The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

'Nature craves

All dues to be rendered to their owners.'

But this great innovator is busying himself here with drawing up a report of THE DEFICIENCIES IN LEARNING; and though he is the first to propose a plan and method by which men shall build up, systematically and scientifically, a knowledge of Nature in general, instead of throwing themselves altogether upon their own preconceptions and abstract controversial theories, after all, the principal deficiency which he has to mark – that to which, even in this dry report, he finds himself constrained to affix some notes of admiration – this principal deficiency is THE SCIENCE OF MAN – THE SCIENCE of human nature itself. And the reason of this deficiency is, that very deficiency before named; it is that very act of shutting himself up to his own theories which leaves the thinker without a science of himself. 'For it is the greatest proof of want of skill, to investigate the nature of any object in itself alone; and, in general, those very things which are considered as secret, are manifested and common in other objects, but will never be clearly seen if the contemplations and experiments of men be directed to themselves alone.' It is this science of NATURE IN GENERAL which makes the SCIENCE of Human Nature for the first time possible; and that is the end and term of the new philosophy, – so the inventor of it tells us. And the moment that he comes in with that new torch, which he has been out into 'the continent of nature' to light, – the moment that he comes back with it, into this old debateable ground of the schools, and begins to apply it to that element in the human life in which the scientific innovation appears to be chiefly demanded, 'most of the controversies,' as he tells us very simply – 'most of the controversies, wherein moral philosophy is conversant, are judged and determined by it.'

But here is the bold and startling criticism with which he commences his approach to this subject; here is the ground which he makes at the first step; this is the ground of his scientific innovation; not less important than this, is the field which he finds unoccupied. In the handling of this science he says, (the science of 'the Appetite and Will of Man'), 'those which have written seem to me to have done as if a man that professed to teach to write did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand, or the framing of the letters; so have they made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them, well described, as the true objects and scopes of man's will and designs; but how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably; for it is not,' he says, 'certain scattered glances and touches that can excuse the absence of this part of – SCIENCE.

'The reason of this omission,' he supposes, 'to be that hidden rock, whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast away, which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof, nevertheless, is the wisest doctrine; for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties, but, contrariwise, they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses.' But his theory of teaching is, that 'Doctrine should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher; being directed to the auditor's benefit, and not to the author's commendation.' Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune which the poet Virgil promised himself, and, indeed, obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations of husbandry as of the heroical acts of Æneas.

'Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorum.' Georg. iii. 289.

So, then, there is room for a new Virgil, but his theme is here; – one who need not despair, if he be able to bring to his subject those excellent parts this author speaks of, of getting as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations of this husbandry, as those have had who have sketched the ideal forms of the human life, the dream of what should be. The copies and exemplars of good, – that vision of heaven, – that idea of felicity, and beauty, and goodness that the human soul brings with it, like a memory, – those celestial shapes that the thought and heart of man, by a law in nature, project, – that garden of delights that all men remember, and yearn for, and aspire to, and will have, in one form or another, in delicate air patterns, or gross deceiving images, – that large, intense, ideal good which men desire – that perfection and felicity, so far above the rude mocking realities which experience brings them, – that, that has had its poets. No lack of these exemplars the historian finds, when he comes to make out his report of the condition of his kind – where he comes to bring in his inventory of the human estate: when so much is wanting, that good he reports 'not deficient.' Edens in plenty, – gods, and demi-gods, and heroes, not wanting; the purest abstract notions of virtue and felicity, the most poetic embodiments of them, are put down among the goods which the human estate, as it is, comprehends. This part of the subject appears, to the critical reviewer, to have been exhausted by the poets and artists that mankind has always employed to supply its wants in this field. No room for a poet here! The draught of the ideal Eden is finished; – the divine exemplar is finished; that which is wanting is, —the husbandry thereunto.

