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 circ.u.mstantial 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. .h.i.therto 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 const.i.tute, 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 "ill.u.s.trious 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. .h.i.therto 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 "n.o.blest 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 n.o.ble than that is the place he openly a.s.signs 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 a.s.sociated 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 const.i.tutes 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 _ill.u.s.trate_ 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 G.o.ds against the giants, when the braying of _Silenus" a.s.s_ 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 pa.s.sage 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 advent.i.tious, 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 a.s.surance 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 ill.u.s.trate, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 pa.s.sage 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 _n.o.ble contemplations_. Let either be the case, _our_ pains perhaps will not be misemployed, _whether we ill.u.s.trate_ ANTIQUITY _or_ [hear]
THINGS THEMSELVES.
But he complains of those who have attempted such interpretations. .h.i.therto, 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 l.u.s.trous ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sages 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 sh.e.l.ls of sciences,"--such an one ought, undoubtedly, to be left undisturbed in that opinion. He belongs precisely to that cla.s.s 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 ill.u.s.trated 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, antic.i.p.ating 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 a.s.sist 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 cl.u.s.ters;--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 n.o.bler 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 n.o.bler 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 G.o.d in the wood and the stone, when there was yet a G.o.d in the brick and the mortar. This "_broken science_" that has no end of ends, this G.o.dless 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 G.o.d"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 ill.u.s.tration. 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 quaerite_" which he produces,--clothing it with the authority and severe exaction of a scientific rule in art,--that same "_Primum quaerite_" 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 quaerite_." For divinity saith, "Seek first the kingdom of G.o.d, and all other things shall be added to you"; and philosophy saith, "Primum quaerite bona animi caetera aut aderunt, aut non oberunt."
And who will now undertake to say that it is, indeed, written in the Book of G.o.d,--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 n.o.ble effects, which G.o.d 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 ma.s.ses 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 "antic.i.p.ation," 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 const.i.tution 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 Ill.u.s.trated 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 pa.s.sed among us. .h.i.therto, for lack of the historical and scientific key to them, as Works of Amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 _ill.u.s.trate_ 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 AMUs.e.m.e.nT 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_ pa.s.sage 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 "princ.i.p.al and supreme sciences"--the "Prima Philosophia" and its n.o.blest branches. We have been taking the application of the Inductive Philosophy to the princ.i.p.al 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."