The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 50

[We must observe, that he is speaking here of 'the motions, tendencies, and active powers which are most universal in nature,' for the purpose of suggesting rules of practice which apply _as widely_; though he keeps, with the intimation above quoted, princ.i.p.ally to this cla.s.s of instances.] 'A lever of a certain strength will raise a given weight, and _so far_ the notion of _liberty_ predominates over that of _the greater congregation_; but if the weight be _greater_, the former motion _yields_. A piece of leather, stretched _to a certain point_, does not break, and _so far_ the motion of continuity _predominates_'

[for it is the question of predominance, and dominance, and domineering, and lords.h.i.+ps, and liberties, of one kind and another, that he is handling]--'_so far_ the motion of continuity _predominates_ over that of tension; but if the tension be _greater_, the leather breaks, and the motion of continuity _yields_. _A certain quant.i.ty_ of water flows through a c.h.i.n.k, and _so far_ the motion of greater congregation _predominates_ over that of continuity; but if the c.h.i.n.k be _smaller, it yields_. If a musket be charged with ball and powdered sulphur only, and the fire be applied, the ball is not discharged, in which case the motion of greater congregation overcomes that of matter; but when gunpowder is used, the motion of matter in the sulphur _predominates_, being _a.s.sisted_ by that motion, and the motion of avoidance in the nitre; and _so of the rest_.'

Our more recent chemists would, of course, be inclined to criticise that explanation; but, in some respects, it is better than theirs; and it answers well enough the purpose for which it was introduced there, and for which it is introduced here also. For this is the initiative of the great inquiry into 'the WRESTLING INSTANCES,' and the 'instances of PREDOMINANCE' in general, 'such as point out the predominance of _powers, compared with each other_, and which of them is _the more energetic and_ SUPERIOR, or more _weak_ and INFERIOR'; and though this cla.s.s of instances is valued chiefly for its ill.u.s.tration of another in this system of learning, where things are valued in proportion to their usefulness, they are not sought for as similitudes merely; they are produced by one who regards them as 'the same footsteps of nature, treading in different substances,' and leaving the foot-print of universal axioms; and this is a _cla.s.s_ of instances which he particularly recommends to inquiry. 'For wrestling instances, which show _the predominance of powers_, and in _what manner_ and _proportion_ they predominate and yield, must be searched for with active and industrious diligence.'

'The _method and nature_ of this yielding' [of _this yielding_--SUBJECTION is the question] 'must also be diligently examined; as, _for instance_, whether the motions' ['of liberty']

'completely cease, or exert themselves, but are constrained; for in all bodies with which we are acquainted, _there is no real, but an apparent rest, either in the whole, or in the parts_. This apparent rest is occasioned either by equilibrium' [as in the case of Hamlet, as well as in that of some others whose acts were suspended, and whose wills were arrested then, by considerations not less comprehensive than his]--'either by equilibrium, _or by the absolute predominance_ of motions. By equilibrium, as in the scales of the balance, which _rest if the weight be equal_. By predominance, as in perforated jars, in which the water rests, and is prevented from falling by the predominance of the motion of CONNECTION.'

'It is, however, to be observed (as we have said before), _how far the yielding motions exert themselves_. _For_, if _a man_ be held stretched out on the ground _against his_ WILL, with arms and legs bound down, _or_ otherwise confined'--[as the Duke of Kent's were, for instance]--'and yet strive with all his power to get up, the struggle is not the less, though ineffectual. The _real state of the case_'

