where he did + _Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if + 'Twere a perpetual spoil_: and _till we call'd + Both field and city ours, he never stood + To ease his breast with panting_. + + _Men_. WORTHY MAN! + + _First Sen. He cannot but with measure fit the honours + Which we devise him._ + +[One more quality, however, his pleader insists on, as additional +proof of this '_fitness_' for though it is a negative one, its +opposite had not been reckoned among the kingly virtues, and the poet +takes some pains to bring that opposite quality into relief, +throughout, by this negative.] + + _Com_. Our _spoils_ he kicked at; + And look'd upon things precious, as they were + The common muck o' the world. + + _Men_. HE'S RIGHT NOBLE; + _Let him be call'd for._ + + _First Sen. Call for Coriolanus._ + + _Off. He doth appear._ + +At the opening of this scene, two officers appeared on the stage, +'_laying cushions_,' for this is one of those specimens of the new +method of investigation applied to the noblest subjects, 'which +represents, as it were, _to the eye_, the whole order of the +invention,' and into the Capitol stalks now the casque, for this is +that 'step from the casque to the cushion' which the Poet is +considering in the abstract; but it does not suit his purpose to treat +of it in these abstract terms merely, because 'reason cannot be so +sensible.' This, too, is one of those grand historic moments which +this new, select, prepared history must represent to the eye in all +its momentous historic splendour, for this is the kind of popular +instruction which reproduces the past, which represents the historic +event, not in perspective, but as present. And this is the 'business,' +and this is the play in which we are told 'action is eloquence, and +the eyes of the ignorant more learned than the ears.' + +The seats of state are prepared for him. 'Call _Coriolanus_,' is the +senate's word. The conqueror's step is heard. 'He does appear.' + + _Men_. The senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased + To make thee consul. + + _Cor_. I do owe them still + My life, and services. + + _Men_. IT THEN REMAINS, + THAT YOU DO SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE. + + _Cor_. I do beseech you, + _Let me overleap that custom_. + + _Sic. Sir, the people + Must have their voices; neither will they bate + One jot of their ceremony._ + + _Men. Put them not to't_:--[his friendly adviser says.] + Pray you, go fit you _to the custom_; and + Take to you, _as your predecessors have_, + Your honour, with _your form_. + + _Cor_. It is a part + That I shall blush in acting, _and might well + Be taken from the people_. + + _Bru. Mark you that!_ + + _Cor_. To brag unto them,--_Thus I did, and thus_;-- + Show them the unaching scars which I should hide, + As if I had received _them for the hire_ + Of _their breath only_. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE POPULAR ELECTION. + + + 'The greater part carries it. + If he would but incline to the people, + There never was a worthier man.' + +And yet, after all, that is what he wants for them, and must have or +he is nothing; for as the Poet tells us elsewhere, 'our monarchs and +our outstretched heroes are but the beggar's shadows.' The difficulty +is, that he wishes to take his 'hire' in some more quiet way, without +being rudely reminded of the nature of the transaction. + +But the Poet's toils are about him. The man of science has caught the +hero, the king in germ; the dragon wings are not yet spread. He wishes +to exhibit the embryo monarch in this particular stage of his +development, and the scientific process proceeds with as little regard +to the victim's wishes, as if he were indeed that humble product of +nature to which the Poet likens him. 'There's a differency between a +grub and a butterfly; yet your butterfly was a grub.' Just on that +step between 'the casque and the cushion,' the philosopher arrests +him. + +For this history denotes, as we have seen, a foregone conclusion. The +scholar has privately anatomized in his study the dragon's wings, and +this theatrical synthesis is designed to be an instructive one. He +wishes to show, in a palpable form, what _is_ and what is _not_, +essential to the mechanism of that greatness which, though it presents +itself to the eye in the contemptible physique, and moral infirmity +and pettiness of the human individual, is yet clothed with powers so +monstrous, so real, so terrific, that all men are afflicted with +them;--this thing in which 'the conditions of a man are so altered,' +this thing which 'has grown from man to dragon, which is more than a +creeping thing.' He will show that after all it is nothing in the +world but the _popular power_ itself, the power of the people +instinctively, unscientifically and unartistically exercised. + +The Poet has analysed that so potent name by which men call it, and he +will show upon his stage, by that same method which his followers have +made familiar to us, in other departments of investigation, the +elements of its power. He will let us see how it was those despised +'mechanics,' those 'poor citizens,' with their strong arms and voices, +who were throwing themselves,--in their enthusiasm,--en-masse into +that engine, and only asking to be welded in it; that would have made +of this citizen a thing so terrific. He will show how, after all, it +was the despised _commons_ who were making of that citizen a king, of +that soldier a monarch,--who were changing with the alchemy of the +'shower and thunder they made with their caps and voices,' his oak +leaves and acorns, into gold and jewels. + +He will show it on the platform of a state, where that vote is +formally and constitutionally given, and not in a state where it is +only a virtual and tacit one. He will show it in detail. He will cause +the multitude to be _represented_, and pass by _twos_ and _threes_ +across his stage, and compel the haughty chief, the would be ruler, to +beg of them, individually, their suffrages, and show them his +claim,--such as it is, the '_unaching scars that he should hide_.' + +It is to this Poet's purpose to exhibit that despised element in the +state, which the popular submission creates, that unnoticed element of +the common suffrage which looks so smooth on its surface, which seems +to the haughty chief so little worth his notice, when it goes his way +and bears him on its crest. But the experimenter will undertake to +show what it is by ruffling it, by instigating this chief to put +himself in the madness of his private affections, in the frenzy of his +pride, into open opposition with it. He will show us what it is by +playing with it. He will wake it from its unvisited depths, and bid +his hero strive with it. + +He will show what that popular consent, or the consent of 'the +commons' amounts to, in the king-making process, by _omitting it_ or +by _withdrawing it_, before it is too late to withdraw it;--according +to the now well-known rules of that new art of scientific +investigation, which was then getting worked out and cleared, from +this author's own methods of investigation. For it was because this +faculty was in him, so unlike what it was in others, that he was able +to write that science of it, by which other men, stepping into his +armour, have been able to achieve so much. + +He will show how those dragon teeth and claws, that were just getting +the steel into them, which would have armed that single will against +the whole, and its _weal_, crumble for the lack of it; he will show us +the new-fledged wings, with all their fresh gauds, collapsing and +dissolving with that popular withdrawal. He will continue the process, +till there is nothing left of all that gorgeous state pageant, which +came in with the flourish of trumpets and the voice of the herald long +and loud, and the echoing thunder of the commons, but a poor grub of a +man, in his native conditions, a private citizen, denied even the +common privilege of citizenship,--with only his wife and his mother +and a friend or two, to cling to him,--turned out of the city gates, +to seek his fortune. + +But that is the moment in which the Poet ventures to bring out a +little more fully, in the form of positive statement, that latent +affirmation, that definition of the true nobility which underlies all +the play and glistens through it in many a fine, but hitherto, +unnoticed point; that affirmation which all these negatives conclude +in, that latent idea of the true personal greatness and its essential +relation to the common-weal and the state, which is the predominant +idea of the play, which shapes all the criticism and points all the +satire of it. It is there that the true hero speaks out for a moment +from the lips of that old military heroism, of a greatness which does +not cease when the wings of state drop off from it, of an honour that +takes no stain though all the human voices join to sully it,--the +dignity that rises and soars and gains the point of immutability, when +all the world would have it under foot. But in that nobility men need +training,--_scientific training_. The instinctive, unartistic human +growth, or the empirical unscientific arts of culture, give but a +vulgar counterfeit of it, or at best a poor, sickly, distorted, +convulsive, unsatisfactory type of it, for 'being gentle, +wounded,'--(and it is gentility and nobility and the true aristocracy +that we speak of here,)--'craves a NOBLE CUNNING;' so the old military +chieftain tells us. It is a _cunning_ which his author does not put +_him_ upon practising personally. Practically he represents another +school of heroes. It is the _word_ of that higher heroism in which he +was himself wanting, it is the criticism on his own part, it is the +affirmation which all this grand historic negative is always pointing +to, which the author borrows his lips to utter. + +The result in this case, the overthrow of the military hero on his way +to the chair of state, is occasioned by the _premature_ arrogance to +which his passionate nature impels him. For his fiery disposition +refuses to obey the decision of his will, and overleaps in its +passion, all the barriers of that policy which his calmer moments had +prescribed. The result is occasioned by his open display of his +contempt for the people, before he had as yet mastered the +organizations which would make that display, in an unenlightened age, +perhaps, a safe one. + +This point of time is much insisted on, and emphasized. + +'Let them pull all about mine ears,' cries the hero, as he enters his +own house, after his first encounter with the multitude in their +wrath. + + 'Let them pull all about mine ears, present me + _Death on the wheel_, or at wild horses' heels, + Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock + That the precipitation might down stretch + Below the beam of sight, yet will I still-- + _Be_ THUS _to them_.' + +[For that is the sublime conclusion of these heroics.] + +'You do the _nobler_,' responds the Coryphćus of that chorus of +patricians who accompany him home, and who ought, of course, to be +judges of nobility. But there is another approbation wanted. Volumnia +is there; but she listens in silence. 'I muse,' he continues-- + + 'I muse my mother + Does not approve me further--who was wont + To call them woollen vassals, _things created + To buy and sell with groats_; to show bare heads + In _congregations_, to YAWN, be STILL, AND WONDER, + When one but of my _ordinance_ stood up + To speak of PEACE or WAR. I talk of you [_to Volumnia_.] + Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me + _False to my nature_? [_Softly_] Either say I _play_ + The man I am. + + _Vol_. O sir, sir, sir, + I would have had you _put your power well on_, + Ere you had worn it out. + + _Cor_. Let go. + + _Vol_. Lesser had been + The _thwarting of your dispositions_, IF + You had not shown them _how_ you were _disposed_ + Ere they lacked _power_ to cross you. + + _Cor_. Let them HANG! + + _Vol_. _Ay, and_ BURN _too_! + +For that was the '_disposition_' which these Commons, if they had +waited but a little longer, might have 'lacked _power to cross_.' That +was the disposition they had thwarted. + +But then it is necessary to our purpose, as it was to the author's, to +notice that the collision in this case is a _forced_ one. It grows by +plot. The people are _put up to it_. For there are men in that +commonwealth who are competent to instruct the Commons in the doctrine +of the _common weal_, and who are carefully and perseveringly applying +themselves to that task; though they are men who know how to bide +their time, and they will wait till the soaring insolence of the hero +is brought into open collision with that enlightened popular will. + +They will wait till the military hero's quarrel with the commonwealth +breaks out anew. For they know that it lies in the nature of things, +and cannot but occur. The éclat of his victory, and the military pride +of the nation, films it over for a time; but the quarrel is a radical +one, and cannot be healed. + +For this chief of soldiers, and would-be head and ruler of the state +knows no _commonwealth_. His soul is not large enough to admit of that +conception. The walls of ignorance, that he shuts himself up in, +darken and narrow his world to the sphere of his own _microcosm_,-- +and, therefore, there is a natural war between the world and him. The +_state_ of universal subjection, on the part of others, to his single +exclusive passions and affections, the state in which the whole is +sacrificed to the part, is the only state that will satisfy him. That +is the peace he is disposed to conquer; that is the consummation with +which he would _stay_; that is _his_ notion of _state_. When that +consummation is attained, or when such an approximation to it as he +judges to be within his reach, is attained, then, and not till then, +he is for _conservation_;--_revolution then_ is sin; but, till then he +will have change and overturning--he will fill the earth with rapine, +and fire, and slaughter. But this is just the peace and war principle, +which this man, who proposes a durable and solid peace, and the true +state, a state constructed with reference to true definitions and +axioms,--this is the peace and war principle which the man of science, +on scientific grounds, objects to. 'He likes nor peace nor war' on +those terms. The conclusions he has framed from those solid premises +which he finds in the nature of things, makes him the leader of the +opposition in both cases. In one way or another he will make war on +that peace; he will kindle the revolutionary fires against that +conservation. In one way or another, in one age or another, he will +silence that war with all its pomp and circumstance, with all the din +of its fifes, and drums, and trumpets. He will make over to the +ignominy of ignorant and barbaric ages,--'for we call a nettle but a +nettle,' he will turn into a forgotten pageant of the rude, early, +instinctive ages, the yet brutal ages of an undeveloped humanity, that +triumphant reception at home, of the Conqueror of Foreign States. He +will undermine, in all the states, the ethics and religion of brute +force, till men shall grow sick, at last, of the old, rusty, bygone +trumpery of its insignia, and say, 'Take away those baubles.' + +But the hero that we deal with here, is but the pure negation of that +heroism which his author conceives of, aspires to, and will have, +historical, which he defines as the pattern of man's nature in all +men. This one knows no _common_-wealth; the wealth that is wealth in +his eyes, is all his own; the weal that he conceives of, is the weal +that is warm at his own heart only. At best he can go out of his +particular only as far as the limits of his own hearthstone, or the +limits of his clique or caste. And in his selfish passion, when that +demands it, he will sacrifice the nearest to him. As to the Commons, +they are 'but things to buy and sell with groats,' a herd, a mass, a +machine, to be informed with his single will, to be subordinated to +his single wishes; in peace enduring the gnawings of hunger, that the +garners their toil has filled may overflow for him,--enduring the +badges of a degradation which blots out the essential humanity in +them, to feed his pride;--in war offered up in droves, to win the +garland of the war for him. That is the old hero's commonwealth. His +small brain, his brutish head, could conceive no other. The ages in +which he ruled the world with his instincts, with his fox-like +cunning, with his wolfish fury, with his dog-like ravening,--those +brute ages could know no other. + +But it is the sturdy European race that the hero has to deal with +here; and though, in the moment of victory, it is ready always to +chain itself to the conqueror's car, and, in the exultation of +conquest, and love for the conqueror, fastens on itself, with joy, the +fetters of ages, this quarrel is always breaking out in it anew: it +does not like being governed with the edge of the sword;--it is not +fond of martial law as a permanent institution. + +Two very sagacious tribunes these old Romans happen to have on hand in +this emergency: birds considerably too old to be caught with this +chaff of victory and military virtue, which puts the populace into +such a frenzy, and very learnedly they talk on this subject, with a +slight tendency to anachronisms in their mode of expression, in +language which sounds a little, at times, as if they might have had +access to some more recent documents, than the archives of mythical +Rome could just then furnish to them. + +But the reader should judge for himself of the correctness of this +criticism. + +Refusing to join in the military procession on its way to the Capitol, +and stopping in the street for a little conference on the subject, +when it has gone by, after that vivid complaint of the universal +prostration to the military hero already quoted, the conference +proceeds thus:-- + + _Sic_. On the sudden, + I warrant him consul. + + _Bru_. Then _our office_ may, + _During his power_, go sleep. + + _Sic_. He cannot temperately transport his honours + From where he should begin, and end; but will + Lose those that he hath won. + + _Bru_. In _that_ there's comfort. + + _Sic_. Doubt not, the commoners, _for whom we stand_. + But _they, upon their ancient malice_, will + Forget, with the least cause, these _his new honours_; + Which that he'll give them, make as little question + As he is proud to do't. + + _Bru_. I heard him swear, + Were _he_ to stand for consul, never would he + Appear i'the market-place, nor on him put + The napless vesture of humility; + Nor, showing (as the _manner is_) his wounds + To the people, beg their stinking breaths. + + _Sic_. _'Tis right_. + + _Bru_. It was his word: O, he would miss it, rather + Than _carry it, but by the suit o'the gentry to him_, + And the _desire of the nobles_. + + _Sic_. _I wish no better_, + Than have him hold _that_ purpose, and to put it + In execution. + + _Bru_. 'Tis most like he will. + + _Sic_. It shall be to him then, as our good wills + A sure destruction. + + _Bru_. So it must fall out + To him, or our authorities. For an end, + We must suggest the people, in what hatred + He still hath held them; that to his power he would + _Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders_, and + DISPROPERTIED THEIR FREEDOMS: [--note the expression--] + holding them, + IN HUMAN ACTION AND CAPACITY, + Of no more soul _nor fitness for_ THE WORLD + Than CAMELS in their war; who have their provand + _Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows + For sinking under them_. + + _Sic_. _This as you say, suggested + At some time, when his soaring insolence + Shall teach the people_ (which time shall not want) + _If he be put upon't_; and that's as easy + As to set dogs on sheep; will be HIS FIRE + _To_ KINDLE THEIR DRY STUBBLE; AND THEIR BLAZE + SHALL DARKEN HIM FOR EVER. + + [There is a history in all men's lives, + Figuring the nature of the times deceased, + The which observed a man may prophesy, + With a near aim of the main chance of things, + As yet not come to life, which in their seeds + And weak beginnings, lie intreasured: + Such things become the hatch and brood of time.--_Henry IV_.] + +Coriolanus, elected by the Senate to the consulship, proposes, in his +arrogance, as we have already seen, to dispense with the usual form, +which he understands to be a form merely, of asking the consent of the +people, and exhibiting to them his claim to their suffrages. The +tribunes have sternly withstood this proposition, and will hear of 'no +jot' of encroachment upon the dignity and state of the Commons. After +the flourish with which the election in the Senate Chamber concludes, +and the withdrawal of the Senate, again they stop to discuss, +confidentially, 'the situation.' + + _Bru_. You _see_ how he intends to use the people. + + _Sic_. May _they perceive his intent_; he will require them + As if he did contemn what they requested + Should be in their power to give. + + _Bru_. Come, we'll inform them + Of our proceedings here: on the market-place + I know they do attend us. + +And to the market-place we go; for it is there that the people are +collecting in throngs; no bats or clubs in their hands now, but still +full of their passion of gratitude and admiration for the hero's +patriotic achievements, against the common foe; and, under the +influence of that sentiment, wrought to its highest pitch by that +action and reaction which is the incident of the common sentiment in +'the greater congregations,' or 'extensive wholes,' eager to sanction +with their 'approbation,' the appointment of the Senate, though the +graver sort appear to be, even then, haunted with some unpleasant +reminiscences, and not without an occasional misgiving as to the +wisdom of the proceeding. There is a little tone of the former meeting +lurking here still. + + _First Cit_. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to + deny him. + + _Second Cit_. We may, Sir, if we will. + + _Third Cit_. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is + a power that we have no power to do. Ingratitude is _monstrous_: + and for the multitude to be ungrateful, were to make a monster of + the multitude,-- + +[There are scientific points here. This term 'monstrosity' is one of +the radical terms in the science of nature; but, like many others, it +is used in the popular sense, while the sweep and exactitude of the +scientific definition, or '_form_' is introduced into it.] + + --of the which, we, being members, should bring ourselves to be + monstrous members. + + _First Cit_. And to make us no better thought of, a little help will + serve: for once, when we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck + not to call us the _many_-headed multitude. + + _Third Cit_. We have been called so _of many_; not that our heads + are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, _but that our + wits are so diversely coloured_: and truly I think, if ALL _our + wits_ were to issue out of ONE skull, they would fly east, west, + north, south; and _their consent_ of _one direct_ way should be at + once to ALL the points o'the compass. + +[An enigma; but the sphinx could propound no better one. Truly this +man has had good teaching. He knows how to translate the old priestly +Etruscan into the vernacular.] + + _Second Cit_. Think you so? Which way, do you judge, my wit + would fly? + + _Third Cit_. Nay, _your wit_ will not so soon out as _another + man's_ WILL, 'tis _strongly wedged up_ in a block-head: _but if + it were at liberty_ ... + + _Second Cit_. You are never without your tricks:--... + + _Third Cit_. Are you _all_ resolved to give your voices? _But that's + no matter. The greater part carries it_. I say, if he would _incline + to the people_, there was never a worthier man. + + [_Enter Coriolanus and Menenius_.] + + Here he comes, and in the _gown_ of _humility_; mark his behaviour. + We are not to stay _all_ together, but to come by him where he + stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his _requests + by particulars_: wherein _every one of us has a single honour_, in + giving him our own voices with our own tongues: _therefore_ FOLLOW + ME, and I'LL DIRECT YOU HOW YOU SHALL GO BY HIM. + + [The voice of the true leader is lurking here, and all through + these scenes the '_double_' meanings are thickly sown.] + + _All_. _Content, content!_ + + _Men_. O Sir, you are not right: have you not known + The worthiest men have done it? + + _Cor_. What must I say?-- + I pray, Sir?--Plague upon't! I cannot bring + My tongue to such a pace:--Look, Sir,--my wounds;-- + I got them in my country's service, _when + Some certain of your brethren roar'd, and ran + From the noise of_ OUR OWN DRUMS. + + _Men_. O me, the gods! + _You must not speak of that_; you must desire them + To think upon you. + + _Cor_. Think upon _me? Hang 'em!_ + I would they would forget me, _like the virtues_ + Which our _divines lose_ by them. + + _Men_. _You'll mar all_; + I'll leave you: Pray you, speak to them, I pray you, + In _wholesome_ manner. + + [And now, instead of being thronged with a mob of + citizens--instructed how they are to go by him with the honor of + their _single_ voices they enter 'by twos' and 'threes.'] + + [Enter two Citizens.] + + Cor. Bid them wash their faces, + And keep their teeth clean._--So, here comes a _brace_, + You know the cause, Sir, of my standing here. + + _First Cit_. We do, Sir; _tell us what hath brought you to't_, + + _Cor. Mine own desert._--[The would-be consul answers.] + + _Second Cit_. Your own desert? + + _Cor_. Ay, not + Mine own desire. + + [His _own_ desert has brought him to the consulship; his _own_ + desire would have omitted the conciliation of the people, and + the deference to their will, that with all his desert somehow he + seems to find expected from him.] + + _First Cit_. How! not your own desire! + + _Cor_. No, Sir. + 'Twas never my desire yet, + _To trouble the poor with begging_. + +He desires what the poor have to give him however; but he desires to +take it, without begging. But it is the heart of the true hero that +speaks in earnest through that mockery, and the reference is to a +state of things towards which the whole criticism of the play is +steadfastly pointed, a state in which sovereigns were reluctantly +compelled to beg from the poor, what they would rather have taken +without their leave, or, at least, a state in which the _form_ of this +begging was still maintained, though there lacked but little to make +it a form only, a state of things in which a country gentleman might +be called on to sell 'his brass pans' without being supplied, on the +part of the State, with what might appear, to him, any respectable +reason for it, putting his life in peril, and coming off, with a +hair's-breadth escape, of all his future usefulness, if he were bold +enough to question the proceeding; a state of things in which a poor +law-reader might feel himself called upon to buy a gown for a lady, +whose gowns were none of the cheapest, at a time when the state of his +finances might render it extremely inconvenient to do so. + +But to return to the Roman citizen, for the play is written by one who +knows that the human nature is what it is in all ages, or, at least, +until it is improved with better arts of culture than the world has +yet tried on it. + + _First Cit. You must think, if we give you anything, + We hope to gain by you._ + + _Cor. Well then_, I pray, YOUR PRICE O'THE CONSULSHIP? + + _First Cit_. The price is, Sir, to ask it _kindly_. + + _Cor. Kindly_? + Sir, I pray let me ha't: I have wounds to show you, + Which shall be yours in private.--Your good voice, Sir; + What say you? + + _Second Cit_. You shall have it, _worthy_ Sir. + + _Cor_. A _match_, Sir: + There is in all two worthy voices begg'd:-- + _I have your alms_; adieu. + + _First Cit_. But this is something _odd_. + + _Second Cit. An 'twere to give again_,--But 'tis no matter. + + [_Exeunt two Citizens_.] + + [_Enter two other Citizens_.] + + _Cor_. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your voices, + that I may be consul, I have here _the customary gown_. + + _Third Cit_. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you have + not deserved nobly. + + _Cor. Your enigma_? + + _Third Cit_. You have been a _scourge to her enemies_, you _have + been a rod to her friends_; you have _not_ INDEED, loved the COMMON + PEOPLE. + + _Cor_. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been + common in my love. I will, Sir, flatter my sworn brother the people, + to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a condition _they account_ + GENTLE: and since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my + hat than my heart, _I will practise_ the _insinuating nod_, and be + _off to them most counterfeitly_; that is, Sir, I will counterfeit + the bewitchment of _some popular man, and give it bountifully to + the desirers_. Therefore, beseech you, I may be consul. + + _Fourth Cit_. We hope to find you _our friend_; and _therefore_ + give you our voices heartily. + + _Third Cit_. You have received many wounds for your country. + + _Cor_. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I will make + much of your voices, and so trouble you no further. + + _Both Cit_. The gods give you joy, Sir, heartily! [_Exeunt_.] + + _Cor_. Most sweet voices!-- + Better it is to die, better to starve, + ...Rather than fool it so, + Let the high office and the honour go + To one that would do thus.--I am half through; + _The one part suffer'd, the other will I do_. + + [_Enter three other Citizens._] + + Here come more voices,-- + Your Voices: _for your_ voices _I have fought_: + _Watch'd_ for _your voices; for your voices, bear + Of wounds two dozen odd_; battles thrice six, + I have seen and heard of; _for your voices_, + Done many things, _some less, some more_: your voices: + _Indeed, I would be consul_. + + _Fifth Cit_. He has done _nobly_, and _cannot go without any honest + man's voice_. + + _Sixth Cit_. Therefore let him be consul: The gods give him joy, and + make him _good friend to the people_. + + _All_. Amen, Amen.-- + _God save thee, noble_ consul! [_Exeunt Citizens_.] + + _Cor_. WORTHY VOICES! + + [_Re-enter Menenius, with the tribunes Brutus, and Sicinius._] + + _Men_. You have stood your limitation; and the tribunes + Endue you with the people's voice: _Remains_, + That in the _official marks_ invested, you + _Anon_ do meet the senate. + + _Cor_. Is this done? + + _Sic_. The _custom_ of _request_ you have discharged: + _The people do admit you_; and are _summon'd_ + To meet anon, _upon your approbation_. + + _Cor_. Where? At the senate-house? + + _Sic. There_ Coriolanus. + + _Cor. May I change these garments_? + + _Sic_. You may, Sir. + + _Cor_. That I'll straight do, and _knowing myself again_, + Repair to the senate house. + + _Men_. I'll keep you company.--Will you along. + + _Bru. We stay here for the people_. + + _Sic_. Fare you well. + + [_Exeunt Coriolanus and Menenius_.] + + _He has it now_; and by his looks, methinks, + 'Tis warm at his heart. + + _Bru. With a proud heart he wore + His humble weeds_: Will you dismiss the people? + +[This is the popular election: but the afterthought, the review, the +critical review, is that which must follow, for this is not the same +people we had on the stage when the play began. They are the same in +person, perhaps; but it is no longer a mob, armed with clubs, +clamouring for bread, rushing forth to kill their chiefs, and have +corn at their own price. It is a people conscious of their political +power and dignity, an organised people; it is a people with a +constituted head, capable of instructing them in the doctrine of +political duties and rights. It is the tribune now who conducts this +review of the Military Hero's civil claims. It is the careful, learned +Tribune who initiates, from the heights of his civil wisdom, this +great, popular veto, this deliberate 'rejection' of the popular +affirmation. For this is what is called, elsewhere, 'a _negative_ +instance.'] + + [_Re-enter Citizens_.] + + _Sic_. How now, _my masters?_ HAVE YOU CHOSE THIS MAN? + + _First Cit_. He has our _voices_, Sir. + + _Bru_. We pray the gods he may deserve your loves. + + _Second Cit_. Amen, Sir: To my poor unworthy notice, + _He mocked us when he begg'd our voices_. + + _Third Cit_. Certainly + He flouted us downright. + + _First Cit_. No, 'tis his kind of speech; he did not mock us. + + _Second Cit_. Not one amongst us save yourself, but says, + He used us _scornfully_: he should have show'd us + His marks of merit, wounds received for his country. + + _Sic_. Why, so he did, I am sure. + + _Cit_. No; no man saw 'em. [_Several speak_.] + + _Third Cit_. He said he _had_ wounds which he could show in private; + And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn, + 'I _would be consul_,' says he,' AGED CUSTOM, + BUT BY YOUR VOICES, WILL NOT SO PERMIT ME; + _Your voices_ THEREFORE:' When we granted that, + Here was,--'I thank you for your voices,--thank you,-- + Your most sweet voices:--_now you have left your voices, + I have no further with you:'--Was not this mockery?_ + + _Sic_. Why, either, were you ignorant to see't? + Or, seeing it, of such _childish friendliness + To yield your voices?_ + + _Bru_. Could you not have told him + As you were lesson'd--when he had no power, + But was a petty servant to the state, + He was your enemy; ever spake _against_ + _Your_ LIBERTIES, and the CHARTERS that you bear + _I'_ THE BODY of the WEAL: and now arriving + A _place of potency, and sway_ o' the state, + If he should still malignantly remain + _Fast foe_ to the plebeii, _your voices might + Be_ CURSES _to_ YOURSELVES. + + _Sic_. Thus to have said + As you were fore-advised, had touched his spirit, + And _tried_ his inclination; from him plucked, + Either his gracious promise, which _you might, + As cause had called you up, have_ HELD HIM TO; + _Or else_ it would have galled his surly nature, + _Which easily endures, not article + Tying him to aught_;--so putting him to rage, + You should have ta'en advantage of his choler, + And so left him unelected. + +[Somewhat sagacious instructions for these old _Roman_ statesmen to +give, and not so very unlike those which English Commons found +occasion to put in execution not long after.] + + _Bru_. Did you perceive he did solicit you _in free contempt_, + When he did need your loves; and do you think + That his contempt shall not be bruising to you, + When, he hath _power to crush_? Why had your bodies + _No heart among you_, or had you tongues + To cry against THE RECTORSHIP of--_judgment_? + + _Sic_. Have you + Ere now, _deny'd the asker_, and now again, + On him that _did not ask, but mock_, [with a pretence of asking,] + bestow Your sued for tongues? + + _Third Cit_. HE'S NOT CONFIRMED, _we may deny him_ YET. + + _Second Cit. And will deny him: + I'll have five hundred voices of that sound_. + + _First Cit. I_, twice five hundred, and their friends to _piece + 'em_. + + _Bru_. Get you hence instantly, and _tell those friends_, + They have chose a consul that will from them + _Take their liberties_, MAKE THEM OF NO MORE VOICE + THAN DOGS, that are as often BEAT for barking, + As KEPT TO DO SO. + + _Sic_. Let them assemble, + And on a safer judgment, ALL REVOKE + Your IGNORANT ELECTION. + + _Bru_. Lay + A fault on _us, your tribunes_; that WE LABOURED + NO IMPEDIMENT BETWEEN, but that you _must_ + Cast your election on him. + + _Sic_. Say, you chose him + More after our commandment, than as guided + By your own true affections, and that your minds, + _Pre-occupied_ with what you rather _must_ do, + Than what you _should_, made you _against the grain_ + To voice _him_ consul: lay the fault _on us_. + + _Bru_. Ay, SPARE us NOT. _Say_ WE READ LECTURES TO YOU, + How youngly _he began to serve his country_, + How long continued, and what _stock_ he springs of; + The noble house o' the _Marcians_, from whence came, + That Ancus Martius, _Numa's_ daughter's son, + Who, after _great Hostilius_, here was _king_: + Of the same house Publius and Quintus were, + _That our best water brought by conduits hither_; + And Censoriuus, _darling of the people_, + And nobly named so, being _censor twice_, + Was his great ancestor. + +[Of course this man has never meddled with the classics at all. His +reading and writing comes by nature.] + + _Sic. One thus_ descended, + That hath _beside well in his person wrought_, + To be set _high in place, we_ did commend + To your remembrances; but _you have found, + Scaling his present bearing with his past_, + That _he's_ your fixed _enemy_, and REVOKE + _Your sudden approbation_. + + _Bru._. Say you ne'er had done't,-- + _Harp on that still_,--but by _our putting on_, + And _presently_ when you have drawn your number, + Repair to the Capitol. + + _Citizens_. [_Several speak_.] We will so. Almost all + Repent in their election. [Exeunt Citizens.] + + _Bru_. Let them go on. + This mutiny were better put in hazard, + Than stay, past doubt, for greater; + If, as his nature is, he fall in rage + With their refusal, both observe and answer + The vantage of his anger. + + _Sic_. To the Capitol: + Come, _we'll be there before the stream_ o' the people, + _And this shall seem, as partly'tis, their own + Which_ WE HAVE GOADED ONWARD. + +[See the Play of Henry the _Seventh_, Founder of the Elizabethan +Tyranny, by the same author.] + +We have witnessed the popular election on the scientific boards: we +have seen, now, in all its scientific detail, the civil confirmation +of the soldier's vote on the battle-field: we have seen it in the +senate-chamber and in the market-place, and we saw it in 'the +smothered stalls, and bulks, and windows,' and on 'the leads and +ridges': we have seen and heard it, not in the shower and thunder that +the commons made with their caps and voices only, but in the scarfs, +and gloves, and handkerchiefs, which 'the ladies, and maids, and +matrons threw.' We have seen each single contribution to this great +public act put in by the Poet's selected representative of classes. +'The kitchen malkin, with her richest lockram pinned on her neck, +clambering the wall to eye him,' spake for hers; 'the seld-shown +flamen, puffing his way to win a vulgar station,' was hastening to +record the vote of his; 'the veiled dame, exposing the war of white +and damask in her nicely-gawded cheeks to the spoil of Phebus' burning +kisses,' was a tribune, too, in this Poet's distribution of the +tribes, and spake out for the veiled dames; 'the prattling nurse' who +will give her baby that is 'crying itself into a rapture there, while +she chats him' her reminiscence of this scene by and by, was there to +give the nurses' approbation. + +For this is the vote which the great Tribune has to sum up and count, +when he comes to review at last, 'in a better hour,' these spontaneous +public acts--these momentous acts that seal up the future, and bind +the unborn generations of the advancing kind with the cramp of their +fetters. Not less careful than this is the analysis when he undertakes +to track to its historic source one of those practical axioms, one of +those received beliefs, which he finds determining the human conduct, +limiting the human history, moulding the characters of men, +determining beforehand what they shall be. This is the process when he +undertakes, to get one of these rude, instinctive, spontaneous +affirmations--one of those idols of the market or of the +Tribe--reviewed and criticised by the heads of the Tribe, at least, +'in a better hour,'--criticised and rejected. 'Proceeding by negatives +and exclusion first': this is the form in which this Tribune puts on +record his scientific veto of that 'ignorant election.' + +And in this so carefully selected and condensed combination of +historical spectacles--in this so new, this so magnificently +illustrated political history--there is another historic moment to be +brought out now; and in this same form of 'visible history,' one not +less important than those already exhibited. + +In the scene that follows, we have, in the Poet's arrangement, the +great historic spectacle of a people 'REVOKING THEIR IGNORANT +ELECTION,' under the instigation and guidance of those same remarkable +leaders, whose voice had been wanting (as they are careful to inform +us) till then in the business of the state; leaders who contrive at +last to inform the people, in plain terms, that they 'are at point to +lose their liberties,' that 'Marcius will have all from them,' and who +apologise for their conduct afterwards by saying, that 'he affected +one sole throne, _without assistance_'; for the time had come when the +Tribune could repeat the Poet's whisper, 'The _one_ side shall have +_bale_.' + +This so critical spectacle is boldly brought out and exhibited here in +all its actual historical detail. It is produced by one who is able to +include in his dramatic programme the whole sweep of its +eventualities, the whole range of its particulars, because he has made +himself acquainted with the forces, he has ascended, by scientifically +inclusive definition, to the 'powers' that are to be 'operant' in it; +and he who has that 'charactery' of nature, may indeed 'lay the future +open.' We talk of prophecy; but there is nothing in literature to +compare at all with this great specimen of the prophecy of Induction. +There is nothing to compare with it in its grasp of particulars, in +its comprehension and historic accuracy of detail. + +But this great speech, which he entreats for leave to make before that +revolutionary movement, which in its weak beginnings in his time lay +intreasured, should proceed any further--this preliminary speech, with +its so vivid political illustration, is not yet finished. The true +doctrine of an instructed scientific election and government, that +'vintage' of politics--that vintage of scientific definitions and +axioms which he is getting out of this new kind of history--that new +vintage of the higher, subtler fact, which this fine selected, adapted +history, will be made to yield, is not yet expressed. The fault with +the popular and instinctive mode of inquiry is, he tells us, that _it +begins with affirmation_--but that is the method for gods, and not +men--men must begin with negations; they must have tables of _review_ +of instances, tables of negation, tables of rejection; and _divide_ +nature, not with fire, but with the mind, that divine fire. 'If the +mind attempt this affirmation from the first,' he says, '_which it +always will when left to itself_ there will spring up _phantoms, mere +theories_, and _ill-defined notions, with axioms requiring daily +correction_. These will be better or worse, according to the power and +strength of the understanding which creates them. But it is only for +God to recognise forms affirmatively, at the first glance of +contemplation; _men_ can only proceed first by negatives, and then to +conclude with affirmatives, after every species of rejection.' And +though he himself appears to be profoundly absorbed with the nature of +HEAT, at the moment in which he first produces these new scientific +instruments, which he calls tables of _review_, and explains their +'facilities,' he tells us plainly, that they are adapted to _other +subjects_, and that those affirmations which are most essential to the +welfare of man, will in due time come off from them, practical axioms +on matters of universal and incessant practical concern, that will not +want _daily correction_, that will not want revolutionary correction, +to fit them to the exigency. + +The question here is not of 'heat,' but of SOVEREIGNTY; it is the +question of the _consulship_, regarded from the ground of the +tribuneship. It is not Coriolanus that this tribune is spending so +much breath on. The _instincts_, which unanalytic, barbaric ages, +enthrone and mistake for greatness and nobility, are tried and +rejected here; and the business of the play is, to get them excluded +from the chair of state. The philosopher will have those instincts +which men, in their 'particular and private natures,' share with the +lower orders of animals, searched out, and put in their place in human +affairs, which is _not_, as he takes it, THE HEAD--the head of the +COMMON-weal. It is not Coriolanus; the author has no spite at all +against him--he is partial to him, rather; it is not _Coriolanus_ but +the instincts that are on trial here, and the man--the so-called +_man_--of instinct, who has no principle of state and sovereignty, no +principle of true _man_liness and nobility in his soul; and the trial +is not yet completed. The author would be glad to have that revolution +which he has inserted in the heart of this play deferred, if that were +possible, though he knows that it is not; he thinks it would be a +saving of trouble if it could be deferred until some true and +scientifically prepared notions, some practical axioms, which would +not need in their turn fierce historical correction--revolutionary +correction--could be imparted to the _common mind_. + +But we must follow him in this process of _division_ and exclusion a +little further, before we come in our plot to the revolution. That +revolution which he foresees as imminent and inevitable, he has put on +paper here: but there is another lurking within, for which we are not +yet ripe. This locked-up tribune will have to get abroad; he will have +to get his limits enlarged, and find his way into some new +departments, before ever _that_ can begin. