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The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded
for it is the larger form, which is the worthier, in that new department of mixed mathematics which this philosopher was cultivating.
'One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail:Rights by rights fouler, strength by strengths do fail.'Coriolanus.And for history of cases, see the same author in Hamlet and other plays. [This philosopher's prose not unfrequently contains the key of the poetic paraphrase; and the true reading of the line, which has occasioned so much perplexity to the critics, may, perhaps, be suggested by this connection – 'to set affection against affection, and to master one by another, even as we hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird.']
CHAPTER V
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. – ALTERATIONHast thou not learn'd me howTo make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so,That our great king himself doth woo me oftFor my confections? Having thus far proceeded,(Unless thou think'st me devilish,) is't not meetThat I did amplify my judgment inOther conclusions?Cymbeline.Thus far, it is the science of Man, as he is, that is propounded. It is a scientific history of the Mind and its diseases, built up from particulars, as other scientific histories are; and having disposed, in this general manner, of that which must be dealt with by way of application, those points of nature and fortune, which he puts down as the basis and conditions to which all our WORK is limited and tied, we come now to that which IS within our power – to those points which we can deal with by way of ALTERATION, and not of application merely; and yet points which are operating perpetually on the human character, changing the will and appetite, and altering the conduct, by laws not less sure than those which operate in the occult processes of nature, and determine differences behind the scene, or out of the range of our volition.
And if after having duly weighed the hints we have already received of the importance of the subject, we do not any longer suffer ourselves to be put off the track, or bewildered by the first rhetorical effect of the sentence in which these agencies are introduced to our attention, – if we look at that rapid series of words, as something else than the points of a period, if we stop long enough to recover from the confusion which a mere string of names, a catalogue or table of contents, crowded into single sentence, will, of necessity, create, – if we stop long enough to see that each one of these words is a point in the table of a new science, we shall perceive at once, that after having made all this large allowance, this new allowance for that which is without our power, there is still a very, very large margin of operation, and discovery, and experiment left; that there is still a large scope of alteration left – alteration in man as he is. For we shall find that these forces which are within our power, are the very ones which are making, and always have been making, man what he is. Running our eye along this table of forces and supplies, with that understanding of its uses, we shall perceive at once, that we have the most ample material here, if it were but scientifically handled; untried, inexhaustible means and appliances for raising man to the height of his pattern and original, to the stature of a perfect man.
It is not the material of this regimen of growth and advancement, it is not the Materia Medica that is wanting, – it is the science of it. It is the natural history of these forces, with the precepts scientifically concluded on them, that is wanting. The appliances are here; the scientific application of them remains to be made, and until these have been tried, it is too early to pronounce on the case; until these have been tried, just as other precepts of the new science have been, it is too soon to say that that science of nature, – that knowledge of laws – that foreknowledge of effects, which operates so remedially in all other departments of the human life, is without application, is of no efficiency here; until these have been tried it is too soon to say that the science of nature is not what the man who brought it in on this Globe theatre declared it to be, the handmaid of Divinity, the intelligent handmaid and minister of religion, to whose discretion in the economy of Providence, much, much has evidently been left.
And it was no assumption in this man to claim, as he did claim, a divine and providential authority for this procedure. And those who intelligently fulfil their parts in this great enterprise for man's relief, and the Creator's glory, have just as clear a right to say, as those of old who fulfilled with such means and lights, and inspirations as their time gave them, their part in the plan of the human advancement, 'it is God who worketh in us.'
'Now come we to those points which are within our command, and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite, and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled CUSTOM, EXERCISE, HABIT, EDUCATION, EXAMPLE, IMITATION, EMULATION, COMPANY, FRIENDS, PRAISE, REPROOF, EXHORTATION, FAME, LAWS, BOOKS, STUDIES: these, as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind SUFFERETH; and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine; of which number we will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it were too long to prosecute all.' But the careful reader perceives in that which follows, that the treatment of this so vital subject, though all that the author has to say upon it here, is condensed into these brief paragraphs, is not by any means so miscellaneous, as this introduction and 'the first cogitation' on it, might, perhaps, have prepared him to find it.