[namely, whether the yielding motion be, as it were, annihilated _by the predominance_, or there be rather a continued, though an invisible effort] '_will perhaps appear_ in the CONCURRENCE of MOTIONS, although it escape our notice in _their conflict_.' So delicately must philosophy needs be conveyed in a certain stage of a certain cla.s.s of wrestling instances, where _a combination_ of powers hostile to science produces an '_absolute predominance_' of powers, and it is necessary that the yielding motion should at least appear to be 'as it were, annihilated'; though, of course, that need not hinder the invisible effort at all. 'For on account of the rawness and unskilfulness of the hands through which they pa.s.s,' there is no difficulty in inserting such intimations as to the lat.i.tude of the axioms which these particular instances adduced here, and 'others which might perhaps be added,' are expected to yield. This is an instance of the freedom with which philosophical views on certain subjects are continually addressed in these times, to that immediate audience of the few 'who will perhaps see farther into them than the common reader,' and to those who shall hereafter apply to the philosophy issued under such conditions--the conditions above described, that key of 'Times,' which the author of it has taken pains to leave for that purpose. But the question of 'predominance, which makes our present subject,' is not yet sufficiently indicated. There are more and less powerful motives concerned in _this_ wrestling instance, as he goes on to demonstrate.

'THE RULES of _such instances_ of _predominance as occur_ should be _collected, such as_ the following'--and the rule which he gives, by way of a specimen of these _rules_, is a very important one for a statesman to have, and it is one which the philosopher has himself '_collected_' from _such_ instances as occurred--'The more _general_ the desired advantage is, the _stronger_ will be _the motive_. The motion of _connection_, for instance, which relates to _the intercourse of the parts of the universe_, is more powerful than that of _gravity_, which relates to the intercourse of _dense_ bodies.

Again; the desire of a private good does not, _in general_, prevail against that of a public one, except where the _quant.i.ties are small_'

[it is the general _law_ he is propounding here; and the exception, the anomaly, is that which he has to note]; 'would that such were the case in civil matters.'

But that application to 'civil matters,' which the statesman, propounding in his own person this newly-collected knowledge of the actual historic forces, as a new and immeasurable source of relief to the human estate,--that application, which he could only make here in these side-long glances, is made in the Play without any difficulty at all. These instances, which he produces here in his professed work of science, are produced as ill.u.s.trations of the kind of inquiry which he is going to bring to bear, with all the force and subtlety of his genius, on the powers of nature, as manifested in the individual human nature, and in those unions and aggregations to which it tends--those larger wholes and greater congregations, which parliaments, and pulpits, and play-houses, and books, were forbidden then, on pain of death and torture and ignominy, to meddle with. _Here_, he tells us, he finds it to the purpose to select '_suggestive_ instances, such as _point out_ that which is advantageous to mankind'; 'and it is a part of science to make _judicious_ inquiries and wishes.'

These instances, which he produces here, are searching; but they are none too searching for his purpose. They do not come any nearer to nature than those others which he is prepared to add to them. The treatment is not any more radical and subtle here than it is in those instances in which 'he comes to particulars,' under the pretence of play and pastime, in other departments,--those in which the judicious inquiry into the laws of the actual forces promises to yield rules 'the most generally useful to mankind.'

This is the philosophy precisely which underlies all this Play,--this Play, in which the great question, not yet ready for the handling of the unlearned, but ripe already for scientific treatment,--the question of the wrestling forces,--the question of the subjection and predominance of powers,--the question of the combination and opposition of forces in those _arrested motions_ which make _states_, is so boldly handled. Those arrested motions, where the rest is only apparent, not real--where the 'yielding' forces are only, _as it were_, annihilated, whether by equilibrium of forces, or an absolute predominance, but biding their time, ready to burst their bonds and renew their wrestling, ready to show themselves, not as 'subjects,'

but predominators--not as states, but revolutions. The science 'that ends in matter and new constructions'--new construction, 'according to true definitions,' is what these citizens, whom this Poet has called up from their horizontal position by way of antic.i.p.ation, are already, under his instructions, boldly clamouring for. Constructions in which these very rules and axioms, these scientific certainties, are taken into the account, are what these men, whom this Magician has set upon their feet here, whose lips he has opened and whose arms he has unbound with the magic of his art, are going to have before they lie down again, or, at least, before they make a comfortable state for any one to trample on, though they _may_, perhaps, for a time seem, 'as it were, annihilated.'