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN POLITICS. + + +'If any man think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he +doth not consider that all professions are _from thence_ served and +supplied.' + +_Advancement of Learning_. + +'We leave room on every subject for the human or optative part; for it +is a part of science to make judicious inquiries and wishes.' + +_Novum Organum_. + +As to the _method_ of this new kind of philosophical inquiry, which is +brought to bear here so stedfastly upon the most delicate questions, +at a time when the Play-house was expressly forbidden by a Royal +Ordinance, on pain of dissolution, to touch them--in an age, too, when +Parliaments were lectured, and brow-beaten, and rudely sent home, for +contumaciously persisting in meddling with questions of _state_--in an +age in which prelates were shrilly interrupted in the pulpit, in the +midst of their finest and gravest Sunday discourse, and told, in the +presence of their congregations, to hold their tongues and mind their +own business, if they chanced to touch upon 'questions of church,' on +a day when the Head of the Church herself, in her own sacred person, +in her largest ruff, and 'rustling' in her last silk, happened to be +in her pew;--as to the _method_ of the philosophical investigations +which were conducted under such critical conditions, of course there +was no harm in displaying _that_ in the abstract, as a _method_ +merely. As a method of _philosophical_ inquiry, there was no harm in +presenting it in a tolerably lucid and brilliant manner, accompanying +the exhibition with careful, and _apparently specific_, directions as +to the application of it to indifferent subjects. There was no harm, +indeed, in blazoning this method a little, and in soliciting the +attention of the public, and the attention of mankind in general, to +it in a somewhat extraordinary manner, not without some considerable +blowing of trumpets. As a method of _philosophical inquiry_, merely, +what earthly harm could it do? Surely there was no more innocent thing +in nature than 'your philosophy,' then, so far as any overt acts were +concerned; it certainly was the last thing in the world that a king or +a queen need trouble their heads about then. Who cared what methods +the philosophers were taking, or whether this was a new one or an old +one, so that the men of letters could understand it? The modern +Solomon was fain to confess that, for his part, he could not--that it +was beyond his depth; whereas the history of _Henry the Seventh_, by +the same author, appeared to him extremely clear and lively, and quite +within his range, and to _that_ he gave his own personal approbation. +The other work, however, as it was making so much noise in the world, +and promising to go down to posterity, would serve to adorn his reign, +and make it illustrious in future ages. + +There was no harm in this philosopher's setting forth his _method_ +then, and giving very minute and strict directions in regard to its +applications to 'certain subjects.' As to what the Author of it did +with it himself--that, of course, was another thing, and nobody's +business but his own just then, as it happened. + +So totally was the world off its guard at the moment of this great and +greatest innovation in its practice--so totally unaccustomed were men +then to look for anything like _power_ in the quarter from which this +seemed to be proceeding--so impossible was it for this single book to +remove that previous impression--that the Author of the Novum Organum +could even venture to intersperse these directions, with regard to its +specific and particular applications, with pointed and not infrequent +allusions to the comprehensive nature--the essentially comprehensive +nature--of '_the Machine_' whose application to these _certain +instances_ he is at such pains to specify; he could, indeed, produce +it with a continuous side-long glance at this so portentous quality of +it. + +Nay, he could go farther than that, and venture to assert openly, over +his own name, and leave on record for the benefit of posterity, _the +assertion_ that this new method of inquiry _does apply_, directly and +primarily, to those questions in which the human race are _primarily +concerned_; that it strikes at once to the heart of those questions, +and was invented to that end. + +Such a certificate and warranty of the New Machine was put up by the +hands of the Inventor on the face of it, when he dedicated it to the +human use--when he appealed in its behalf from the criticism of the +times that were near, to those that were far off. Nay, he takes pains +to tell us; he tells us in that same moment, what one who studies the +NOVUM ORGANUM with the key of '_Times_' does not need to be told--can +see for himself--that in his _description of the method_ he has +already contrived to _make the application_, the _universal_ practical +_application_. + +In his PREROGATIVE INSTANCES, the mind of man is brought out already +from its SPECIFIC narrowness, from its own abstract logical conceits +and arrogant prenotions, into that collision with fact--the broader +fact, the universal fact--and subjected to that discipline from it +which is the intention of this logic. It is a 'machine' which is meant +to serve to Man as a '_New' Mind_--the scientific mind, which is in +harmony with nature--a mind informed and enlarged with the universal +laws, the laws of KINDS, instead of the spontaneous uninstructed mind, +instead of the narrow specific mind of a barbaric race, filled with +its own preposterous prenotions and vain conceits, and at war with +universal nature; boldly pursuing its deadly feud with _that_, priding +itself on it, making a virtue of it. It is a machine in which those +human faculties which are the gifts of God to man, as the instruments +of his welfare, are for the first time scientifically conjoined. It is +a Machine in which _the senses_, those hitherto despised instruments +in _philosophy_, by means of a scientific rule and oversight, and with +the aid of scientific instruments, are made available for philosophic +purposes. It is a Machine in which that organization whereby the +universal nature _impresses_ itself on us--reports itself to +us--striking its incessant telegraphs on us, whether we read them or +not, is for the first time brought to the philosopher's aid; and it is +a Machine, also, by which _speculation_, that hitherto despised +instrument in _practice_, is for the first time, brought to the aid of +the man of practice. It is doubly 'New': it is a Machine in which +speculation becomes practical--it is a Machine in which practice +becomes scientific. + + [_Fool_. Canst thou tell why a man's nose stands in the middle of his + face? + + _Lear_. No. + + _Fool_. Why, to keep his eyes on either side of it, that what he + cannot smell out, he may spy into.] + +In 'THE PREROGATIVE INSTANCES,' the universal matter of _fact_ is +already taken up and disposed of in grand masses, under these +headships and chief cases, not in a miscellaneous, but scientific +manner. The Nature of Things is all there; for this is a Logic which +bows the mind of man to the law of the universal nature, and _informs_ +and enlarges it with that. It is not a Logic merely in the old sense +of that term. The old Logic, and the cobwebs of metaphysics that grew +out of it, are the things which this Machine is going to puff away, +with the mere whiff and wind of its inroads into nature, and disperse +for ever. It is not a logic merely as logic has hitherto been limited, +but a philosophy. A logic in which the general 'notions of nature' +which are _causes_, powers, simple powers, elemental powers, true +differences, are substituted for those spontaneous, rude, uncorrected, +_specific_ notions,--_pre_-notions of men, which have in that form, as +they stand thus, no correlative in nature, and are therefore +impotent--not true _terms_ and _forms_, but air-words, air-lines, +merely. It is a logic which includes the Mind of NATURE, and her laws; +and not one which is limited to the mind of _Man_, and so fitted to +its _incapacity_ as to nurse him in his natural ignorance, to educate +him in his born foolery and conceit, to teach him to ignore by rule, +and set at nought the infinite mystery of nature. + +The universal history, all of it that the mind of man is constituted +to grasp, is here in the general, under these PREROGATIVE INSTANCES, +in the luminous order of the Inventor of this science, blazing +throughout with his genius, and the mind that has abolished its +prenotions, and renounced its rude, instinctive, barbaric tendencies, +and has taken this scientific Organum instead; has armed itself with +the Nature of Things, and is prepared to grapple with all +specifications and particulars. + +The author tells us plainly, that those seemingly pedantic +arrangements with which he is compelled to perplex his subject in this +great work of his, the work in which he openly introduces HIS +INNOVATION,--as that--will fall off by and by, when there is no longer +any need of them. They are but the natural guards with which great +Nature, working in the instinct of the philosophic genius, protects +her choicest growth,--the husk of that grain which must have times, +and a time to grow in,--the bark which the sap must stop to build, ere +its delicate works within are safe. They are like the sheaths with +which she hides through frost and wind and shower, until their hour +has come, her vernal patterns, her secret toils, her magic cunning, +her struggling aspirations, her glorious successes, her celestial +triumphs. + +In the midst of this studious fog of scholasticism, this complicated +network of superficial divisions, the man of humour, who is always not +far off and ready to assist in the priestly ministrations as he sees +occasion, gently directs our attention to those more simple and +natural divisions of the subject, and those more immediately practical +terms, which it might be possible to use, under certain circumstances, +in speaking of the _same subjects_, into which, however, _these_ are +easily resolvable, as soon as the right point of observation is taken. +Through all this haze, he contrives to show us confidentially, the +outline of those grand natural divisions, which he has already clearly +produced--under their scholastic names, indeed,--in his book of the +Advancement of Learning; but which he cannot so openly continue, in a +work produced professedly, as a practical instrument fit for +application to immediate use, and where the true application is +constantly entering the vitals of subjects too delicate to be openly +glanced at then. + +But he gives us to understand, however, that he _has_ made the +application of this method to practice, in a much more _specific, +detailed_ manner, in another place, that he _has_ brought it down from +those more general forms of the Novum Organum, into 'the nobler' +departments, 'the more chosen' departments of that universal field of +human practice, which the Novum Organum takes up in its great outline, +and boldly and clearly claims in the general, though when it comes to +specific applications and particulars, it does so stedfastly strike, +or appear to strike, into that one track of practice, which was the +only one left open to it then,--which it keeps still as rigidly as if +it had no other. He has brought it out, he tells us, from that trunk +of 'universality,' and carried it with his own hand into the minutest +points and fibres of particulars, those points and fibres, those +living articulations in which the grand natural divisions he indicates +here, naturally terminate; the divisions which the philosopher who +'makes the Art and Practic part of life, the _mistress_ to his +Theoric,' must of course follow. He tells us that he _has_ applied it +to PARTICULAR ARTS, to those departments of the human experience and +practice in which the need of a _rule_ is most felt, and where things +have been suffered to go on hitherto, in a specially miscellaneous +manner, and that his axioms of practice in these departments have been +so scientifically constructed from particulars, that he thinks they +will be apt to know their way to particulars again;--that their +specifications are at the same time so comprehensive and so minute, +that he considers them fit for immediate use, or at least so far forth +fitted, as to require but little skill on the part of the +practitioner, to insure them against failure in practice. The process +being, of course, in this application to the exigencies of practice, +necessarily disentangled from those technicalities and relics of the +old wordy scholasticism in which he was compelled to incase and seal +up his meanings, in his _professedly_ scientific works, and especially +in his professedly _practical_ scientific work. + +But these so important applications of his philosophy to practice, of +which he issues so fair a prospectus, though he frequently _refers_ to +them, could not then be published. The time had not come, and +personally, he was obliged to leave, before it came. He was careful, +however, to make the best provision which could be made, under such +circumstances, for the carrying out of his intentions; for he left a +will. These works of _practice_ could not then be published; and if +they could have been, there was no public then ready for them. They +could not be _published_; but there was nothing to hinder their being +put under cover. There was no difficulty to a man of skill in packing +them up in a portable form, under lids and covers of one sort and +another, so unexceptionable, that all the world could carry them +about, for a century or two, and not perceive that there was any harm +in them. Very curiously wrought covers they might be too, with some +taste of the wonders of mine art pressing through, a little here and +there. They might be put under a very gorgeous and attractive cover in +one case, and under a very odd and fantastic one in another; but in +such a manner as to command, in both cases, the admiration and wonder +of men, so as to pique perpetually their curiosity and provoke +inquiry, until the time had come and the key was found. + +'Some may raise this question,' he says, talking as he does sometimes +in the historical plural of his philosophic chair,--'_this question, +rather than objection_,'--[it was much to be preferred in that form +certainly]--'whether we talk of perfecting NATURAL PHILOSOPHY alone, +according to our method, or _the other sciences such as_--ETHICS, +LOGIC, POLITICS.' A pretty _question_ to raise just then, truly, +though this philosopher sees fit to take it so demurely. 'Whether we +talk of _perfecting politics_ with our method,' Elizabethan +politics,--and not politics only, but whether we talk of _perfecting +'ethics'_ with it also, and 'logic,--common logic,' which last is as +much in need of perfecting as anything, and the beginning of +perfecting of that is the reform in the others. 'We certainly +intend,'--the emphasis here is on the word '_certainly_,' though the +reader who has not the key of the times may not perceive it; 'We +certainly intend to comprehend them ALL.' For this is the author whose +words are most of them emphatic. We must read his sentences more than +once to get all the emphasis. We certainly INTEND to comprehend them +all. 'We are not vain promisers,' he says, emphasizing _that_ word in +another place, and putting this intention into the shape of a +_promise_. + +And as _common logic which regulates matters_ by syllogism is applied, +not only to natural, but to every other science, so our inductive +method _likewise_, comprehends them _all_.--Again--[he thinks this +bears repeating, repeating in this connection, for now he is measuring +the claims of this new method, this _new logic_, with the claims of +that which he finds in possession, regulating matters by syllogism, +not producing a very logical result, however:] 'For we form a history, +and tables of invention, for ANGER, FEAR, SHAME, and the like,' [that +is--we _form_ a _history_ and tables of _invention_ for the passions +or affections,] 'and _also_ for EXAMPLES IN CIVIL LIFE, and the MENTAL +OPERATIONS ... as well as for HEAT, COLD, LIGHT, VEGETATION and THE +LIKE,' and he directs us to the Fourth Part of the Instauration, which +he reserves for his noblest and more chosen subjects for the +confirmation of this assertion. + +'_But_ since our method of interpretation, after preparing and +arranging a history, does not content itself with examining _the +opinions and desires_ of THE MIND--[hear]--like common logic, but also +inspects THE NATURE of THINGS, we so regulate the mind that it may be +enabled to _apply itself_, in every respect, correctly to _that +nature_.' Our _examples_ in this part of the work, which is but a +small and preparatory part of it, are limited, as you will observe, to +_heat, cold, light, vegetation_, and _the like_; but this is the +explanation of the general intention, which will enable you to +disregard that circumstance in your reading of it.--Those examples +will serve their purpose with the minds that they detain. They are +preparatory, and greatly useful, if you read this new logic from the +height of this explanation, you will have a mind, formed by that +process, able to apply itself, in every respect, correctly to the +subjects omitted here by name, but so clearly claimed, not as the +proper subjects only, but as the _actual_ subjects of the new +investigation. But lest you should not understand this explanation, he +continues--'_On this account_ we deliver _necessary_ and _various_ +precepts in _our doctrine of interpretation_, so that we may apply, in +some measure, to the method of discovering _the quality and condition +of the subject matter of investigation_.' And this is the apology for +omitting here, or _seeming_ to omit, _such sciences as_ Ethics, +Politics, and that science which is alluded to under the name of +_Common Logic_. + +This is, indeed, a very instructive paragraph, though it is a +gratuitous one for the scholar who has found leisure to read this work +with the aid of that doctrine of _interpretation_ referred to, +especially if he is already familiar with its particular applications +to the noble subjects just specified. + +Among the prerogative instances--'suggestive instances' are +included--'such as _suggest or_ point out _that_ which is +_advantageous to mankind_; for _bare power_ and _knowledge_ in +_themselves exalt_, rather than _enrich_, human nature. _We shall have +a better opportunity of discovering these, when we treat of the +application to practice._ BESIDES, in the WORK of INTERPRETATION, we +LEAVE ROOM ON EVERY SUBJECT for the _human or optative_ part; FOR IT +is A PART OF SCIENCE, to make JUDICIOUS INQUIRIES and WISHES.' 'The +_generally_ useful instances. They are such as relate to various +points, and _frequently occur_, sparing by that means _considerable +labour_ and _new trials_. The proper place for speaking of +_instruments_, and _contrivances_, will be that in which we speak of +_application to practice_, and the _method_ of EXPERIMENT. _All that +has hitherto been ascertained and made use of_, WILL BE APPLIED in the +PARTICULAR HISTORY of EACH ART.' [We certainly intend to _include_ +them ALL, such as Ethics, Politics, and Common Logic.] + +'We have now, therefore, exhibited the species, or _simple elements_ +of the _motions_, _tendencies_, and _active powers_, which are most +universal in nature; and no small portion of NATURAL, _that is_, +UNIVERSAL SCIENCE, has been _sketched out_. We do _not_, however, deny +_that_ OTHER INSTANCES can, _perhaps, be added_' (he has confined +himself chiefly to the physical agencies under this head, with a +sidelong glance at others, now and then), 'and our _divisions changed_ +to some _more natural order_ of _things_ [hear], and also reduced to a +_less number_ [hear], in which respect we do _not_ allude to any +_abstract_ classification, as if one were to say,'--and he quotes +here, in this apparently disparaging manner, his own grand, new-coined +classification, which he has drawn out with his new method from the +heart of nature, and applied to the human,--which he had to go into +the universal nature to find, that very classification which he has +exhibited _abstractly_ in his Advancement of Learning--_abstractly_, +and, therefore, without coming into any dangerous contact with any +one's preconceptions,--'as if one were to say, that bodies desire the +_preservation, exaltation_, propagation, or fruition of their natures; +or, that motion tends to the preservation and benefit, either of the +UNIVERSE, as in the case of the motions of _resistance_ and +_connection_--those two _universal_ motions and tendencies--or of +EXTENSIVE WHOLES, as in the case of those of the _greater +congregation_.' These are phrases which look innocent enough; there is +no offensive approximation to particulars here, apparently; what harm +can there be in the philosophy of 'extensive wholes,' and 'larger +congregations'? Nobody can call that meddling with 'church and state.' +Surely one may speak of the nature of things in general, under such +general terms as these, without being suspected of an intention to +innovate. 'Have you heard the argument?' says the king to Hamlet. 'Is +there no offence in it?' 'None in the world.' But the philosopher goes +on, and does come occasionally, even here, to words which begin to +sound at little suspicious in such connexions, or would, if one did +not know how _general_ the intention must be in this application of +them. They are _abstract_ terms, and, of course, nobody need see that +they are a different kind of abstraction from the old ones, that the +grappling-hook on all particulars has been abstracted in them. Suppose +one were to say, then, to resume, 'that motion tends to the +preservation and benefit, either of _the universe_, as in the case of +the motions of _resistance_ and _connection_, or of _extensive +wholes_, as in the case of the motions of _the greater congregation_-- +[what are these motions, then?]--REVOLUTION and ABHORRENCE of CHANGE, +or of _particular forms_, as in the case of _the others_.' This looks +a little like growing towards a point. We are apt to consider these +motions in certain _specific_ forms, as they appear in those extensive +wholes and larger congregations, which it is not necessary to name +more particularly in this connection, though they are terms of a +'suggestive' character, to borrow the author's own expression, and +belong properly to subjects which this author has just included in +his system. + +But this is none other than his own philosophy which he seems to be +criticising, and rating, and rejecting here so scornfully; but if we +go on a little further, we shall find what the criticism amounts to, +and that it is only the limitation of it to _the general +statement_--that it is _the abstract_ form of it, which he complains +of. He wishes to direct our attention to the fact, that he does not +consider it good for anything in that general form in which he has put +it in his Book of Learning. This is the deficiency which he is always +pointing out in that work, because this is the deficiency which it has +been his chief labour to supply. Till that defect, that grand defect +which his philosophy exhibits, as it stands in his books of abstract +science, is supplied--that defect to which, even in these works +themselves, he is always directing our attention--he cannot, without +self-contradiction, propound his philosophy to the world as a +practical one, good for human relief. + +In order that it should accomplish the ends to which it is addressed, +it is not enough, he tells us in so many words, to exhibit it in the +abstract, in general terms, for these are but 'the husks and shells of +sciences.' It must be brought down and applied to those artistic +reformations which afflicted, oppressed human nature demands--to those +artistic constructions to which human nature spontaneously, +instinctively tends, and empirically struggles to achieve. + +'For _although_,' he continues,'_such remarks_--those last +quoted--_be_ just, _unless they terminate in_ MATTER AND CONSTRUCTION, +_according to the_ TRUE DEFINITIONS, _they are_ SPECULATIVE, and of +LITTLE USE.' But in the Novum Organum, those more natural divisions +are reduced to a form in which it IS _possible to commence practice_ +with them at once, in certain departments, where there is no objection +to _innovation_,--where the proposal for the relief of the human +estate is met without opposition,--where the new scientific +achievements in the conquest of nature are met with a universal, +unanimous human plaudit and gratulation. + +'_In the meantime_,' he continues, after condemning those abstract +terms, and declaring, that unless they terminate in _matter and +construction, according_ to _true definitions_, they are +_speculative_, and of _little use_--'_In the meantime, our +classification will suffice_, and be of much use in the consideration +of the PREDOMINANCE of POWERS, and examining the WRESTLING INSTANCES, +which constitute our PRESENT SUBJECT.' [The subject that was _present_ +then. The question.] + +So that the Novum Organum presents itself to us, in these passages, +only as a preparation and arming of the mind for a closer dealing with +the nature of things, in particular instances, which are _not_ there +instanced,--for those more critical 'WRESTLING INSTANCES' which the +scientific re-constructions, according to true definitions, in the +higher departments of human want will constitute,--those _wrestling_ +instances, which will naturally arise whenever the philosophy which +concerns itself experimentally with the question of the predominance +of powers--the philosophy which includes in its programme the +practical application of the principles of revolution and abhorrence +of change, in 'greater congregations' and 'extensive wholes,' as well +as the principles of _motion_ in 'particular forms'--shall come to be +applied to its nobler, to its noblest subjects. That is the philosophy +which dismisses its technicalities, which finds such words as these +when the question of the predominance of powers, and the question of +revolution and abhorrence of change in the greater congregations and +extensive wholes, comes to be practically handled. This is the way we +philosophise 'when we come to particulars.' + + 'In _a rebellion_, + When what's _not meet_, but what must be, was law, + Then were they chosen. In a better hour, + Let what _is meet_ be said it must be _meet_, + And _throw their power in the dust_.' + +That is what we should call, in a _general_ way, 'the motion of +revolution' in our book of abstractions; this is the moment in which +it _predominates_ over 'the abhorrence of change,' if not in the +extensive whole--if not in _the whole_ of the greater congregation, in +that part of it for whom this one speaks; and this is the critical +moment which the man of science makes so much of,--brings out so +scientifically, so elaborately in this experiment. But this is a part +of science which he is mainly familiar with. Here is a place, for +instance, where the motion of particular forms is skilfully brought to +the aid of that larger motion. Here we have an experiment in which +these petty motives come in to aid the revolutionary movement in the +minds of the leaders of it, and with their feather's weight turn the +scale, when the abhorrence of change is too nicely balanced with its +antagonistic force for a predominance of powers without it. + + 'But for my single self, + I had as lief not be, as live to be + In awe of such a thing as _I_ myself. + I was born free as Caesar; so were you. + + * * * * * + + Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world + _Like a Colossus_; and we, petty men, + Walk under his huge legs, and peep about + To find ourselves _dishonorable graves_. + The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, + But in ourselves, that we are underlings. + _Brutus_ and _Caesar_. What should be in _that Caesar_? + Why should that name be sounded more than yours? + Conjure with them; + _Brutus_ will start a spirit as soon as _Caesar_. + _Now in the name_ of _all the gods at once_, + _Upon what meat doth this our_ CAESAR _feed, + That he is grown so great_? AGE, _thou_ art shamed: + Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods. + When went there by an AGE, since the great flood, + But it was famed with more than with ONE MAN? + When could they say, till now, that talked of _Rome_, + That _her wide walls_ encompassed _but One Man_? + _Now_ is it _Rome indeed_, and _room enough_, + When there is in it but _One Only Man_. + + * * * * * + + What you would work me to, I have some aim; + _How I have thought of this_, and of _these times_, + I shall recount hereafter. + Now could _I_, Casca, + _Name_ to thee a man most like this dreadful night; + That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars + As doth the lion in the Capitol, + A man no mightier than thyself, or me, + In PERSONAL ACTION; yet _prodigious_ grown, + And _fearful as these strange eruptions are_.' + ''T is Caesar _that you mean_: Is it _not_, Cassius?' + 'Let it be--WHO IT is: for Romans now + Have thewes and limbs like to their ancestors. + + * * * * * + + Poor man, I know he would not be a wolf, + But that he sees the Romans are but sheep. + _He_ were no _lion, were not Romans hinds. + Those that with haste will make a mighty fire, + Begin it_ with--WEAK STRAWS. What _trash_ is--Rome + What rubbish, and what offal, _when it serves + for the base matter to illuminate + So vile a thing as_--Caesar. But-- + _I_ perhaps _speak this_ + Before a willing bondman. + +And here is another case where the question of the predominance of +powers arises. In this instance, it is the question of _British_ +freedom that comes up; and the _tribute_--not the tax--that a +Caesar--the first Caesar himself, had exacted, is refused 'in a better +hour,' by a people kindling with ancestral recollections, throwing +themselves upon their ancient rights, and '_the natural bravery of +their isle_,' and ready to re-assert their ancient liberties. + +The Ambassador of Augustus makes his master's complaint at the British +Court. The answer of the State runs thus, king, queen and prince +taking part in it, as the Poet's convenience seems to require. + +'This tribute,' complains the Roman; 'by thee, lately, is left +untendered.' + + _Queen_. And, to kill the marvel, + Shall be so ever. + + _Prince Cloten_. _There be many Caesars_, + Ere such another Julius. Britain is + _A world by itself_; and we will nothing pay, + For wearing our own noses. [_General principles_.] + + _Queen_. That opportunity + _Which then they had to take from us, to resume + We have again._ Remember, sir, my liege, + + [It is the people who are represented here by Cymbeline.] + + _The kings your ancestors_; together with + The natural bravery of your isle; which stands + As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in + With rocks unscaleable, and roaring waters; + With sands, that will not bear your enemies' boats, + But suck them up to the top-mast. + + * * * * * + + _Cloten_. Come, there's no more tribute to be paid: _Our kingdom + is stronger_ than it was at that time; and, as _I said_, there is + no more _such_ Caesars: _other_ of them _may have crooked noses_; + but, to owe _such straight arms_, none. + + _Cymbeline_. Son, let your mother end. + + _Cloten. We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan_: + I do not say, I am one; but I have a hand.--Why tribute? Why + should we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a + blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute + for light; else, Sir, no more tribute, pray you now. + + _Cymbeline_. You must know, + Till the _injurious Romans_ did extort + This tribute from us, _we were free: Caesar's ambition_ + .... against all colour, here + Did put the yoke upon us; which to _shake off_, + Becomes a warlike people, _whom we reckon_ + _Ourselves to be_. We do say then to Caesar, + _Our_ ancestor was that Mulmutius, _which + Ordained_ OUR LAWS, whose use THE SWORD OF CAESAR + _Hath too much mangled_; whose REPAIR and FRANCHISE, + Shall, by the power we hold, be _our good deed_. + Mulmutius _made our laws_, + Who was the first of BRITAIN which did put + His brows within a golden crown, and called + _Himself_ a KING. + +That is the tune when the Caesar comes this way, to a people who have +such an ancestor to refer to; no matter what costume he comes in. This +is Caesar in Britain; and though Prince Cloten appears to incline +naturally to prose, as the medium best adapted to the expression of +his views, the blank verse of Cymbeline is as good as that of Brutus +and Cassius, and seems to run in their vein very much. + +It is in some such terms as these that we handle those universal +motions on whose balance the welfare of the world depends--'the +motions of _resistance_ and _connection_,' as the Elizabethan +philosopher, with a broader grasp than the Newtonian, calls them--when +we come to the diagrams which represent particulars. This is the kind +of language which this author adopts when he comes to the +modifications of those motions which are incident to extensive wholes +in the case of the greater congregations; that is, '_revolution_' and +'_abhorrence of change_,' and to those which belong to _particular +forms_ also. For it is the science of life; and when the universal +science touches the human life, it will have nothing less vivacious +than this. It will have the _particular of life_ here also. It will +not have abstract revolutionists, any more than it will have abstract +butterflies, or bivalves, or univalves. This is the kind of 'loud' +talk that one is apt to hear in this man's school; and the clash and +clang that this very play now under review is full of, is just the +noise that is sure to come out of his laboratory, whenever he gets +upon one of these experiments in 'extensive wholes,' which he is so +fond of trying. It is the noise that one always hears on his stage, +whenever the question of 'particular forms' and _predominance of +powers comes_ to be put experimentally, at least, _in this class_ of +'wrestling instances.' + +For we have here a form of composition in which that more simple and +natural order above referred to is adopted--where those clear +scientific classifications, which this author himself plainly exhibits +in another scientific work, though he disguises them in the Novum +Organum, are again brought out, no longer in the abstract, but +grappling the matter; where, instead of the scientific technicalities +just quoted--instead of those abstract terms, such as 'extensive +wholes,' 'greater congregation,' 'fruition of their natures,' and the +like--we have terms not less scientific, the equivalents of these, but +more living--words ringing with the detail of life in its scientific +condensations--reddening with the glow, or whitening with the calm, of +its ideal intensities--pursuing it everywhere--everywhere, to the last +height of its poetic fervors and exaltations. + +And it is because this so vivid popular science has its issue from +this 'source'--it is because it proceeds from this scientific centre, +on the scientific radii, through all the divergencies and +refrangibilities of the universal beam--it is because all this +inexhaustible multiplicity and variety of particulars is threaded with +the fibre of the universal science--it is because all these +thick-flowering imaginations, these 'mellow hangings,' are hung upon +the stems and branches that unite in the trunk of the _prima +philosophia_--it is because of this that men find it so prophetic, so +inclusive, so magical; _this_ is the reason they find _all_ in it. 'I +have either told, or designed to tell, _all_,' says the expositor of +these plays. 'What I cannot speak, I point out with my finger.' For +all the building of this genius is a building on that scientific +ground-plan he has left us; and that is a plan which includes all _the +human_ field. It is the plan of the _Great Instauration_. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +VOLUMNIA AND HER BOY. + + + 'My boy _Marcius_ approaches.' + + 'Why should I war without the walls of Troy, + That find such cruel battle here within? + Each Trojan that is master of his heart, + Let him to field.' + + Is not the ground which _Machiavel_ wisely and largely discourseth + concerning governments, that the way to establish and _preserve_ + them, is to reduce them _ad principia_; a rule in religion and + nature, _as well as_ in civil administration? [Again.] Was not + _the Persian_ magic a _reduction_ or correspondence of the + _principles_ and _architectures_ of nature to the rules and policy + of governments?'--['_Questions to be asked_.']--_Advancement of + Learning_. + +It is by means of this popular rejection of the Hero's claims, which +the tribunes succeed in procuring, that the Poet is enabled to +complete his exhibition and test of the virtue which he finds in his +time 'chiefest among men, and that which most dignifies the haver'; +the virtue which he finds in his time rewarded with patents of +nobility, with patrician trust, with priestly authority, with immortal +fame, and thrones and dominions, with the disposal of the human +welfare, and the entail of it to the crack of doom--no matter what +'goslings' the law of entail may devolve it on. + +He makes use of this incident to complete that separation he is +effecting in the hitherto unanalysed, ill-defined, popular notions, +and received and unquestioned axioms of practice--that separation of +the instinctive military heroism, and the principle of the so-called +heroic greatness, from the true principles of heroism and nobility, +the true principle of subjection and sovereignty in the individual +human nature and in the common-weal. + +That _martial_ virtue has been under criticism and suspicion torn the +beginning of this action. It was shown from the first--from that +ground and point of observation which the sufferings of the diseased +common-weal made for it--in no favourable light. It was branded in the +first scene, in the person of its Hero, as 'a dog to the commonalty.' +It is one of the wretched 'commons' who invents, in his distress, that +title for it; but the Poet himself exhibits it, not descriptively +only, but dramatically, as something more brutish than that--eating +the poor man's corn that the gods have sent him, and gnawing his +vitals, devouring him soul and body, 'tooth and fell.' It was shown up +from the first as an instinct that men share with 'rats'. It was +brought out from the first, and exhibited with its teeth in the heart +of the common-weal. The Play begins with a cross-questioning in the +civil streets, of that sentiment which the hasty affirmations of men +enthrone. It was brought out from the first--it came tramping on in +the first act, in the first scene--with its sneer at the commons' +distress, longing to make 'a quarry of the _quartered_ slaves, as +high' as the plumed hero of it 'could prick his lance'; and that, too, +because they rebelled at famine, as slaves will do sometimes, when the +common notion of hunger is permitted to instruct them in the principle +of new unions; when that so impressive, and urgent, and unappeasable +teacher comes down to them from the Capitol, and is permitted by their +rulers to induct them experimentally into the doctrine of 'extensive +wholes,' and 'larger congregations,' and 'the predominance of powers.' +And it so happened, that the threat above quoted was precisely the +threat which the founder of the reigning house had been able to carry +into effect here a hundred years before, in putting down an +insurrection of that kind, as this author chanced to be the man to +know. + +But the cry of the enemy is heard without; and this same principle, +which shows itself in such questionable proofs of love at home, +becomes with the change of circumstances--patriotism. But the Poet +does not lose sight of its identity under this change. This love, that +looks so like hatred in the Roman streets, that sniffs there so +haughtily at questions about corn, and the price of 'coals,' and the +price of labour, while it loves Rome so madly at the Volscian +gates--this love, that sneers at the hunger and misery of the commons +at home, while it makes such frantic demonstrations against the +_common_ enemy abroad, appears to him to be a very questionable kind +of _love_, to say the least of it. + +In that fine, conspicuous specimen of this quality, which the hero of +his story offers him--this quality which the hostilities of nations +deify--he undertakes to sift it a little. While in the name of that +virtue which has at least the merit of comprehending and conserving a +larger unity, a more extensive whole, than the limit of one's own +personality, 'it runs reeking o'er the lives of men, as 'twere a +perpetual spoil'; while under cover of that name which in barbaric +ages limits human virtue, and puts down upon the map the outline of +it--the bound which human greatness and virtue is required to come out +to; while in the name of _country_ it shows itself 'from face to foot +a thing of blood, whose every motion is timed with dying cries,' +undaunted by the tragic sublimities of the scene, this Poet confronts +it, and boldly identifies it as that same principle of state and +nobility which he has already exhibited at home. + +That sanguinary passion which the heat of conflict provokes is but the +incident; it is the principle of _acquisition_, it is the natural +principle of absorption, it is the instinct that nature is full of, +that nature is alive with; but the one that she is at war with, +too--at war with in the parts--one that she is forever opposed to, and +conquering in the members, with her mathematical axioms--with her law +of the whole, of 'the worthier whole,' of 'the greater congregation'; +it is that principle of acquisition which it is the business of the +state to set bounds to in the human constitution--which gets branded +with _other_ names, very vulgar ones, too, when the faculty of grasp +and absorption is smaller. That, and none other, is the principle +which predominates, and is set at large here. The leashed 'dog' of the +commonalty at home, is let slip here in the conquered town. The teeth +that preyed on the Roman weal there, have elongated and grown wolfish +on the Volscian fields. The consummation of the captor's deeds in the +captured city--those matchless deeds of valor--the consummation for +_Coriolanus_ in _Corioli_, for 'the _conqueror_ in the _conquest_,' +is--'NOW ALL'S HIS.' And the story of the battle without is--'He never +stopped to ease his breast with panting, till he could call both field +and city--OURS.' + +The Poet sets down nought in malice, but he will have the secret of +this LOVE, he will have the heart out of it--this love that stops so +short with geographic limits,--that changes with the crossing of a +line into a demon from the lowest pit. + +But it is a fair and noble specimen, it is a highly-qualified, +'illustrious instance,' of this instinctive heroic virtue, he has +seized on here, and made ready now for his experiment; and even when +he brings him in, reeking from the fresh battlefield, with the blood +undried on his brow, rejoicing in his harvest, even amid the horrors +of the conquered town, this Poet, with his own ineffable and matchless +grace of moderation, will have us pause and listen while _his_ +Coriolanus, ere he will take food or wine in _his_ Corioli, gives +orders that the Volscian who was kind to him personally--the poor man +at whose house he lay--shall be saved, when he is so weary with +slaying Volscians that 'his very memory is tired,' and he cannot speak +his poor friend's name. + +He tracks this conqueror home again, and he watches him more sharply +than ever--this man, whose new name is borrowed from his taken town. +CORIOLANUS of CORIOLI. _Marcius_, plain _Caius Marcius_, now no more. +He will think it treason--even in the conquered city he will resent +it--if any presume to call him by that petty name henceforth, or +forget for a breathing space to include in his identity the town--the +town, that in its sacked and plundered streets, and dying cries--that, +with that 'painting' which he took from it so lavishly, though he +scorned the soldiers who took 'spoons'--has clothed him with his +purple honours: those honours which this Poet will not let him wear +any longer, tracked in the misty outline of the past, or in the misty +complexity of the unanalysed conceptions of the vulgar, the fatal +unscientific _opinion_ of the many-headed many; that old coat of arms, +which the man of science will trace now anew (and not here only) with +his new historic pencil, which he will fill now anew--not here +only--which he will fill on another page also, 'approaching his +particular more near'--with all its fresh, recent historic detail, +with all its hideous, barbaric detail. + +He is jealous,--this new Poet of his kind,--he is jealous of this love +that makes such work in Volscian homes, in Volscian mother's sons, +under this name, 'that men sanctify, and turn up the white of the eyes +to.' He flings out suspicions on the way home, that it is even +_narrower_ than it claims to be: he is in the city before it; he +contrives to jet a jar into the sound of the trumpets that announce +its triumphant entry; he has thrown over all the glory of its entering +pageant, the suspicion that it is base and mercenary, that it is base +and _avaricious_, though it puts nothing in its pocket, but takes its +hire on its brows. + + _Menenius_. Brings a victory in his pocket. + _Volumnia_. On's brows Menenius. + +He surprises the mother counting up the cicatrices. He arrests the +cavalcade on its way to the Capitol, and bids us note, in those +private whispers of family confidence, how the Camp and the Capitol +stand in this hero's chart, put down on the road to 'our own house.' +Nay, he will bring out the haughty chieftain in person, and show him +on his stage, standing in his 'wolfish gown,' showing the scars that +_he should hide_, and asking, like a mendicant, for his hire. And +though he does it proudly enough, and as if he did not care for this +return, though he sets down his own services, and expects the people +to set them down, to a disinterested love for his _country_, it is to +this Poet's purpose to show that he was mistaken as to that. It is to +his purpose to show that these two so different things which he finds +confounded under one name and notion in the popular understanding +here, and, what is worst of all, in the practical understanding of the +populace, are two, and not one. That the mark of the primal +differences, the original differences, the difference of things, the +simplicity of nature herself divides them, makes two of them, +two,--not one. He has caught one of those rude, vulgar notions here, +which he speaks of elsewhere so often, those notions which make such +mischief in the human life, and he is severely separating it--he is +separating the martial virtue--from the true heroism, 'with the mind, +that divine fire.' He is separating this kind of heroism from that +cover under which it insinuates itself into governments, with which it +makes its most bewildering claim to the popular approbation. + +He is bound to show that the true love of the common-weal, that +principle which recognises and embraces the weal of others as its own, +that principle which enters into and constitutes each man's own +noblest life, is a thing of another growth and essence, a thing which +needs a different culture from any that the Roman Volumnia could give +it, a culture which unalytic, barbaric ages--wanting in all the +scientific arts--could not give it. + +He will show, in a conspicuous instance, what that kind of patriotism +amounts to, in the man who aspires to 'the helm o' the State,' while +there is yet no state within himself, while the mere instincts of the +lower nature have, in their turn, the sway and sovereignty in him. He +will show what that patriotism amounts to in one so schooled, when the +hire it asks so disdainfully is withheld. And he will bring out this +point too, as he brings out all the rest, in that large, scenic, +theatric, illuminated lettering, which this popular design requires, +and which his myth furnishes him, ready to his hand. He will have his +'transient hieroglyphics,' his _tableaux vivants_, his 'dumb-shows' to +aid him here also, because this, too, is for the spectators--this, +too, is for the audience whose eyes are more learned than their ears. + +It is a natural hero, one who achieves his greatness, and not one who +is merely born great, whom the Poet deals with here. 