To be permitted to handle these forces openly, in the form of literary report, and recommendation, would, no doubt, have seemed to this inventor of sciences, in his day no small privilege. But there was another kind of experiment in them which he aspired to. He wished to take these forces in hand more directly, and compound recipes, with them, and other 'regiments' and cures. For by nature and carefullest study he was a Doctor in this degree and kind – and a man thus fitted, inevitably seeks his sphere. Very unlearned in this science of human nature which he has left us, – much wanting in analysis must he be, who can find in the persistent determination of such a man to possess himself of places of trust and authority, only the vulgar desire for courtly distinction, and eagerness for the paraphernalia of office. This man was not wanting in any of the common natural sentiments; the private and particular nature was large in him, and that good to which he gives the preference in his comparison of those exclusive aims and enjoyments, is 'the good which is active, and not that which is passive'; both as it tends to secure that individual perpetuity which is the especial craving of men thus specially endowed, and on account of 'that affection for variety and proceeding' which is also common to men, and specially developed in such men, – an affection which the goods of the passive nature are not able to satisfy. 'But in enterprises, pursuits and purposes of life, there is much variety whereof men are sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils, re-integration, approaches and attainings to their ends.' And he gives us a long insight into his own particular nature and history in that sentence. He is careful to distinguish this kind of good from the good of society, 'though in some cases it hath an incident to it. For that gigantine state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla, and infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy, as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world according to their own humours, which is the true theomachy, pretendeth and aspireth to active good though it recedeth farthest from that good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.'
In no troubler or benefactor of the world, on the largest scale, in no theomachist of any age, whether intelligent and benevolent, or demoniacal and evil, had this nature which he here defines so clearly, ever been more largely incorporated, or more effectively armed. But in him this tendency to personal aggrandisement was overlooked, and subordinated by the larger nature, – by the intelligence which includes the whole, and is able to weigh the part with it, and by the sentiments which enforce or anticipate intelligent decision.
Both these facts must be taken into the account, if we would read his history fairly. For he composed for himself a plan of living, in which this naturally intense desire for an individual perpetuity and renown, and this love of action and enterprise for its own sake, was sternly subordinated to the noblest ends of living, to the largest good of his kind, to the divine and eternal law of duty, to the relief of man's estate and the Creator's glory. And without making any claim on his behalf, which it would be unworthy to make for one to whom the truth was dearer than the opinions of men; it may be asserted, that whatever errors of judgment or passion, we may find, or think we find in him, these ends were with him predominant, and shaped his course.
He was not naturally a man of letters, but a man of action, intensely impelled to action, and it was because he was forbidden to fulfil his enterprise in person, because he had to write letters of direction to those to whom he was compelled to entrust it, because he had to write letters to the future, and leave himself and his will in letters, that letters became, in his hands, practical. He, too, knew what it was to be compelled 'to unpack his heart in words' when deeds should have expressed it.
But even words are forbidden him here. After all the pains he has taken to show us what the deficiency is which he is reporting here, and what the art and science which he is proposing, he can only put down a few paragraphs on the subject, casually, as it were, in passing. Of all these forces which have operation on the mind, and with which scientific appliances for the human mind should be compounded, he can only 'insist upon some one or two as an example of the rest.'
That was all that a writer, who was at the same time a public man, could venture on, – a writer who had once been under violent political suspicion, and was still eagerly watched, and especially by one class of public functionaries, who seemed to feel, that with all his deference to their claims, there was something there not quite friendly to them, this was all that he could undertake to insist upon 'in that place.' But a writer who had the advantage of being already defunct – a writer whose estate on the earth was then already done, and who was in no kind of danger of losing either his head or his place, could of course manage this part of the subject differently. He would not find it too long to prosecute all, perhaps. And if he had at the same time the advantage of a foreign name and seignorie, he could come out in England at this very crisis with the freest exhibitions of the points which are here only indicated. He could even put them down openly in his table of contents, every one of them, and make them the titles of his chapters.