These true _forms_, these _real_ definitions, this new kind of _ideas_, these new motions, new in philosophy, new in _human_ speech, old in natures,--written in her book ere man was,--these universal, elementary, original motions, which he is exhibiting here in the philosophic treatise, under cover of a certain cla.s.s of instances, are the very ones which he is tracking _here_ in the Play, into all the business of the state. This is that same new thread which we saw there in the grave philosophic warp, with here and there a little s.p.a.ce filled in, not with the most brilliant filling; enough, however, to show that it was meant to be filled, and, to the careful eye,--how.

But here it is the more chosen substance; and every point of this ill.u.s.trious web is made of its involutions,--is a point of 'ill.u.s.tration.'

Yes, here he is again. Here he is at last, in that promised field of his labours,--that field of 'n.o.blest subjects,' for the culture of which he will have all nature put under contribution; here he is at large, 'making what work he pleases.' He who is content to talk from his chair of professional learning of 'pieces of leather,' and _their_ unions, and bid his pupil note and 'consider well' that mysterious, unknown, unexplored power in nature, which holds their particles together, in its wrestling with its opposite; and where it _ceases_, or _seems to cease_; where that obstinate freedom and predominance is vanquished, and by what rules and means; he who finds in 'water,'

arrested 'in perforated jars,' or 'flowing through a c.h.i.n.k,' or resisting gravity, _if_ the c.h.i.n.k be smaller, or in the balanced 'scales,' with their apparent rest, the wrestling forces of all nature,--the weaker enslaved, but _there_,--_not_ annihilated; he who saw in the little magnet, beckoning and holding those dense palpable ma.s.ses, or in the lever, a.s.sisted by human hands, vanquis.h.i.+ng its mighty opposite, things that old philosophies had not dreamt of,--reports of mysteries,--revelations for those who have the key,--words from that book of creative power, words from that living Word, which _he_ must study who would have his vision of G.o.d fulfilled, who would make of his 'good news' something more than a Poet's prophecy. He who found in the peaceful nitre, in the harmless sulphur, in the saltpetre, 'villanous' not yet, in the impotence of fire and sulphur, combining in vain against the motion of the resisting ball,--not less real to his eye, because not apparent,--or in the _villanous_ compound itself, while yet the spark is wanting,--'rules' for other 'wrestling instances,' for _other_ combinations, where the motion of inertia was also to be overcome; requiring organized movements, a.n.a.lyses, and combinations of forces, not less but _more_ scientifically artistic,--rules for the enlargement of forces, waiting but _their_ spark, then, to demonstrate, with more fearful explosions, _their_ expansibility, threatening 'to lay all flat.'

For here, too, the mystic, unknown, occult powers, the unreported actualities, are working still, in obedience to their orders, which they had not from man, and taking no note of his. 'For man, as the _interpreter_ of nature, _does_, and _understands_ as much as his observations ON THE ORDER OF THINGS, _or_ THE MIND, _permits_ him, and neither _knows_ nor _is capable_ of more.' 'Man, while _operating_, can only apply or withdraw natural bodies. NATURE INTERNALLY PERFORMS THE REST'; and 'the syllogism forces _a.s.sent_, but _not_ things.'

Great things this Interpreter promises to man from these observations and interpretations, which he and his company are ordering; great things he promises from the application of this new method of learning to _this_ department of man's want; because those vague popular notions--those spontaneous but deep-rooted beliefs in man--those confused, perplexed terms, with which he seeks to articulate them, and not those acts which make up his life only--are out of nature, and all resolvable into higher terms, and require to be returned into _these_ before man can work with them to purpose.

Great _news_ for man he brings; the powers which are working in the human life, and _not_ those which are working without it only, are working in obedience _to laws_. Great things he promises, because the facts of human life are determined by forces which admit of scientific definition, and are capable of being reduced to axioms. Great things he promises, for these distinctive phenomena of human life, to their most artificial complication, are all out of the universal nature, and struggling already of themselves instinctively towards the scientific solution, already 'antic.i.p.ating' science, and invoking her, and waiting and watching for her coming.