'He has that in +his face which men love--_authority_.' 'As waves before a vessel under +sail, so men obey him and fall below his stern.' The Romans have +stripped off his wings and turned him out of the city gates, but the +heroic instinct of greatness and generalship is not thus defeated. He +carries with him that which will collect new armies, and make him +their victorious leader. Availing himself of the pride and hostility +of nations, he is sure of a captaincy. His occupation is not gone so +long as the unscientific ages last. The principle of his heroism and +nobility has only been developed in new force by this opposition. He +will have a new degree; he will purchase a new patent of it; he will +_forge_ himself a new and _better_ name, for 'the patricians are +called _good_ citizens.' He will forget Corioli; _Coriolanus_ now no +more, he will conquer _Rome_, and incorporate that henceforth in his +name. He will make himself great, not by the grandeur of a true +citizenship and membership of the larger whole, in his private +subjection to it,--not by emerging from his particular into the self +that comprehends the whole; he will make himself great by subduing the +whole to his particular, the greater to the less, the whole to the +part. He will triumph over the Common-weal, and bind his brow with a +new garland. That is his magnanimity. He will take it from without, if +they will not let him have it within. He will turn against that +country, which he loved so dearly, that same edge which the Volscian +hearts have felt so long. 'There's some among you have _beheld_ me +fighting,' he says. 'Come, _try upon yourselves_ what you have _seen +me_?' He is only that same narrow, petty, pitiful private man he +always was, in the city, and in the field, at the head of the Roman +legions, and in the legislator's chair, when, to right his single +wrong, or because the people would not let him have _all_ from them, +he comes upon the stage at last with Volscian steel, and sits down, +Captain of the Volscian armies, at Rome's gates. + +'This morning,' says Menenius, after the reprieve, 'this morning for +ten thousand of your throats, I'd not have given a doit.' But this is +only the same 'good citizen' we saw in the first scene, who longed to +make a quarry of _thousands of the quartered slaves_, as high as he +could prick his lance! That was 'the altitude of his virtue' _then_. +It is the same citizenship with its conditions altered. + +So well and thoroughly has the philosopher done his work +throughout--so completely has he filled the Roman story with his +'richer and bolder meanings,' that when the old, familiar scene, which +makes the denouement of the Roman myth, comes out at last in the +representation, it comes as the crowning point of this Poet's own +invention. It is but the felicitous artistic consummation of the +piece, when this hero, in his conflicting passions and instincts, +gives at last, to one private affection and impulse, the State he +would have sacrificed to another; when he gives to his boy's prattling +inanities, to his wife's silence, to the moisture in her eyes, to a +shade less on her cheek, to the loss of a line there, to his mother's +scolding eloquence, and her imperious commands, the great city of the +gods, the city he would have offered up, with all its sanctities, with +all its household shrines and solemn temples, as one reeking, smoking +holocaust, to his wounded honour. That is the principle of the +citizenship that was 'accounted GOOD' when this play began, when this +play was written. + + 'He was a kind of nothing, _titleless_,-- + Till he had forged himself _a name_ i' the fire + _Of burning Rome_.' + +That is his modest answer to the military friend who entreats him to +spare the city. + +'Though soft-conscienced men may be content to say _it was for his +country_, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud.' + +Surely that starving citizen who found himself at the beginning of +this play, 'as lean as a rake' with this hero's legislation, and in +danger of more fatal evils, was not so very wide of the truth, after +all, in his surmise as to the principles of _the heroic statesmanship_ +and _warfare_, when he ventured thus early on that suggestion. The +State banished him, as an enemy, and he came back with a Volscian army +to make good that verdict. But his sword without was not more cruel +than his law had been within. It was not starving only that he had +voted for. '_Let them hang_,' ay--(_ay_) 'and BURN TOO,' was 'the +disposition' they had 'thwarted',--measuring 'the quarry of _the +quartered slaves_,' which it _would_ make, 'would the nobility but lay +aside their ruth.' That was the disposition, that was the ignorance, +the blind, brutish, demon ignorance, that 'in good time' they had +thwarted. They had ruled it out and banished it from their city on +pain of death, forever; they had turned it out in its single +impotence, and it came back '_armed_;' for this was one of rude +nature's monarchs, and outstretched heroes. + +Yet is he conquered and defeated. The enemy which has made war without +so long, which has put Corioli and Rome in such confusion, has its +warfare within also, and it is there that the hero is beaten and +slain. For there is no state or fixed sovereignty in his soul. Both +sides of the city rise at once; there is a fearful battle, and the +red-eyed Mars is dethroned. The end which he has pursued at such a +cost is within his reach at last; but he cannot grasp it. The city +lies there before him, and his dragon wings encircle it; there is +steel enough in the claws and teeth now, but he cannot take it. For +there is no law and no justice of the peace, and no general within to +put down the conflict of changeful, _warring selfs_, to suppress the +mutiny of mutually opposing, mutually _annihilating_ selfish dictates. + +In vain he seeks to make his will immutable; for the single passion +has its hour, this 'would-do' changes. With the impression the passion +changes, and the purpose that is _passionate_ must alter with it, +unless pure obstinacy remain in its place, and fulfil the annulled +dictate. For _such_ purpose, one person of the scientific drama tells +us--one who had had some dramatic experience in it,-- + + 'is but _the slave to memory_, + Of violent birth, and poor validity, + Which now, like fruit unripe, stick on the tree, + But fall unshaken when they mellow be. + What to ourselves _in passion_ we propose, + _The passion ending doth the purpose lose_.' + +That is Hamlet's verbal account of it, when he undertakes to reduce +his philosophy to rhyme, and gets the player to insert some sixteen of +his lines quietly into the court performance: that is his _verbal_ +account of it; but _his_ action, too, speaks louder and more +eloquently than his words. + +The principle of identity and the true self is wanting in this +so-called _self_-ishness. For the true principle of self is the peace +principle, the principle of _state_ within and without. + + '_To thine own self be true, + And it must follow as_ the night the day, + _Thou canst not then be false to any man_' + +That is the doctrine, the scientific doctrine. But it is not the +passionate, but thoughtful Hamlet, shrinking from blood, with his +resolution sicklied o'er with the pale cast of _conscientious_ +thought; it is not the humane, conscience-fettered Hamlet, but the man +who aspires to make his single humours the law of the universal world, +in whom the poet will show now this want of state and sovereignty. + +He steels himself against Cominius; he steels himself against +Menenius. 'He sits in gold,' Cominius reports, '_his eye red_ as +'twould burn Rome'--a small flambeau the poet thinks for so large a +city. 'He no more remembers his mother than an eight year old horse,' +is the poor old Menenius querulous account of him, when with a cracked +heart he returns and reports how the conditions of a man are altered +in him: but while he is making that already-quoted report of this +superhuman growth and assumption of a divine authority and honour in +the Military Chieftain, the Poet is quietly starting a little piece of +philosophical machinery that will shake out that imperial pageant, and +show the slave that is hidden under it, for it is no _man_ at all, +but, in very deed, a slave, as Hamlet calls it, '_passion's slave_,' +'a pipe for fortune's finger _to sound what stop she please_.' For +that _state_,--that command--depends on that which '_changes_,'-- +fortuities, impressions, nay, it has the principle of revolution +within it. It is its nature to change. The single passion cannot +engross the large, many-passioned, complex nature, so rich and various +in motivity, so large and comprehensive in its surveys--the single +passion seeks in vain to subdue it to its single end. That reigning +passion must give way when it is spent, or sooner if its master come. +You cannot make it look to-day as it looked yesterday; you cannot make +it look when its rival affection enters as it looked when it reigned +alone. An hour ago, the hue of resolution on its cheek glowed immortal +red. It was strong enough to defy God and all his creatures; it would +annul all worlds but that one which it was god of. + +This is the speech of it on the lips of the actor who comes in to +interpret to us _the thinker's_ inaction, the thinker's irresolution, +for 'it is _conscience_ that makes cowards of us all.' Here is a man +who is resolute enough. _His will_ is not 'puzzled.' _His_ thoughts, +_his_ scruples will not divide and destroy his purpose. _Here_ is THE +UNITY which precedes ACTION. This man is going to be revenged for his +father. 'What would you undertake to do?' 'To cut his throat i' the +church.' + + 'To hell allegiance, vows to the blackest devil. + Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit. + I _dare_ damnation. To this point I stand + That both the worlds _I_ give to negligence, + Let come what comes, _only_ I'll be revenged + Most thoroughly for _my_ father.' [_Only_.] + +That is your passionate speech, your speech of fire. That was what the +principle of vindictiveness said when it was _you_, when it mastered +you, and called _itself_ by your name. Ay, it has many names, and many +lips; but it is always _one_. That was what it said an hour ago; and +now it is shrunk away you know not where, you cannot rally it, and you +are there confounded, self-abandoned, self-annulled, a forgery, +belying the identity which your visible form--which your _human_ form, +was made to promise,--a slave,--a pipe for _fortune's_ finger. This is +the kind of action which is criticised in the scientific drama, and +'rejected'; and the conclusion after these reviews and rejections, +'after every species of rejection,'--the _affirmation_ is, that there +is but one principle that is _human_, and that is GOOD yesterday, +to-day, and for ever; and whose is true to that is true, in the human +form, to the self which was, and will be. He cannot then be false to +his yesterday, or tomorrow; he cannot then be false to himself; he +cannot then be false to any man; for that is the self that is one in +us all--that is the self of _reason_ and conscience, not passion. + +But as for this affection that is tried here now, that the diagram of +this scene exhibits so tangibly, 'as it were, to the eye,'--this poor +and private passion, that sits here, with its imperial crown on its +head, in the place of God, but lacking His 'mercy,'--this passion of +the petty man, that has made itself so hugely visible with its +monstrous outstretching, that lies stretched out and glittering on +these hills, with its dragon coils unwound, with its deadly +fangs--those little fangs, that crush our private hearts, and torture +and rend our daily lives--exposed in this great solar microscope, +striking the _common-weal_,--as for this petty, usurping passion, +there is a spectacle approaching that will undo it. + +Out of that great city there comes a little group of forms, which +yesterday this hero 'could not stay to pick out of that pile which had +offended him,' that was his word,--which yesterday he would have burnt +in it without a scruple. Towards the great Volscian army that +beleaguers Rome it comes--towards the pavilion where the Volscian +captain sits in gold, with his wings outspread, it shapes its course. +To other eyes, it is but a group of Roman ladies, two or three, clad +in mourning, with their attendants, and a prattling child with them; +but, with the first glance at it from afar, the great chieftain +trembles, and begins to clasp his armour. He could think of them and +doom them, in his over-mastering passion of revenge, with its heroic +infinity of mastery triumphant in him,--he could _think_ of them and +doom them; but the impressions of _the senses_ are more vivid, and the +passions wait on them. As that group draws nearer, one sees, by the +light of this Poet's painting, a fair young matron, with subdued mien +and modest graces, and an elder one, leading a wilful boy, with a +'confirmed countenance,' pattering by her side; just such a group as +one might see anywhere in the lordly streets of Palatinus,--much such +a one as one might find anywhere under those thousand-doomed plebeian +roofs. + +But to this usurping 'private,' to this man of passion and affection, +and not reason--this man of private and particular motives only, and +blind partial aims, it is more potent than Rome and all her claims; it +outweighs Rome and all her weal--'it is worth of senators and +patricians a city full, of tribunes and plebeians a sea and land +full'--it outweighs all the Volscians, and their trust in him. + +His reasons of state begin to falter, and change their aspects, as +that little party draws nearer; and he finds himself within its +magnetic sphere. + +For this is the pattern-man, for the man of mere impression and +instinct. He is full of feeling within his sphere, though it is a +sphere which does not embrace plebeians,--which crushes Volscians with +clarions, and drums, and trumpets, and poets' voices to utter its +exultations. Within that private sphere, his sensibilities are +exquisite and poetic in their depth and delicacy. He is not wanting in +the finer impulses, in the nobler affections of the particular and +private nature. He is not a base, brutal man. Even in his martial +conquests, he will not take 'leaden spoons.' His soul is with a divine +ambition fired to have _all_. It is instinct, but it is the instinct +of the human; it is 'conservation with _advancement_' that he is +blindly pursuing, for this is a generous nature. He knows the heights +that reason lends to instinct in the human kind, and the infinities +that affection borrows from it. + +And the Poet himself has large and gentle views of 'this particular,' +scientific views of it, scientific recognitions of its laws, such as +no philosophic school was ever before able to pronounce. Even here, on +this sad and tragic ground of a subdued and debased common-weal, he +will not cramp its utterance--he will give it leave to speak, in all +its tenderness and beauty, in its own sweet native dialect, all its +poetic wildness, its mad verities, its sober impossibilities, even at +the moment in which he asks in statesmanship for the rational motive, +undrenched in humours and affections--for the motive of the weal that +is common, and not for the motive of that which is private and +exclusive. + +In vain the hero struggles with his yielding passion, and seeks to +retain it. In vain he struggles with a sentiment which he himself +describes as 'a gosling's instinct,' and seeks to subdue it. In vain +he rallies his pride, and says, 'Let it be _virtuous_ to be +_obstinate_'; and determines to stand 'as if a man were author of +himself, and knew no other kin.' His mother kneels. It is but a frail, +aged woman kneeling to the victorious chieftain of the Volscian hosts; +but to him it is 'as if _Olympus_ to _a mole-hill_ stooped in +supplication.' His boy looks at him with an eye in which great Nature +speaks, and says, 'Deny not'; he sees the tears in the dove's eyes of +the beloved, he hears her dewy voice; we hear it, too, through the +Poet's art, in the words she speaks; and he forgets his part. We reach +the 'grub' once more. The dragon wings of armies melt from him. He is +his young boy's father--he is his fair young wife's beloved. + + 'O a kiss, long _as_ my exile, sweet _as_ my revenge.' + +There's no decision yet. The scales are even now. But there is another +there, waiting to be saluted, and he himself is but a boy--his own +mother's boy again, at her feet. It is she that schools and lessons +him; it is she that conquers him. It _was_ 'her boy,' after all--it +was her boy still, that was 'coming home.' + +Well might Menenius say-- + + '_This Volumnia_ is worth of consuls, senators, patricians, + A city full; of tribunes _such as you_, + A sea and land full.' + +But let us take the philosophic report of this experiment as we find +it; for on the carefullest study, when once it is put in its +connections, when once we 'have heard the argument,' we shall not find +anything in it to spare. But we must not forget that this is still +'the election,' the ignorant election of the common-weal which is +under criticism, and though this election has been revoked in the play +already, and this is a banished man we are trying here, there was a +play in progress when this play was played, in which that revocation +was yet to come off; and this Poet was anxious that the subject should +be considered first from the most comprehensive grounds, so that _the +principle of 'the election_' need never again be called in question, +so that the revolution should end in the state, and not in the +principle of revolution. + + 'My wife comes foremost; then the honoured mould + Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand + The grand-child to her blood. But, out, _affection_! + All bond and privilege of nature, break! + _Let it be virtuous to be obstinate_.-- + What is that curtsey worth? or those doves' eyes, + Which can _make gods forsworn_? + +['He speaks of the people as if he were a god to punish, and not a man +of infirmity.'] + + 'I melt, _and am not_ + Of STRONGER EARTH than others.--My mother bows; + As if Olympus to a molehill should + In supplication nod: and my young boy + Hath an aspect of intercession, which + Great Nature cries, 'Deny not!'--Let the Volsces + Plough Rome, and harrow Italy; I'll never + Be such a GOSLING to obey INSTINCT; but stand, + As if a MAN were author of himself, + And knew no other kin. + These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome. + + _Vir_. + The sorrow that delivers us thus changed, + Makes you think so. + +[The objects are altered, not the eyes. We are changed. But it is with +sorrow. She bids him note that alteration, and puts upon it the blame +of his loss of love. But that is just the kind of battery he is not +provided for. His resolution wavers. That unrelenting warrior, that +fierce revengeful man is gone already, and forgot to leave his +part--the words he was to speak are wanting.] + + _Cor_. Like a dull actor now, + I have forgot my part, _and I am out_, + _Even to a full disgrace_. Best of my flesh, + Forgive my tyranny; but do not say, + For that, Forgive our Romans.--O, a kiss + Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge! + Now by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss + I carried from thee, dear; and my true lip + Hath virgin'd it e'er since.--You gods! I prate, + And the _most noble mother of the world_ + Leave unsaluted: Sink, my knee, t'the earth; [_Kneels_.] + Of _the deep duty_ more _impression_ show + _Than that of common sons_. + + _Vol_. O, stand up bless'd! + Whilst, with no softer cushion than the flint, + I kneel before thee; and unproperly + _Show duty, as mistaken_-- + +[Note it--'as mistaken,' for this is the kind of learning described +elsewhere, which differs from received opinions, and must, therefore, +pray in aid of similes.] + + --and improperly + Show DUTY, as mistaken all the while + Between the child and parent. + +[And the prostrate form of that which should command, is represented +in the kneeling mother. The Poet himself points us to this +hieroglyphic. It is the common-weal that kneels in her person, and the +rebel interprets for us. It is the violated law that stoops for +pardon.] + + _Cor_. What is this? + Your knees to me? to _your corrected son_? + _Then_ let the pebbles on the hungry beach + Fillip the stars; _then_ let the _mutinous_ winds + Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun; + _Murdering impossibility, to make + What cannot be, slight work_. + + _Vol_. Thou _art my warrior; + I holp to frame thee_. + +[But it is not of the little Marcius only, the hero--the Roman hero in +germ--that she speaks--there is more than her Roman part _here_, when +she adds--] + + _Vol_. This is a poor epitome of yours, + Which _by the interpretation_ of _full time_ + May show, _like all, yourself_. + +[And hear now what benediction the true hero can dare to utter, what +prayer the true hero can dare to pray, through this faltering, +fluctuating, martial hero's lips, when, 'that whatsoever god who led +him' is failing him, and the flaws of impulse are swaying him to and +fro, and darkening him for ever.] + + _Cor._ 'The god of soldiers + _With the consent of_ SUPREME JOVE,'--[the Capitolian, the + god of state]--'inform + _Thy thoughts_ with NOBLENESS;'--[_inform thy thoughts._] + 'that thou may'st prove + _The shame_ unvulnerable, and stick i'the wars + Like a great sea-mark, _standing every flaw_, + And saving those that eye thee.' + +[But _this_ hero's conclusion for himself, and his impulsive nature +is--] + + 'Not of a woman's tenderness to be, + Requires nor child, nor woman's face to see. + I have sat too long.' + +But the mother will not let him go, and her stormy eloquence completes +the conquest which that dumb rhetoric had before well nigh achieved. + +Yes, Menenius was right in his induction. His abstraction and brief +summing up of 'this Volumnia' and her history, is the true one. She is +very potent in the business of the state, whether you take her in her +first literal acceptation, as the representative mother, or whether +you take her in that symbolical and allusive comprehension, to which +the emphasis on the name is not unfrequently made to point, as 'the +nurse and mother of all humanities,' the instructor of the state, the +former of its nobility, who _in_-forms their thoughts with nobleness, +such nobleness, and such notions of it as they have, and who fits them +for the place they are to occupy in the body of the common-weal. + +Menenius has not exaggerated in his exposition the relative importance +of _this_ figure among those which the dumb-show of this play +exhibits. Among the 'transient hieroglyphics' which the diseased +common-weal produces on the scientific stage, when the question of its +CURE is the question of the Play--in that great crowd of forms, in +that moving, portentous, stormy pageant of senators, and consuls, and +tribunes, and plebeians, whose great acts fill the scene--there are +none more significant than these two, whom we saw at first 'seated on +two low stools, sewing'; these two of the wife and mother--the +commanding mother, and the 'gracious silence.' + +'This Volumnia'--yes, let her school him, for it is from her school +that he has come: let her conquer him, for she is the conserver of +this harm. It is she who makes of it a tradition. To its utmost bound +of consequences, she is the mother of it, and accountable to God and +man for its growth and continuance. Consuls, and senators, and +patricians, and tribunes, such as we have, are powerless without her, +are powerless against her. The state begins with her; but, instead of +it, she has bred and nursed the destroyer of the state. Let her +conquer him, though her life-blood must flow for it now. This play is +the Cure of the Common-weal, the convulsed and dying Common-weal; and +whether the assault be from within or without, this woman must undo +her work. The tribunes have sent for her now: she must go forth +without shrinking, and slay her son. She was the true mother; she +trained him for the common-weal, she would have made a patrician of +him, but that craved a noble cunning; she was not instructed in it; +she must pay the penalty of her ignorance--the penalty of her +traditions--and slay him now. There is no help for it, for she has +made with her traditions a thing that no common-weal can bear. + +Woe for this Volumnia! Woe for the common-weal whose chiefs she has +reared, whose great men and 'GOOD CITIZENS' she has made! Woe for her! +Woe for the _common_-weal, for _her_ boy approaches! The land is +groaning and shaken; the faces of men gather blackness; the clashing +of arms is heard in the streets, blood is flowing, the towns are +blazing. Great Rome will soon be sacked with Romans, for her boy is +coming home; the child of her instinct, the son of her ignorance, the +son of her RELIGION, is _coming home_. + + 'O mother, mother! + What hast thou done?.... + O my mother, mother! O, + You have won _a happy victory to Rome_,-- + But for your son--' + +Alas for him, and his gentle blood, and noble breeding, and his +patrician greatness! Woe for the unlearned mother's son, who has made +him great with such a training, that Rome's weal and his, Rome's +greatness and his, must needs contend together--that 'Rome's happy +victory' must needs be the blaze that shall darken him for ever! + +Yet he storms again, with something like his old patrician fierceness; +and yet not that, the tone is altered; he is humbler and tamer than he +was, and he says himself, 'It is the first time that ever I have +learned to scold'; but he is stung, even to boasting of his old heroic +deeds, when Aufidius taunts him with his un-martial, un-_divine_ +infirmity, and brings home to him in very words, at last, the Poet's +suppressed verdict, the Poet's deferred sentence, GUILTY!--of what? He +is but A BOY, his nurse's boy, and he undertook _the state_! He is but +A SLAVE, and he was caught climbing to the imperial chair, and putting +on the purple. He is but 'a _dog_ to the commonalty,' and he was +sitting in the place of God. + +Aufidius owns, indeed, to his own susceptibility to these particular +and private affections. When Coriolanus turns to him after that appeal +from Volumnia has had its effect, and asks:-- + + 'Now, good Aufidius, + Were _you in my stead_, say, would _you_ have heard + A mother _less_, or granted _less_, Aufidius?' + +He answers, guardedly, 'I was moved _withal_.' But the philosopher has +his word there, too, as well as the Poet, slipped in under the Poet's, +covertly, 'I was _moved_ with-_all_.' [It is the Play of the +Common-weal.] And what should the single private man, the man of +exclusive affections and changeful humours, do with the weal of the +whole? In his noblest conditions, what business has he in the state? +and who shall vote to give him the out-stretched wings and claws of +Volscian armies, that he may say of Rome, _all's mine_, and give it to +his wife or mother? Who shall follow in _his_ train, to plough Rome +and harrow Italy, who lays himself and all his forces at his mother's +feet, and turns back at her word? + + _Aufidius_. You lords and HEADS of the STATE, perfidiously + Has he betrayed _your business_, and given up + For certain drops of salt, _your city_ Rome-- + I say, _your city_--to _his wife and mother: + Breaking his oath and resolution like + A twist of rotten silk; never admitting + Counsel of the war_, but _at his nurse's tears_ + He whined and roar'd away your victory, + That pages blushed at him, and men of heart + _Looked wondering at each other_. + + [There is a look which has come down to us. That is + Elizabethan. That is the suppressed Elizabethan.] + + _Cor_. Hear'st thou, _Mars_? + + _Auf_. Name not _the god_ thou _Boy_ of tears. + + _Cor_. _Ha_! + + _Auf_. No MORE. [You are no more.] + + _Cor_. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart + Too great for what contains it. _Boy? O Slave_! + .... Boy? False _hound_! + +[These are the names that are flying about here, now that the martial +chiefs are criticising each other: it is no matter which side they +go.] + + '_Boy? O slave_! + ... Boy? False hound! ['He is a very dog to the commonalty.'] + Alone I did it. BOY? + +But it is Volumnia herself who searches to the quick the principle of +this boyish sovereignty, in her satire on the undivine passion she +wishes to unseat. It is thus that she upbraids the hero with his +un_manly_, ungracious, ignoble purpose:-- + + 'Speak to me, son. + + Thou hast affected the fine strains of HONOUR, + To imitate the graces of the gods; + To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air, + And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt + That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak? + Think'st thou it honourable for a NOBLE MAN + Still to remember wrongs? + +For that is the height of the scientific affirmation also; the other +was, in scientific language, its 'anticipation.' He wants nothing of a +god but an eternity, and a heaven to throne in (slight deficiences in +a god already). 'Yes, mercy, if you paint him truly.' 'I paint him in +character.' + +NOBILITY, HONOUR, MANLINESS, HEROISM, GOOD CITIZENSHIP, FREEDOM, +DIVINITY, PATRIOTISM. We are getting a number of definitions here, +vague popular terms, scientifically fixed, scientifically cleared, +destined to waver, and be confused and mixed with other and fatally +different things in the popular apprehension no more--when once this +science is unfolded for that whole people for whom it was +delivered--no more for ever. + +There is no open dramatic embodiment in this play of the true ideal +nobility, and manliness, and honour, and divinity. This is the false +affirmation which is put upon the stage here, to be tried, and +examined, and rejected. For it is to this Poet's purpose to show--and +very much to his purpose to show, sometimes--what is not the true +affirmation. His method is critical, but his rejection contains the +true definition. The whole play is contrived to shape it here; all +hands combine to frame it. Volscians and Romans conspire to pronounce +it; the world is against this 'one man' and his part-liness, though he +be indeed 'every man.' He himself has been compelled to pronounce it; +for the speaker for the whole is the speaker in each of us, and +pronounces his sentences on ourselves with our own lips. 'Being gentle +wounded craves a noble cunning,' is the word of the noble, who comes +back with a Volscian army to exhibit upon the stage this grand +hieroglyphic, this grand dramatic negative of that nobility. + +But it is from the lips of the mother, brought into this deadly +antagonism with the manliness she has trained, compelled now to echo +that popular rejection, that the Poet can venture to speak out, at +last, from the depths of his true heroism. It is this Volumnia who +strikes now to the heart of the play with her satire on this +affectation of the graces of the gods,--this assumption of nobility, +and manliness, and the fine strains of _honour_,--in one who is led +only by the blind demon gods, 'that keep this dreadful pother o'er our +heads,'--in one who is bounded and shut in after all to the range of +his own poor petty private passions, shut up to a poverty of soul +which forbids those assumptions, limited to a nature in which those +_strictly_ human terms can be only affectations, one who concentrates +all his glorious _special_ human gifts on the pursuit of ends for +which the lower natures are also furnished. Honour, forsooth! the fine +strains of honour, and the graces of the gods. Look at that Volscian +army there. + + 'To tear with thunder _the wide cheeks o' the air, + And yet_ to charge thy sulphur with a bolt + That should but rive an oak. + _Why dost not speak_?' + +He can not. There is no speech for that. It does not bear _review_. + + 'Why dost not speak? + Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man + _Still_ to remember wrongs?' + +'Let it be _virtuous_ to be _obstinate_,' let there be no better +principle of that identity which we insist on in men, that firmness +which we call manliness, and the cherished _wrong_ is honour. + +It is but an interrogative point, but the height of our affirmation is +taken with it. It is a figure of speech and _intensifies_ the +affirmative with its irony. + + 'This a consul? No.' + + 'No more, but e'en a woman, and COMMANDED + By such _poor_ passion as the maid that milks, + And does the meanest chares.' [QUEEN.] + + 'Give me that _man_ that is not _passion's slave_. + + Since my dear soul _was mistress of her choice, + And could of men distinguish her election_, + She hath seal'd thee for herself: _for_ thou hast been + As one, in suffering _all_, that _suffers_ nothing. + +But the man who rates so highly 'this single mould of Marcius,' and +the wounded name of it, that he will _forge_ another for it 'i' the +fire of burning Rome,' who will hurt the world to ease the rankling of +his single wrong, who will plough Rome and harrow Italy to cool the +fever of his thirst for vengeance; this is not the man, this is not +the hero, this is not THE GOD, that the scientific review accepts. +Whoso has put him in the chair of state on earth, or in heaven, must +'revoke that ignorant election.' Whatever our 'perfect example in +civil life' may be, and we are, perhaps, not likely to get it openly +in the form of an historic '_composition_' on this author's stage, +whatever name and shape it may take when it comes, this evidently is +not it. This Caius Marcius is dismissed for the present from this +Poet's boards. This curule chair that stands here empty yet, for aught +that we can see, and this crown of 'olives of endless age,' is not for +him. + + 'Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius? + Against him first. + + 'We proceed first by negatives, and conclude after every + species of rejection.' + +On the surface of this play, lies everywhere the question of the +Common-Weal, in its relation to the good that is private and +particular, scientifically reviewed, as a question in proportion,--as +the question of the whole against the part,--of the greater against +the less,--nay, as the question of that which is against that which is +not. For it is a treatment which throws in passing, the shadow of the +old metaphysical suspicion and scepticism on that chaotic +unaxiomatical condition of things which the scientific eye discovers +here, for the new philosophy with all its new comprehension of the +actual, with all its new convergency on practice, is careful to inform +us that it observes, notwithstanding the old distinction between +'being and becoming.' This is an IDEAL philosophy also, though the +notions of nature are more respected in it, than the spontaneous +unconsidered notions of men. + +It is the largeness of the objective whole, the historic whole and the +faculty in man of comprehending it, and the sense of relation and +obligation to it, as the highest historic law,--the _formal_, the +_essential law_ of _kind_ in him, it is the breadth of reason, it is +the circumference of conscience, it is the _grandeur_ of duty which +this author arrays here scientifically against that oblivion and +ignoring of the _whole_, that forgetfulness of the world, and the +universal tie which the ignorance of the unaided sense and the +narrowness of passion and private affection create, whether in the +one, or the few, or the many. It is the Weal of the whole against the +will of the part, no matter where the limit of that partiality, or +'partliness,' as the '_poor_ citizen' calls it, is fixed whether it be +the selfishness of the single self, or whether the household tie +enlarges its range, whether it be the partiality of class or faction, +or the partiality of kindred or race, or the partiality of geographic +limits, the question of the play, the question of the whole, of the +worthier whole, is still pursued with scientific exaction. It is the +conflict with axioms which is represented here, and not with wordy +axioms only, not with abstractions good for the human mind only, in +its abstract self-sustained speculations, but with historical axioms, +axioms which the universal nature knows, laws which have had the +consent of things since this nature began, laws which passed long ago +the universal commons. + +It is the false unscientific state which is at war, not with abstract +speculation merely, but with the nature of things and the received +logic of the universe, which this man of a practical science wishes to +call attention to. It is the crowning and enthroning of that which is +private and particular, it is the anointing of passion and instinct, +it is the arming of the absolute--the demon--will; it is the putting +into the hands of the ignorant part the sceptre of the whole, which +strikes the scientific Reviewer as the thing to be noted here. And by +way of proceeding by negatives first, he undertakes to convey to +others the impression which this state of things makes upon his own +mind, as pointedly as may be, consistently with those general +intentions which determine his proceedings and the conditions which +limit them, and he is by no means timid in availing himself of the +capabilities of his story to that end. The true spectacle of the +play,--the principal hieroglyphic of it,--the one in which this +hieroglyphic criticism approaches the metaphysical intention most +nearly, is one that requires interpretation. It does not report itself +to the eye at once. The showman stops to tell us before he produces +it, that it _is_ a symbol,--that this is one of the places where he +'prays in aid of similes,'--that this is a specimen of what he calls +elsewhere 'allusive' writing. The true spectacle of the play,--the +grand hieroglyphic of it,--is that view of the city, and the woman in +the foreground kneeling _for it_, 'to her _son_, her _corrected_ son,' +begging for pardon of her corrected rebel--hanging for life on the +chance of his changeful moods and passions. It is _Rome_ that lies +stretched out there upon her hills, in all her visible greatness and +claims to reverence; it is Rome with her Capitolian crown, forth from +which the Roman matron steps, and with no softer cushion than the +flint, in the dust at the rebel's feet, kneels '_to show_'--as she +tells us--to show as clearly as the conditions of the exhibition allow +it to be exhibited, DUTY as mistaken,--'_as_ mistaken,'--_all the +while_ between _the child_ and _parent_. + +It is Jupiter that stoops; it is Olympus doing obeisance to the +mole-hill; it is the divineness of the universal law--the _formal_ law +in man--that is prostrate and suppliant in her person; and the Poet +exhausts even his own powers of expression, and grows inarticulate at +last, in seeking to convey his sense of this ineffable, impossible, +historical pretension. It is as 'if Olympus to a mole-hill should _in +supplication nod_; it is as if _the pebbles_ on the hungry beach +should _fillip the stars_; as if _the mutinous winds_ should strike +the proud cedars against the fiery sun, _murdering impossibility_, to +make what _can not be_, slight work,'--what can not _be_. + +That was the spectacle of the play, and that was the world's spectacle +when the play was written. Nay, worse; a thousandfold more wild and +pitiful, and confounding to the intellect, and revolting to its +sensibilities, was the spectacle that the State offered then to the +philosophic eye. The Poet has all understated his great case. He has +taken the pattern-man in the private affections, the noble man of mere +instinct and passion, and put _him_ in the chair of state;--the man +whom nature herself had chosen and anointed, and crowned with kingly +graces. + + 'As waves before a vessel under sail + So men obeyed him, and fell below his stern,' + + 'If he would but incline to the people, there never was a + worthier man.' + +Not to the natural private affections and instincts, touched with the +nobility of human sense,--not to the loyalty of the husband,--not to +the filial reverence and duty of the son, true to that private and +personal relationship at least; not to the gentleness of the +patrician, true to that private patricianship also, must England owe +her _weal_--such weal as she could beg and wheedle from her lord and +ruler then. Not from the conquering hero with his fresh oakleaf on his +brow, and the command of the god who led him in his speech and +action,--and not from his lineal successor merely, must England beg +her welfare then. It was not the venerable mother, or the gentle wife, +with her dove's eyes able to make gods of earth forsworn, who could +say then, 'The laws of England are at my commandment.' + +Crimes that the historic pen can only point to,--not record,--low, +illiterate, brutish stupidities, mad-cap folly, and wanton +extravagancies and caprices, in their ideal impersonations--_these_ +were the gods that England, in the majesty of her State, in the +sovereignty of her chartered weal, must abase herself to then. To the +vices of tyranny, to low companions and their companions, and _their_ +kindred, the State must cringe and kneel then. To _these_,--men who +meddled with affairs of State,--who took, even at such a time, the +State to be _their_ business,--must address themselves; for these were +the councils in which England's peace and war were settled then, and +the Tribune could enter them only in disguise. His _veto_ could not +get spoken outright, it could only be pronounced in under-tones and +circumlocutions. Not with noble, eloquent, human appeals, could the +soul of power be reached and conquered then--the soul of him 'within +whose eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,' the man of the thirty legions, +to whom this _argument_ must be dedicated. 