There was a work published in England, in that age, in which these forces, of which only the catalogue is inserted here, these forces which are in our power, which we can alter, forces from which the mind suffereth, which have operation upon the mind to affect the will and appetite, are directly dealt with in the most subtle and artistic manner, in the form of literary essay; and in the bolder chapters, the author's observations and criticisms are clearly put down; his scientific suggestions of alterations and new compounds, his scientific doctrine of careful alterations, his scientific doctrine of surgery, and adaptation of regimen, and cure to different ages, and differing social conditions, are all promiscuously filed in, and the English public swallows it without any difficulty at all, and perceives nothing disagreeable or dangerous in it.
This work contains, also, some of those other parts of the new science which have just been reported as wanting, parts which are said by the inventor of this science, to have a great ministry to policy, as well as morality, and the natural history of the creature, which it is here proposed to reform, is brought out without any regard whatever to considerations which would inevitably affect a moralist, looking at the subject from any less earnest and practical – from any less elevated point of view.
Of course, it was perfectly competent for a Gascon whose gasconading was understood to be without any motive beyond that of vanity and egotism, and without any incidence to effects, to say, in the way of mere foolery, many things which an English statesman could not then so well endorse. And in case his personality were called in question, there was the mountain to retreat to, and the saint of the mount, in whose behalf the goose is annually sacrificed by the English people, the saint under whose shield and name the great English philosopher sleeps. In fact, this personage is not so limited in his quarters as the proper name might seem to imply. One does not have to go to the south of France to find him. But it is certainly remarkable, that a work in Natural History, composed by the inventors of the science of observation, and the first in the field, containing their observations in that part of the field too, in which the deficiency appeared to them most important, should have been able to pass so long under so thin a disguise, under this merest gauze of egotism, unchallenged.
These essaies, however, have not been without result. They have been operating incessantly, ever since, directly upon the leading minds, and indirectly upon the minds of men in general, (for many who had never read the book, have all their lives felt its influence), and tending gradually to the clearing up of the human intelligence in 'the practice part of life' in general, and to the development of a common sense on the topics here handled, much more creditable to the species than anything that the author could find stirring in his age. When the works which the propounders of the Great Instauration took pains to get composed by way of filling up their plan of it, a little, corn to be collected and bound, this one will have to find its place among them.
But here, at home, in his own historical name and figure, in his own person, instead of conducting his magnificent scientific experiments on that scale which the genius of his activity, and the largeness of his good will, would have prescribed to him, instead of founding his House of Solomon as he would have founded it, (as that proximity to the throne, when it was the throne of an absolute monarch might have enabled him to found it, if the monarch he found there had been, indeed, what he claimed to be, a lover of learning), instead of such large help and countenance as that of the king, to whom this great proposition was addressed, the philosopher of that time could not even venture on a literary essay in this field under that protection; it was as much as he could do, it was as much as his favor with the king was worth, to slip in here, in this conspicuous place, where it would be sure to be found, sooner or later, the index of his essaies.
'It would be too long,' he says, 'to inquire here into the operation of all these social forces that are making men, that are doing more to make them what they are, than nature herself is doing,' for, 'know thou,' the Poet of this Philosophy says, 'know thou MEN ARE as the TIME IS.' He has included here, in these points which he would have scientifically handled, that which makes times, that which can be altered, that which Advancements of Learning, however, set on foot at first, are sure in the end to alter. 'We will insist upon some one or two as an example of the rest.' And we find that the points he resumes to speak of here, are, indeed, points of primary consequence; social forces that do indeed need a scientific control, effects reported, and precepts concluded. Custom and Habit, Books and Studies, and then a kind of culture, which he says, 'seemeth to be more accurate and elaborate than the rest,' which we find, upon examination, to be a strictly religious culture, and lastly the method to which he gives the preference, as the most compendious and summary in its formative or reforming influence, 'the electing and propounding unto a man's self good and virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain.' He says enough under these heads to show the difficulty of writing on a subject where the science has been reported wanting, while the 'Art and Practice' is prescribed.
He lays much stress on CUSTOM and HABIT, and gives some few precepts for its management, 'made out of the pith and heart of sciences,' but he speaks briefly, and chiefly for the purpose of indicating the value he attaches to this point, for he concludes his precepts and observations on it, thus: 'Many other axioms there are, touching the managing of exercise and custom, which being so conducted, – scientifically conducted – do prove, indeed ANOTHER NATURE' ['almost, can change the stamp of nature,' – is Hamlet's word on this point]; 'but being governed by chance, doth commonly prove but AN APE of nature, and bringeth forth that which is lame and counterfeit.' For not less than that is the difference between the scientific administration of these things, from which the mind suffereth, and the blind, hap-hazard one.