Good news the scientific reporter, in his turn, brings in also; good news for the state, good news for man; confirmations of reports indited beforehand; confirmations, from the universal scriptures, of the revelation of the divine in the human. Good news, because that law of the greater whole, which is the worthier--that law of the common-weal, which is the human law--that law which in man is reason and conscience, is in the nature of things, and not in man only--nay, _not_ in man as yet, but prefigured only--his ideal; his true form--not in man, who 'IS' not, but '_becoming_.'

But in tracking these universal laws of being, this const.i.tution of things in general into the human const.i.tution--in tracing these universal definitions into the specific terms of human life--the clearing up of the spontaneous notions and beliefs which the mind of man shut up to itself yields--the criticism on the terms which pre-occupy this ground is of course inevitable, whether expressed or not, and is indeed no unimportant part of the result. For this is a philosophy in which even 'the most vulgar and casual opinions are something more than nothing in nature.'

This Play of the Common-weal and its scientific cure, in which the question of the true n.o.bILITY is so deeply inwrought throughout, is indeed but the filling up of that sketch of the const.i.tution of man which we find on another page--that const.i.tution whereby man, as man, is part and member of a common-weal--that const.i.tution whereby his relation to the common-weal is essential to the perfection of his individual nature, and that highest good of it which is conservation with advancement--that const.i.tution whereby the highest good of the particular and private nature, that which bids defiance to the blows of fortune, comprehends necessarily the good of the whole in its intention. ('For neither can a man understand VIRTUE without relation to society, nor DUTY without an inward disposition.') And that is the reason that the question of 'the government of every man over himself,' and the predominance of powers, and the wrestling of them in 'the little state of man'--the question as to which is 'n.o.bler'--comes to be connected with the question of civil government so closely. That is the reason that this doctrine of virtue and state comes to us conjoined; that is the reason that we find this question of the consuls.h.i.+p, and the question of heroism and personal greatness, the question of the true n.o.bility, forming so prominent a feature in the Play of the Common-weal, inwoven throughout with the question of its cure.

'Constructions according to true definitions' make the end here. The definition is, of course, the necessary preliminary to such constructions: it does not in itself suffice. Mere science does not avail here. Scientific ARTS, scientific INSt.i.tUTIONS of regimen and culture and cure, make the essential conditions of success in this enterprise. But we want the light of 'the true definitions' to begin with. There is no use in revolutions till we have it; and as for empirical inst.i.tutions, mankind has seen the best of them;--we are peris.h.i.+ng in their decay, dying piecemeal, going off into a race of ostriches, or something of that nature--or threatened with becoming mere petrifactions, mineral specimens of what we have been, preserved, perhaps, to adorn the museums of some future species, gifted with better faculties for maintaining itself. It is time for a change of some sort, for the worse or the better, when we get habitually, and by a social rule, water for milk, brickdust for chocolate, silex for b.u.t.ter, and minerals of one kind and another for bread; when our drugs give the lie to science; when mustard refuses to 'counter-irritate,'

and sugar has ceased to be sweet, and pepper, to say nothing of 'ginger' is no longer 'hot in the mouth.' The question in speculative philosophy at present is--

'Why all these things change from their ordinance, Their natures, and _pre_-formed faculties, To monstrous quality.'

--'There's something in this _more_ than _natural_, --if _philosophy could find it out_!

And what we want in practical philosophy when it comes to this, is a new kind of enchantments, with capacities large enough to swallow up these, as the rod of Moses swallowed up the rods of the Egyptians.

That was a good test of authority; and nothing short of that will answer our present purpose; when not that which makes life desirable only, but life itself is a.s.sailed, and in so comprehensive a manner, the revolutionary point of sufferance and stolidity is reached. We cannot stay to reason it thus and thus with 'the garotte' about our throats: the scientific enchantments will have to be tried now, tried here also. Now that we have 'found out' oxygen and hydrogen, and do not expect to alter their ways of proceeding by any epithets that we may apply to them, or any kind of hocus-pocus that we may practise on them, it is time to see what _gen_, or _genus_ it is, that proceeds in these departments in so successful a manner, and with so little regard to our exorcisms; and the mere calling of names, which indicate in a general way the unquestionable fact of a degeneracy, is of no use, for that has been thoroughly tried already.