'Ducking observances,' +basest flatteries, sycophancies past the power of man to utter, +personal humiliations, and prostrations that seemed to teach 'the mind +a most inherent baseness,' _these_ were the weapons,--the required +weapons of the statesman's warfare then. From these 'dogs of the +commonalty' men who were indeed 'noble,' whose 'fame' did indeed 'fold +in the orb o' the world,' must take then, as a purchase or a gift, +deliverance from physical restraint, and life itself. These were the +days when _England's_ victories were 'blubbered and whined away,' in +such a sort, that 'pages blushed at it, and men of heart looked +wondering at each other.' + +And, when science began first to turn her eye on history, and propose +to herself the relief of the human estate, as her end, and the +scientific arts as her means, this was the spectacle she found herself +expected to endure; this was the state of things she found herself +called upon to sanction and conserve. She could not immediately reform +it--she must produce first her doctrine of '_true_ forms,' her +scientific definitions and precepts based on them, and her doctrine of +constructions. She could not openly condemn it; but she could +criticise and reject it by means of that method which is 'sometimes +necessary in the sciences,' and to which 'those who would let in new +light upon the human mind must have recourse.' She could seize the +grand hieroglyphic of the heroic past, and make it 'point with its +finger' that which was unspeakable,--her scorn of it. She could borrow +the freedom of the old Roman lips, to repronounce, in her own new +dialect,--not their anticipation of her _veto_ only, but her eternal +affirmation,--the word of her consulship, the rule of her +nobility,--the nobility of being,--being in the human,--the nobility +of manliness,--_the divinity of State_, the _true_ doctrine of +it;--and, to speak _truly, 'Antiquitas seculi, juventus mundi._' + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +METAPHYSICAL AID. + + + 'I do not like the fashion of your garments. You will say they + are _Persian_ attire; but let them be changed.'-- + _The King to Tom o' Bedlam._ + + 'Would you proceed especially against _Caius Marcius_? + Against him _first_.' + +It is the cure of the Common-weal which this author has undertaken, +for he found himself pre-elected to the care of the people and to the +world's tribuneship. But he handles his subject in the natural, +historical order, in the chronological order,--and not here only, but +in that play of which this is a part,--of which this is the play +within the Play,--in that grand, historical proceeding on the world's +theatre, which it was given to the author of this play to institute. + +He begins with the physical wants of men. The hunger, and cold, and +weariness, and all the physical suffering and destitution of that +human condition which is the condition of the many, has arrested his +human eye, with its dumb, patient eloquence, and it is _that_ which +makes the starting point of his revolution. He translates its mute +language, he anticipates its word. He is setting in movement +operations that are intended to make 'coals cheap'; he proposes to +have corn at his own price. He has so much confidence in what his +tongue can do in the way of flattery, that he expects to come back +beloved of all the trades in Rome. He will 'cog their hearts from +them,' and get elected _consul_ yet, with all their voices. + +'Scribbling seems to be the sign of a disordered age,' says the +philosopher, who finds so much occasion for the use of that art about +these days. 'It seems as if it were the season for vain things when +the hurtful oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do +nothing but what signifies nothing is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my +comfort that I shall be one of the last that are called in question; +and, whilst the greater offenders are calling to account, I shall have +leisure to amend; for it would be unreasonable to punish _the less +troublesome_, whilst we are infested with _the greater_. As the +physician said to one who presented him his finger to dress, and who, +he perceived, had an ulcer in his lungs, "Friend," said he, "it is not +now time to concern yourself about your fingers-ends". And +_yet_--[_and yet_]--I saw, some years ago, a person whose name and +memory I have in very great esteem, in the very height of our great +disorders, when there was neither law nor justice put in execution, +_nor magistrate_ that performed _his office--no more than there is +now_--publish, I know not what pitiful _reformations_, about _clothes, +cookery, and law chicanery_. These are amusements wherewith to feed a +people that are ill-used, _to show that they are not totally +forgotten_.' + +That is the account of it. That is the history of this innovation, +beginning with books, proposing pitiful reformations in clothes, and +cookery, and law chicanery. That would serve to show an ill-used +people that there was some care for them stirring, some tribuneship at +work already. '_What I say of physic generally_, may serve AS AN +EXAMPLE OF ALL OTHER SCIENCES,' says _this same_ scribbler, under his +scribbling cognomen. 'We certainly _intend_ to comprehend them _all_,' +says the graver authority, 'such as Ethics, Politics, and Logic.' + +That is, where we are exactly in this so entertaining performance, +which was also designed for the benefit of an ill-used people; for +this candidate for the chief magistracy is the _Aedile_ also, and +while he stands for his place these spectacles will continue. + +It is that physical suffering of 'the poor citizens' that he begins +with here. It is the question of the price of corn with which he opens +his argument. The dumb and patient people are on his stage already; +dumb and patient no longer, but clamoring against the surfeiting and +wild wanton waste of the few; clamoring for their share in God's +common gifts to men, and refusing to take any longer the portion which +a diseased state puts down for them. But he tells us from the outset, +that _this_ claim will be prosecuted in such a manner as to 'throw +forth greater themes for insurrection's arguing.' + +Though all the wretched poor were clothed and fed with imperial +treasure, with imperial luxury and splendour--though all the arts +which are based on the knowledge of physical causes should be put in +requisition to relieve their need--though the scientific discoveries +and inventions which are pouring in upon human life from that field of +scientific inquiry which our men of science have already cultivated +their golden harvests, should reach at last poor Tom himself--though +that scientific movement now in progress should proceed till it has +reached the humblest of our human kin, and surrounded him with all the +goods of the private and particular nature, with the sensuous luxuries +and artistic elegancies and refinements of the lordliest home--that +good which is the distinctive human good, that good which is the +constitutional human _end_, that good, that formal and essential good, +which it is the end of this philosophy to bring to man, would not +necessarily be realised. + +For _that_, and nothing short of that, the '_advancement_' of the +species to that which it is blindly reaching for, painfully groping +for--its form in nature, its ideal perfection--the advancement of it +to something more noble than the nobility of a nobler kind of +vermin--a state which involves another kind of individual growth and +greatness, one which involves a different, a distinctively 'human +principle' and tie of congregation, is that which makes the ultimate +intention of this philosophy. + +The organization of that large, complex, difficult form in nature, in +which the many are united in 'the greater congregation'; that more +extensive whole, of which the units are each, not simple forms, but +the complicated, most highly complex, and not yet subdued complexity, +which the individual form of man in itself constitutes; this so +difficult result of nature's combinations and her laws of combination, +labouring, struggling towards its consummation, but disordered, +threatened, convulsed, asking aid of _art_, is the subject; the cure +of it, the cure and healthful regimen of it, the problem. + +And it is a born doctor who has taken it in hand this time; one of +your natural geniuses, with an inward vocation for the art of +_healing_, instructed of nature beforehand in that mystery and +profession, and appointed of her to that ministry. Wherever you find +him, under whatever disguise, you will find that his mind is running +on the structure of _bodies_, the means of their conservation and +growth, and the remedies for their disorders, and decays, and +antagonisms, without and within. He has a most extraordinary and +incurable natural bent and determination towards medicine and cures in +general; he is always inquiring into the anatomy of things and the +qualities of drugs, analysing them and mixing them, finding the art of +their compounds, and modifying them to suit his purposes, or inventing +new ones; for, like Aristotle, to whom he refers for a precedent, he +wishes 'to have a hand in everything.' + +But he is not a quack. He has no respect for the old authoritative +prescriptions, if they fail in practice, whether they come in Galen's +name, or another's; but he is just as severe upon 'the empiricutics,' +on the other hand, and he objects to 'a horse-drench' for the human +constitution in the greater congregation, as much as he does in that +distinctively complex delicate structure which the single individual +human frame in itself constitutes. + +Menenius [speaking of the letter which Volumnia has told him of, and +putting in a word on this Doctor's behalf, for it is not very much to +the purpose on his own] says, 'It gives me an estate of _seven years'_ +health, _during which time I will make a lip at the physician_.' A +lip--_a lip_--and 'what a deal of scorn looks beautiful on it,' when +once you get to see it. But this is the play of 'conservation with +advancement.' It is the cure and preservation of the common-weal, to +which all lines are tending, to which all points and parentheses are +pointing; and thus he continues: 'The _most sovereign prescription_ in +_Galen_ is but empiricutic, and to _this_ preservative of no better +report than a horse-drench.' So we shall find, when we come to try +it--_this_ preservative,--this conservation. + +This Doctor has a great opinion of nature. He thinks that 'the +physician must rely on her powers for his cures in the last resort, +and be able to make prescriptions of _them_, instead of making them +out of his own pre-conceits, if he would not have of his cure a +_conceit_ also.' His opinion is, that 'nature is made better by no +mean, but she herself hath made that mean;'-- + + 'So o'er that art + Which you say adds to nature, is an art + That nature makes... + ...This is an art + Which does _mend nature_, _change_ it rather: but + _The art itself_ is nature.' + +That is the Poet's view, but the Philosopher is of the same opinion. +'Man while _operating_ can only _apply or withdraw_ natural bodies, +nature internally _performs_ the rest.' Those who become _practically_ +versed in nature are the mechanic, the mathematician, the alchemist, +and _the magician_, but _all_, as matters now stand with faint efforts +and meagre success.'... 'The syllogism forces _assent_ and not +_things_.' + +'_The subtlety of nature is far beyond that of sense or of the +understanding._ The syllogism consists of propositions, these of +words, words are the signs of notions, notions represent things. If +our notions are fantastical, the whole structure falls to the ground; +but they are for the most part improperly abstracted and deduced from +_things_.' + +There is the whole of it; there it is in a nut-shell. As we are very +apt to find it in this method of delivery by aphorisms; there is the +shell of it at least. And considering 'the torture and press of the +method,' and the instruments of torture then in use for correcting the +press, on these precise questions, there is as much of the kernel, +perhaps, as could reasonably be looked for, in those particular +aphorisms; and 'aphorisms representing a _knowledge broken_, do +_invite_ men to inquire further;' so _this_ writer of them tells us. + +With all his reliance on nature then, and with all his scorn of the +impracticable and arrogant conceits of learning as he finds it, and of +the quackeries that are practised in its name, this is no empiric. He +will not approach that large, complex, elaborate combination of +nature, that laboured fruit of time,--her most subtle and efficacious +agent, so prolific in results that amaze and confound our art, +--he will not approach this great structure with all its unperceived +interior adaptations,--with so much of nature's own work in it, +--hehas too much respect for her own 'cunning hand,' to approach it +without learning,--to undertake its cure with blind ignorant +experiments. He will not go to work in the dark on this structure, +with drug or surgery. This is going to be a scientific cure. 'Before +we proceed any further, _hear me speak_.' He will inquire beforehand +the nature of this particular structure that he proposes to meddle +with, and get its normal state defined at the outset. But that will +take him into the question of structures in general, as they appear in +nature, and the intention of nature in them. He will have a +comparative anatomy to help him. This analysis will not stop with the +social unit, he will analyze him. It will not stop with him. It will +comprehend the principles of all combinations. He will not stop in his +analysis of _this_ complexity till he comes to that which precedes all +combination, and survives it--the original simplicity of nature. He +will come to this cure armed with the universal 'simples;' he will +have all the original powers of nature, 'which are not many,' in his +hands, to begin with; and he will have more than that. He will have +the doctrine of their combinations, not in man only, but _in all the +kinds_;--those despised kinds, that claim such close relationship-- +such wondrous relationship with man; and he will not go to the +primitive instinctive nature only for his knowledge on this point. He +will inquire of art,--the empiric art,--and rude accident, what latent +efficacies they have detected in her, what churlish secrets of hers +they have wrung from her. You will find the gardener's and the +farmer's reports, and not the physician's and the surgeon's only, +inserted in his books of policy and ethics. The 'nettles' theory of +the rights of private life, and his policy of foreign relationships, +appears to this learned politician to strengthen his case a little, +and the pertinacious refusal of the 'old crab trees' to lend their +organizations, such as they are, to the fructification of a bud of +nobler kind, is quoted with respect as a decision of nature in another +court, on this same question, which is one of the questions here. For +the principle of conservation as well as the other principles of the +human conduct, appears to this philosopher to require a larger +treatment than our men of learning have given it hitherto. + +And this is the man of science who takes so much pains to acknowledge +his preference for 'good _compositions_'--who thinks so much of good +_natural _compositions and their virtues, who is always expressing or +betraying his respect for the happy combinations, the sound results, +the luxuriant and beautiful varieties with which nature herself +illustrates the secret of her fertility, and publishes her own great +volume of examples in the Arts. + +First it is the knowledge of the simple forms into which all the +variety of nature is convertible, the definitions which account for +all--that which is always the same in all the difference, that which +is always permanent in all the change; first it is the doctrine of +'those simple original forms, or differences of things, which like the +alphabet are not many, _the degrees and co-ordinations_ whereof make +all this variety,' and then it is the doctrine of _their +combinations_,--the combinations which nature has herself +accomplished, those which the arts have accomplished, and those which +are possible, which have _not_ been accomplished,--those which the +universal nature working in the human, working in each, from the +platform of the human, from that height in her ascending scale of +species, dictates now, demands,--divinely orders,--divinely instructs +us in. + +This, and nothing short of this,--this so radical knowledge, reaching +from the summit of the human complexity, to the primaeval depths of +nature,--to the simplicity of the nature that is one in all,--to the +indissoluble laws of being,--the laws of being in the species,--the +law with which the specific law is convertible,--the law which cannot +be broken in the species, which involves loss of species,--loss of +being in the species,--this so large and rich and various knowledge, +comprehending all the varieties of nature in its fields, putting all +nature under contribution for its results, this--this is the knowledge +with which the man of science approaches now, this grand particular. + +The reader who begins to examine for himself, for the first time, in +the original books of it, this great system of the Modern Science, +impressed with the received notions in regard to its scope and +intentions, will be, perhaps, not a little surprised and puzzled, to +find that the thing which is, of all others, most strenuously insisted +on by this author, in his own person, next to the worthlessness of the +conceits which have no correspondence with things, is the fact that +the knowledge of the physical causes is altogether inadequate to that +relief of the condition of man, which he finds to be the immediate end +of science; and that it is a system of metaphysics, a new metaphysics, +which he is everywhere propounding to that end,--openly, and with all +the latent force of his new rhetoric. + +It is 'metaphysical aid' that he offers us; it is magic, but, 'magic +lawful as eating'; it is a priestly aid that he offers us, the aid of +one who has penetrated to the inner sanctuary of the law,--the priest +of nature, newly instructed in her mind and will, who comes forth from +his long communing with her, with her own 'great seal' in his +hands--with the rod of her enchantments, that old magicians desired to +pluck from her, and did not--with the gift of the new and nobler +miracles of science as the witness of his anointing--with the reading +of 'God's book of power'--with the alphabet of its mystery, as the +proof of his ordaining--with the key of it, hid from the foundation of +the world until now. + +The first difference between this metaphysics, and all the metaphysics +that ever went before it or came after it, is, that it is practical. +It carries in its hand, gathered into the simplicity of the causes +that are not many, the secret of all motivity, the secret of all +practice. It tells you so; over and over again, in so many words, it +dares to tell you so. It opens that closed palm a little, and shows +you what is there; it bids you look on while it stirs those lines but +a little, and new ages have begun. + +It is a practical metaphysics, and the first word of its speech is to +forbid abstractions--your abstractions. It sets out from that which is +'constant, eternal, and universal'; but from that which is 'constant, +eternal, and universal in nature.' It sets out from that which is +fixed; but it is from the fixed and constant causes: '_forms_' not +'_ideas_.' The simplicity which it seeks is the simplicity into which +the historical phenomena are resolvable; the terms which it seeks are +the terms which do not come within the range of the unscientific +experience; they are the unknown terms of the unlearned; they are the +causes 'which, like the alphabet, are not many'; they are the terms +which the understanding knows, which the reason grasps, and +comprehends in its unity; but they are the convertible terms of all +the multiplicity and variety of the senses, they are the convertible +terms--the _practically_ convertible terms of the known--practically +--that is the difference. + +In that pyramid of knowledges which the science of things constitutes; +in that converging ascent to the original simplicity and identity of +nature, beginning at that broad science which makes its base--the +science of Natural History--beginning with the basis of the historical +complexity and difference; in that pyramid of science, that new and +solid pyramid, which the Inductive science--which the inquiry into +causes that are operant in nature builds, this author will not stop, +either on that broad field of the universal history of nature, which +is the base of it, or on that first stage of the ascent which the +platform of 'the physical causes' makes. The causes which lie next to +our experience--the causes, which are variable and many, do not +satisfy him. He gains that platform, and looks about him. He finds +that even a diligent inquiry and observation _there_ would result in +many new inventions beneficial to men; but the knowledge of these +causes 'takes men in narrow and restrained paths'; he wants for the +founding of his rule of art the cause which, under all conditions, +secures the result, which gives the widest possible command of means. +He refuses to accept of the physical causes as the bourne of his +philosophy, in theory or practice. He looks with a great human scorn +on all the possible arts and solutions which lie on _that_ platform, +when the proposal is to stop his philosophy of speculation and +practice _there_. It is not for the scientific arts, which that field +of observation yields, that he begs leave to revive and _re-integrate_ +the misapplied and abused name of _natural magic_, which, in the true +sense, is but natural wisdom, or 'PRUDENCE.' + +He can hardly stop to indicate the results which the culture of that +field _does_ yield for the relief of the human estate. His eye is +uplifted to that new platform of a solid metaphysics, an historical +metaphysics, which the inductive method builds. His eye is intent +always on that higher stage of knowledge where that which is common to +the sciences is found. He takes the other in passing only. Beginning +with the basis of a new observation and history of nature, he will +found a new metaphysics--an _objective_ metaphysics--the metaphysics +of induction. His logic is but a preparation for _that_. He is going +to collect, by his inductive method, from all nature, from all +species, the principles that are in _all things_; and he is going to +build, on the basis of those _inducted_ principles,--on the sure basis +of that which is constant, and eternal, and universal in nature, the +sure foundations of his universal practice; for, like common logic, +the inductive method comprehends '_all_.' That same simplicity, which +the abstract speculations of men aspire to, and create, _it_ aspires +to and _attains_, by the rough roads, by the laboured stages of +observation and experiment. + +He is, indeed, compelled to involve his phraseology here in a most +studious haze of scholasticism. Perspicuity is by no means the quality +of style most in request, when we come to these higher stages of +sciences. Impenetrable mists, clouds, and darkness, impenetrable to +any but the eye that seeks also the whole, involve the heaven-piercing +peak of this new height of learning, this new summit of a scientific +divinity, frowning off--warding off, as with the sword of the +cherubim, the unbidden invaders of this new Olympus, where sit the +gods, restored again,--the simple powers of nature, recovered from the +Greek abstractions,--not 'the idols'--not the impersonated +abstractions, the false images of the mind of man--not the logical +forms of those spontaneous abstractions, emptied of their poetic +content--but the strong gods that make our history, that compose our +epics, that conspire for our tragedies, whether we own them and build +altars to them or not. This is that summit of the _prima philosophia_ +where the axioms that command all are found--where the observations +that are common to the sciences, and the precepts that are based on +these, grow. This is that height where the _same_ footsteps of nature, +treading in different substances or matters, lost in the difference +below, are all cleared and identified. This is the height of the forms +of the understanding, of the unity of the reason; not as it is in man +only, but as it is in all matters or substances. + +He does not care to tell us,--he _could not_ well tell us, in +_popular_ language, what the true name of that height of learning is: +he could not well name without circumlocution, that height which a +scientific abstraction makes,--an abstraction that attains simplicity +without destroying the concrete reality, an abstraction that attains +as its result only a higher history,--a new and more intelligible +reading of it,--a solution of it--that which is fixed and constant and +accounts for it,--an abstraction whose apex of unity is the highest, +the universal history, that which accounts for all,--the +equivalent,--the scientific equivalent of it. + +But whatever it be, it is something that is going to take the place of +the unscientific abstractions, both in theory and practice; it is +something that is going to supplant ultimately the vain indolent +speculation, the inert because unscientific speculation, that seeks to +bind the human life in the misery of an enforced and sanctioned +ignorance, sealing up with its dogmas to an eternal collision with the +universal laws of God and nature,--laws that no dogma or conceit can +alter,--all the unreckoned generations of the life of man. Whatever it +be, it is going to strike with its primeval rock, through all the air +palace of the vain conceits of men;--it is going straight up, through +that old conglomeration of dogmas, that the ages of the human +ignorance have built and left to us. The unity to which all things in +nature, inspired with her universal instinct tend,--the unity of which +the mind and heart of man in its sympathy with the universal whole is +but an expression, that unity of its own which the mind is always +seeking to impart to the diversities which the unreconciled experience +offers it, which it must have in its objective reality, which it will +make for itself if it cannot find it, which it _does_ make in ignorant +ages, by falling back upon its own form and ignoring the historic +reality,--which it builds up without any solid objective basis, by +ignoring the nature of things, or founds on one-sided partial views of +their nature, that unity is going to have its place in the new +learning also--but it is going to be henceforth the unity of +knowledge--not of dogmas, not of belief merely, for knowledge, and not +belief merely,--knowledge, and not opinion, is _power_. + +That man is not the only creature in nature, was the discovery of this +philosophy. The founders of it observed that there were a number of +species, which appeared to be maintaining a certain sort of existence +of their own, without being dependent for it on the movements within +the human brain. To abate the arrogance of the species,--to show the +absurdity and ignorance of the attempt to constitute the universe +beforehand within that little sphere, the human skull, ignoring the +reports of the intelligencers from the universal whole, with which +great nature has herself supplied us,--to correct the arrogance and +specific bias of the human learning,--was the first attempt of the new +logic. It is the house of the Universal Father that we dwell in, and +it has 'many mansions,' and 'man is not the best lodged in it.' Noble, +indeed, is his form in nature, inspired with the spirit of the +universal whole, able in his littleness to comprehend and embrace the +whole, made in the image of the universal Primal Cause, whose voice +for us is _human_; but there are other dialects of the divine +also,--there are nobler creatures lodged with us, placed above us; +with larger gifts, with their ten talents ruling over our cities. +There is no speech or language where _their_ voice is not heard. Their +line is gone out through all the earth also, and their words unto the +end of the world; and the poor beetle that we tread on, and the daisy +and the lily in all its glory, and the sparrows that are going 'two +for a farthing,' come in for their place also in this philosophy--the +philosophy of science--the philosophy of the kinds, the philosophy of +the nature that is one in them,--the metaphysics of history. + +'Although there exists nothing IN NATURE except individual bodies, +exhibiting distinct individual _effects, according to individual_ +LAWS, yet in each branch of LEARNING that very LAW,--_its +investigation, discovery and development_--are the foundation _both of +theory and practice_; this law, therefore, and its _parallel_ in each +_science_, is what we understand by the term, FORM.' + +That is a sentence to crack the heads of the old abstractionists. +Before that can be read, the new logic will have to be put in +requisition; the idols of the tribe will have to be dismissed first. +The inveterate and 'pernicious habit of abstraction,'--that so +pernicious habit of the men of learning must be overawed first. + +'There exists nothing in nature except _individual_ bodies, exhibiting +distinct _individual_ effects, according to _individual laws_.' The +concrete is very carefully guarded there against that 'pernicious +habit'; it is saved at the expense of the human species, at the +expense of its arrogance. Nobody need undertake to abstract _those_ +laws, whatever they may be, for this master has turned his key on +them. They are in their proper place; they are in the things +themselves, and cannot be taken out of them. The utmost that you can +do is to attain to a scientific knowledge of them, one that exactly +corresponds with them. That _correspondence_ is the point in the new +metaphysics, and in the new logic;--_that_ was what was wanting in the +old. 'The investigation, discovery, and development of this law, in +_every branch of learning_, are the foundation both of theory and +practice. This law, therefore, and its _parallel_ in each science, is +what _we_ understand by the term FORM.' The distinction is very +carefully made between the 'cause in nature,' and that which +_corresponds_ to it, in the human mind, the _parallel_ to it in the +sciences; for the notions of men and the notions of nature are +extremely apt to differ when the mind is left to form its notions +without any scientific rule or instrument; and these ill-made +abstractions, which do not correspond with the cause in nature, are of +no efficacy in the arts, for nature takes no notice of them whatever. + +There is one term in use here which represents at the same time the +cause in nature, and that which corresponds to it in the mind of +man--the parallel to it in the sciences. When these _exactly +correspond_, one term suffices. The term 'FORM' is preferred for that +purpose in this school. The term which was applied to the abstractions +of the old philosophy, with a little modification, is made to +signalise the difference between the old and the new. The 'IDEAS' of +the old philosophy, the hasty abstractions of it, are '_the idols_' of +the new--the false deceiving images--which must be destroyed ere that +which is fixed and constant _in nature_ can establish its own +parallels in our learning. 'Too untimely a departure, and too remote a +recess from particulars,' is the cause briefly assigned in this +criticism for this want of correspondence hitherto. 'But it is +manifest that Plato, in his opinion of _ideas_, as one that had a wit +of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did descry that forms were the +true object of knowledge, but lost the real fruit of that opinion by +considering of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not +_confined_ and _determined_ by matter.' 'Lost the fruit of that +opinion'--this is the author who talks so 'pressly.' Two thousand +years of human history are summed up in that so brief chronicle. Two +thousand years of barren science, of wordy speculation, of vain +theory; two thousand years of blind, empirical, _unsuccessful_ groping +in all the fields of human practice. 'And so,' he continues, +concluding that summary criticism with a little further development of +the subject, 'and _so_, turning _his opinion_ upon theology, wherewith +all his natural philosophy is infected.' Natural philosophy infected +with 'opinion,'--no matter whose opinion it is, or under what name it +comes to us, whatever else it is good for, is not good for practice. +And this is the philosophy which includes both theory and practice. +'That which in speculative philosophy corresponds to the cause, in +practical philosophy becomes the rule.' + +But that which distinguishes this from all others is, that it is the +philosophy of 'HOPE'; and that is the name for it in both its fields, +in speculation _and_ practice. The black intolerable wall, which those +who stopped us on the lower platform of this pyramid of true knowledge +brought us up with so soon--that blank wall with which the inquiry for +the physical causes in nature limits and insults our speculation--has +no place here, no place at all on this higher ground of science, which +the knowledge of true forms creates--this true ground of _the +understanding_, the understanding of nature, and the universal reason +of things. 'He who is acquainted with forms, comprehends the unity of +nature in substances apparently most distinct from each other.' +Neither is that base and sordid limit, with which the philosophy of +physical causes shuts in the scientific arts and their power for human +relief, found here. For this is the _prima philosophia_, where the +universal axioms, the axioms that command all, are found: and the +precepts of the universal practice are formed on them. 'Even the +philosopher himself--openly speaking from this summit--will venture to +intimate briefly to men of understanding' the comprehension of its +base, and the field of practice which it commands. 'Is not the +ground,' he inquires, modestly, 'is not the ground which Machiavel +wisely and largely discourseth concerning governments, that the way to +establish and _preserve_ them is to reduce them _ad principia_, a rule +in _religion_ and _nature, as well as in civil administration_?' There +is the 'administrative reform' that will not need reforming, that +waits for the science of _forms_ and constructions. But he proceeds: +'Was not the _Persian_ magic' [and that is the term which he proposes +to restore for '_the part operative_' of this knowledge of forms], +'was not the Persian magic a _reduction_ or correspondence of _the +principles_ and _architecture_ of _nature_ to the _rules_ and _policy_ +of _governments_?' There is no harm, of course, in that timid inquiry; +but the student of the _Zenda-vesta_ will be able to get, perhaps, +some intimation of the designs that are lurking here, and will +understand the revived and reintegrated sense with which the term +_magic_ is employed to indicate the part operative of this new ground +of _science_. 'Neither are these only similitudes,' he adds, after +extending these significant inquiries into other departments of +practice, and demonstrating that this is the universality from which +all other professions are nourished: 'Neither are these only +_similitudes_, as men of narrow observation may conceive them to be, +but _the same_ footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon several +subjects or matters.' + +'It must, however, be observed, that this method of operating' [which +considers nature as SIMPLE, though in a concrete body] ['I the first +of any, by my _universal being_.' _Michael de Montaigne_.] 'sets out +from what is constant, eternal, and universal _in nature_; and opens +such _broad_ paths to human _power_, as the thought of man can in the +present state of things scarcely comprehend or figure to itself,' + +Yes, it is the Philosophy of Hope. The perfection of the human form, +the limit of the human want, is the limit of its practice; the limit +of the human inquiry and demand is the limit of its speculation. + +The control of effects which this higher knowledge of nature offers +us--this knowledge of what she is beforehand--the practical certainty +which this _interior_ acquaintance with her, this acquaintance that +identifies her under all the variety of her manifestations, is able to +command--that _comprehensive_ command of results which the knowledge +of _the true causes_ involves--the causes which are always present in +all effects, which are constant under all fluctuations, the same under +all the difference--the '_power_' of _this knowledge_, its power to +relieve human suffering, is that which the discoverer of it insists on +most in propounding it to men; but the mind in which that +'wonder'--that is, 'the seed of knowledge'--brought forth _this_ +plant, was _not_ one to overlook or make light of that want in the +human soul, which only knowledge can appease--that love which leads it +to the truth, not for the sake of a secondary good, but because it is +her life. + +'Although there is a most intimate connection, and almost an identity +between the ways of human power and human knowledge, yet on account of +the pernicious and inveterate habit of _dwelling_ upon abstractions, +it is by far _the safest_ method to commence and build up sciences +from those foundations which bear a relation to the practical +division, _and to let them mark out and limit the theoretical_.' +Something like that the Poet must have been thinking of, when he spoke +of making 'the art and practic part of life, _the mistress_ to its +theoric;'--'let _that_ mark out and limit the theoretical.' + +That inveterate and pernicious habit, which makes this course the +safest one, is one that he speaks of in the Advancement of Learning, +as that which has been of 'such ill desert towards learning,' as 'to +reduce it to certain _empty_ and barren generalities, the mere husks +and shells of sciences,' good for nothing at the very best, unless +they serve to guide us to the kernels that have been forced out of +them, by the torture and _press_ of the method,--the mere outlines and +skeletons of knowledges, 'that do but offer knowledge to scorn of +practical men, and are no more aiding to practice,' as the author of +this universal skeleton confesses, 'than an Ortelius's universal map +is, to direct the way between London and York.' + +The way to steer clear of those empty and barren generalities, which +do but offer learning to the scorn of the men of practice is, he says, +to begin on the practical side, and that is just what we are doing +here now in this question of the consulship,--that so practical and +immediately urgent question which was, threatening then to drive out +every other from the human consideration. If learning _had_ anything +to offer on that subject, which would _not_ excite the scorn of +practical men, then certainly was the time to produce it. + +We begin on the practical side here, and as to theory, we are rigidly +limited to that which the question of the play requires,--the +practical question marks it out,--we have just as much as is required +for the solution of that, and not so much as a 'jot' more. But mark +the expression:--'it is by far the safest method to commence and build +up sciences'--the particular sciences,--the branches of science--from +_those foundations which bear a relation_ to the practical division. +We begin with a great practical question, and though the treatise is +in a form which seems to offer it for amusement, rather than +instruction, it has at least this advantage, that it does not offer it +in the suspicious form of a theory, or in the distasteful form of a +learned treatise,--a tissue of barren and empty generalities. The +scorn of practical men is avoided, if it were only by its want of +pretension; and the fact that it does not offer itself as a guide to +practice, but rather insinuates itself into that position. We begin +with the practical question, with its most sharply practical details, +we begin with particulars, but that which is to be noted is, 'the +foundations' of the universal philosophy are under our feet to begin +with. At the first step we are on the platform of the prima +philosophia; the last conclusions of the inductive science, the +knowledge of the nature of things, is the ground,--the solid +continuity--that we proceed on. That is the ground on which we build +this practice. That is the trunk from which this branch of sciences is +continued:--that trunk of universality which we are forbidden +henceforth to _scorn_, because all the professions are nourished from +it. That universality which the men of practice scorn no more, since +they have tasted of its proofs, since they have reached that single +bough of it, which stooped so low, to bring its magic clusters within +their reach. Fed with their own chosen delights, with the proof of the +divinity of science, on their sensuous lips, they cry, 'Thou hast kept +the good wine until now.' Clasping on the _magic_ robes for which they +have not toiled or spun, sitting down by companies,--not of +fifties,--not of hundreds,--not of thousands--sitting down by myriads, +to this great feast, that the man of science spreads for them, in +whose eye, the eye of a divine pity looked forth again, and saw them +faint and weary still, and without a shepherd,--sitting down to this +feast, for which there is no sweat or blood on their brows, revived, +rejoicing, gazing on the bewildering basketfuls that are pouring in, +they cry, answering after so long a time, for their part Pilate's +question: _This_, so far as it goes at least, this is _truth_. And the +rod of that enchantment was _plucked_ here. It is but a branch from +this same trunk--this trunk of 'universality,' which the men of +practice _will_ scorn no more, when once they reach the multitudinous +boughs of this great tree of miracles, where the nobler fruits, the +more chosen fruits of the new science, are hidden still. + +Continued from that 'trunk,' heavy with its juices, stoops now _this_ +branch; its golden 'hangings' mellowed,--time mellowed,--ready to fall +unshaken. Built on _that_ 'foundation,' rises now this fair structure, +the doctrine of _the state_. That knowledge of nature in general, that +_interior_ knowledge of her, that loving insight, which is not baffled +with her most foreign aspects; but detects her, and speaks her word, +as from within, in all, is that which meets us here, that which meets +us at the threshold. Our guide is veiled, but his raiment is priestly. +It is great nature's stole that he wears; he will alter +our--_Persian_. We are walking on the pavements of Art; but it is +Nature's temple still; it is her 'pyramid,' and we are _within_, and +the light from the apex is kindling all; and the dust 'that the rude +wind blows in our face,' and 'the poor beetle that we tread on,' and +the poor 'madman and beggar too,' are glorious in it, and of our +'kin.' Those universal forms which the book of science in the abstract +has laid bare already, are running through all; the cord of them is +visible in all the detail. Their foot-prints, which have been tracked +to the height where nature is one, are seen for the first time +cleared, uncovered here, in all the difference. This many-voiced +speech, that sounds so deep from every point, deep as from the heart +of nature, is _not_ the ventriloquist's artifice, is _not_ a poor +showman's trick. It is great nature's voice--her own; and the magician +who has untied her spell, who knows the cipher of 'the one in all' the +priest who has unlocked her inmost shrine, and plucked out the heart +of her mystery--is 'the Interpreter.' + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +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 _ŕ 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. