The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 44

_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 cla.s.ses.

'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 a.n.a.lysis 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 a.s.sistance_'; 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.d 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 _consuls.h.i.+p_, regarded from the ground of the tribunes.h.i.+p. It is not Coriola.n.u.s that this tribune is spending so much breath on. The _instincts_, which una.n.a.lytic, barbaric ages, enthrone and mistake for greatness and n.o.bility, 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 Coriola.n.u.s; the author has no spite at all against him--he is partial to him, rather; it is not _Coriola.n.u.s_ 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 n.o.bility 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 n.o.body'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 a.s.sert openly, over his own name, and leave on record for the benefit of posterity, _the a.s.sertion_ 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 G.o.d 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 ma.s.ses, under these heads.h.i.+ps 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. .h.i.therto 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 subst.i.tuted 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 const.i.tuted 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 a.s.sist 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 n.o.bler'

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 pract.i.tioner, 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.sions 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 n.o.blest and more chosen subjects for the confirmation of this a.s.sertion.

'_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 circ.u.mstance 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 n.o.ble 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. .h.i.therto 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_ cla.s.sification, as if one were to say,'--and he quotes here, in this apparently disparaging manner, his own grand, new-coined cla.s.sification, 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 cla.s.sification 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'? n.o.body 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, n.o.body 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 cla.s.sification will suffice_, and be of much use in the consideration of the PREDOMINANCE of POWERS, and examining the WRESTLING INSTANCES, which const.i.tute our PRESENT SUBJECT.' [The subject that was _present_ then. The question.]

So that the Novum Organum presents itself to us, in these pa.s.sages, 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 const.i.tute,--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 n.o.bler, to its n.o.blest 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_.'