The experiment in the 'common logic,' as Lord Bacon calls it, has been a very long and patient one; the historical result is, that it forces a.s.sent, and _not_ things.

The question here is _not_ of divinity, as some might suppose. There is no question about that. n.o.body need be troubled about that. It does not depend on this, or that man's arguments, happily. The true divinity, the true inspiration, is of that which was and shall be. Its foundations are laid,--its perennial source is found, not in the soul of man, not in the const.i.tution of the mind of man only, but in the nature of things, and in the universal laws of being. The true divinity strikes its foundations to the universal granite; it is built on 'that rock where philosophy and divinity join close;' and heaven and earth may pa.s.s, but not that.

The question here is of logic. The question is between Lord Bacon and Aristotle, and which of these two thrones and dominions in speculation and practice the moderns are disposed on the whole to give their suffrages to, in this most vital department of human practice, in this most vital common human concern and interest. The question is of these demoniacal agencies that are at large now upon this planet--on both sides of it--going about with 'tickets of _leave_,' of one kind and another; for the logic that we employ in this department still, though it has been driven, with hooting, out of every other, and the rude systems of metaphysics which it sustains, do not take hold of these things. They pay no attention to our present method of reasoning about them. There is no objection to syllogisms, as Lord Bacon concedes;--they are very useful in their proper place. The difficulty is, that the subtlety of nature in general, as exhibited in that result which we call fact, far surpa.s.ses the subtlety of nature, when developed within that limited sphere, which the mind of man makes; and nature is much more than a match for him, when he throws himself upon his own internal gifts of ratiocination, and undertakes to dictate to the universe. The difficulty is just this;--here we have it in a nut-sh.e.l.l, as we are apt to get it in Lord Bacon's aphorisms.

'The syllogism consists of propositions; these of words. Words are the signs of notions: notions represent things:' [If these last then]--'if _our notions_ are _fantastical_, the whole structure falls to the ground. But [they _are_] they are, for the most part, _improperly abstracted_, and deduced from things,' and that is the difficulty which this new method of learning, propounded in connection with this so radical criticism of the old one, undertakes to remedy. For there are just _two_ methods of learning, as he goes on to tell us, with increasing, but cautious, amplifications. The false method lays down from the very outset some abstract and _useless_ generalities,--_the other_, gradually rises to those principles which are really the most common in nature. 'Axioms determined on in argument, can never a.s.sist in the discovery of _new effects_, for the subtlety of nature is vastly superior to that of argument. But axioms properly and regularly abstracted from particulars, easily _point out and define_ NEW PARTICULARS, and _impart activity to the sciences_.'

'We are wont to call _that human reasoning_ which we apply to nature, THE ANTIc.i.p.aTION OF NATURE (as being rash and premature), and that which is properly _deduced from_ THINGS, THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.'--(A radical distinction, which it is the first business of the new machine of the mind to establish). '_Antic.i.p.ations_ are sufficiently powerful in producing _unanimity_; for if men were all to become even _uniformly mad_, they might agree tolerably well _with each other_,' (but not with nature; there's the trouble; that is _the a.s.sent_ that is wanting).

'In sciences founded upon opinions and dogmas, it is right to make use of antic.i.p.ations and logic, if you wish to force a.s.sent, and _not_ things.'

The difference, then, between the first hasty conceptions and rude theories of the nature of things,--the difference between the preconceptions which make the first steps of the human mind towards the attainment of truth, and those conceptions and axioms which are properly abstracted from things, and which correspond to their natures, is the difference in which science begins.

And we shall find that the truths of science in this department of it, which makes our present subject are quite as new, quite as far out of the road of common opinion, and quite as unattainable by the old method of learning, as those truths with which science has already overpowered the popular notions and theories in those departments in which its powers have been already tested.