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE CURE--PLAN OF INNOVATION--NEW CONSTRUCTIONS. + + +'Unless these end in matter, and constructions according to true +definitions, they are speculative, and of little use.'--_Novum +Organum_. + +Difficult, then, as the problem of Civil Government appeared to the +eye of the scientific philosopher, and threatening and appalling as +were those immediate aspects of it which it presented at that moment, +he does not despair of the State. Even on the verge of that momentous +political and social crisis, 'though he does not need to go to heaven +to predict great revolutions and imminent changes,' 'he thinks he sees +ways to save us,' and he finds in his new science of Man the ultimate +solution of that problem. + +That particular and private nature which is in all men, let them +re-name themselves by what names they will, that particular and +private nature which intends always the individual and private good, +has in itself 'an incident towards the good of society,' which it may +use as means,--which it must use, if highly successful,--as means to +its end. Even in this, when science has enlightened it, and it is +impelled by blind and unsuccessful instinct no longer, the man of +science finds a place where a pillar of the true state can be planted; +even here the scientific light lays bare, in the actualities of the +human constitution, a foundation-stone,--a stone that does not +crumble--a stone that does not roll, which the state that shall stand +must rest on. + +Even that 'active good,' which impels 'the troublers of the world, +such as was Lucius Sylla, and infinite others in smaller model,'--that +principle which impels the particular nature to leave its signature on +other things,--on the state, on the world, if it can,--though it is +its own end, and though it is apt, when armed with those singular +powers for 'effecting its _good_ will,' which are represented in the +hero of this action, to lead to results of the kind which this piece +represents,--this is the principle in man which seeks an individual +immortality, and works of immortal worth for man are its natural and +selectest means. + +But that is not all. The bettering of _itself_, the perfection of its +own form, is, by the constitution of things, a force, a _motive_, an +_actual_ 'power in everything that moves.' This is one of the primal, +universal, natural motions. It is in the universal creative stamp of +things; and strong as that is, the rock on which here, too, the hope +of science rests--strong as that is, the pillar of the state, which +here, too, it will rear. For to man the highest '_passive_ good,' and +this, too, is of the good which is 'private and particular,' is, +constitutionally, that whereby 'the conscience of good intentions, +however succeeding, is a more continual joy to his nature than all the +provision--the most luxurious provision--which can be made for +security and repose,--whereby the mere empirical experimenter in good +will count it a higher felicity to fail in good and virtuous ends +towards the public, than to attain the most envied success limited to +his particular. + +Thus, even in these decried '_private_' motives, which actuate all +men--these universal natural instincts, which impel men yet more +intensely, by the concentration of the larger sensibility, and the +faculty of the nobler nature of their species, to seek their own +private good,--even in these forces, which, unenlightened and +uncounterbalanced, tend in man to war and social dissolution, or +'monstrous' social combination,--even in these, the scientific eye +perceives the basis of new structures, 'constructions according to +true definitions,' in which _all_ the ends that nature in man grasps +and aspires to, shall be artistically comprehended and attained. + +But this is only the beginning of the scientific politician's 'hope.' +This is but a collateral aid, an incidental assistance. This is the +place on his ground-plan for the buttresses of the pile he will rear. +There is an unborrowed foundation, there is an internal support for +the state in man. For along with that particular and private nature of +good, there is another in all men;--there is another motive, which +respects and beholds the good of society, not mediately, but directly +as _its_ end,--which embraces in its intention 'the form of human +nature, whereof we are members and portions, and _not_--not--our own +proper, individual form'; and this is the good 'which is in degree the +greater and the worthier, because it tends to the conservation and +advancement of a more general form.' And this, also, is an _actual_ +force in man, proceeding from the universal nature of things and +original in that, not in him. This, also, is in the primeval creative +stamp of things; and here, also, the science of the interpretation of +nature finds in the constitution of man, and in the nature of things, +the foundations of the true state ready to its hand; and hewn, all +hewn and cut, and joined with nature's own true and cunning hand ere +man was, the everlasting pillars of the common-weal. + +But in man _this_ law, also,--this law chiefly,--has its _special_, +essentially special, development. 'It is much _more_ impressed on man, +if he de-_generate_ not.' Great buildings have been reared on this +foundation already; great buildings, old and time-honoured, stand on +it. The history of human nature is glorious, even in its degeneracy, +with the exhibition of this larger, nobler form of humanity asserting +itself, triumphing over the intensities of the narrower motivity. It +is a species in which the organic law transcends the individual, and +embraces the kind; it is a constitution of nature, in which those who +seek the good of the kind, and subordinate the private nature to that, +are noble, and chief. It is a species in which the law of the +common-weal is for ever present to the private nature, as the law of +its own being, requiring, under the pains and penalties of the +universal laws of being, subjection. + +Science cannot originate new forces in nature. 'Man, while operating, +can only apply or withdraw natural forces. Nature, internally, +performs the rest.' But here are the very forces that we want. If man +were, indeed, naturally and constitutionally, that mere species of +'vermin' which, under certain modes of culture, with great facility he +becomes, there would be no use in spending words upon this subject. +Science could not undertake the common-weal in that case. If nature's +word had been here dissolution, isolation, single intention in the +parts and members of that body that science sought to frame, what word +of creative art could she pronounce, what bonds of life could she +find, what breath of God could she boast, that she should think to +frame of such material the body politic, the organic whole, the +living, free, harmonious, triumphant common-weal. + +But here are the very forces that we want, blindly moving, moving in +the dark, left to intuition and instinct, where nature had provided +reason, and required science and scientific art. That has not been +tried. And that is why this question of the state, dark as it is, +portentous, hopeless as its aspects are, if we limit the survey to our +present aids and instrumentalities, is already, to the eye of science, +kindling with the aurora of unimagined change, advancements to the +heights of man's felicity, that shall dim the airy portraiture of +poets' visions, that shall outgo here, too, the world's young dreams +with its scientific reality. + +There has been no help from science in this field hitherto. The +proceeding of the world has been instinctive and empirical thus far, +in the attainment of the ends which the complex nature of man requires +him to seek. Men have been driven, and swayed hither and thither, by +these different and apparently contradictory aims, without any +_science_ of the forces that actuated them. Those ends these forces +will seek,--'it is their nature to,'--whether in man, or in any other +form in which they are incorporated. There's no amount of declamation +that is ever going to stop them. The power that is in everything that +moves, the forces of universal nature are concerned in the acts that +we deprecate and cry out upon. It is the original constitution of +things, as it was settled in that House of Commons, to whose acts the +memory of Man runneth not, that is concerned in these demonstrations; +and philosophy requires that whatever else we do, we should avoid, by +all means, coming into any collision with those statutes. 'We must so +order it,' says Michael of the Mountain, quoting in this case from +antiquity--'we must so order it, as by no means to contend with +universal nature.' 'To attempt to kick against natural necessity,' he +says in his own name, and in his own peculiar and more impressive +method of philosophic instruction--'to attempt to kick against natural +necessity, is to represent the folly of Ctesiphon, who undertook to +outkick his mule.' We must begin by distinguishing 'what is in our +power, and what not,' says the author of the Advancement of Learning, +applying that universal rule of practice to our present subject. + +Here, then, carefully reduced to their most comprehensive form, traced +to the height of universal nature, and brought down to the specific +nature in man--here, as they lie on the ground of the common nature in +man, for the first time scientifically abstracted--are the powers +which science has to begin with in this field. The varieties in the +species, and the individual differences so remarkable in this kind, +are not in this place under consideration. But here is the _common_ +nature in this kind, which must make the basis of any permanent +universal social constitution for it. Different races will require +that their own constitutional differences shall be respected in their +social constitutions; and if they be not, for the worse or for the +better, look for change. But this is the universal platform that +science is clearing here. This is the WORLD that she is concerning +herself with here, in the person of that High Priest of hers, who, +also, took that to be his business. + +Here are these powers in man, then, to begin with. Here is this +universal natural predisposition in him, not to subsist, merely, and +maintain his form--which is nature's first law, they tell us--but to +'better himself' in some way. As Hamlet expresses it, 'he lacks +advancement'; and advancement he will have, or strive to have, if not +'_formal_ and _essential_,' then 'local.' He is instinctively impelled +to it; and in his ignorant attempt to compass that end which nature +has prescribed to him, the 'tempest of human life' arises. + +The scientific plan will be, not to quarrel with these universal +forces, and undertake to found society on their annihilation. Science +will count that structure unsafe which is founded on the supposed +annihilation of these forces in anything that moves. The man of +science knows, that though by the predominance of powers, or by the +equilibrium of them, they may be for a time, '_as it were_, +annihilated,' they are in every creature; and nature in the instincts, +though blind, is cunning, and finds ways and means of overcoming +barriers, and evading restrictions, and inclines to indemnify herself +when once she finds her way again. Instead of quarrelling with these +forces, the scientific plan, having respect to the Creating Wisdom in +the constitution of man, overlooking them from that height, will +thankfully accept them, and make much of them. These are just the +motive powers that science has need of; she could not compose her +structure without them, which is only the perfecting of the structure +which the great Creating Wisdom had already outlined and +pre-ordered--not a machine, but a living organic whole. + +Science takes this 'piece of work' as she finds him, ready, waiting +for the hand of art--imperfect, unfinished, but with the proceeding of +nature incorporated in him--with the creative, advancing, perfecting +motion, incorporated in him as his essence and law;--imperfect, but +with nature working within him for the rest, urging him to +self-perfection. She takes him as she finds him, a creature of +instinct, but with his large, rich, undeveloped, yet already active +nature of reason, and conscience, and religion, already struggling for +the mastery, counterbalancing his narrower motivity, holding in check, +with nobler intuitions, the error of an instinct which errs in man, +because eyes were included in nature's definition of him, as it was +written beforehand in her book, her universal book of types and +orders--eyes, and not instinct only--'that what he cannot smell out, +he may spy into.' 'O'er that art, which you say adds to nature, is an +art that nature makes.' The want of this pre-ordered art is the want +here still. The war of the unenlightened instincts is raging here +still. That is where the difficulty lies. That same patience of +investigation with which science has pursued and found out nature +elsewhere--that same intense, indefatigable concentration of +endeavour, which has been rewarded with such 'magnitude of effects' in +other fields--that same, in a higher degree, in more powerful +combinations, proportioned to the magnitude and common desirableness +of the object, is what is wanting here. It is the instincts that are +at fault here,--'the blind instincts, that seeing reason' should +'guide.' + +That is where all the jar and confusion of this great storm begins, +that 'continues still,' and blasts our lives, in spite of all the +spells that we mumble over it, and in spite of all the magic that all +our magicians can bring to bear on it. 'Meagre success,' at least, is +still the word here. No wonder that the storm continues, under such +conditions. No wonder that the world is full of the uproar of this +arrested work, this violated intent of nature. She will storm on till +we hear her. Woe to those who put themselves in opposition to her, who +think to violate her intent and prosper! 'The storm continues,' and it +will continue, pronounce on it what incantations we may, so long as +the elemental forces of all nature are meeting in our lives, and +dashing in blind elemental strength against each other, and the +brooding spirit of the social life, the composing spirit of the larger +whole, cannot reconcile them, because the voices that are filling the +air with the discord of their controversy, and out-toning the noise of +this battle with theirs, are crying in one key, 'Let there be darkness +here'; because the darkness of the ages of instinct and intuition is +held back here, cowering, ashamed, but forbidden to flee away; because +the night of human ignorance still covers all this battle-ground, and +hides the combatants. + +Science is the word here. The Man of the Modern Ages has spoken it, +'and now the times give it proof'; the times in which the methods of +earlier ages, in the rapid advancement of learning in other fields, +are losing their vitalities, and leaving us without those means of +social combination, without those social bonds which the rudest ages +of instinct and intuition, which the most barbaric peoples have been +able to command. The times give it proof, fearful proof, terrific +proof, when the noblest institutions of earlier ages are losing their +power to conserve the larger whole; when the conserving faith of +earlier ages, with its infinities of forces, is fainting in its +struggles, and is not supported; and men set at nought its divine +realities, because they have not been translated into their speech and +language, and think there _is_ no such thing; and under all the +exterior splendours of a material civilization advanced by science, +society tends to internal decay, and the primal war of atoms. + +To meet the exigencies of a crisis like this, it is _not_ enough to +call these powers that are actual in the human nature, but which are +not yet reconciled and reduced to their true and natural order--it is +not enough at this age of the world, at this stage of human +advancement in other fields--to call these forces by some general +names which include their oppositions, and to require for want of +skill that a part of them shall be annihilated; it is not enough to +express a strong disapprobation of the result as it is, and to +require, in never-so-authoritative manner, that it shall be otherwise. +No matter what names we may use to make that requisition in, no matter +under _what_ pains and penalties we require it, the result--whatever +we may say to the contrary--the result does not follow. That is not +the way. Those who try it, and who continue to try it in the face of +no matter what failures, may think it is; but there is a voice +mightier than theirs, drowning all their speech, telling us in +thunder-tones, that it is not; with arguments that brutes might +understand, telling us that it is not! + +It is, indeed, no small gain in the rude ages of warring instincts and +intuitions, when there is as yet no science to define them, and +compare them, and pronounce from its calm height its eternal axioms +here--when the world is a camp, and hostilities are deified, and +mankind is in arms when all the moral terms are still wrapped in the +confusion of the first outgoing of the perplexed, unanalysed human +motivity--it _is_ no small gain to get the word of the nobler +intuitions outspoken, to get the word of the divine law of man's +nature, his _essential_ law pronounced--even in rudest ages overawing, +commanding with its awful divinity the intenser motivity of the lesser +nature--able to summon, in rudest ages, to its ideal heights, those +colossal heroic forms, that cast their long shadows over the tracts of +time, to tell us what type it is that humanity aspires to. It is no +small gain to get these nobler intuitions outspoken in some voice that +commands with its authority the world's ear, or illustrated in some +exemplar that arrests the world's eye, and draws the human heart unto +it. + +It is no small advance in human history, to get the divine authority +of those nobler intuitions, which, in man, anticipate speculation, and +their right to command the particular motives, recognised in the +common speech of men, incorporated in their speculative belief, +incorporated in their books of learning, and embalmed in institutions +that keep the divine exemplar of the human form for ever in our eyes. +It _is_ something. The warring nations war on. The world is in arms +still. The rude instincts are not stayed in their intent. They pause, +it may be; 'but a roused passion sets them _new_ a-work.' The speckled +demons, that the degenerate _angelic _nature breeds, put on the new +livery, and go abroad in it rejoicing. New rivers of blood, new seas +of carnage, are opened in the new name of peace; new engines of +torture, of fiendish wrong, are invented in the new name of love. But +it _is_ some gain. There is a new rallying-place on the earth for +those who seek truly the higher good; at the foot of the new symbol +they recognise each other, they join hand in hand, and the bands of +those who wait and watch amid the earth's darkness for the promise, +cheer us with their songs. Truths out of the Eternal Book, truths that +all hearts lean on in their need, are spoken. Words that shall never +pass away, sweet with the immortal hope and perennial joy of life, are +always in our ears. + +The nations that have contributed to this result in any degree, +whether primarily or secondarily, whether they be Syrians or +Assyrians, Arabs or Egyptians, wandering or settled, wild or tame; +whether they belong to the inferior unanalysing Semitic races, or +whether they come of the more richly endowed, but yet youthful, +Indo-European stock; whether they be Hebrews or Persians, Greeks or +Romans, will always have the world's gratitude. Those to whose +intenser conceptions and bolder affirmations, in the rude ages of +instinct and spontaneous allegation, it was given to pronounce and put +on everlasting record, these primal truths of inspiration,--truths +whose divinity all true hearts respond to, may be indeed by their +natural intellectual characteristics,--if _Semitic_ must be--totally +disqualified by ethnological laws,--hopelessly disqualified--so +hopelessly that it is to lose all to put it on them--for the task of +commanding, in detail, our modern civilization;--a civilization which +has made, already, the rude ethics of these youthful races, when it +comes to details, so palpably and grossly inapplicable, that it is an +offence to modern sensibility to name--to so much as name--decisions +which stand unreversed, without comment, in our books of learning. But +that is no reason why we should not take, and thankfully appropriate +as the gift of God, all that it was their part to contribute to the +great plot of human advancement. We cannot afford to dispense with any +such gain. The movement which respects the larger whole, the divine +intent incorporates it all. + +'Japhet shall dwell in the tents of Shem,' for they are world wide; +but woe to him if, in his day, he refuse to build the temple which, in +his day, his God will also require of him. Woe to him, if he think to +put upon another age and race the tasks which his Task-Master will +require of him,--which, with his many gifts, with his chief gifts, +with his ten talents, will surely be required of him. More than his +fathers' woe upon him--more than that old-world woe, which he, too, +remembers, if he think to lean on Asia, the youthful Asia, when his +own great world noon-day has come. + +'There was violence on the earth in those days, and it repented the +Lord that he had made man on the earth.' 'Twill come,' says our own +poet, prefacing his proposal for a scientific art in the attainment of +the chief human ends, and giving his illustrated reasons for it,-- + + 'Twill come [at this rate] + Humanity must, perforce, prey on itself, + Like _monsters_ of the _deep_. + +But what are _these_?--these new orders,--these new species of nature, +defying nature, that we are generating with our arts here now? What +are these new varieties to which our kind is tending now? Look at this +kind for instance. What are these? Define them. Destroyers, not of +their own image in their fellow-man only, not of the image of their +kind only,--sacred by natural universal laws,--but of the chosen image +of it, the ideal of it, the one in whom the natural love of their kind +was by the law of nature concentred,--the wife and the mother,-- +destroyed not as the wolf destroys its prey, but with ferocity, or +with prolonged and studious harm, that it required the human brain to +plan and perpetrate. Look at this pale lengthening widening train of +their victims. We must look at it. It will never go by till we do. We +shall have to look at it, and consider it well; it will lengthen, it +will _widen_ till we do:--ghastly, bruised, bleeding, trampled,-- +trampled it may be, with nailed, booted heel, mother and child +together into one grave. But _these_ are common drunkard's wives;--we +are inured to this catastrophe, and do not think much of it. But who +are _these_, whom the grave cannot hold; that by God's edict break its +bonds and come back, making day hideous, to tell us what the earth +could not, would not keep,--to tell us of that other band who died and +made no sign? But this is nothing. Here are more. Here are others. +What are these? These are not spectres. _Their_ cheeks are red enough. +What loathsome thing is this, that we are bringing forth here now with +the human face upon it, in whom the heart of the universal nature has +expired. These are murderers,--count them--they are all murderers, +wholesale murderers, perhaps,--but of what? Of their own helpless, +tender, loving, trusting little ones. The wretched children of _our +time_,--alone in wretchedness,--alone in the universe of nature,--who +found, where nature promised them a mother's love, the knife, or the +more cruel agonizing drug of death. Was there any cause in nature for +it? Yes. They did it for the 'burial fee,' perhaps, or for some other +cause as good. They had a reason for it. Let our naturalists throw +their learning 'to the dogs,' and come this way, and tell us what this +means. Nay, let them bring their books with them, and example us with +its meaning if they can. Let them tell us what 'depth' in which nature +hides her failures, or yet unperfected hideous germinations,--what +formation in which she buries the kinds she repents that she has made +upon the earth, or what 'deep'--what ocean cave of 'monsters' we shall +drag to find our kindred in _these_ species. Let our wise men tell us +whether there be, or whether there ever was, any such thing as this in +nature before. If 'such things are,' or have been in any other kind, +let them produce the instances, and keep us in countenance and console +us for our own. + +Let them look at that murderer too, and interpret _him_ for us. For he +too is waiting to be interpreted, and he will wait till we understand +his signs. He is speaking mute nature's language to us; we must get +her key. Look at him as he stands there in the dark, subordinating +that faculty which comprehends the whole, which recognises the +divinity of his neighbour's right, to his fiendish end: preparing with +the judgment of a man his little piece of machinery, with which he +will take, as he would take a salmon, or a rat, his fellow-man. Look +at him as he stands there now, listening patiently for your steps, +waiting to strangle you as you go by him unarmed to-night, confiding +in your fellow-man; waiting to drag you down from all the hopes and +joys of life, for the sake of the loose coin, gold or silver, which he +thinks he may find about you,--_perhaps_. 'How to KILL _vermin_ and +how to PREVENT the _fiend_,' was Tom's study. How to dispatch in the +most agreeable and successful manner, creatures whose notions of +_good_ are constitutionally and diametrically opposed to the good of +the larger whole, who have no sensibility to that, and no faculty +whereby they perceive it to be the worthier; that is no doubt one part +of the problem. The scientific question is, whether this creature be +really what it seems, a new and more horrid kind of beast--a +demoralization and deterioration of the human species into that. If it +be, let our naturalists come to our aid here also, and teach us how to +hunt him down and despatch him, with as much respect to the natural +decencies which the fact of the external human form would seem still +to exact from us, as the circumstances will admit of. Is it the beast, +or is it 'the fiend?'--that is the question. The fiend which tells us +that the angelic or divine nature is there--there still--overborne, +trampled on, '_as it were_, annihilated,' but lighting that gleam of +'wickedness,'--making of it, not instinct, but crime. Ah! we need not +ask which it is. This one has told his own story, if we could but read +it. He has left--he is leaving all the time, contributions, richest +contributions to our natural history of man,--that history which must +make the basis of our arts of cure. He was a wolf when you took him; +but in his cell you found something else in him--did you +not?--something that troubled and appalled you, with its kindred and +likeness, and its exaction on your sympathy. When you hung him as you +would _not_ hang a dog;--when you put him to a death which you would +think it indecent and inhuman to award to a creature of another +species, you did not find him _that_. The law of the nobler nature lay +in him as it were annihilated; _he_ thought there was no such thing; +but when nature's great voice was heard without also, and those +'bloody instructions he had taught returned to him'; when that voice +of the people, which was the voice of God to him, echoed with its doom +the voice within, and 'sweet religion,' with its divine appeals--'a +rhapsody of words' no longer, came, to second that great +argument,--the blind instincts were overpowered in him, the lesser +usurping nature was dethroned,--the angelic nature arose, and had +_her_ hour, and shed parting gleams of glory on those fleeting days +and nights; and he came forth, to die at last, not dragged like a +beast--with a manly step--with heroic grandeur, vindicating the heroic +type in nature, of that form he wore,--vindicating the violated law, +accepting his doom, bowing to its ignominy, a man, a member of +society,--a reconciled and accepted member of the commonweal. + +How to _prevent_ the fiend? _is_ the question. Ah! what unlettered +forces are these, unlearned still, with all our learning, that the +dark, unaided wrestling hour 'in the little state of man,' leaves at +the head of affairs there, seated in its chair of state, crowned, +'predominant,' to speak the word of doom for us all. 'He poisons him +in the garden for his estate.' 'Lights, lights, lights!' is the word +here. There _is_ a cause in nature for these hard hearts, but it is +not in the constitution of man. There _is_ a cause; it is nature +herself, crying out upon our learning, asking to be--interpreted. + +Woe for the age whose universal learning is in forms that move and +command no longer; that move and bind no longer with _fear_, or +_hope_, or _love_, 'the common people.' Woe for the people who think +that the everlasting truths of being--the eternal laws of science--are +things for saints, and schoolmasters, and preachers only,--the people +who carry about with them in secret, for week-day purposes, Edmund's +creed, to whom nature is already 'their goddess, and their law,' ere +they know her or her law--ere the appointed teacher has instructed +them in it,--ere they know what divinity she, too, holds to,--ere the +interpreter has translated into her speech, and evolved from her +books, the old truths which shall not--though their old '_garments_' +should '_be changed_'--which _shall not_ pass away. Woe for the +nations in whom that greater part that carries it, are godless, or +whose vows are paid in secret to Edmund's goddess,--whose true faith +is in appetite,--who have no secret laws imposed on that. 'Woe to the +people who are in such a case,' no matter on which side of the ocean +they may dwell, in the old world, or a new one; no matter under what +political constitutions. No matter under what favourable external +conditions, the national development that has that hollow in it, may +proceed; no matter under what glorious and before unimagined +conditions of a healthful, noble human development that development +may proceed. Alas! for such a people. The rulers may cry 'Peace!' but +there is none. And, alas! for the world in which such a power is +growing up under new conditions, and waxing strong, and preparing for +its leaps. + +As a principle of social or political organisation, there is no +religion,--there never has been any,--so fatal as none. That is a +truth of which all history is an illustration. It is one which has +been illustrated in the history of modern states, not less vividly +than in the history of antiquity. And it will continue to be +illustrated, on the same grand scale, in those terrific evils which +the dissolution, or the dissoluteness of the larger whole creates, +whenever the appointed teachers of a nation, the inductors of it into +its highest learning, lag behind the common mind in their +interpretations, and leave it to the people to construct their own +rude 'tables of rejections'; whenever the practical axioms, which are +the inevitable vintage of these undiscriminating and fatally false +rejections, are suffered to become history. + +'Woe to the land when its _king_ is a child'; but thrice woe to it, +when its teacher is a child. Alas! for the world, when the pabulum of +her youthful visions and anticipations of learning have become meat +for men, the prescribed provision for that nature in which man must +live, or 'cease to be,' amid the sober realities of western science. + + 'Thou shouldst not have been OLD _before thy time_.' + + 'The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, + And 'gins to pale his _ineffectual_ fire.' + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE CURE--NEW CONSTRUCTIONS--THE INITIATIVE. + + +_Pyramus_.--'Write me a prologue, and let the prologue _seem to say, +we will do no harm_ with our _swords_ [spears]... and for the more +better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but +Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.'--_Shake-spear_. + +'Truth and reason are common to every one, and are no more his who +spoke them first, than his who spoke them after. Who follows another +follows nothing, finds nothing, seeks nothing.' + +'Authors have hitherto communicated themselves to the people by some +_particular_ and _foreign_ mark. _I_, the first of any, by my +_universal being. Every man_ carries with him _the entire form_ of +human condition.' + +'And besides, though I had a _particular_ distinction _by myself_, +what can it distinguish when I am no more? Can it point out and favor +_inanity_?' + + '_But_ will thy manes such a gift bestow + _As to make violets from thy ashes grow_?' + _Michael de Montaigne_. + + _Hamlet_.--'To thine own self be true, + And it doth follow as the night the day + Thou canst not then be false to any man.' + 'To know a man well, were to know him-self.' + +The complaint of the practical men against the philosophers who make +such an outcry upon the uses and customs of the world as they find it, +that they do not undertake to give us anything better in the place of +them; or if they do, with their terrible experiments they leave us +worse than they find us, does not apply in this case. Because this is +science, and not philosophy in the sense which that word still +conveys, when applied to subjects of this nature. We all know that the +scientific man is a safe and brilliant practitioner. The most +unspeculative men of practice have learned to prefer him and his arts +to the best empiricism. It is the philosophers we have had in this +field, with their rash anticipations,--with their unscientific +pre-conceptions,--with a _pre-conception_, instead of a fore-knowledge +of the power they deal with, commanding results which do not,--there +is the point,--which do not follow. + +Let no one say that this reformer is one of those who expose our +miserable condition, without offering to improve it; or that he is one +of those who take away our gold and jewels with their tests, and leave +us no equivalent. This is no destroyer. He will help us to save all +that we have. He is guarding us from the error of those who would let +it alone till the masses have taken the work in hand for themselves, +without science. '_That_ is the way to lay all flat.' + +He is not one of those, 'who to _make clean, efface_, and who cure +diseases by death.' To found so great a thing as the state anew; to +dissolve that so old and solid structure, and undertake to recompose +it as a whole on the spot, is a piece of work which this chemist, +after a survey of his apparatus, declines to take in; though he fairly +admits, that if the question were of 'a new world,' and not 'a world +already formed to certain customs,' science might have, perhaps, some +important suggestions to make as to the original structure. And yet +for all that, it is a scientific practice that is propounded here. It +is a scientific innovation and renovation, that is propounded; the +greatest that was ever propounded,--total, absolute, but not sudden. +It is a remedy for the world as it is, that this reformer is +propounding. + +New constructions according to true definitions, scientific +institutions,--institutions of culture and regimen and cure, based on +the recognition of the actual human constitution and laws,--based on +an observation as diligent and subtle, and precepts as severe as those +which we apply to the culture of any other form in nature,--that is +the proposition. 'It were a strange _speech_ which, spoken or spoken +oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he is by nature +subject.' 'Folly is not to be cured by bare admonition.' This plan of +culture and cure involves not the knowledge of that nature which is in +all men only, but a science, enriched with most careful collections of +all the specific varieties of that nature. The fullest natural history +of those forces that are operant in the hourly life of man, the most +profound and subtle observation of the facts of this history, the most +thoroughly scientific collection of them, make the beginning of this +enterprise. The propounder of this cure will have to begin with the +secret disposition of every man laid open, and the possibilities of +human character exhausted, by means of a dissection of the entire form +of that human nature, which every man carries with him, and a +solar-microscopic exhibition of the several dispositions and tempers +of men, in grand ideal portraits, conspicuous instances of them, where +the particular disposition and temper is 'predominant,' as in the +characterisation of Hamlet, where it takes all the persons of the +drama to exhibit characteristics which are more or less developed in +all men. Those natural peculiarities of disposition that work so +incessantly and potently in this human business, those 'points of +nature,' those predetermining forces of the human life, must come +under observation here, and the whole nature of the passions also, and +a science of 'the will,' very different from that philosophy of it +which our metaphysicians have entertained us with so long. He will +have all the light of science, all the power of the new method brought +to bear on this study. And he will have a similar collection, not less +scientific, of the history of the human fortunes and their necessary +effects on character; for these are the points that we must deal with +'by way of application, and to these all our labour is limited and +tied; for we cannot fit a garment except we take a measure of the form +we would fit it to.' Nothing short of this can serve as the basis of a +scientific system of human education. + +But this is not all. It is the human nobility and greatness that is +the end, and that 'craves,' as the noble who is found wanting in it +tells us, 'a noble cunning.' It is no single instrumentality that +makes the apparatus of this culture and cure. Skilful combinations of +appliances based on the history of those forces which _are_ within our +power, which 'we _can_ deal with by way of alteration,' forces 'from +which the _mind suffereth_,' which have operation on it, so potent +that 'they can almost change the stamp of nature,'--that they can make +indeed, 'another nature,'--these are the engines,--this is the +machinery which the scientific state will employ for its ends. These +are the engines, this is the machinery that is going to take the place +of that apparatus which the state, as it is, finds such need of. This +is the machinery to 'prevent the fiend,' which the scientific +statesman is propounding. + +'I would we were all of ONE MIND, and one mind _good_' says our Poet. +'O _there_ were desolation of gallowses and gaolers. I speak against +my present profit,' [he adds,--he was speaking not as a judge or a +lawyer, but as a _gaoler_,] 'I speak against my present profit, but my +wish hath a _preferment_ in it.' + +(A _preferment_?)--That is the solution propounded by science, of the +problem that is pressing on us, and urging on us with such violent +appeals, its solution. 'I would we were all of one _mind_, and one +mind _good_. My wish hath a _preferment_ in it.' + +'Folly is not to be cured by bare admonition.' 'It were a strange +speech which, spoken, or spoken oft, should cure a man of _a vice_ to +which he is _by nature subject_,'--_subject_--by _nature_.--That is +the _Philosopher_. 'What _he cannot help in his nature_ you account _a +vice_ in him,' says the poor citizen, putting in a word on the +_Poet's_ behalf for Coriolanus whose education, whatever Volumnia may +think about it, was not scientific, or calculated to reduce that +'partliness,' that disorganizing social principle, whose subsequent +demonstrations gave her so much offence. Not admonition, not preaching +and scolding, and not books only, but institutions, laws, customs, +habit, education in its more limited sense, 'association, emulation, +praise, blame,' all the agencies 'from which the mind suffereth,'-- +which have power to change it, in skilfully compounded recipes and +regimen scientifically adapted to cases, and not prescribed only, but +enforced,--_these_ make the state machinery--these are the engines +that are going to 'prevent the fiend,' and educate the 'one mind,'-- +_the one mind good_, which is the sovereign of the common-WEAL,--'my +wish hath a preferment in it,'--the one only man who will make when he +is crowned, not Rome, but _room_ enough for us all,--who will make +when he is crowned such desolation of gallowses and gaolers. These are +the remedies for the diseases of the state, when the scientific +practitioner is called in at last, and permitted to undertake his +cure. But he will not wait for that. He will not wait to be asked. He +has no delicacy about pushing himself forward in this business. The +concentration of genius and science on it, henceforth,--the _gradual_ +adaptation of all these grand remedial agencies to this common end,-- +this end which all truly enlightened minds will conspire for,--find to +be _their own_,--this is the plan;--this is the sober day-dream of +the Elizabethan Reformer; this is the plot of the Elizabethan +Revolutionist. This is the radicalism that he is setting on foot. +This is the cure of the state which he is undertaking. + +We want to command effects, and the way to do that is to find causes; +and we must find them according to the new method, and not by +reasoning it thus and thus, for the result is just the same, this +philosopher observes, as if we had not reasoned it thus and thus, but +some other way. That is the difficulty with that method, which is in +use here at present, which this philosopher calls 'common logic.' Life +goes on, life as it is and was, in the face of our reasonings; but it +goes on in the dark; the phenomena are on the surface in the form of +EFFECTS, and all our weal and woe is in them; but the CAUSES are +beneath unexplored. They are able to give us certain impressions of +their _natures_; they strike us, and blast us, it may be, by way of +teaching us _something_ of their powers; but _we do not know them_; +they are within our own souls and lives, and we do not _know_ them; +not because they lie without the range of a scientific enquiry, but +_because_ we will not apply to them _the scientific method_; because +the old method of 'preconception' here is still considered the true +one. + +The plan of this great scientific enterprise was one which embraced, +from the first, the whole body of the common-weal. It concerned itself +immediately and directly with all the parts and members of the social +state, from the king on his throne to the beggar in his straw. Its aim +was to disclose ultimately, and educate in every member of society +that entire and noble form of human nature which 'each man carries +with him,' and whereby the individual man is naturally and +constitutionally a member of the common-weal. Its proposition was to +develop ultimately and educate--successfully educate--in each integer +of the state, the integral principle--the principle whereby in man the +true conservation and integrity of the part--the virtue, and felicity, +and perfection, of the part, tend to the weal of the whole--tend to +perfect and advance the whole. + + 'To thine own self be true, + And it doth follow as the night the day, + Thou canst not then be false to any MAN.' + 'Know thy-SELF. Know thy-self.' + +This enterprise was not the product of a single individual mind, and +it is important that this fact should be fully and unmistakeably +enunciated here; because the illustrious statesman, and man of +letters, who assumed, in his own name and person, that part of it +which could then be openly exhibited, the one on whom the great task +of perfecting and openly propounding the new method of learning was +devolved, is the one whose relation to this enterprise has been +principally insisted on in this volume. + +The history of this great philanthropic association--an association of +genius, a combination of chief minds, from which the leadership and +direction of the modern ages proceeds, the history of this +'_society_,' as it was called, when the term was still fresh in that +special application; at least, when it was not yet qualified by its +application to those very different kinds of voluntary individual +combinations--'bodies of neighbourhood' within the larger whole, to +which that movement has given rise; the history of _this_ +society,--this first 'Shake-spear Society'--much as it is to our +purpose, and much as it is to the particular purpose of this volume, +can only be incidentally treated here. But as this work was originally +prepared for publication in the HISTORICAL KEY to the Elizabethan +Tradition which formed the FIRST BOOK of it, it was the part of that +great Political and Military Chief, and not less illustrious Man of +Letters, who was recognised, in his own time, as the beginner of this +movement and the founder of English philosophy, which was chiefly +developed. + +And it is the history of that 'great unknown'--that great Elizabethan +unknown, for whose designs there was needed then a veil of a closer +texture--of a more cunning pattern than any which the exigencies of +modern authorship tend to fabricate, which must make the key to this +tradition;--it is the history of that great unknown, whose incognito +was a closed vizor,--that it was death to open,--a vizor that _did_ +open once, and--the sequel is in our history, and will leave 'a brand' +upon the page which that age makes in it,--'the age that _did_ it, and +_suffered_ it, _to the end of the world_.' So says _the Poet_ of that +age, ('Age, thou are shamed.' 