Till now, the philosophers and poetic teachers had always taken their stand at once, on the topmost peak of Olympus, pouring down volleys of scorn, and amazement, and reprehension, upon the vulgar nature they saw beneath, made out of the dust of the ground, and qualified with the essential attributes of that material, – kindled, indeed, with a breath of heaven, but made out of clay, – different kinds of clay, – with more or less of the Promethean spark in it; but always clay, of one kind or another, and always compelled to listen to the laws that are common to the kinds of that substance. And it was to this creature, thus bound by nature, thus doubly bound, – 'crawling between earth and heaven,' as the poet has it, – that these winged philosophers on the ideal cliffs, thought it enough to issue their mandates, commanding it to renounce its conditions, to ignore its laws, and come up thither at a word, – at a leap, – making no ado about it.

'I can call spirits from the vasty deep.'
'And so can I, and so can any man;'

Says the new philosopher —

'But will they come?Will they come– when you do call for them?'

It was simply a command, that this dirty earth should convert itself straight into Elysian lilies, and bloom out, at a word, with roses of Paradise. Excellent patterns, celestial exemplars, of the things required were held up to it; and endless declamation and argument why it should be that, and not the other, were not wanting: – but as to any scientific inquiry into the nature of the thing on which this form was to be superinduced, as to any scientific exhibition of the form itself which was to be superinduced, these so essential conditions of the proposed result, were in this case alike wanting. The position which these reformers occupy, is one so high, that the question of different kinds of soils, and chemical analyses and experiments, would not come within their range at all; and 'the resplendent or lustrous mass of matter,' of which their sciences are compounded, chosen to give glory either to the subtilty of disputations or to the eloquence of discourses, would not bear any such vulgar admixture. It would make a terrible jar in the rhythm, which those large generalizations naturally flow in, to undertake to introduce into them any such points of detail.

And the new teacher will have a mountain too; but it will be one that 'overlooks the vale,' and he will have a rock-cut-stair to its utmost summit. He is one who will undertake this despised unlustrous matter of which our ordinary human life consists, and make a science of it, building up its generalizations from its particulars, and observing the actual reality, – the thing as it is, freshly, for that purpose; and not omitting any detail, – the poorest. The poets who had undertaken this theme before had been so absorbed with the idea of what man should be, that they could only glance at him as he is: the idea of a science of him, was not of course, to be thought of. There was but one name for the creature, indeed, in their vocabulary and doctrine, and that was one which simply seized and embodied the general fact, the unquestionable historic fact, that he has not been able hitherto to attain to his ideal type in nature, or indeed to make any satisfactory approximation to it.

But when the Committee of Inquiry sits at last, and the business begins to assume a systematic form, even the science of that ideal good, that exemplar and pattern of good, which men have been busy on so long, – the science of it, – is put down as 'wanting,' and the science of the husbandry thereunto, 'wholly deficient.'

And the report is, that this new argument, notwithstanding its every-day theme, is one that admits of being sung also; and that the Virgil who is able to compose 'these Georgies of the Mind,' may promise himself fame, though his end is one that will enable him to forego it. Let us see if we can find any further track of him and his great argument, whether in prose or verse; – this poet who cares not whether he has his 'singing robes' about him or not, so he can express and put upon record his new 'observations of this husbandry.'

THE EXEMPLAR OF GOOD. – 'And surely,' he continues, 'if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure that which men may read at leisure' – note it – that which men may read at leisure – 'but really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these GEORGICS of the MIND, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity; therefore the main and primitive division of MORAL KNOWLEDGE, seemeth to be into the EXEMPLAR or PLATFORM of GOOD, and THE REGIMEN or CULTURE OF THE MIND, the one describing the NATURE of GOOD, the other prescribing RULES how to SUBDUE, APPLY, and ACCOMMODATE THE WILL OF MAN THEREUNTO.'

As to 'the nature of good, positive or simple,' the writers on this subject have, he says, 'set it down excellently, in describing the forms of virtue and duty, with their situations, and postures, in distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like: nay, farther, they have commended them to man's nature and spirit, with great quickness of argument, and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them, as much as discourse can do, against corrupt and popular opinions. And for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have excellently handled it also.' – That part deserveth to be reported for 'excellently laboured.'