These rude natural products of the human understanding, while it is yet undisciplined by the knowledge of nature in general, which in their broadest range proceed from the human speciality, and are therefore liable to an exterior criticism; these first words and natural beliefs of men, through all their range, from the _a priori_ conceptions of the schools, down to the most narrow and vulgar _preconceptions_ and _prejudices_ of the unlearned, the author of the 'Novum Organum,' and of the 'Advancement of Learning,' by a bold and dexterous sweep, puts quietly into one category, under the seemingly fanciful,--but, considering the time, none too fanciful,--designation of 'the Idols';--(he knew, indeed, that the original of the term would suggest to the scholar a more literal reading),--'the Idols of the Tribe, of the Den, of the Market, and of the Theatre,' as he sees reason--scientific, as well as rhetorical reason,--for dividing and distinguis.h.i.+ng them. But under that common designation of _images_, and false ones too, he subjects them to a common criticism, in behalf of that mighty hitherto unknown, unsought, universality, which is all particulars--which is more universal than the notions of men, and transcends the grasp of their beliefs and pre-judgments;--that universal fact which men are brought in contact with, in all their doing, and in all their suffering, whether pleasurable or painful.

That _universal_, actual fact, whose science philosophy has. .h.i.therto set aside, in favour of its own pre-notions, as a thing not worth taking into the account,--that mystic, occult, unfathomed fact, that is able to a.s.sert itself in the face of our most authoritative pre-notions, whose science, under the vulgar name of experience, all the learning of the world had till then made over with a scorn ineffable to the cultivation of the unlearned. Under that despised name which the old philosophy had omitted in its chart, the new perceived that the ground lay, and made all sail thither.

We cannot expect to find then any of those old terms and definitions included in the trunk of the new system, which is science. None of those airy fruits that grow on the branches which those old roots of a false metaphysics must needs nurture,--none of those apples of Sodom which these have mocked us with so long, shall the true seeker find on these boughs. The man of science does not, indeed, care to displace those terms in the popular dialect _here_, any more than the chemist or the botanist will insist on reforming the ordinary speech of men with _their_ truer language in the fields they occupy. The new Logician and Metaphysician will himself, indeed, make use of these same terms, with a hint to 'men of understanding,' perhaps, as to the sense in which he uses them.

Incorporated into a system of learning on which much human labour has been bestowed, they may even serve some good practical purposes under certain conditions of social advancement. And besides, they are useful for adorning discourse, and furnish abundance of rhetorical material.

Above all, they are invaluable to the scholastic controversialists, and the new philosopher will not undertake to displace them in these fields. He steadfastly refuses to come into any collision with them.

He leaves them to take their way without. He makes them over to the vulgar, and to those old-fas.h.i.+oned schools of logic and metaphysics, whose endless web is spun out of them. But when the question is of practice, that is another thing. It is the scientific word that is wanting here. That is the word which in his school he will undertake to teach.

When it comes to practice, professional practice, like the botanist and the chemist, he will make his own terms. He has a machine expressly for that purpose, by which new terms are framed and turned out in exact accordance with the nature of things. He does not wish to quarrel with any one, but in the way of his profession, he will have none of those old confused terms thrust upon him. He will examine them, and a.n.a.lyze them; and all,--_all_ that is in them,--all, and more, will be in his; _but_ scientifically cleared, 'divided with the mind, that divine fire,' and clothed with power.

And it is just as impossible that those changes for the human relief which the propounder of the New Logic propounded as its chief end, should ever be effected by means of the popular terms which our metaphysicians are still allowed to retain in the highest fields of professional practice, as it would have been to effect those lesser reforms which this logic has already achieved, if those old elementary terms, earth, fire, air, water,--terms which antiquity thought fine enough; which pa.s.sed the muster of the ancient schools without suspicion, had never to this hour been a.n.a.lyzed.