'And peep about to find ourselves +_dishonourable graves_'). It is the history of the Tacitus who could +not wait for a better Caesar. It is the history of the man who was +sent to the block, _they_ tell us, who are able to give us those +little secret historic motives that do not get woven always into the +larger story; it is the history of the man who (if his family +understood it) was sent to the block for the repetition, in his own +name, of the words--the very words which he had written with his +'goose-pen,' as he calls it, years before--which he had written under +cover of the 'spear' that was 'shaken' in sport, or that shook with +fear,--under cover of 'the well turned and true filled lines in each +of which he seems to _shake a lance as brandished_ in the eyes of +_Ignorance_,' without suspicion--without challenge, from the crowned +Ignorance, or the Monster that crowned it. It is the history of this +unknown, obscure, unhonoured Father of the Modern Age that _unlocks_ +this tradition. + +It is the secret friend and 'brother' of the author of the Novum +Organum, whose history unlocks this tradition. And when shall the +friendship of such 'a twain' gladden our earth again, and build its +'eternal summer' in our common things? When shall a 'marriage of true +minds' so even be celebrated on the lips and in the lives of men +again? It is the friend and literary partner of our great recognised +philosopher--his partner in his 'private and retired arts,' and in his +cultivation of 'the principal and supreme sciences,' in whose history +the key to this locked up learning is hidden. + +It was an enterprise which originated in the Court of Queen Elizabeth, +in that little company of wits, and poets, and philosophers, which was +the first-fruit of the new development of the national genius, that +followed the revival of the learning of antiquity in this island--the +fruit which that old stock began manifestly to bud and blossom with, +about the beginning of the latter half of that Queen's reign. For it +was the old northern genius, under the influence, not of the revival +of the learning of antiquity only, but of that accumulated influence +which its previous revival on the Continent brought with it here; +under the influence, too, of that insular nurture, which began so soon +to colour and insulate English history;--'Britain is a world by +itself,' says Prince Cloten, 'and we will nothing pay,' etc.--it was +the old northern genius nurtured in the cradle of that 'bravery' which +had written its page of fire in the Roman Caesar's story--which had +arrested the old classic historian's pen, and fired it with a poet's +prophecy, and taught _him_ too how to pronounce from the old _British_ +hero's lip the burning speech of _English_ freedom;--it was that which +began to show itself here, then, in that new tongue, which we call the +'_Elizabethan_.' It was that which could not fit its words to its +mouth as it had a mind to do under those conditions, and was glad to +know that 'the audience was deferred.' That was the thing which found +itself so much embarrassed by the presence of 'a man of prodigious +fortune at the table,' who had leave 'to change its arguments with a +magisterial authority.' It was that which was expected to produce its +speech to 'serve as the base matter to illuminate'--not the +_Caesar_--but the Tudor--the Tudor and the Stuart: the last of the +Tudors and the first of the Stuarts. 'AGE, _thou_ art shamed.' It was +the true indigenous product of the English nationality under that +great stimulus, which made that age; and the practical determination +of the English mind, and the spirit of the ancient English liberties, +the recognition of the common dignity of that form of human nature +which each man carries entire with him--the sentiment of a common +human family and brotherhood, which this race had brought with it from +the forests of the North, and which it had conserved through ages of +oppression, went at once into the new speculation, and determined its +practical bent, and shaped this enterprise. + +It was an enterprise which included in its plan of operations an +immediate influence upon the popular mind--the most direct, immediate, +and radically reforming influences which could be brought to bear, +under those conditions, upon the habits and sentiments of the +ignorant, custom-bound masses of men;--those masses which are, in all +their ignorance and unfitness for rule, as the philosopher of this age +perceived, 'that greater part which carries it'--those wretched +statesmen, under whose rule we are all groaning. 'Questions about +clothes, and cookery, and law chicanery,' are the questions with which +the new movement begins to attract attention--a universally favourable +attention--towards its beneficent purposes, and to that new command of +'effects' which arms them. But this is only 'to show an abused people +that they are not wholly forgotten.' To improve the external condition +of men, to 'accommodate' man to those exterior natural forces, of +which he had been, till then, the 'slave,'--to minister to the need +and add to the comforts of the king in his palace, and 'Tom' in his +hovel,--this was the first scientific move. This was a movement which +required no concealment. Its far-reaching consequences, its elevating +power on the masses, its educational power, its revolutionary power, +did not lie within the range of any observation which the impersonated +state was able to bring to bear at that time upon the New Organum and +its reaches. + +But this was not the only scientifically educational agency which this +great Educational Association was able to include, even then, in its +scheme for the culture and instruction of the masses--for the culture +and instruction of that common social unit, which makes the masses and +determines political predominance. Quite the most powerful +instrumentality which it is possible to conceive of, for purposes of +direct effect in the way of intellectual and moral stimulus, in that +stage of a popular development, was then already in process of +preparation here; the 'plant' of a wondrous and inestimable machinery +of popular influence stood offering itself, at that very moment, to +the politicians with whom this movement originated, urging itself on +their notice, begging to be purchased, soliciting their monopoly, +proposing itself to their designs. + +A medium of direct communication between the philosophic mind, in its +more chosen and noblest field of research, and the minds of those to +whom the conventional signs of learning are not yet intelligible,--one +in which the language of action and dumb show was, by the condition of +the representation, predominant,--that language which is, as this +philosophy observed, so much more powerful in its impression than +words,--not on brutes only, but on those 'whose eyes are more learned +than their ears,'--a medium of communication which was one tissue of +that 'mute' language, whereby the direction, 'how to _sustain_ a +tyranny _newly usurped_,' was conveyed once, stood prepared to their +hands, waiting the dictation of the message of these new Chiefs and +Teachers, who had taken their cue from Machiavel in exhibiting the +arts of government, and who thought it well enough that the people +_should_ know how to _preserve_ tyrannies _newly usurped_. + +Those 'amusements,' with which governments that are founded and +sustained, 'by cutting off and _keeping low_ the grandees and +nobility' of a nation, naturally seek to propitiate and divert the +popular mind,--those amusements which the peoples who sustain +tyrannies are apt to be fond of--'he loves no plays as _thou_ dost, +_Antony_,'--that 'pulpit,' from which the orator of Caesar stole and +swayed the hearts of the people with his sugared words; and his dumb +show of the stabs in Caesar's mantle became, in the hands of these new +conspirators, an engine which those old experimenters lacked,--an +engine which the lean and wrinkled Cassius, with his much reading and +'observation strange' and dangerous, looking through of the thoughts +of men; and the grave, high-toned Brutus, with his logic and his +stilted oratory, could not, on second thoughts, afford to lack. It was +this which supplied the means of that 'volubility of application' +which those 'Sir Oracles,' those 'grave sirs of note,' 'in observing +their well-graced forms of speech,' it is intimated, 'might easily +want.' + +By means of that 'first use of the parable,' whereby (while for the +present we drop 'the argument') it serves to illustrate, and bring +first under the notice of the senses, the abstruser truths of a new +learning,--truths which are as yet too far out of the road of common +opinion to be conveyed in other forms,--these amusements became, in +the hands of the new Teachers and Wise Men, with whom the Wisdom of +the Moderns had its beginning, the means of an insidious, but most +'grave and exceedingly useful,' popular instruction. + +But the immediate influence on the common mind was not the influence +to which this association trusted for the fulfilment of its great plan +of social renovation and advancement. That so aspiring _social_ +position, and that not less commanding position in the world of +letters, built up with so much labour, with such persistent purpose, +with a pertinacity which accepted of no defeat,--built up _expressly_ +to this end,--that position from which a new method of learning could +be openly propounded, in the face of the schools, in the face of the +Universities, in the face and eyes of all the Doctors of Learning +then, was, in itself, no unimportant part of the machinery which this +political association was compelled to include in the plot of its +far-reaching enterprise. + +That trumpet-call which rang through Europe, which summoned the +scholasticism and genius of the modern ages, from the endless battles +of the human dogmas and conceits, into the field of true +knowledge,--that summons which recalled, and disciplined, and gave the +word of command to the genius of the modern ages, that was already +tumultuously rushing thither,--that call which was _able_ to command +the modern learning, and impose on it, for immediate use, the New +Machine of Learning,--that Machine which, even in its employment in +the humblest departments of observation, has already formed, ere we +know it, the new mind, which has disciplined and trained the modern +intelligence, and created insidiously new habits of judgment and +_belief_,--created, too, a new stock of truths, which are accepted as +a part of the world's creed, and from which the whole must needs be +evolved in time,--this, in itself, was no small step towards securing +the great ends of this enterprise. It was a step which we are hardly +in a position, as yet, to estimate. We cannot see what it was till the +nobler applications of this Method begin to be made. It has cost us +something while we have waited for these. The letter to Sir Henry +Savile, on 'the Helps to the Intellectual Powers,' which is referred +to with so much more iteration and emphasis than anything which the +surface of the letter exhibits would seem to bear, in its brief hints, +points also this way, though the effect of mental exercises, by means +of other instrumentalities, on the habits of a larger class, is also +comprehended in it. But the formation of new intellectual habits in +men liberally educated, appeared to promise, ultimately, those larger +fruits in the advancement and culture of learning which, in 'the +hour-glass' of that first movement, could be, as yet, only prophecy +and anticipation. The perfection of the Human Science, then first +propounded, the filling up of 'the Anticipations' of Learning, which +the Philosophy of _Science_ also included in its system,--not rash and +premature, however, and not claiming _the place_ of _knowledge_, but +kept apart in a place by themselves,--put down as anticipations, _not +interpretations_,--the filling up of this outline was what was +expected as the ultimate result of this proceeding, in the department +of speculative philosophy. + +But in that great practical enterprise of a social and political +renovation--that enterprise of 'constructions' according to true +definitions, which this science fastens its eye on, and never ceases +to contemplate--it was not the immediate effect on the popular mind, +neither was it the gradual effect on the speculative habits of men of +learning and men of intelligence in general, that was chiefly relied +on. It was the secret tradition, the living tradition of that +intention; it was the tradition whereby that association undertook to +continue itself across whatever gulfs and chasms in social history +'the fortunes of our state' might make. It was that _second_ use of +the fable, which is 'to wrap up and conceal'; it was that 'enigmatic' +method, which reserves the secrets of learning for those 'who by the +aid of an instructor, or by their own research, are able to pierce the +veil,' which was relied on for this result. It was the _power_ of that +tradition, its generative power, its power to reproduce 'in a better +hour' the mind and will of that 'company'--it was its power to develop +and frame that _identity_ which was the secret of this association, +and its new principle of UNION--that identity of the 'one mind, and +one mind good,' which is the human principle of union--that identity +which made a common name, a common personality, for those who worked +together for that end, and whose WILL in it was '_one_.' A name, a +personality, a philosophic unity, in whose great radiance we have +basked so long--a name, a personality whose secret lies heavy on all +our learning--whose secret of power, whose secret of inclusiveness and +inexhaustible wealth of knowledge, has paralysed all our criticism, +'made marble'--as Milton himself confesses--'made marble with _too +much conceiving_.' 'Write me a prologue, and let the prologue _seem_ +to say [in dumb action], we will do no harm with our swords.' 'They +all flourish their swords.' 'There is but _one mind_ in all these men, +and that is bent against Caesar'--Julius Caesar. + + 'Even so the race + Of SHAKE-SPEAR's mind and _manners brightly shines_, + In his _well turned_ and _true filed_--lines; + In each of which he seems to SHAKE a LANCE, + As _brandished_ at the eyes of--Ignorance,' + +[We will do _no harm_, with our--WORDS [it _seems_ to +say.]--_Prologue_.] + +It was the power of the Elizabethan Art of Tradition that was relied +on here, that 'living Art'; it was its power to reproduce this +Institution, through whatever fatal eventualities the movement which +these men were seeking then to anticipate, and organize, and control, +might involve; and though the Parent Union _should be_ overborne in +those disastrous, not unforeseen, results--overborne and +forgotten--and though other means employed for securing that end +should fail. + +It is to that posthumous effect that all the hope points here. It is +the _Leonatus Posthumus_ who must fulfil this oracle. + + 'Now with the drops of this most balmy time + My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes; + Since, spite of him, I'LL live in this poor rhyme, + While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes; + And _thou_ in this shall find thy monument, + When _tyrants' crests and tombs of brass_ are spent.' + + 'Not marble, nor the gilded monuments [_Elizabethan_ AGE.] + Of _Princes_ shall outlive this _power_-ful rhyme.' + +[This is our unconscious Poet, who does not know that his poems are +worth printing, or that they are going to get printed--who does not +know or care whether they are or not.] + + 'But you shall shine more bright in these contents, + Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. + When wasteful war _shall statues_ overturn [iconoclasm], + And _broils_ [civil war] root out the work of masonry, + Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn + The _living record_ of _your memory_.' + +[What is it, then, that this prophet is relying on? Is it a +manuscript? Is it the recent invention of goose-quills which he is +celebrating here with so much lyrical pomp, in so many, many lyrics? +Here, for instance:--] + + 'His _beauty_ shall in _these black lines_ be seen, + And _they_ shall live, and he in them still green.' + +And here-- + + 'O where, alack! + Shall _time's best jewel_ from _time's chest_ lie hid? + Or what _strong hand_ can hold his swift foot back? + Or _who_ his spoil of beauty can forbid? + O none, unless _this_ miracle [this _miracle_] have might, + that in _black ink_--' + +Is this printer's ink? Or is it the ink of the prompter's book? or the +fading ink of those loose papers, so soon to be 'yellowed with age,' +scattered about no one knew where, that some busy-body, who had +nothing else to do, might perhaps take it into his head to save? + +'_O none_, unless this miracle'--THIS MIRACLE, the rejoicing scholar +and man of letters, who was not for an age, but for all time, +cries--defying tyranny, laughing at princes' edicts, reaching into his +own great assured futurity across the gulfs of civil war, planting his +feet upon that sure ground, and singing songs of triumph over the +spent tombs of brass and tyrants' crests; like that orator who was to +make an oration _in public_, and found himself a little straitened in +_time_ to fit his words to his mouth _as he had a mind to do_, when +_Eros_, one of his _slaves_, brought him word that the audience was +deferred till the next day; at which he was so _ravished with joy_, +that he _enfranchised him_. '_This miracle_.' He knows what miracles +are, for he has told us; but none other knew _what_ miracle this was +that he is celebrating here with all this wealth of symphonies. + + 'O _none_, unless this miracle have might, + That in black ink _my_ love may still _shine bright_.' + +['My love,'--wait till you know what it is, and do not think to know +with the first or second reading of poems, that are on the surface of +them scholastic, academic, mystical, obtrusively enigmatical. Perhaps, +after all, it is _that_ Eros who was _enfranchised_, emancipated.] + + 'But thy eternal summer shall not fade, + Nor lose possession of that _fair_ thou _owest_ [thou _owes_!], + Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, + When in _eternal lines_ to time thou growest. + So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, + So _long_ lives _this_, and this _gives life_ to--thee! + +But here is our prophecy, which we have undertaken to read with the +aid of this collation:-- + + 'When wasteful war shall statues overturn, + And broils root out the work of masonry; + Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn + The _living_ record of your memory. + 'Gainst death, _and_ all _oblivious enmity_, + _Shall_ YOU _pace forth_. _Your_ praise shall still find room, + Even _in the eyes_ [collateral sounds] _of all posterity_, + That wear this world out to the ending doom. + _So_, till _the_ JUDGMENT that YOURSELF _arise_ [_till_ then], + You live in _this_, and dwell in _lovers_' eyes.' + +See the passages at the commencement of this chapter, if there be any +doubt as to this reading. + + 'In lover's _eyes_.' + + _Leonatus Posthumus_. Shall's have a Play of _this_? Thou scornful Page, + There lie _thy part_. [To _Imogen_ disguised as _Fidele_.] + +The consideration which qualified, in the mind of the Author of the +Advancement of Learning, the great difficulty which the question of +civil government presented at that time, is the key to this 'plot.' +For men, and not 'Romans' only, 'are like sheep;' and if you can but +get some _few_ to go right, the _rest will follow_. That was the plan. +To create a better leadership of men,--to form a new order and union +of men,--a new nobility of men, acquainted with the doctrine of their +own nature, and in league for its advancement, to seize _the +'thoughts_' of those whose law is the law of the larger activity, and +'_inform_ them with nobleness,'--was the plan. + +For these the inner school was opened; for these its ascending +platforms were erected. For these that 'closet' and 'cabinet,' where +the 'simples' of the Shake-spear philosophy are all locked and +labelled, was built. For these that secret 'cabinet of the Muses,' +where the Delphic motto is cut anew, throws out its secret lures,--its +gay, many-coloured, deceiving lures,--its secret labyrinthine +clues,--for all lines in this building meet in that centre. All clues +here unwind to that. For these--for the minds on whom the continuation +of this enterprise was by will devolved, the key to that cabinet--the +historical key to its inmost compartment of philosophic mysteries, was +carefully laboured and left,--pointed to--pointed to with immortal +gesticulations, and left ('What I cannot speak, I point out with my +finger'); the key to that '_Verulamian_ cabinet,' which we shall hear +of when the _fictitious_ correspondence in which the more secret +history of this time was written, comes to be opened. That cabinet +where the subtle argument that was inserted in the Poem or the Play, +but buried there in its gorgeous drapery, is laid bare in prose as +subtle ('I here scatter it up and down indifferently for verse'); +where the new truth that was spoken in jest, as well as in parables, +to those who were without, is unfolded,--that truth which moved unseen +amid the gambols of the masque,--preferring to raise questions rather +than _objections_,--which stalked in, without suspicion, in 'the +hobby-horse' of the clown,--which the laugh of the groundlings was so +often in requisition to cover,--that 'to _beguile_ the time looked +_like the time_,'--that 'looked like _the flower_, and _was_ the +serpent under it.' + +For these that secret place of confidential communication was +provided, where 'the argument' of all these Plays is opened without +respect to the 'offence in it,'--to its utmost reach of abstruseness +and subtlety--in its utmost reach of departure from 'the road of +common opinion,'--where the Elizabethan secrets of Morality, and +Policy and Religion, which made the Parables of the New Doctrine, are +unrolled, at last, in all the new, artistic glories of that 'wrapped +up' intention. This is the second use of the Fable in which we resume +that dropped argument,--dropped for that time, while Caesar still +commanded his thirty legions; and when the question, 'How long to +philosophise?' being started in the schools again, the answer returned +still was, 'Until our armies cease to be commanded by fools.' This is +that second use of the Fable where we find the moral of it at +last,--that moral which our moralists have missed in it,--that moral +which is not 'vulgar and common-place,' but abstruse, and out of the +road of common opinion,--that moral in which the Moral Science, which +is _the Wisdom of the Moderns_, lurks. + +It is to these that the Wise Man of our ages speaks (for we have +him,--we do not wait for him), in the act of displaying a little, and +folding up for the future, his plan of a Scientific Human Culture; it +is to these that he speaks when he says, with a little of that +obscurity which 'he mortally hates, and would avoid if he could': 'As +Philocrates sported with Demosthenes,' you may not marvel, Athenians, +that Demosthenes and I do differ, for _he_ drinketh water, and _I_ +drink wine; and like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates +of sleep '... so if we put on _sobriety_ and _attention_, we shall +find it _a sure maxim in knowledge_, that the pleasant liquor of wine +is the more vaporous, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth forth the +falser dreams.' ['_I_,' says 'Michael,' who is also in favour of +'sobriety,' and critical upon excesses of all kinds, '_I_ have ever +observed, that _super_-celestial theories and _sub_-terranean +_manners_ are in singular accordance.'] + +And in his general proposal to lay open 'those parts of learning which +lie fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry of +man, to the end that such _a plot_, made and committed to memory, may +both minister light to any public designation, and also serve to +excite _voluntary_ endeavours,' he says, 'I do foresee that of those +things which I shall enter and register as deficiencies and omissions, +many will conceive and censure that some of them are already done, and +extant, _others to be but curiosities_ and things of no _great use_' +[such as the question of style, for instance, and those 'particular' +arts of tradition to which this remark is afterwards applied]--and +others to be of too great difficulty--and almost impossibility--to be +compassed and effected; but for _the two first, I refer myself to +particulars_; for the last,--touching impossibility,--I take it those +things are to be held possible, which may be done by _some person_, +though not _by every one_; and which may be done by _many_, though not +by _any_ one; and which may be done in succession of ages, though +_not_ within the hour-glass of one man's life; and which may be done +by _public designation_, though not by private endeavour. + +That was 'the plot'--that was the plan of the Elizabethan Innovation. + + THE ENIGMA OF LEONATUS POSTHUMUS. + + 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without + seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and + when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, + being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the + old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his + miseries, Britain be _fortunate_, and flourish in peace and + plenty.' + +THE VERULAMIAN CABINET, AND ITS WORKMANSHIP. + +Here, for instance, is a specimen of the manner in which scholars who +write about these times, allude to the reserved parts of this +philosophy, and to those 'richer and bolder meanings,' which could not +then be inserted in the acknowledged writings of so great a person. +This is a specimen of the manner in which a posthumous collection and +reintegration of this philosophy, and a posthumous emancipation of it, +is referred to, by scholars who write from the Continent somewhere +about these days. Whether the date of the writing be a little earlier +or a little later,--some fifty years or so,--it does not seem to make +much difference as to the general intent and purport of it. + +Here is a scholar, for instance, whose main idea of life on this +planet it appears to be, to collect the philosophy, and protect the +posthumous fame of the Lord Bacon. For this purpose, he has +established a literary intimacy, quite the most remarkable one on +record--at least, between scholars of different and remote +nationalities--between himself and two English gentlemen, a Mr. Smith, +and the Rev. Dr. Rawley. He writes from _the Hague_ but he appears to +have acquired in some way a most extraordinary insight into this +business. + +'Though I thought that I had already _sufficiently showed_ what +veneration I had for the illustrious Lord Verulam, yet I shall take +such care for _the future_, that it may not possibly be denied, that I +endeavoured most zealously to make this thing known to _the learned +world_. But neither shall this design of setting forth _in one volume +all the Lord Bacon's works, proceed without consulting you_'--[This +letter is addressed to the Rev. Dr. _Rawley_, and is dated a number of +years after Lord Bacon's death]--'without consulting you, and without +inviting _you_ to cast in _your symbol_, worthy such an excellent +edition: that so the _appetite_ of the reader'--[It was a time when +symbols of various kinds--large and small--were much in use in the +learned world]--'that so the _appetite_ of the reader, provoked +already by his _published_ works, may be further gratified _by the +pure novelty of so considerable an appendage_. + +'For the _French interpreter_, who patched together his things I know +not whence, and tacked that motley piece to him; they shall not have +place in this great collection. But _yet_ I hope to obtain your leave +to publish a-part, as _an appendix_ to _the Natural History_,--_that +exotic work_,--_gathered together_ from _this and the other place_ +(_of his lordship's writings_), [that is the true account of it] and +by me translated into--_Latin_. + +'For seeing the genuine pieces of the Lord Bacon are already extant, +and in many hands, it is necessary that _the foreign reader_ be given +to understand _of what threads the texture of that book consists_, and +how much of truth there is in that which that shameless person does, +in his preface to the reader, so stupidly write of you. + +'My brother, of blessed memory, turned his words _into Latin_, in the +First Edition of the Natural History, having some suspicion of the +fidelity of an unknown author. I will, in the Second Edition, repeat +them, and with just severity animadvert upon them: that they, into +whose hands that work comes, may know it to be rather patched up of +many distinct pieces; how much soever the author _bears himself upon +the specious title of Verulam. Unless, perhaps_, I should particularly +suggest _in your name_, that these words were _there inserted_, by way +of _caution_; and lest malignity and rashness should any way blemish +the fame of so eminent a person. + +'If my fate would permit me to live according to my wishes, I would +fly over into England, that I might behold whatsoever remaineth in +your Cabinet of the Verulamian workmanship, and at least make my eyes +witnesses of it, if the possession of the merchandise be yet denied to +the public. At present I will support the wishes of my impatient +desire, _with hope of seeing, one day, those_ (_issues_) which _being +committed to faithful privacy, wait the time till they may safely see +the light_, and not be _stifled_ in their birth. + +'I wish, _in the mean time_, I could have a sight of the copy of the +Epistle to Sir Henry Savil, concerning the Helps of the Intellectual +Powers: for I am persuaded, as to the _other Latin_ remains, that I +shall not obtain,_for present use_, the removal of _them_ from the +place in which they now are.' + +Extract of a letter from Mr. Isaac Gruter. Here is the beginning of +it:-- + +'TO THE REV. WM. RAWLEY, D.D. + +'Isaac Gruter wisheth much health. + +'Reverend Sir,--It is not just to complain of the slowness of your +answer, seeing that _the difficulty of the passage_, in the season in +which you wrote, _which was towards winter_, might _easily_ cause it +to come _no faster_; seeing _likewise_ there is so much to be found in +it which may gratify desire, and _perhaps so much the more, the longer +it was ere it came to my hands_. And although I had little to send +back, besides my thanks for _the little Index_, yet _that seemed to me +of such moment_ that I would no longer _suppress_ them: especially +because I accounted it a crime to have suffered _Mr. Smith_ to have +been without an answer: Mr. Smith, my most kind friend, and to whose +care, in my matters, I owe _all regard_ and affection, yet without +diminution of that (part and that no small one neither) in which Dr. +Rawley hath place. So that the souls of us three, so throughly +agreeing, may be aptly said to have united in a _triga_.' + +It is not necessary, of course, to deny the historical claims of the +Rev. Dr. Rawley, who is sufficiently authenticated; or even of Mr. +Smith himself, who would no doubt be able to substantiate himself, in +case a particular inquiry were made for him; and it would involve a +serious departure from the method of invention usually employed in +this association, which did not deal with shadows when contemporary +instrumentalities were in requisition, if the solidarity of Mr. Isaac +Gruter himself should admit of a moment's question. The precautions of +this secret, but so powerful league,--the skill with which its +instrumentalities were selected and adapted to its ends, is +characterised by that same matchless dramatic power, which betrays +'the source from which it springs' even when it 'only plays at +working.' + +But if any one is anxious to know who the _third person_ of this triga +really was, or is, a glance at the Directory would enable such a one +to arrive at a truer conclusion than the first reading of this letter +would naturally suggest. For this is none other than the person whom +the principle of this triga, and its enlightened sentiment and bond of +union, already _symbolically_ comprehended, whom it was intended to +comprehend ultimately in all the multiplicity and variety of his +historical manifestations, though it involved a deliberate plan for +reducing and suppressing his many-headedness, and restoring him to the +use of his one only mind. For though the name of this person is often +spelt in three letters, and oftener in one, it takes all the names in +the Directory to spell it in full. For this is none other than the +person that '_Michael_' refers to so often and with so much emphasis, +glancing always at his own private name, and the singular largeness +and comprehensiveness of his particular and private constitution. 'All +the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.' '_I_, the first of +any, by my universal being. Every man carries with him the entire form +of human condition.' + +But the name of Mr. _Isaac Gruter_ was not less comprehensive, and +could be made to represent the whole _triga_ in an emergency, as well +as another; ['I take so great pleasure in being judged and known that +it is almost indifferent to me in _which of the two forms_ I am so'] +though that does not hinder him from inviting Dr. Eawley to cast in +_his symbol_, which was 'so _considerable an appendage_.' For though +the very smallest circle sometimes represents it, it was none other +than the symbol that gave name to the theatre in which the illustrated +works of this school were first exhibited; the theatre which hung out +for its sign on the outer wall, 'Hercules and his load too.' At a time +when 'conceits' and 'devices in letters,' when anagrams and monograms, +and charades, and all kinds of 'racking of orthography' were so much +in use, not as curiosities merely, but to avoid another kind of +'racking,' a cipher referred to in this philosophy as the 'wheel +cipher,' which required the letters of the alphabet to be written in a +circle to serve as a key to the reading, supplies a clue to some of +these symbols. _The first three letters_ of the alphabet representing +the whole _in_ the circle, formed a character or symbol which was +often made to stand as a 'token' for a proper name, easily spelt in +that way, when phonography and anagrams were in such lively and +constant use,--while it made, at the same time, a symbolical +representation of the radical doctrine of the new school in +philosophy,--a school then _so_ new, that its 'Doctors' were compelled +to 'pray in the aid of simile,' even in affixing their names to their +own works, in some cases. And that same letter which was capable of +representing in this secret language either the _microcosm_, or 'the +larger whole,' as the case required (either with, or without the _eye_ +or _I_ in it, sending rays to the circumference) sufficed also to +spell the name of the Grand Master of this lodge,--'who also was a +_man_, take him for _all in all_,'--the man who took two hemispheres +for '_his symbol_.' That was the so considerable appendage which his +friend alludes to,--though 'the natural gaiety of disposition,' of +which we have so much experience in other places, and which the +gravity of these pursuits happily does not cloud, suggests a glance in +passing at another signification, which we find alluded to also in +another place in Mrs. Quickly's '_Latin_.' Mere frivolities as these +conceits and private and retired arts seem now, the Author of the +Advancement of Learning tells us, that to those who have spent their +labours and studies in them, they seem great matters, referring +particularly to that cipher in which it is possible to write _omnia +per omnia_, and stopping to fasten the key of it to his 'index' of +'the principal and supreme sciences,'--those sciences 'which being +committed to _faithful_ privacy, wait the time when they may safely +see the light, and not be stifled in their birth.' + +New constructions, according to true definitions, was _the +plan_,--this _triga_ was the initiative. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE IGNORANT ELECTION REVOKED.--A WRESTLING INSTANCE. + + + 'For as they were men of the best composition in the state of Rome, + which, either being consuls, _inclined to the people_' ['If he + would but _incline to the people_, there never was a worthier man'], + 'or being tribunes, inclined to the senate, so, in the matter which + we handle now [doctrine of _Cure_], they be the best physicians + which, being learned, incline to the traditions of experience; or, + being empirics, incline to the methods of learning.' + _Advancement of Learning._ + +But while the Man of Science was yet planning these vast scientific +changes--vast, but noiseless and beautiful as the movements of God in +nature--there was another kind of revolution brewing. All that time +there was a cloud on his political horizon--'a huge one, a black +one'--slowly and steadfastly accumulating, and rolling up from it, +which he had always an eye on. He knew there was that in it which no +scientific apparatus that could be put in operation then, on so short +a notice, and when science was so feebly aided, would be able to +divert or conduct entirely. He knew that so fearful a war-cloud would +have to burst, and get overblown, before any chance for those peace +operations, those operations of a solid and lasting peace, which he +was bent on, could be had--before any space on the earth could be +found broad enough for his Novum Organum to get to work on, before the +central levers of it could begin to stir. + +That revolution which 'was singing in the wind' then to his ear, was +one which would have to come first in the chronological order; but it +was easy enough to see that it was not going to be such a one, in all +respects, as a man of his turn of genius would care to be out in with +his works. + +He knew well enough what there was in it. He had not been so long in +such sharp daily collision with the elements of it--he had not been so +long trying conclusions with them under such delicate conditions, +conditions requiring so nice an observation--without arriving at some +degree of assurance in regard to their main properties, without +attaining, indeed, to what he calls _knowledge_ on that +subject--knowledge as distinguished from opinion--so as to be able to +predict 'with a near aim' the results of the possible combinations. +The conclusion of this observation was, that the revolutionary +movements then at hand were _not_, on the whole, likely to be +conducted throughout on rigidly scientific principles. + +The spectacle of a people violently '_revoking_ their _ignorant +election_,' and empirically seeking to better their state under such +leaders as such a movement was likely to throw up, and that, too, when +the _old_ military government was still so strong in moral forces, so +sure of a faction in the state--of a faction of the best, which would +cleave the state to the centre, which would resist with the zealot's +fire unto blood and desperation the _unholy_ innovation--that would +stand on the last plank of the wrecked order, and wade through seas of +slaughter to restore it; the prospect of untried political innovation, +under such circumstances, did _not_ present itself to this Poet's +imagination in a form so absolutely alluring, as it might have done to +a philosopher of a less rigidly _inductive_, turn of mind. + +His canvas, with its magic draught of the coming event, includes +already some contingencies which the programme of the theoretical +speculator in revolutions would have been far enough from including +_then_, when such movements were yet untried in modern history, and +the philosopher had to go back to mythical Rome to borrow an +historical frame of one that would contain his piece. The conviction +that the crash was, perhaps, inevitable, that the overthrow of the +existing usurpation, and the restoration of the English subject to his +rights,--a movement then already determined on,--would perhaps involve +these so tragic consequences--the conviction that the revolution was +at hand, was the conviction with which he made his arrangements for +the future. + +But if any one would like to see now for himself what vigorous grasp +of particulars this inductive science of state involves, what a clear, +comprehensive, and masterly basis of history it rests on, and how +totally unlike the philosophy of prenotions it is in this respect--if +one would see what breadth of revolutionary surges this Artist of the +peace principles was able to span with his arches and sleepers, what +upheavings from the then unsounded depths of political contingencies, +what upliftings from the last depths of the revolutionary abysses, +this science of _stability_, this science of the future STATE, is +settled on,--such a one must explore this work yet further, and be +able to find and unroll in it that revolutionary picture which it +contains--that scientific exhibition which the Elizabethan statesman +has contrived to fold in it of a state in which the elements are +already cleaving and separating, one in which the historical +solidities are already in solution, or struggling towards +it--prematurely, perhaps, and in danger of being surprised and +overtaken by new combinations, not less oppressive and unscientific +than the old. + + 'Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, + Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, + Hang up philosophy'-- + +wrote this Poet's fire of old. + + 'Canst thou not minister to a _mind_ diseased?' + +it writes again. No? + + 'Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.' + +'See now what _learning_ is,' says the practical-minded nurse, quite +dazzled and overawed with that exhibition of it which has just been +brought within her reach, and expressing, in the readiest and largest +terms which her vocabulary supplies to her, her admiration of the +practical bent of Friar Laurence's genius; who seems to be doing his +best to illustrate the idea which another student, who was not _a +Friar_ exactly, was undertaking to demonstrate from his cell about +that time--the idea of the possibility of converging a large and +studious observation of nature in general,--and it is a very large and +curious one which _this Friar_ betrays,--upon any of those ordinary +questions of domestic life, which are constantly recurring for private +solution. And though _this_ knowledge might seem to be 'so variable as +it falleth not under _precept_,' the prose philosopher is of the +opinion that 'a universal insight, and a wisdom of council and advice, +gathered by general observation of cases of _like nature_,' is +available for the particular instances which occur in this department. +And the philosophic poet appears to be of his opinion; for there is no +end to the precepts which he inducts from this 'variable knowledge' +when he gets it on his table of review, in the form of natural +history, in '_prerogative cases_' and 'illustrious instances,' cases +cleared from their accidental and extraneous adjuncts--ideal cases. +And though this poor Friar does not appear to have been very +successful in this particular instance; if we take into account the +fact that 'the Tragedy was the thing,' and that nothing but a tragedy +would serve his purpose, and that all his learning was converged on +that _effect_; if we take into account the fact that this is a +scientific experiment, and that the characters are sacrificed for the +sake of the useful conclusions, the success will not perhaps appear so +questionable as to throw any discredit upon this new theory of the +applicability of _learning_ to questions of this nature. + +'Unless philosophy can make a Juliet.' But this is the philosophy that +did that very thing, and the one that made a Hamlet also, besides +'reversing a prince's doom'; for this is the one that takes into +account those very things in heaven and earth which Horatio had +omitted in his abstractions; and this is the philosopher who speaks +from his philosophic chair of '_men_ of good composition,' and who +gives a recipe for composing _them_. 