What is it that is wanting then? What radical, fatal defect is it that he finds even in the doctrine of the NATURE OF GOOD? What is the difficulty with this platform and exemplar of good as he finds it, notwithstanding the praise he has bestowed on it? The difficulty is, that it is not scientific. It is not broad enough. It is special, it is limited to the species, but it is not properly, it is not effectively, specific, because it is not connected with the doctrine of nature in general. It does not strike to those universal original principles, those simple powers which determine the actual historic laws and make the nature of things itself. This is the criticism, therefore, with which this critic of the learning of the world as he finds it, is constrained to qualify that commendation.

Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received notions of 'vice' and 'virtue,' 'pleasure' and 'pain,' and the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning THE ROOTS of GOOD and EVIL, and the strings to those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that which followed, and especially if they had consulted with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound, which being by them in part omitted, and in part handled with much confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner. Here then, is the preparation of the Platform or Exemplar of Good, the scientific platform of virtue and felicity; going behind the popular notion of vice and virtue, pain and pleasure, and the like, he strikes at once to the nature of good, as it is 'formed in everything,' for the foundation of this specific science. He lays the beams of it, in the axioms and definitions of his 'prima philosophia' 'which do not fall within the compass of the special parts of science, but are more common and of a higher stage, for the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree that meet in a stem which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance before it comes to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs,' and it is not the narrow and specific observation on which the popular notions are framed, but the scientific, which is needed for the New Ethics, – the new knowledge, which here too, is POWER. He must detect and recognise here also, he must track even into the nature of man, those universal 'footsteps' which are but 'the same footsteps of nature treading or printing in different substances.' 'There is formed in everything a double nature of good, the one as everything is a total or substantive in itself, and the other, as it is a part or member of a greater body whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general form… This double nature of good, and the comparison thereof, is much more engraven upon MAN, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and being;' and, by way of illustration, he mentions first the case of Pompey the Great, 'who being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency by his friends, that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, "Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam."' But, he adds, 'it may be truly affirmed, that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as the holy faith, well declaring that it was the same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves anathematised, and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity, and infinite feeling of communion.'

And having first made good his assertion, that this being set down, and strongly planted, determines most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant, he proceeds to develop still further these scientific notions of good and evil, which he has gone below the popular notions and into the nature of things to find, these scientific notions, which, because they are scientific, he has still to go out of the specific nature to define; and when he comes to nail down his scientific platform of the human good with them, when he comes to strike their clear and simple lines, deep as the universal constitution of things, through the popular terms, and clear up the old confused theories with them, we find that what he said of them beforehand was true; they do indeed throw great light upon that which follows.

To that exclusive, incommunicative good which inheres in the private and particular nature, – and he does not call it any hard names at all from his scientific platform; indeed in the vocabulary of the Naturalist we are told, that these names are omitted, 'for we call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools their folly,' – that exclusive good he finds both passive and active, and this also is one of those primary distinctions which 'is formed in all things,' and so too is the subdivision of passive good which follows. 'For there is impressed upon all things a triple desire, or appetite, proceeding from love to themselves; one, of preserving and continuing their form; another, of advancing and perfecting their form; and a third, of multiplying and extending their form upon other things; whereof the multiplying or signature of it upon other things, is that which we handled by the name of active good.' But passive good includes both conservation and perfection, or advancement, which latter is the highest degree of passive good. For to preserve in state is the less; to preserve with advancement is the greater. As to man, his approach or assumption to DIVINE or ANGELICAL NATURE is the perfection of his form, the error or false imitation of which good is that which is the tempest of human life. So we have heard before; but in the doctrine which we had before, it was the dogma, – the dogma whose inspiration and divinity each soul recognized; to whose utterance each soul responded, as deep calleth unto deep, – it was the Law, the Divine Law, and not the science of it, that was given.

And having deduced 'that good of man which is private and particular, as far as seemeth fit,' he returns 'to that good of man which respects and beholds society,' which he terms DUTY, because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed towards others, as the term of VIRTUE is applied to a mind well formed and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue, without some relation to society, nor duty, without an inward disposition.