But in proceeding to the next point on which he ventures to offer some suggestions, that of BOOKS and STUDIES, we shall do well to take with us that general doctrine of cure, founded upon the nature of things, which he produces under the head of the cure of the body, with a distinct allusion to its proper application here. And it is well to observe how exactly the tone of the criticism in this department, chimes in with that of the criticism already reported here. 'In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficiency in the receipts of propriety respecting the particular cures of diseases; for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition, and experience, by their magistralities in adding and taking out, and changing quid pro quo in their receipts at their pleasure, COMMANDING SO OVER THE MEDICINE, as the medicine cannot command over the disease:' that is a piece of criticism which appears to belong to the general subject of cure; and here is one which he himself stops to apply to a different branch of it.
'But, lest I grow more particular than is agreeable, either to my intention or proportion, I will conclude this part with the note of one deficiency more, which seemeth to me of GREATEST consequence, which is, that the prescripts in use are too COMPENDIOUS TO ATTAIN THEIR END; for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so sovereign, or so happy, as that the receipt or use of it can work any great effect upon the body of man: it were a strange speech, which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he were by nature subject; it is order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application WHICH IS MIGHTY IN NATURE,' (and it is power we are inquiring for here) 'which, although it requires more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience in observing, yet it is recompensed with the magnitude of effects.'
Possessed now of his general theory of cure, we shall better understand his particular suggestions in regard to these medicines and alteratives of the mind and manners, which are here under consideration.
'So if we should handle BOOKS and STUDIES,' he continues, having handled custom and habit a little and their powers, in that profoundly suggestive manner, 'so if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great caution and direction?' A question to be asked. And he goes on to make some further enquiries and suggestions which have considerably more in them than meets the ear. They appear to involve the intimation that many of our books on moral philosophy, come to us from the youthful and poetic ages of the world, ages in which sentiment and spontaneous conviction supplied the place of learning; for the accumulations of ages of experiment and conclusion, tend to maturity and sobriety of judgment in the race, as do the corresponding accumulations in the individual experience and memory. 'And the reason why books' (which are adapted to the popular belief in these early and unlearned ages) 'are of so little effect towards honesty of life, is that they are not read and revolved– revolved – as they should be, by men in mature years.' But unlearned people are always beginners. And it is dangerous to put them upon the task, or to leave them to the task of remodelling their beliefs and adapting them to the advancing stages of human development. He, too, thinks it is easier to overthrow the old opinions, than it is to discriminate that which is to be conserved in them. The hints here are of the most profoundly cautious kind – as they have need to be – but they point to the danger which attends the advancement of learning when rashly and unwisely conducted, and the danger of introducing opinions which are in advance of the popular culture; dangers of which the history of former times furnished eminent examples and warnings then; warnings which have since been repeated in modern instances. He proposes that books shall be tried by their effects on manners. If they fail to produce HONESTY OF LIFE, and if certain particular forms of truth which were once effective to that end, in the course of a popular advancement, or change of any kind, have lost that virtue, let them be examined; let the translation of them be scientifically accomplished, so that the main truth be not lost in the process, so that men be not compelled by fearful experience to retrace their steps in search of it, even, perhaps, to the resuming of the old, dead form again, with all its cumbrous inefficacies; for the lack of a leadership which should have been able to discriminate for them, and forestall this empirical procedure.
Speaking of books of Moral science in general, and their adaptation to different ages, he says – 'Did not one of the fathers, in great indignation, call POESY "vinum demonum," because it increaseth temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions? Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, "That young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy," because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience?' [And our Poet, we may remark in passing, seems to have been struck with that same observation; for by a happy coincidence, he appears to have it in his commonplace book too, and he has not only made a note of it, as this one has, but has taken the trouble to translate it into verse. He does, indeed, go a little out of his way in time, to introduce it; but he is a poet who is fond of an anachronism, when it happens to serve his purpose —
