Part 2 — 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.