It is just as easy to suppose that we could have had our magnetic telegraphs, and daguerreotypes, and our new Materia Medica, and all the new inventions of modern science for man's relief, if the terms which were simple terms in the vocabulary of Aristotle and Pliny, had never been tested with the edge of the New Machine, and divided with its divine fire, if they had not ceased to be in the schools at least elementary; it is just as easy to suppose this, as it is to suppose that the true and n.o.bler ends of science can ever be attained, so long as the powers that are _actual_ in our human life, which are still at large in all their blind instinctive demoniacal strength _there_, which still go abroad free-footed, unfettered of science _there_, while we chain the lightning, and send it on our errands,--so long as these still slip through the ring of our airy 'words,' still riot in the freedom of our large generalizations, our sublime abstractions,-- so long as a mere _human_ word-ology is suffered to remain here, clogging all with its deadly impotence,--keeping out the true generalizations with their grappling-hooks on the particulars, --the creative word of art which man learns from the creating wisdom, --the word to which rude nature bows anew,--the word which is Power.

But while the world is resounding with those new relations to the powers of nature which the science of nature has established in other fields, in that department of it, which its Founder tells us is 'the end and term of Natural Science in the intention of man,' in that department of it to which his labor was directed; we are still given over to the inventions of Aristotle, applied to those rude conceptions and theories of the nature of things which the unscientific ages have left to us. Here we have still the loose generalization, the untested affirmation, the arrogant pre-conception, the dogmatic a.s.sumption.

Here we have the mere phenomena of the human speciality put forward as science, without any attempt to find their genera,--to trace them to that which is more known to nature, so as to connect them practically with the diversity and opposition, which the actual conditions of practice present.

We have not, in short, the scientific language here yet. The vices and the virtues do not understand the names by which we call them, and undertake to command them. Those are not the names in that 'infinite book of secrecy' which they were taught in. They find a more potent order there.

And thus it is, that the demons of human life go abroad here still, impervious alike to our banning and our blessing. The powers of nature which are included in the human nature,--the powers which in this _specific_ form of them we are undertaking to manage with these vulgar generalizations, tacked together with the Aristotelian logic--these powers are no more amenable to any such treatment in this form, than they are in those other forms, in which we are learning to approach them with another vocabulary.

The forces which are developed in the human life will not answer to the names by which we call them _here_, any more than the lightning would answer to the old Magician's incantation,--any more than it would have come if the old Logician had called it by _his_ name,--which was just as good as the name--and no better, than the name, which the priest of Baal gave it,--any more than it would have come, if the old Logician had undertaken to fetch it, with the harness of his syllogism.

But when the new Logician, who was the new Magician, came, with 'the part operative' of his speculation; with his 'New Machine,' with the rod of his new definition, with the staff of _his_ genera and species,--when the right name was found for it, it heard, it heard afar, it heard in its heaven and _came_. It came fast enough then. It was 'asleep,' but it awaked. It was 'taking a journey' but it came.

There was no affectation of the graces of the G.o.ds when the new interpreter and prophet of nature, who belonged to the new order of Interpreters, sent up his little messenger, without any pomp or ceremony, or 'windy suspiration of forced breath,' and fetched it.

But that was an Occidental philosopher, one of the race who like to see effects of some kind, when there is nothing in the field to forbid it. That was one of the Doctors who are called in this system 'Interpreters of nature,' to distinguish them from those who 'rashly antic.i.p.ate' it. He did not make faces, and cut himself with knives and lances, after a prescribed manner, and prophesy until evening, though there was no voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. He knew that that G.o.d at least would not stop on his journey; or if, peradventure, he slept, would not be wakened by any such process.

And the farther the world proceeds on that 'new road' it is travelling at present, the more the demand will be heard in this quarter, for an adaptation of instrumentalities to the advanced, and advancing ages of modern learning and civilization, and to that more severe and exacting genius of the occidental races, that keener and more subtle, and practical genius, from whose larger requisitions and powers this advancement proceeds.

CHAPTER X.