'Unless philosophy can make a +Juliet,' is Romeo's word. 'See now what learning _is_,' is the Nurse's +commentary; for that same _Friar_, demure as he looks now under his +hood, talking of 'simples' and great nature's latent virtues, is the +one that will cog the nurse's hearts from them, and come back beloved +of all the trades in Rome. With his new art of 'composition' he will +compose, not Juliets nor Hamlets only; mastering the radicals, he will +compose, he will dissolve and recompose ultimately the greater +congregation; for the powers in nature are always one, and they are +not many. + +Let us see now, then, what it is,--this 'universal insight in the +affairs of the world,' this 'wisdom of counsel and advice, gathered +from cases of a _like nature_,' with an observation that includes all +_natures_,--let us see what this new wisdom of counsel is, when it +comes to be applied to this huge growth of the state, this creature of +the ages; and in its great crisis of disorder--shaken, convulsed-- +wrapped in elemental horror, and threatening to dissolve into its +primal warring atoms. + + 'Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.' + + 'If thou _couldst_, Doctor, cast + The water of MY LAND, _find her disease_, + And purge it to a _sound_ and _pristine health_, + I would applaud thee to the very echo, + That should applaud again.' + + 'What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, + Would scour _these English_ hence? Hear'st thou of _them_?' + + 'Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand + That chambers will be safe.' + +Let us see, then, what it is that this man will have, who criticises +so severely the learning of other men,--who disposes so scornfully, +right and left, of the physic and metaphysic of the schools as he +finds them,--who daffs the learning of the world aside, and bids it +_pass_. Let us see what the learning is that is not '_words_,' as +Hamlet says, complaining of the reading in his book. + +This part has been taken out from its dramatic connections, and +reserved for a separate exhibition, on account of a certain new and +peculiar value it has acquired since it was produced in those +connections. Time has changed it 'into something rich and +strange,'--Time has framed it, and poured her illustration on it: it +is history now. That flaming portent, this aurora that fills the +seer's heaven, these fierce angry warriors, that are fighting here +upon the clouds, 'in ranks, and squadrons, and right forms of war,' +are but the marvels of that science that lays the future open. + + 'There is a history in all men's lives, + Figuring the nature of the times deceased; + The which observed, a man may prophesy, + With a near aim, of the main chance of things + As yet not come to life, which, _in their seeds_ + And _weak beginnings_, lie intreasured. + Such things become the hatch and brood of time.' + +'One need not go to heaven to predict imminent changes and +revolutions,' says that other philosopher, who scribbles on this same +subject about these days in such an entertaining manner, and who +brings so many 'buckets' from 'the headspring of sciences,' to water +his plants in this field in particular. 'That which most threatens us +is a divulsion of the whole mass.' + +This part is produced here, then, as a specimen of that kind of +prophecy which one does not need to go to heaven for. And the careful +reader will observe, that notwithstanding the distinct disavowal of +any supernatural gift on the part of this seer, and this frank +explanation of the mystery of his Art, the prophecy appears to compare +not unfavourably with others which seem to come to us with higher +claims. A very useful and very remarkable kind of prophecy indeed, +this inductive prophecy appears to be; and the question arises, +whether _a kind_, endowed of God with a faculty of seeing, which +commands the future in so inclusive a manner, and with so near and +sufficient an aim for the most important practical purposes, ought to +be besieging Heaven for a _super_natural gift, and questioning the +ancient seers for some vague shadows of the coming event, instead of +putting this immediate endowment--this 'godlike' endowment--under +culture. + +There is another reason for reserving this part. In the heat and +turmoil of this great ACT, the Muse of the Inductive Science drops her +mask, and she forgets to take it up again. The hand that is put forth +to draw 'the next ages' into the scene, when the necessary question of +the play requires it, is _bare_. It is the Man of Learning here +everywhere, without any disguise,--the man of the new learning, openly +applying his 'universal insight,' and 'wisdom of counsel and advice, +gathered by general observation of cases of like nature,' to this +great question of 'Policy,' which was then hurrying on, with such +portentous movement, to its inevitable practical solution. + +He who would see at last for himself, then, the trick of this +'Magician,' when he 'brings the rabble to his place,' the reader who +would know at last why it is that these old Roman graves 'have waked +their sleepers, oped, and let them forth, by his so potent art'; and +_why_ it is, that at this great crisis in English history, the noise +of the old Roman battle hurtles so fiercely in the English ear, should +read now--but read as a work of natural science in politics, from the +scientific statesman's hands, deserves to be read--this great +revolutionary scene, which the Poet, for reasons of his own, has +buried in the heart of this Play, which he has subordinated with his +own matchless skill to the general intention of it, but which we, for +the sake of pursuing that general intention with the less +interruption, now that the storm appears to be 'overblown,' may safely +reserve for the conclusion of our reading of this scientific history, +and criticism, and rejection of the Military Usurpation of the +COMMON-WEAL. + +The reading of it is very simple. One has only to observe that the +Poet avails himself of the _dialogue_ here, with even more than his +usual freedom, for the purpose of disposing of the bolder passages, in +the least objectionable manner,--interrupting the statement in +critical points, and emphasizing it, by that interruption, to the +careful reader 'of the argument,' but to the spectator, or to one who +takes it as a _dialogue merely_, neutralizing it by that dramatic +opposition. For the political criticism, which is of the boldest, +passes safely enough, by being merely _broken_, and put into the +mouths of opposing factions, who are just upon the point of coming to +blows upon the stage, and cannot, therefore, be suspected of +collusion. + +For the popular magistracy, as it represents the ignorance, and +stupidity, and capricious tyranny of the multitude, and their +unfitness for rule, is subjected to the criticism of the true +consulship, on the one hand, while the military usurpation of the +chair of state, and the law of Conquest, is not less severely +criticized by the true Tribune--the Tribune, whose Tribe is the +Kind--on the other; and it was not necessary to produce, in any _more_ +prominent manner, just then, the fact, that _both these offices_ and +_relations_ were combined in that tottering estate of the realm,--that +'old riotous form of military government,' which held then only by the +virtual election of the stupidity and ignorance of the people, and +which, this Poet and his friends were about to put on its trial, for +its _innovations_ in the government, and suppressions of the ancient +estates of this realm,--for its suppression of the dignities and +privileges of the Nobility, and its suppression of the chartered +dignities and rights of the Commons. + + _Scene_.--A Street. Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS with his two military + friends, who have shared with him the conduct of the Volscian wars, + and have but just returned from their campaign, COMINIUS and TITUS + LARTIUS,--and with them the old civilian MENENIUS, who, patrician + as he is, on account of his _honesty_,--a truly patrician + virtue,--is in favour with the people. '_He's_ an honest one. Would + they were _all so_.' + +The military element predominates in this group of citizens, and of +course, they are talking of the wars,--the foreign wars: but the +principle of _inroad_ and _aggression_ on the one hand, and _defence_ +on the other, the arts of _subjugation_, and _reconciliation_, the +arts of WAR and GOVERNMENT in their most general forms are always +cleared and identified, and tracked, under the specifications of the +scene. + + _Cor_. Tullus Aufidius then _had made_ NEW HEAD. + + _Lart_. He had, my lord, and _that_ it was, which caused + Our swifter COMPOSITION. + + _Cor_. So then, the _Volsces_ stand but as at first, + Ready, when _time_ shall _prompt_ them, to make _road_ + Upon _us_ again. + + _Com_. _They_ [Volsces?] _are worn_, lord consul, so + That we shall hardly in _our ages_ see + _Their_ banners wave again. + + * * * * * + + [_Enter Sicinius and Brutus._] + + _Cor_. Behold! these are the tribunes of the people, + The _tongues_ o' the _common mouth_. I do despise them; + For they do prank them in authority, + Against all _noble_ sufferance. + + _Sic_. Pass no further. + + _Cor_. Ha! what is that? + + _Bru_. It will be dangerous to + Go on: No further. + + _Cor_. What makes this CHANGE? + + _Men_. _The matter_? + + _Com_. Hath he not passed the NOBLES and the COMMONS? + + _Bru_. Cominius.--No. + + _Cor_. Have I had _children's voices_? [ _Yes._] + + _Sen_. Tribunes, give way:--he shall to the market-place. + + _Bru_. The people are incensed against him. + + _Sic_. Stop. + Or _all will fall in broil_. + + _Cor_. Are these _your herd_? + Must _these_ have voices that can yield them now, + And straight disclaim their tongues? + _You, being their mouths_, why rule you not their teeth? + _Have you not set them on?_ + + _Men_. Be calm, be calm. + + _Cor._ It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot, + To curb the will of the _nobility_:-- + _Suffer it, and live with such as cannot rule, + Nor_ ever will be _ruled_. + + _Bru_. Call't not a _plot_: + The people cry you mocked them; and of late, + When _corn_ was given them gratis, you repined; + _Scandaled the suppliants for the people; called them + Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness._ + + _Cor_. Why, this was known before. + + _Bru_. _Not to them all._ + + _Cor_. _Have you informed them since?_ + + _Bru_. How! _I_ inform them? + + _Cor_. You are like to do _such business_. + + _Bru_. Not unlike, + Each way to better _yours_. + + _Cor_. Why _then_ should _I_ be consul? By yon clouds, + Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me + _Your fellow tribune_. + + _Sic_. You show too much of _that_, + For which the people stir: If you will pass + To where you are bound, you must inquire your way,-- + Which you are out of,--with a _gentler_ spirit; + Or never be so noble as a consul, + Nor yoke with him for tribune. + + _Men_. Let's _be calm_. + + _Com_. The people are abused;--set on--this paltering + Becomes not Rome: nor has Coriolanus + Deserved this so dishonoured rub, laid falsely + I' the plain way of his merit. + + _Cor_. Tell me of _corn_: + _This was my speech_, and I will speak't _again_. + + _Men. Not now, not now._ + + _First Sen_. Not in this heat, sir, _now_. + + _Cor. Now_, as I live, I will.--My nobler friends + I crave their pardons:-- + For the _mutable_, rank scented _many_, let them + _Regard me, as I do not flatter, and + Therein behold themselves_: I say again, + In soothing _them_, we nourish 'gainst our _senate_, + The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition, + Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed and scattered, + By mingling them with us, _the honoured number_. + Who lack not _virtue, no_,--nor _power_, but _that_ + _Which they have given to_--BEGGARS. + + _Men. Well, no more._ + + _First Sen. No more words, we beseech you._ + + _Cor_. How, no more: + As for my country, I have shed my blood, + Not fearing outward force, _so_ shall my lungs + _Coin words_ till their decay against those meazels + Which we disdain, should tetter us, yet sought + The very way to catch them. + + _Bru_. You speak o' the people, + As if you were a god to punish, not + _A man of their infirmity_. + + _Sic. 'T were well_ + _We let the people know't._ + + _Men_. What, what? his _choler_. + + _Cor. Choler_! + Were I _as patient_ as the _midnight sleep, + By Jove,_ 't would be _my mind_. + + _Sic_. It is a mind, + That shall remain a poison where it is, + _Not poison any further_. + + _Cor_. _Shall remain!_ + Hear you this Triton of the minnows? _mark you_ + _His absolute_ SHALL? + + _Com_. _'Twas from the canon,_ + _O good_, but most _unwise patricians_, why + You _grave_, but _reckless senators_, have you thus + _Given Hydra here to choose_ AN OFFICER, + That with his _peremptory shall--being but + The horn and noise o' the monster_--wants not _spirit_ + To say, he'll turn _your current_ in _a ditch_, + And make _your channel his? If he have power, + Then_ veil your IGNORANCE:--[that let him have it.] + --if _none, awake_ + Your _dangerous_ LENITY. + +[Mark it well, for it is not, as one may see who looks at it but a +little, it is not the lost Roman weal and its danger that fires the +passion of this speech. 'Look at this player whether he has not turned +his colour, and has tears in his eyes.' 'What's _Hecuba_ to him or he +to _Hecuba_, that he should weep for her? _What would he do_, had he +the motive and the cue for passion that _I_ have.'] + + --if none, awake + Your dangerous _lenity. If_ you are _learned_, + Be not as _common fools_; if you are _not_-- + +What do you draw this foolish line for, that separates you from the +commons? If you are not, there's no nobility. If you are not, what +business have you in these chairs of state? + + --if you are not, + _Let them have cushions by you_. You are plebeians, + If _they_ be senators; and _they are no less_, + When _both your voices blended_, the GREATEST TASTE + Most palates _theirs_. _They choose_ their magistrate; + And such a one as _he_, who puts his _shall_,-- + + [Mark it, his _popular shall_]. + + His _popular shall_, against a graver bench + Than ever frown'd in Greece! By Jove himself, + It makes the _consuls base_: and _my soul aches_, + _To know_, when two authorities are up, + + [Neither able to rule]. + + _Neither supreme_, how soon confusion + May enter twixt the GAP of BOTH, and take + The one by the other. + + _Com._ Well,--on to the _market place_. + + _Cor_. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth + The _corn o' the store-house_ gratis, as 'twas used + _Sometime in Greece_. + +[It is not _corn_, but the _property_ of the _state_, and its +appropriation, we talk of here. Whether the _absolute power_ be in the +hands of the _people_ or '_their officer_.' There had been a speech +made on that subject, which had not met with the approbation of the +absolute power then conducting the affairs of this realm; and in its +main principle, it is repeated here. 'That was my speech, and I will +make it again.' 'Not now, not now. Not in this heat, sir, now.' 'Now, +as I live, I will.'] + + _Men_. Well, well, no more of that, + + _Cor_. Though _there_ THE PEOPLE had more _absolute power_, + I say they _nourished disobedience, fed_ + The _ruin of the state_. + + _Bru_. Why shall the people _give_ + One that speaks thus their voice? + + _Cor_. I'll give my _reasons_, + More worthier than _their voices_. They know the corn + Was not our RECOMPENSE; resting well assured + _They ne'er did service for it_? + . . . Well, what then? + How shall _this bosom multiplied_, digest; + The senate's courtesy? Let _deeds_ express + _What's like to be their words_. We did request it, + WE _are_ THE GREATER POLL, and in _true fear_ + _They gave us our demands_. Thus we debase + The nature of our seats, and make the rabble + Call our _cares, fears:_ which will in time _break ope + The locks o' the senate_, and _bring in the crows + To peck the eagles._ + + _Mem_. Come, enough. + + _Bru_. Enough, with _over measure_. + + _Cor_. No, take _more_; + What may be sworn by, _both divine and human_, + Seal what I end withal! This _double_ worship,-- + Where _one part_ does _disdain with cause, the other + Insult without all reason_; where _gentry, title, wisdom_, + Cannot conclude, but by the yea and no + Of _General Ignorance_--it _must omit + Real necessities_, and _give way the while + To unstable slightness_. PURPOSE so _barred_ it follows + _Nothing is done to purpose: Therefore_ beseech you,-- + + [Therefore beseech you]. + + You that will be less fearful than discreet; + That love the _fundamental part_ of _state_, + More than you doubt the _change_ of't-- + +There was but one man in England then, able to balance this +revolutionary proposition so nicely--so curiously; 'that love the +_fundamental_ part of state more than you doubt the change of it'; +'You that are _less fearful_ than _discreet_'--not so _fearful_ as +discreet. + + that prefer + A noble life before a long, and wish + To jump a body with a dangerous physic + _That's sure_ of _death without it_,--at once _pluck out + The multitudinous tongue_; let them not lick + The sweet which is their poison; _your dishonour_ + MANGLES _true_ JUDGMENT, and bereaves THE STATE + Of that INTEGRITY which should _become it_: + Not having the power to do the good it would, + For the ill which doth control it. + + _Bru_. He has said enough. + + [One would think so]. + + _Sic_. He has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer + _As traitors do_. + + _Cor_. Thou wretch! despite o'erwhelm thee! + What should the _people do_ with these bald tribunes? + _On whom depending, their obedience fails + To the greater bench_? In a rebellion, + When what's not meet, but what must be was _law_ + Then were they chosen: in a better hour, + Let what _is meet_, be said it must be _meet_, + And throw their power i' the _dust_. + + _Bru_. MANIFEST TREASON. + + _Sic_. _This a Consul_? No. + + _Bru_. The Aediles! ho! let him be apprehended. + + _Sic_. Go call the people; [_Exit Brutus_] _in whose name, myself_ + Attach _thee_ [_thee_] as a traitorous INNOVATOR, + A FOE to the PUBLIC WEAL. Obey, I charge thee, + And follow to thine answer. + + _Cor_. Hence, old goat! + _Senators and Patricians. We'll surety him_. + + _Cor_. Hence, rotten thing, or I shall shake thy bones + Out of thy garments. + + _Sic_. Help, ye citizens. + + [_Re-enter Brutus, with the Aediles, and a rabble of citizens._] + + _Men_. _On both sides, more respect._ + + _Sic_. There's HE that would + _Take from you all your power_. + + _Bru_. _Seize him, Aediles_. + + _Cit_. _Down with him. Down with him_. + + [_Several speak_.] + + _Second Sen_. Weapons! Weapons! Weapons! + + [_They all bustle about_ CORIOLANUS.] + + Tribunes, patricians:--citizens:--what ho:-- + Sicinius, Brutus:--Coriolanus:--citizens:-- + + _Cit_. _Peace!--Peace!--Peace!--stay!--hold!--peace!_ + + _Men_. _What is about to be? I am out of breath: + Confusion's near! I cannot speak_: you tribunes + To the people.--_Coriolanus_, patience:-- + Speak, good Sicinius. + + _Sic_. Hear me, people;--_Peace_. + + _Cit_. Let's hear _our_ tribune:--Peace,--_Speak, speak, speak_. + + _Sic_. _You are at point to lose your liberties_, + Marcius _would have all from you_; Marcius + Whom late you have named for consul. + + _Men_. Fye, fye, fye. + That is the way to _kindle_, not to _quench_. + + _Sen_. To _unbuild_ the _city and to lay all flat_. + + _Sic_. What is the city, but _the people_. + + _Cit_. TRUE, + The _people are_ the city. + + _Bru_. By the consent of ALL, we were established + The _people's_ magistrates. + + _Cit_. You so remain. + + _Men_. And so are like to do. + + _Cor_. That is the way to lay the city flat, + To bring the _roof_ to the _foundation_; + And bury all which yet _distinctly ranges, + In heaps and piles of ruin_. + + _Sic_. _This deserves death._ + + _Bru_. Or let us stand to our authority, + Or let us lose it:-- + +Truly, one hears the Revolutionary voices here. Observing the history +which is in all men's lives, 'Figuring the nature of the times +deceased, a man _may prophesy_,' as it would seem, 'with a _near +aim_,'--quite near--'of the _main_ chance of things, as yet, not come +to life, which in their weak beginnings lie intreasured. Such things +become the hatch and brood of _time_,' this Poet says; but art, it +seems, anticipates that process. There appears to be more of the +future here, than of the times deceased. + + _Bru_. We do here pronounce + Upon the _part of the people, in whose power + We were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy_ + Of _present death._ + + _Sic_. Therefore, lay hold of him; + Bear him to the rook Tarpeian, and from thence + Into destruction cast him. + + _Bru_. Ćdiles, seize him. + + _Cit_. Yield, Marcius, yield. + + _Men_. Hear me, one word. + Beseech you, tribunes, hear me, but a word. + + _Ćdiles_. Peace, peace. + + _Men_. Be that you _seem, truly your country's friend_, + And _temperately_ proceed to what you would + Thus _violently_ redress. + + _Bru_. Sir, those _cold ways_ + That seem _like prudent helps_, are very _poisonous_. + Where the _disease is violent_.--Lay hands upon him, + And bear him to the rock. + + _Cor_. No: I'll die here. [_Drawing his sword_.] + There's some among you have beheld me fighting; + Come _try upon yourselves_, what you have _seen_ me. + + _Men_. DOWN with THAT SWORD; tribunes, withdraw awhile. + + _Bru_. Lay hands upon him. + + _Men_. Help, help, MARCIUS, help! + You that be NOBLE, help him, young and old. + + _Cit_. DOWN WITH HIM! DOWN WITH HIM! + +'In this _mutiny, the Tribunes, the Ćdiles, and the People, are all_ +BEAT IN,' so the stage direction informs us, which appears a little +singular, considering there is but _one sword_ drawn, and the +victorious faction does not appear to have the advantage in numbers. +It is, however, only a temporary success, as the victors seem to be +aware. + + _Men_. Go, get you to _your houses, be gone away_, + All will be nought else. + + _Second Sen_. Get you gone. + + _Cor_. _Stand fast, + We have as many friends as enemies._ + + _Men_. Shall it be put to _that_? + + _Sen_. _The gods forbid!_ + I pry'thee noble friend, home to thy house; + _Leave us to_ CURE THIS CAUSE. + + _Men_. _For_ 'tis a sore _upon us, + You cannot tent yourself. Begone, beseech you._ + + _Com_. Come, Sir, along with us. + + _Cor_. I would they were barbarians (as they are, + Though in Rome _littered_) not Romans, (as they are _not_, + Though _calved_ i' the porch o' the Capitol). + + _Men_. Begone; + Put not _your worthy rage_ into your _tongue_; + _One time_ will _owe another_. [_Hear_.] + + _Cor_. On fair ground, + I could beat _forty_ of them. + + _Men_. I could _myself_ + Take up a _brace_ of the best of them; _yea, the two + tribunes_. + + _Com_. But now 'tis _odds_ beyond arithmetic: + And MANHOOD is called FOOLERY, _when it stands + Against a falling fabric_.--Will you hence, + Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend + Like interrupted waters, and _o'erbear + What they are used to bear_. [Change of 'predominance.'] + + _Men_. Pray you, begone: + I'll _try_ whether _my_ old wit be in request + With _those that have but little_; _this_ must be _patched_ + With cloth of _any colour_. + + _Com_. Nay, come away. + +The features of that living impersonation of the heroic faults and +virtues which 'the mirror,' that professed to give to 'the very body +of the time, its form and pressure,' could not fail to show, are +glimmering here constantly in 'this ancient piece,' and often shine +out in the more critical passages, with such unmistakeable clearness, +as to furnish an effectual diversion for any eye, that should +undertake to fathom prematurely the player's intention. For 'the +gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd's Calendar' was not the only +poet of this time, as it would seem, who found the scope of a double +intention, in his poetic representation, not adequate to the +comprehension of his design--who laid on another and another still, +and found the complexity convenient. 'The sense is the best judge,' +this Poet says, in his doctrine of criticism, declining peremptorily +to accept of the ancient rules in matters of taste;--a rule in art +which requires, of course, a corresponding rule of interpretation. In +fact, it is no bad exercise for an ordinary mind, to undertake to +track the contriver of these plays, through all the latitudes which +his art, as he understands it, gives him. It is as good for that +purpose, as a problem in mathematics. But, 'to whom you will not give +an hour, you give nothing,' he says, and 'he had as lief not be read +at all, as be read by a careless reader.' So he thrusts in his +meanings as thick as ever he likes, and those who don't choose to stay +and pick them out, are free to lose them. They are not the ones he +laid them in for,--that is all. He is not afraid, but that he will +have readers enough, ere all is done; and he can afford to wait. +There's time enough. + + _First Pat_. This man has marr'd his fortune. + + _Men_. His nature is too noble for the world: + _He_ would not _flatter_ Neptune for _his trident_, + Or Jove for _his power_ to _thunder_. His heart's his mouth; + What his breast forges, _that_ his _tongue_ must vent; + And being angry, does forget that _ever + He heard the name of death_. + + [_A noise within_.] + + Here's goodly work! + + _Second Pat_. I would they were _a-bed_! + + _Men_. I would they were in Tyber!--_What, the vengeance, + Could he_ not _speak them fair_? + + [_Re-enter Brutus and Sicinius with the Rabble_.] + + _Sic_. WHERE IS THIS VIPER, + That would _depopulate_ the city, and + BE EVERY MAN HIMSELF? + + _Men_. You worthy tribunes-- + + _Sic_. _He_ shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock + With rigorous hands; _he hath resisted LAW_, + And therefore law shall scorn him further trial. + +['When could they say till now that talked of Rome that _her_ wide +walls encompassed but _one man_?' 'What trash is Rome, what rubbish, +and what offal, when it serves for the base matter to illuminate so +vile a thing as Caesar.'] + + Than the severity of the PUBLIC POWER, + _Which he so sets at nought_. + + _First Cit_. He shall _well_ know + The noble _tribunes_ are the _people's mouths_, + And _we their hands_. + +[Historical _principles throughout, with much of that kind of +illustration in which his works are so prolific, an illustration which +is not rhetorical, but scientific, based on the COMMON PRINCIPLES IN +NATURE, which it is his 'primary' business to ascend to, and which it +is his 'second' business to apply to each particular branch of art. +'Neither,' as he tells us plainly, in his Book of Advancement, +'neither are these only _similitudes_ as _men of narrow observation_ +may conceive them to be, but the _same footsteps of nature_, treading +or printing upon several subjects or matters,' and the tracking of +these historical principles to their ultimate forms, is that which he +recommends for the _disclosing_ of _nature and_ the _abridging_ of +Art.] + + _Sic_. He's a _disease_, that must be cut away. + + _Men_. O he's a _limb_, that has but a disease; + Mortal to cut it off; to cure it, easy. + What has he done to Rome, that's worthy death? + _Killing our enemies?_ The blood he hath _lost_, + (Which, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath, + _By many an ounce_), he dropped it for his country. + And what _is left, to lose it by his country, + Were to us all, that do't and suffer it, + A brand to the end o' the world._ + +There's a piece thrust in here. This is the one of whom he says in +another scene, 'I cannot speak him home.' + + _Bru_. _Merely awry_: when he did love his country, + It honour'd him. + + _Men_. The _service_ of the _foot_, + Being once _gangren'd_, is not then respected + _For what before it was_? + + _Bru_. We'll hear no more:-- + Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence; + Lest his infection, being of catching nature, + _Spread further_. + + _Men_. One word more, one word. + This _tiger-footed_ rage, when it shall find + _The harm_ of _unscann'd swiftness_, will, too late, + _Tie leaden pounds to his_ HEELS. [Mark it, for it is a + prophecy] + _Lest_ PARTIES (as he is _beloved_) _break out_, + And sack great _Rome_ with _Romans_. + + _Bru_. If it were so,-- + + _Sic. What_ do ye talk? + Have we not had a taste of his obedience? + _Our Ćdiles smote? Ourselves resisted?--Come:--_ + + _Men. Consider this; he has been bred i' the wars_, + Since he could draw a sword,-- + +That has been the breeding of states, and nobility, and their rule, +hitherto, as this play will show you. Consider what _schooling_ these +statesmen have had, before you begin the enterprise of reforming them, +and take your measures accordingly. They are not learned men, you see. +How should they be? There has been no demand for learning. The law of +the sword has prevailed hitherto. When what's not meet but what must +be was law, then were they chosen. Proceed by process. + + _Consider_ this; he has been bred i' the WARS + Since he could draw a sword, and is _ill school'd_ + In _boulted language_-- + +[That's the trouble; but there's been a little bolting going on in +this play.] + + --_Meal and bran, together_ + He _throws without distinction. Give me leave_ + I'll go to him, and undertake to bring him + Where he shall answer by a _lawful form_, + (In peace) to his utmost peril. + + _First Sen. Noble tribunes._ + It is the _humane way_: the _other_ course + Will prove too bloody; and-- + +[What is very much to be deprecated in such movements]. + + --the END of it, + Unknown to the beginning. + + _Sic_. Noble Menenius; + Be _you_ then as the People's Officer: + _Masters_,--[and they seem to be that, truly,]--lay down _your + weapons_. + + _Bru. Go not home_, + + _Sic_. MEET on the MARKET-PLACE,-- + +[--that is where the 'idols of the market' are--] + + _We'll attend you there: + Where_, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed + In our _first way_. + + _Men_. I'll bring him to you. + Let me desire _your_ company [_To the Senators_] He _must_ come, + Or what is worse will follow. + + _Sen_. Pray you, let's to him. + + SCENE--THE FORUM. + _Enter Sicinius and Brutus_. + + _Bru_. In this _point_ charge him _home_, that he affects + TYRANNICAL POWER: if he evade us there, + Enforce him with his envy to _the people_; + And that the spoil, got on the Antiates, + Was _ne'er distributed_.-- + + _Enter an Ćdile_. + What, will he come? + + _Ćd_. He's coming. + + _Bru_. How accompanied? + + _Ćd_. _With old Menenius_, and those senators + That always favour'd him. + + _Sic_. Have you a _catalogue_ + Of all the voices that we have procured, + _Set down by_ THE POLL? + + _Ćd_. _I have; 'tis ready._ + + _Sic_. Have you collected them BY TRIBES? + + _Ćd_. I _have_. + + _Sic_. Assemble presently the people hither: + And when they hear _me_ say, _it shall be so_ + _I_ the RIGHT and STRENGTH o' the COMMONS, be it either + For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them, + If I say _fine_, cry _fine_; if _death_, cry _death_; + Insisting on the OLD _prerogative, + And power i' THE TRUTH, o' THE CAUSE. + + [There is a great difference in the delivery of the mathematics, + which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy, which is + the most immersed.--_Advancement_ of LEARNING.] + + _Ćd_. I shall inform them. + + _Bru_. And when such time they have begun to cry, + Let them not cease, but with a din confused + Enforce the present execution + Of what we chance to sentence. + + _Ćd_. Very well. + + _Sic_. Make them _be strong_, and _ready for this hint_. + When we shall _hap_ to give't them. + + _Bru_. Go about it. + + [_Exit Ćdile_.] + + Put him to choler straight. He hath been used + Ever to conquer, and to have his worth + Of contradiction. Being once chafed, he cannot + Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks + What's in his heart; and _that_ is there, which looks + _With me to break his neck_. [Prophecy--inductive.] + Well, here he comes. + + _Enter_ CORIOLANUS, _and his party_. + + _Men_. Calmly, I do beseech you. + + _Cor_. Ay, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece + Will bear the knave by the volume. The honour'd gods + Keep _Rome in safety_, and the CHAIRS of JUSTICE + _Supplied_ with WORTHY MEN! _plant_ LOVE _among us_. + Throng OUR LARGE TEMPLES with the _shows_ of PEACE, + And _not_ our STREETS with WAR. + + _First Sen_. _Amen, Amen! [Hear, Hear_!] + + _Men_. A NOBLE _wish_. + + _Re-enter Ćdile with Citizens_. + + _Sic_. Draw near, ye people. + + _Cor_. First hear _me_ speak. + + _Ćdile_. List to your _tribunes_. Audience: _Peace_, I say. + + _Both Tri_. Well, say,--Peace, ho. + + _Cor_. Shall I be charged no further than this present? + Must all determine here? + + _Sic_. I do demand, + If you submit you to the _people's_ voices, + Allow their _officers_, and are content + To suffer _lawful censure for such faults + As shall be proved upon you_? + + _Cor_. I am content. + + _Men_. Lo, citizens, he says he is content-- + + _Cor_. What is the matter, + That being pass'd for consul, with full voice, + I am so dishonour'd, that the very hour + You take it off again? + + _Sic_. _Answer to us_. + + _Cor_. Say then,'tis true. _I ought so_. + + Sic. WE CHARGE YOU, that you have contrived to take + From Rome, all seasoned office, and to wind + Yourself into a_ POWER TYRANNICAL; + _For which_, you are A TRAITOR to the PEOPLE. + + _Cor_. How! _Traitor_? + + _Men_. Nay, temperately: Your promise. + + _Cor_. The fires in the lowest hell fold in the people! + Call me _their traitor_! + + _Cit_. To the rock, to the rock with him. + + _Sic_. Peace. + We need not put _new matter_ to his charge: + What you have _seen_ him do, and heard him speak, + _Beating_ your _officers, cursing yourselves_, + Opposing _laws_ with _strokes_, and here defying + Those whose great power must try him; even THIS, + So _criminal_, and in such CAPITAL _kind_, + Deserves the extremest death.... + For that he has, + As much as in him lies, from time to time, + Envied against the people; _seeking means_ + To _pluck away their power_: as now, at last, + Given hostile strokes, and that, not in the presence + Of dreaded justice, but on the _ministers_ + _That do distribute it; in the name o' the people_, + And in the _power of us, the tribunes, we_, + Even from _this instant_, banish him our city, + In _peril of precipitation_ + From off the rock Tarpeian, never more + To enter _our_ Rome's gates. I' THE PEOPLE'S NAME + _I say it shall be so_. + + _Cit_. _It shall be so, it shall be so_: let him away, + He's banish'd, and it _shall be so_. + + _Com_. Hear me, MY MASTERS, and my COMMON FRIENDS. + + _Sic_. HE'S SENTENCED: no more hearing. + + _Com_. Let me speak:-- + + _Bru_. THERE'S NO MORE TO BE SAID, BUT HE IS BANISHED, + _As_ ENEMY _to the_ PEOPLE, AND HIS COUNTRY: + IT SHALL BE SO. + + _Cit_. IT SHALL BE SO, IT SHALL BE SO. + +And this is the story that was set before a king! One, too, who was +just then bestirring himself to get the life of 'that last king of +England who was his ancestor' brought out; a king who was taking so +much pains to get his triple wreath of conquest brightened up, and all +the lines in it laid out and distinguished--one who was taking so much +pains to get the fresh red of that last 'conqueror,' who also 'came in +by battle,' cleared up in his coat of arms, in case his double line of +white and red from the old _Norman_ should not prove sufficient-- +sufficient to convince the English nation of his divine right, and +that of his heirs for ever, to dispose of it and its weal at his and +their pleasure, with or without laws, as they should see fit. A pretty +scene this to amuse a king with, whose ancestor, the one from whom he +directly claimed, had so lately seated himself and his line by battle- +-by battle with the English people _on those very questions_; who had +'beaten them in' in their mutinies with his single sword, 'and taken +all from them'; who had planted his chair of state on their suppressed +liberties, and 'the charters that they bore in the body of the weal'-- +that chair which was even then beginning to rock a little--while there +was that in the mien and bearing of the royal occupant and his heir +which might have looked to the prescient mind, if things went on as +they were going then, not unlike to break some one's neck. + + 'Bid them home,' + +says the Tribune, after the military hero is driven out by the uprisen +people, with shouting, from the city gates for ever; charged never +more to enter them, on peril of precipitation from the Tarpeian Rock. + + 'Bid them home: + Say, _their great enemy is gone_, and THEY + STAND _in their ancient strength_.' + +But it is in the conquered nation that this scene of the deposing of +the military power is completed. Of course one could not tell +beforehand what effect that cautious, but on the whole luminous, +exhibition of the recent conquest of the English PEOPLE, prepared at +the suggestion and under the immediate criticism of royalty, might +have with the profoundly loyal English people themselves, in the way +of 'striking an awe into them,' and removing any lurking opposition +they might have to the exercise of an arbitrary authority in +government; but with people of the old Volscian pluck, according to +this Poet's account of the matter, an allusion to a similar success on +the part of the Conqueror at a critical moment, and when his _special_ +qualifications for government happened to be passing under review, was +not attended with those happy results which appear to have been +expected in the other instance. + + '_If_ you have writ _your annals true_, 't is there, + That _like an_ EAGLE in a dove-cote, _I_ + Flutter'd your Volsces in Corioli: + _Alone, I did it_.' + 'Why-- + +[The answer is, in this case,] + + '_Why_, noble lords, + _Will you be put in mind_ of his blind fortune, + Which was _your shame_, by this unholy braggart, + 'Fore _your own eyes and ears_? + + _Cons_. Let him die for't. [Several speak at once.] + + _Citizens_ [Speaking _promiscuously_]. Tear him to pieces; do + it presently. He killed _my son_--_my daughter_;--he killed my + cousin Marcus;--he killed _my father_.... + O that I had him, + With six Aufidiuses, or more, _his tribe_, + To use _my lawful sword_. + Insolent villain! + ...Traitor!--how now?.... + Ay, TRAITOR, Marcius. + _Marcius_? + Ay, _Marcius_, Caius Marcius. _Dost thou think_ + I'll grace thee with that ROBBERY--thy STOLEN NAME, + _Coriolanus_, in CORIOLI?.... + [.... Honest, my lord? 'Ay, honest.'] + + _Cons_. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him.' + 'Would you proceed especially against _Caius Marcius?_ + Against him FIRST.' + +Surely, if that 'Heir apparent' to whom the _History_ of HENRY THE +SEVENTH was dedicated by the author, with an urgent recommendation of +the '_rare accidents_' in that reign to the royal notice and +consideration; if that prince had but chanced in some thoroughly +thoughtful mood to light upon this yet more 'ancient piece,' he might +have found here, also, some things worthy of his notice. It cannot be +denied, that the poet's mode of handling the same historical question +is much more bold and clear than that of the professed philosopher. +But probably this Prince was not aware that his father entertained at +Whitehall then, not a literary Historian, merely--a Book-maker, able +to compose narratives of the past in an orderly chronological prosaic +manner, according to the received method--but a Show-man, also, an +Historical Show-man, with such new gifts and arts; a true Magician, +who had in his closet a mirror which possessed the property of +revealing, not the past nor the present only, but the future, 'with a +near aim,' an aim so _near_ that it might well seem 'magical'; and +that a cloud was flaming in it, even then, 'which drizzled blood upon +the Capitol.' This Prince of Wales did not know, any more than his +father did, that they had in their court then an historical scholar, +with such an indomitable passion for the stage, with such a decided +turn for acting--one who felt himself divinely prompted to a part in +that theatre which is the Globe--one who had laid out all for his +share in that. They did not either of them know, fortunately for us, +that they had in their royal train such an Historic Sport-Manager, +such a Prospero for Masques; that there was a true 'Phil-harmonus' +there, with so clear an inspiration of scientific statesmanship. They +did not know that they had in that servant of the crown, so supple, so +'patient--patient as the midnight sleep,' patient 'as the ostler that +for the poorest piece will bear the knave by the volume'--such a born +aspirant for rule; one who had always his eye on the throne, one who +had always in mind their usurpation of it. They did not know that they +had a Hamlet in their court, who never lost sight of his purpose, or +faltered in his execution of it; who had found a scientific ground for +his actions, an end for his ends; who only affected incoherence; and +that it was he who was intriguing to such purpose with the PLAYERS. + +The Elizabethan revolutionist was suppressed: then 'Fame, who is the +posthumous sister of rebellion, sprang up.' + + 'O like a book of sports thou'lt read me o'er, + But there's more in me than thou'lt understand.' + + 'Henceforth guard thee well, + For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there; + But _by the forge_ that stithied Mars his helm, + I'll kill thee everywhere, yea o'er and o'er.' + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CONCLUSION. + + + 'How I have thought of this, and of these times, + I shall recount hereafter, . . . + . . . . . and find a time + Both meet to hear and answer such high things. + _Till then_, my noble friend, _chew upon this_; + Brutus had rather he _a villager_, + Than _to repute himself_ a son of Rome, + Under these hard conditions _as this time_ + _Is like to lay upon us_. + +Inasmuch as the demonstration contained in this volume has laboured +throughout under this disadvantage, that however welcome that new view +of the character and aims of the great English philosopher, which is +involved in it, as welcome it must be to all true lovers of learning, +it presents itself to the mind of the reader as a view directly +opposed, not merely to what may possibly be his own erroneous +preconceptions of the case; but to facts which are among the most +notable in the history of this country; and not only to facts +sustained by unquestionable contemporary authority, and attested by +public documents,--facts which history has graven with her pen of iron +in the rock for ever, but with other exhibitions of this man's +character, not less, but more painful, for which he is himself singly +responsible;--not the forced exhibition of a confession wrung from him +by authority,--not the craven self-blasting defamation of a glorious +name that was not his to blast,--that was the property of men of +learning in all coming ages, precious and venerable in their eyes for +ever, at the bidding of power,--not that only, but the voluntary +exhibition of those qualities with which he stands charged,--which he +has gone out of his way to leave to us,--memorials of them which he +has collected with his own hands, and sealed up, and sent down to +posterity 'this side up,' with the most urgent directions to have them +read, and examined, and considered deeply,--that posterity, too, to +which he commends, with so much assurance, the care of his honor, the +cure of his fame. + +The demonstrated fact must stand. The true mind must receive it. +Because our criticism or our learning is not equal to the task of +reconciling it with that which we know already, or with that which we +_believed_, and thought we _knew_, we must not on that account reject +it. That is to hurt ourselves. That is to destroy the principle of +integrity at its source. We must take our facts and reconcile them, if +we can; and let them take care of themselves, if we can not. God is +greater than we are, and whatever other sacrifices he may require of +us, painful to our human sensibilities, to make way with facts, for +the sake of advancing truths, or for any other reason never so +plausible, is a thing which he never does, and never did require of +any mind. The conclusion that requires facts to be dispensed with, or +shorn, on either side to make it tenable, is not going to stand, let +it come in what name, or with what authority it will; because the +truth of history is, in its least particular, of a universal quality, +and is much more potent than anything that the opinion and will of man +can oppose to it. + +To the mind which is able to receive under all conditions the +demonstrated truth, and give to it its full weight,--to the mind to +which truth is religion, this book is dedicated. The facts which it +contains are able to assert themselves,--will be, at least, hereafter. +They will not be dependent ultimately upon the mode of their +exhibition here. For they have the large quality, they have the +solidity and dimensions of historical truth, and are accessible on +more sides than one. + +But to those to whom they are already able to commend themselves in +the form in which they are here set forth, the author begs leave to +say, in conclusion, though it must stand for the present in the form +of a simple statement, but a statement which challenges investigation, +that so far from coming into any real collision with the evidence +which we have on this subject from other sources, those very facts, +and those very historical materials on which our views on this subject +have been based hitherto, are, that which is wanting to the complete +development of the views contained here. + +It is the true history of these great events in which the hidden great +men of this age played so deep a part; it is the true history of that +great crisis in which the life-long plots of these hidden actors began +to show themselves on the historic surface in scenic grandeur,--in +those large tableaux which history takes and keeps,--which history +waits for,--it is the very evidence which has supplied the principal +basis of the received views on this subject,--it is the history of the +initiation of that great popular movement,--that movement of new ages, +with which the chief of popular development, and the leader of these +ages, has been hitherto so painfully connected in our impressions; it +is that very evidence,--that blasting evidence which the Learning of +the Modern Ages has always carried in its stricken heart,--it is +_that_ which is wanting here. That also is a part of the story which +has begun to be related here. + +And those very letters which have furnished 'confirmations strong as +proofs of holy writ' of the impressions which the other historical +evidence, as it stands at present, inevitably creates,--those very +letters which have been collected by the party whose character was +concerned in them, and preserved with so much diligence and +caution,--which we have been asked with so much emphasis to read and +ponder,--which have been recommended to our attention as the very best +means, when all is done, of putting ourselves into sympathetic +relations with the writer, and attaining at last to a complete +understanding of his position, and to a complete acquaintance with his +character and aims,--with his _natural dispositions_, as well as his +deliberate scientific _aims_,--these letters, long as we have turned +from them,--often as we have turned from them,--chilled, confounded, +sick at heart,--unable, in spite of those recommendations, to find in +them any gleam of the soul of these proceedings,--these very letters +will have to be read, after all, and with that very diligence which +the directions enjoin upon us; they will have, when all is done, to +take just that place in the development of this plot which the author, +who always knows what he is about when he is giving directions, +designed them to take. There is one very obvious reason why they +should be studied--why they would have to be studied in the end. They +have on the face of them a claim to the attention of the learned. +There is nothing like them in the history of mankind. For, however +mean and disreputable the acts of men may be, when it comes to +words,--that medium of understanding and sympathy, in which the +identity of the common nature is perpetually declared, even in the +most private conferences,--there is usually an attempt to clothe the +forlorn and shrinking actuality with the common human dignity, or to +make it, at least, passably respectable, if the claim to the heroic is +dispensed with,--even in oral speech. But in writing, in letters, +destined to never so brief and limited an existence, who puts on paper +for the eye of another, for the review of that criticism which in the +lowest, basest of mankind, stands in unimpeachable dignity, prepared +to detect and pass sentence, and cry out as one aggrieved, on the +least failure, or shadow of failure in the best--who puts in +writing,--what tenant of Newgate will put on paper, when it comes to +that, a deliberate display of meanness,--what convicted felon, but +will undertake in that case to give some sort of heroic colour to his +proceedings--some air of suffering virtue to his durance? + +But a great man, consciously great, who knows that his most trifling +letter is liable to publication; a great man, writing on subjects and +occasions which insure publicity to his writing; a man of fame, +writing letters expressly for publication, and dedicating them to the +far-off times; a man of poetic sensibilities, alive to the finest +shades of moral differences; one of unparalleled dignity and grandeur +of aims--aims pursued from youth to age, without wavering, under the +most difficult conditions, pursued to their successful issue; a man +whose aim in life it was to advance, and ennoble, and enrich his kind; +in whose life-success the race of men are made glad; such a one +sending down along with the works, in which the nobility and the +deliberate worth and grandeur of his ends are set forth and proved, +memorials of himself which exhibit studiously on the surface of them, +by universal consent, the most odious character in history; this is +the phenomenon which our men of learning have found themselves called +upon to encounter here. To separate the man and the philosopher--to +fly out upon the _man_, to throw him overboard with every expression +of animosity and disgust, to make him out as bad as possible, to +collect diligently every scrap of evidence against him, and set it +forth with every conceivable aggravation--this has been the resource +of an indignant scholarship in this case, bent on uttering its protest +in some form; this has been the defence of learning, cast down from +its excellency, and debased in all men's eyes, as it seemed for ever, +in the person of its high-priest. + +The objection to the work here presented to the public is, that it +does not go far enough. From the point of review that the research of +which it is the fruit has now attained, this is the criticism to which +it appears to be liable. From this point of view, the _complaint_ to +be made against it is, that at the place where it stops it leaves, for +want of that part of the evidence which contains it, the historical +grandeur of our great men unrevealed or still obscured. For we _have_ +had them, in the sober day-light of our occidental learning, in the +actualities of history, and not in the mists of a poetic past +only--monstrous idealisms, outstretched shadows of man's divinity, +demi-gods and heroes, impersonations of ages and peoples, stalking +through the twilight of the ante-historic dawn, or in the twilight of +a national popular ignorance, embalmed in the traditions of those who +are always 'beginners.' We have had them; we need not look to a +foreign and younger race for them; we have them, fruit of our own +stock; we have had them, not cloaked with falseness, but exposed in +the searching noonday glare of our western science. We have had them, +we have them still, with all their mortal frailty and littleness and +ignorance confessed, with all their 'weaved-up follies ravelled out,' +with all the illimitable capacity of affection and passion and will in +man, with all his illimitable capacity for folly and wrong-doing, +assumed and acknowledged in their own persons, symbolically, +vicariously, assumed and confessed. 'I am very proud, revengeful, +ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put +them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.' We +have them, _our_ Interpreters, _our_ Poets, _our_ Reformers, who start +from the actualities--from the actualities of nature in general, and +of the human nature in particular--who make the most careful study of +man as he is, in themselves and in all men, the basis of their +innovation, the beginning of their advancement to the ideal or divine. +We have them; and they, too, they also come to us, with that old +garland of glory on their brows, with that same 'crown' of victory, +which the world has given from of old to those who have taken her +affairs to be their business. + +That the historical evidence which lies on the surface of an age, like +that age from which our modern philosophy proceeds, is of a kind to +require, for its unravelling, a different species of criticism from +that which suffices for the historical evidence which our own times +and institutions produce, is a fact which would hardly seem to require +any illustration in the present state of our historical knowledge, in +the present state of our knowledge in regard to the history of this +age in particular; when not the professed scholar only, but every +reader, knows what age in the constitutional history of England, at +least, that age was; when we have here, not the erudite historian +only, with his rich harvests for the scholar, that are _caviare_ to +the multitude, but the Poets of history also, wresting from dull prose +and scholasticism its usurped domains, and giving back to the peoples +their own, to tell us what age this was. The inner history of this +time is indeed still wanting to us; and the reason is, that we have +not yet applied to the reading of its principal documents that key of +times which our contemporary historians have already put into our +hands--that key which, we are told on good authority, is, in certain +cases, indispensable to the true interpretation. + +That the direct contemporary testimony on which history depends is, in +this case, vitiated, tainted at its source, and through all its +details--that the documents are all of them, on the face of them, +'suspicious,' and not fit to be received as historical evidence +without the severest scrutiny and re-examination--this is the fact +which remains to be taken into the account here. For this is a case in +which the witnesses come into court, making signs, seeking with mute +gesticulation to attract our attention, pointing significantly to the +difficulties of the position, asking to be cross-examined, soliciting +a second cogitation on what they say, telling us that they mortally +hate obscurity, and would avoid it if they could; intimating that if +their testimony should be re-examined in a higher court, and when the +Star Chamber and the Court of Ecclesiastical Commission are no longer +in session, it might perhaps be found to be susceptible of a different +reading. This is a case in which the party convicted comes in with his +finger on his lips, and an appeal to another tribunal, to another +_age_. + +We all know what age in the history of the immemorial liberties and +dignities of a race--what age in the history of its recovered +liberties, rescued from oppression and recognised and confirmed by +statute, this was. We know it was an age in which the decisions of the +Bench were prescribed to it by a power that had 'the laws of England +at its commandment,' that it was an age in which Parliament, and the +press, and the pulpit, were gagged, and in which that same justice had +charge, diligent charge 'of amusements also, and of those who only +played at working.' That this was a time when the Play House +itself,--in that same year, too, in which these philosophical plays +began first to attract attention, and again and again, was warned off +by express ordinances from the whole ground of 'the forbidden +questions.' We know that this was an age in which not the books of the +learned only were subjected to 'the press and torture which expulsed' +from them all those 'particulars that point to action'--action, at +least, in which the common-weal of men is most concerned; that it was +a time when the private manuscript was subjected to that same +censorship and question, and corrected with those same instruments and +engines, which made then a regular part of the machinery of the press; +when the most secret cabinet of the Statesman and the Man of Letters +must be kept in order for that revision, when his most confidential +correspondence, his private note-book and diary must be composed under +these restrictions; when in the church, not the pulpit only, but the +secrets of the study, were explored for proofs of opposition to the +power then predominant; when the private desk and drawers of the poor +obscure country clergyman were ransacked, and his half-formed studies +of sermons, his rude sketches and hypothetical notes of sermons yet to +be--which might or might not be--put down for private purposes +perhaps, and never intended to be preached--were produced by +Government as an excuse for subjecting him to indignities and +cruelties to which those practised upon the Duke of Kent and the Duke +of Gloster, in the play, formed no parallel. + +To the genius of a race in whose mature development speculation and +action were for the first time systematically united, in the +intensities of that great historical impersonation which signalises +its first entrance upon the stage of human affairs, stimulated into +preternatural activity by that very opposition which would have shut +it out from its legitimate fields, and shut it up within those +impossible, insufferable limits that the will of the one man +prescribed to it then,--to that many-sided genius, bent on playing +well its part even under those conditions, all the more determined on +it by that very opposition--kept in mind of its manliness all the time +by that all comprehending prohibition on manhood, that took charge of +every act--irritated all the time into a protesting human dignity by +the perpetual meannesses prescribed to it, instructed in the doctrine +of the human nature and its nobility in the school of that sovereignty +which was keeping such a costly 'crib' here then; 'Let a beast be lord +of beasts,' says Hamlet, 'and your crib shall stand at the king's +mess;' 'Would you have me false to _my nature_? says another, +'_rather_ say I _play_ the _man_ I am'; to that so conscious man, +playing his part under these hard conditions, on a stage so high; +knowing all the time what theatre that was he played it in, how +'_far_' those long-drawn aisles extended; what 'far-off' crowding ages +filled them, watching his slightest movements; who knew that he was +acting 'even in the eyes of all posterity that wear this world out to +the ending doom'; to such a one studying out his part beforehand under +such conditions, it was not one disguise only, it was not one secret +literary instrumentality only, that sufficed for the plot of it. That +toy stage which he seized and converted so effectually to his ends, +with all its masks did not suffice for the exigencies of this +speaker's speech, 'who came prepared to speak well,' and 'to give to +his speech a grace by action.' + +Under these circumstances, the art of letter-writing presented itself +to this invention, as a means of accomplishing objects to which other +forms of writing did not admit then of being so readily adapted. It +offered itself to this invention as a means of conducting certain +plots, which inasmuch as they had the weal of men for their object, +were necessarily conducted with secresy then. The whole play of that +dramatic genius which shaped our great dramatic poems, came out, _not_ +on the stage, but in these 'plots' in which the weal of the unborn +generations of men was the end; those plots for the relief of man's +estate which had to be plotted, like murders and highway robberies, +then, by bandits that had watch-words, and 'badges' and signals and +private names, and a secret slang of their own. + +The minds that conducted this enterprise under these conditions, were +minds conscious of powers equal, at least, to those of the Greeks, and +who thought they had as good a right to invent new methods of literary +communication, or to convert old ones to new uses as the Greeks had in +their day. + +The speaker for this school was one who could not see why it was not +just as lawful for the moderns to 'invent new measures in verses,' at +least, as in 'dances,' and why it was not just as competent for him to +compose 'supposititious' letters for _his_ purposes, as it was for +Thucydides to compose speeches for _his_; and though eloquence was, in +this case, for the most part, dispensed with, these little every-day +prosaic unassuming, apparently miscellaneous, scraps of life and +business, shewing it up piece-meal as it was in passage, and just as +it happened in which, of course, no one would think of looking for a +comprehensive design, became, in the hands of this artist, an +invention quite as effective as the oratory of the ancient. + +The letters which came out on the trial of Essex, in the name of Sir +Antony Bacon, but in which the hand of Mr. Francis Bacon appeared +without much attempt at disguise, were not the only documents of that +kind for which the name of the elder brother, with his more retiring +and less 'dangerous' turn of mind, appeared to be, on the whole, the +least objectionable. An extensive correspondence, which will tend to +throw some light on the contemporary aspect of things when it is +opened, was conducted in that gentleman's name, about those days. + +But much more illustrious persons, who were forced by the genius of +this dramatist into his plots, were induced to lend their names and +sanction to these little unobtrusive performances of his, when +occasion served. This was a gentleman who was in the habit of writing +letters and arranging plots, for quite the most distinguished +personages of his time. In fact, his powers were greatly in request +for that purpose. For so far as the question of mere ability was +concerned, it was found upon experiment, that there was nothing he +stopped at. Under a sharp pressure, and when the necessary question of +the Play required it, and nothing else would serve, it was found that +he could compose 'a sonnet' as well as a state paper, or a decision, +or a philosophical treatise. He wrote a sonnet for Essex, addressed to +Queen Elizabeth, on one very important occasion. If it was not any +better than those attempts at lyrical expression in another department +of song, which he has produced as a specimen of his poetical abilities +in general, it is not strange that Queen Elizabeth, who was a judge of +poetry, should find herself able to resist the blandishments of that +effusion. But it was not the royal favourite only, it was not Essex +and Buckingham only, who were glad to avail themselves of these so +singular gifts, devoted to their use by one who was understood to have +no other object in living, but to promote their ends,--one whose vast +philosophic aims,--aims already propounded in all their extent and +grandeur, propounded from the first, as the ends to which the whole +scheme of his life was to be--artistically--with the strong hand of +that mighty artist, through all its detail subordinated, were supposed +to be merged, lost sight of, forgotten in an irrepressible enthusiasm +of devotion to the wishes of the person who happened, at the time, to +be the sovereign's favourite; one whose great torch of genius and +learning was lighted, as it was understood,--lighted and fed, to light +them to their desires. Elizabeth herself, unwilling as she was to add +any thing to the powers with which nature had crowned this man, +instructed by her instinct, that 'such men were dangerous,' was +willing, notwithstanding, to employ his peculiar gifts in services of +this nature; and so was her successor. And the historical fact is, +that an extraordinary amount of business of one kind and another, +passed in consequence through this gentleman's hands in both these +reigns, and perhaps no one was ever better qualified by constitutional +endowments, and by a predominant tendency to what he calls technically +'active good,' for the dispatch of business in which large and distant +results were comprehended. And if in managing plots for these +illustrious personages, he conducted them always with stedfast +reference to his ulterior aims,--if, in writing letters for them, he +wrote them always with the under-tones of his own part,--of his own +immortal part that was to survive 'when tyrants' crests and tombs of +brass were spent' running through them--if, in composing state papers +and concocting legal advice, and legal decisions, he contrived to +insert in them an inner meaning, and to point to the secret history +which contained their solution, who that knows _what_ those times +were, who that knows to what divine ends this man's life was +dedicated, shall undertake to blame him for it. + +All these papers were written with an eye to publication; thay were +written for the future, but they were written in that same secret +method, in that same 'cipher' which he has to stop to describe before +he can introduce the subject of 'the principal and supreme sciences,' +with the distinct assurance that as 'matters stand then, it is an art +of great use,' though some may think he introduces it with its kindred +arts, in that place, for the sake of making out a muster-roll of the +sciences, and to _little_ other purpose, and that trivial as these may +seem in such a connexion, 'to those who have spent their labours and +studies in them, they seem great matters,' appealing to 'those who are +skilful in them' to say whether he has not given, in what he has said +of them, 'though in few words,' a proof of his proficiency. This was +the method of writing in which not the principal and supreme sciences +only, but every thing that was fit to be written at all had need to be +written then. + +'Ciphers are commonly in letters, but may be in words.' Both these +kinds of ciphers were employed in the writings of this school. The +reading of that which is '_in letters_,' the one in which letters are +secretly employed as 'symbols' of esoteric philosophic subtleties, is +reserved for those who have found their way into the esoteric chambers +of this learning. It is reserved for those who have read the 'Book of +Sports and Riddles,' which this school published, and who happen to +have it with them when it happens to be called for; it is reserved for +those who have circumvented Hamlet, and tracked _him_ to his last +lurking place, and plucked out the heart of his mystery; for those who +have been in Prospero's Island, and 'untied his spell.' This point +gained,--the secret of the cipher '_in letters_,'--the secret of 'the +symbols,' and other 'devices' and 'conceits' which were employed in +this school as a medium of secret philosophic correspondence, the +characters in which these men struck through the works they could not +own then, the grand colossal symbol of the school, its symbol of +universality, large as the world, enduring as the ages of the human +kind, and with it--_in it_, their own particular 'marks' and private +signatures,--this mastered,--with the secret of _this_ in our hands, +the cipher '_in words_' presents no difficulties, When we come to read +the philosophical papers of this great firm in letters, with the aid +of that discovery, we shall know what one of the partners of it means, +when he says, that on 'account of the rawness and unskilfulness of the +hands through which they pass, the greatest matters are sometimes +carried in the weakest ciphers.' + +It was easy, for instance, in defining the position of the favourite +in the Court of Queen Elizabeth, in recommending a civil rather than a +military greatness as the one least likely to provoke the animosity +and suspicion of government under those conditions, in recommending +that so far from taking umbrage at the advancement of a rival--the +policy of the position prescribed, the deliberate putting forward and +sustaining of another favourite to avert the jealousy and fatal +suspicion with which, under such conditions, the government regards +its favourite, when popularity and the qualities of a military +chieftain are combined in him; it was easy in marking out those grand +points in the conditions of the chief courtiers' policy at that time, +to glance at the position of other men in that same court, seeking for +power under those same conditions--men whose position, inasmuch as the +immediate welfare of society and the destinies of mankind in future +ages were concerned in it, was infinitely more important than that of +the person whose affairs were agitated on the surface of the letter. + +It was easy, too, in setting forth the conflicting claims of the 'New +Company and the Old' to the monopoly of the manufacture and dying of +woollens, for instance, to glance at the New Company and the Old whose +claims to the monopoly of another public interest, not less important, +were coming forward for adjustment just about that time, and urging +their respective rights upon the attention of the chief men in the +nation. + +Or in the discussion of a plan for reforming the king's household, and +for reducing its wanton waste and extravagance--in exhibiting the +detail of a plan for relieving the embarrassments of the palace just +then, which, with the aid of the favourite and his friends, and +_their_ measures for relief, were fast urging on the revolution--it +was easy to indicate a more extensive reform; it was impossible to +avoid a glance, in passing, at the pitifulness of the position of the +man who held all men in awe and bondage then; it was impossible to +avoid a touch of that same pen which writes elsewhere, 'Beggar and +Madman,' too, so freely,--consoling _the Monarch_ with the suggestion +that _Essex_ was also greatly in debt at a time when he was much +sought after and caressed, and instancing the case of other courtiers +who had been in the same position, and yet contrived to hold their +heads up. + +Under the easy artistic disguise of courtly rivalries and opposing +ambitions--under cover, it might be, of an outrageous personal mutual +hostility--it was easy for public men belonging to the same side in +politics, who were obliged to conduct, not only the business of the +state, but their own private affairs, and to protect their own most +sacred interests under such conditions,--it was easy for politicians +trained in such a school, by the skilful use of such artifices, to +play into each other's hands, and to attain ends which in open league +they would have been sure to lose; to avert evils, it might be, which +it would have been vain and fatal for those most concerned in them +openly to resist. To give to a courtier seeking advancement, with +certain ulterior aims always in view, the character of a speculator, a +scholastic dreamer, unable for practice, unfit to be trusted with +state affairs, was not, after all, however pointedly it might be +complained of at the time, so fatal a blow as it would have been to +direct attention, already sufficiently on the alert, to the remarkable +practical gifts with which this same speculator happened, as we all +know, to be also endowed. This courtier's chief enemy, if he had been +in his great rival's secrets, or if he had reflected at all, might +have done him a worse turn than that. The hostilities of that time are +no more to be taken on trust than its friendships, and the exaggerated +expressions of them,--the over-doing sometimes points to another +meaning. + +While indicating the legal method of proceeding in conducting the show +of a trial, to which 'the man whose fame did indeed fold in the orb o' +the world' was to be subjected--a trial in which the decision was +known beforehand--'though,' says our Poet-- + + 'Though well, we may not pass upon _his life_, + Without _the form of justice_;'-- + +it was easy for the mean, sycophantic, truckling tool of a Stuart--for +the tool of a Stuart's favourite--to insert in such a paper, if not +private articles, private readings of passages, interlinings, pointing +to a history in that case which has not yet transpired; it was easy +for such a one to do it, when the partner of his treasons would have +had no chance to criticise his case, or meddle with it. + +In this collection of the apparently miscellaneous remains of our +great philosopher, there are included many important state papers, and +much authentic correspondence with the chief personages and actors of +that age, which performed their part at the time as letters and state +papers, though they were every one of them written with an inner +reference to the position of the writer, and intended to be unfolded +eventually with the key of that position. But along with this +authentic historical matter, cunningly intermingled with it, much that +is '_supposititious_,' to borrow a term which this writer found +particularly to his purpose--supposititious in the same sense in which +the speeches of Thucydides and those of his imitators are +suppositious--is also introduced. There is a great deal of fictitious +correspondence here, designed to eke out that view of this author's +life and times which the authentic letters left unfinished, and which +he was anxious, for certain reasons, to transmit to posterity,--which +he was forbidden to transmit in a more direct manner. There is a good +deal of miscellaneous letter-writing here, and there will be found +whole series of letters, in which the correspondence is sustained on +both sides in a tolerably lively manner, by this Master of Arts; but +under a very meagre dramatic cover in this case, designedly thin, +never meant to serve as a cover with 'men of understanding.' Read +which side of the correspondence you will in these cases, 'here is his +dry hand up and down.' + +These fictitious supposititious letters are written in his own name, +as often as in another's; for of all the impersonations, ancient and +modern, historical and poetic, which the impersonated genius of the +modern arts had to borrow to speak and act his part in, there is no +_such_ mask, no so deep, thick-woven, impenetrable disguise, as that +historical figure to which his own name and person is attached;--the +man whom the Tudor and the Stuart admitted to their secrets,--the man +whom the Tudor tolerated, whom the Stuart delighted to honor. In his +rules of policy, he has left us the most careful directions for the +interpretations of the lives of men whose 'impediments' are such, and +whose '_natures_ and _ends_' are so 'differing and dissonant from the +general state of the times in which they live,' that it is necessary +for them to avoid 'disclosing themselves,' 'to be _in the whole +course_ of their lives _close, retired_, reserved, as we see in +Tiberius, _who was never seen at a play_,' men who are compelled, as +it were, 'to act their lives as in a theatre.' 'The _soundest +disclosing_,' he says, 'and _expounding_ of MEN is by their NATURES +_and_ ENDS. The _weaker_ sort of men are best interpreted by their +_natures_, the _wisest_ by their _ends_.' 'Princes are best +_interpreted_ by their _natures_, private persons by their _ends_, +because princes being at the top of human desires, _they_ have, for +the most part, no particular ends _whereto they aspire, by distance +from which_ a man _might take measure and scale of the rest of their +actions and desires_' '_Distance_ from which,'--that is the key for +the interpretation of the lives of private persons of certain unusual +endowments, who propound to themselves under such conditions 'good and +reasonable ends, and such as are within _their_ power to attain.' As +to the worthiness of these ends, we have some acquaintance with them +already in our own experience. The great leaders of the new movements +which make the modern ages--the discoverers of its science of +sciences, the inventors of its art of arts, found themselves in an +enemy's camp, and the policy of war was the only means by which they +could preserve and transmit to us the benefits we have already +received at their hands,--the benefits we have yet to receive from +them. The story of this Interpreter is sent down to us, not by +accident, but by his own design. But it is sent down to us _with_ the +works in which the nobility of his nature is all laid open,--in which +the end of his ends is constantly declared, and constantly +pursued,--it is sent down to us along with the works in which his ends +are _accomplished_, to the times that have found in their experience +_what_ they were. He did not think it too much to ask of ages +experimentally acquainted with the virtue of the aims for which he +made these sacrifices,--aims which he constantly propounded as the end +of his large activity, to note the 'dissonance' between that life +which the surface of these documents exhibits,--between that historic +form, too, which the surface of that time's history exhibits,--and the +nature which is revealed in this life-act,--the soul, the never-shaken +soul of this proceeding. + + 'The god of soldiers, + With the consent of _supreme Jove_, inform + Thy thoughts with nobleness; that thou may'st prove + _The shame_ UNVULNERABLE, and stick i' the war + Like a _great sea-mark_, standing every flaw, + And saving those that _eye thee_.' + +'I would not, as I often hear dead men spoken of, that men should say +of _me_, he _judged_, and _lived_ so and so; I knew him better than +any. Now, as much as decency permits, I _here_ discover my +inclinations and affections. If any _observe_, he will find that I +have either told, or _designed_ to tell all. What I cannot speak, I +point out with my finger.' 'There was never greater circumspection and +_military_ prudence than is sometimes seen among us' ['Naturalists']. +'_Can it be_ that men are afraid to lose themselves by the way, that +they reserve themselves to the end of the game?' + +'I mortally hate to be mistaken by those who happen to come across my +_name_. He that does all things for honor and glory, what can _he_ +think to gain by showing himself to the world in _a mask_, and by +concealing _his true being_ from the people? If you are a coward, and +men commend you for your valour, is it of you that they speak? They +take you for another. Archelaus, king of Macedon, walking along the +street, somebody threw water on his head, which they who were with him +said he ought to punish: "Ay, _but_," said the other, "he did not +throw the water upon _me_, but upon _him_ whom he took me to be." +_Socrates_ being told by the people, that people spoke ill of him, +"Not at all," said he; "there is nothing _in me_ of what they say. _I_ +am content to be less commended, provided I am better known. I may be +reputed a wise man, in _such a sort of wisdom_ as I take to be +folly."'--['_The French Interpreter_.'] + +This is the man who never in all his life came into the theatre, +content to work behind the scenes, scientifically enlightened as to +the true ends of living, and the means of attaining those ends, +propounding deliberately his _duty_ as a man, his duty to his kind, +his obedience to the law of his higher nature, as his predominant +end,--but not to the harm or oppression of his particular and private +nature, but to its most felicitous conservation and advancement,--at +large in its new Epicurean emancipations, rejoicing in its great +fruition, happy in its untiring activities, triumphing over all +impediments, celebrating in secret lyrics, its immortal triumphs over +'death and all oblivious enmity,' and finding, 'in the consciousness +of good intentions, a more continual joy to nature than all the +provision that can be made for security and repose,'--not reconciled +to the part he was compelled to play in his own time,--his fine, keen +sensibilities perpetually at war with it,--always balancing and +reviewing the nice ethical questions it involved, and seeking always +the 'nobler' solution. 'The one part have I suffered, the other will I +do,'--demonstrating the possibility of making, even under such +conditions, a 'life sublime.' + + 'All places that the eye of heaven visits + Are, to a wise man, ports and happy havens.' + +There is no room here for details; but this is the account of this so +irreconcileable difference between the Man of these Works and the Man +in the Mask, in which he triumphantly achieved them;--this is the +account, in the general, which will be found to be, upon +investigation, the true one. And the more the subject is studied, even +by the light which this work brings to bear upon it, the more the +truth of this statement will become apparent. + +But though the details are, by the limits of this volume, excluded +here, it cannot well close, without one word as to _the points_ in +this part of the evidence, which have made the deepest impression on +us. + +No man suffered death, or mutilation, or torture, or outrage of any +kind, under the two tyrannies of this age of learning, that it was +possible for this scientific propounder of the law of human +_kind_-ness to avert and protect him from--this anticipator and +propounder of a _human_ civilization. He was far in advance of our +times in his criticism of the barbarisms which the rudest ages of +social experiment have transmitted to us. He could not tread upon a +beetle, without feeling through all that exquisite organization which +was great nature's gift to her Interpreter in chief, great nature's +pang. To anticipate the sovereign's wishes, seeking to divert them +first 'with a merry conceit' perhaps; for, so light as that were, the +motives on which _such_ consequences might depend then--to forestall +the inevitable decision was to arm himself with the powers he needed. +The men who were protected and relieved by that secret combination +against tyranny, which required, as the first condition of its +existence, that its chiefs should occupy places of trust and +authority, ought to come out of their graves to testify against the +calumnies that blast our modern learning, and the virtue--the virtue +of it, at its source. Does any one think that a universal _slavery_ +could be fastened on the inhabitants of this island, when wit and +manliness are at their height here, without so much as the project of +an 'underground railway' being suggested for the relief of its +victims? 'I will seek him and _privily_ relieve him. Go _you_ and +_maintain talk with the Duke_ that my charity be not of him +_perceived_. If he ask for _me_, I am ill and gone to bed. Go to; say +you nothing. There is division between the Dukes--[between the +Dukes]--and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this +night. It is _dangerous to be spoken_. I have _locked the letter_ in +my _closet_. There is _part_ of _a power already_ FOOTED. We must +incline to THE KING. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the +king, _my old master_, must be relieved.' _That_ when all is done will +be found to contain some hints as to the manner in which 'charities' +of this kind have need to be managed, under a government armed with +powers so indefinable. + + _Cassius_. And let us awear our resolution. + + _Brutus_. No, not an oath: If not _the face_ of _men, + The sufferance_ of _our souls_, THE TIMES ABUSE,-- + If _these_ be motives weak, _break off betimes_, + And _every man_ hence to his _idle_ bed; + _So_ let high-sighted tyranny _range on_, + Till _each man_ drop _by_ lottery. But if THESE,-- + _As I am sure they do_,--bear fire enough + To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour + The melting spirits of women, _then, countrymen_, + What need we any spur but OUR OWN CAUSE + To prick us to redress? what other bond + Than _secret Romans_, that have spoken the word, + And will not falter.... + Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous, + Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls + That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear + Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain + The _even_ virtue of our enterprise, + _Nor_ the insuppressive mettle of our spirits, + To think that, or _our cause_, or our _performance_, + Did need an oath.' + +[Doctrine of the '_secret Romans_.'] + +As to the rest, it was this man--this man of a scientific 'prudence' +with the abhorrence of change, which is the instinct of the larger +whole, confirmed by a scientific forethought--it was this man who gave +at last _the signal_ for change; not for war. 'Proceed by process' was +his word. Constitutional remedies for the evils which appeared to have +attained at last the unendurable point, were the remedies which he +proposed--this was the _move_ which he was willing, for his part, to +_initiate_.--'We are not, perhaps, at the last gasp. I think I see +ways to save us.'--The proceedings of the Parliament which condemned +him were studiously arranged beforehand by himself,--he wrote the +programme of it, and the part he undertook to perform in it was the +greatest in history. [''Tis the indiligent reader that loses my +subject, not I,' says the 'foreign interpreter' of this style of +writing. 'There will always be found some word or other, _in a +corner_, though it lie very close.' That is the rule for the reading +of the evidence in this case. The word is there, though _it lies very +close_, as it had need to, to be available.] + +It was as a baffled, disgraced statesman, that he found leisure to +complete and put in final order for posterity, those noble works, +through which we have already learned to love and honour him, in the +face of this calumny. It was as a disgraced and baffled statesman and +courtier--all lurking jealousies and suspicions at last put to +rest--all possibility of a political future precluded; but as a +_courtier_ still hanging on the king and on the power that controlled +the king, for _life_ and _liberty_; and careful still not to assert +any independence of those same ends, which had always been taken to be +his _ends_; it was in this character that he brought out at last the +Novum Organum; it was in this character that he ventured to collect +and republish his avowed philosophical works; it was in this character +too that he ventured at last to produce that little piece of history +which comes down to us loosely appended to these philosophical +writings. A history of the Second Conquest of the Children of Alfred, +a Conquest which they resisted, in heroic wars, but vainly, for want +of leaders and organization--overborne by the genius of a military +chief whom this historian compares in king-craft with his +contemporaries Ferdinand of Spain, and Louis XI. It is a history which +was dedicated to Charles I., which was corrected in the manuscript by +James I., at the request of the author; and he owed to that monarch's +approval of it, permission to come to town for the purpose of +superintending its publication. It is the History of _the Founding_ of +the Tudor Dynasty: prepared,--as were the rest of these works,--under +the patronage of an insolent favourite with whom it was necessary +'entirely to drop the character that carried with it the least show of +_truth or gracefulness_,' and under the patronage of a monarch with +whom it was not sufficient 'for persons of superior gifts and +endowments to _act_ the deformity of obsequiousness, unless they +really changed themselves and became abject and contemptible in their +persons.' + + '_I_ am in this (_Volumnia_) + Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles, + And you will rather show our general lowts, + How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon them, + For the _inheritance_ of their loves, and _safeguard_, + Of what that want might ruin. + + Away my _disposition_! + + When you do find him, or alive or dead, + He will be found like Brutus, LIKE HIMSELF. + + 'Yet country-men, _O yet_, hold up your heads. + I will proclaim my name about the field. + I am the son of Marcus Cato, HO! + A foe TO TYRANTS, and my country's friend. + + 'And _I_ am Brutus, Marcus Brutus _I_, + Brutus, MY COUNTRY'S FRIEND, know ME for BRUTUS.' + + FINIS. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Philosophy of the Plays of +Shakspere Unfolded, by Delia Bacon + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKSPERE UNFOLDED *** + +This file should be named 8shak10.txt or 8shak10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8shak11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8shak10a.txt + +Produced by Eric Eldred, David King +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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