But he wishes us to understand and remember, now that he comes out of the particular nature, and begins to look towards society with this term of Duty, that he is still dealing with 'the will of particular persons,' that it is still the science of morals, and not politics, that he is meddling with. 'This part may seem at first,' he says, 'to pertain to science civil and politic, but not if it be well observed; for it concerneth the regiment and government of every man over himself, and not over others.' And this is the plan which he has marked out in his doctrine of government as the most hopeful point in which to commence political reformations; and one cannot but observe, that if this art and science should be successfully cultivated, the one which he dismisses so briefly would be cleared at once of some of those difficulties, which rendered any more direct treatment of it at that time unadvisable. This part of learning concerneth then 'the regiment and government of every man over himself, and not over others.' 'As in architecture the direction of the framing the posts, beams, and other parts of building, is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting the building; and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame AN INSTRUMENT OR ENGINE is not the same with the manner of setting it on work, and employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one, you incidentally express the aptness towards the other [hear] so the doctrine of the conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their conformity thereunto.' The received doctrine of that conjugation certainly appeared to; and the more this scientific doctrine of the parts, and the conformity thereunto, is incidentally expressed, – the more the scientific direction how to frame the instrument or engine, is opened, the more this difference becomes apparent.

But even in limiting himself to the individual human nature as it is developed in particular persons, regarding society only as it is incidental to that, even in putting down his new scientific platform of the good that the appetite and will of man naturally seeks, and in marking out scientifically its degrees and kinds, he gives us an opportunity to perceive in passing, that he is not altogether without occasion for the use of that particular art, with its peculiar 'organs' and 'methods' and 'illustration,' which he recommends under so many heads in his treatise on that subject, for the delivery or tradition of knowledges, which tend to innovation and advancement– knowledge which is 'progressive' and 'foreign from opinions received.'

This doctrine of duty is sub-divided into two parts; the common duty of every man as a MAN, or A MEMBER of A STATE, which is that part of the platform and exemplar of good, he has before reported as 'extant, and well laboured.' The other is the respective or special duty of every man in his PROFESSION, VOCATION and PLACE; and it is under this head of the special and respective duties of places, vocations and professions, where the subject begins to grow narrow and pointed, where it assumes immediately, the most critical aspects, – it is here that his new arts of delivery and tradition come in to such good purpose, and stand him instead of other weapons. For this is one of those cases precisely, which the philosopher on the Mountain alluded to, where an argument is set on foot at the table of a man of prodigious fortune, when the man himself is present. Nowhere, perhaps, – in his freest forms of writing, does he give a better reason, for that so deliberate and settled determination, which he so openly declares, and everywhere so stedfastly manifests, not to put himself in an antagonistic attitude towards opinions, and vocations, and professions, as they stood authorized in his time. Nowhere does he venture on a more striking comparison or simile, for the purpose of setting forth that point vividly, and impressing it on the imagination of the reader.

'The first of these [sub-divisions of duty] is extant, and well laboured, as hath been said. The second, likewise, I may report rather dispersed than deficient; which manner of dispersed argument I acknowledge to be best; [it is one he is much given to;] for who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue, challenge and right of EVERY several vocation, profession and place? [ – truly? – ] For although sometimes a looker on, may see more than a gamester, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, 'that the vale best discovereth the hill,' yet there is small doubt, that men can write best, and most really and materially of their own professions,' and it is to be wished, he says, 'as that which would make learning, indeed, solid and fruitful, that active men would, or could, become writers.' And he proceeds to mention opportunely in that connection, a case very much in point, as far as he is concerned, but not on the face of it, so immediately to the purpose, as that which follows. It will, however, perhaps, repay that very careful reading of it, which will be necessary, in order to bring out its pertinence in this connection. And we shall, perhaps, not lose time ourselves, by taking, as we pass, the glimpse which this author sees fit to give us, of the facilities and encouragements which existed then, for the scientific treatment of this so important question of the duties and vices of vocations and professions.

'In which I cannot but mention, honoris causa, your majesty's excellent book, touching the duty of A KING' [and he goes on to give a description which applies, without much 'forcing,' to the work of another king, which he takes occasion to introduce, with a direct commendation, a few pages further on] – 'a work richly compounded of divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts; and being, in mine opinion, one of the most sound and healthful writings that I have read. Not sick of business, as those are who lose themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in matters impertinent; not savoring of perfumes and paintings as those do, who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth, and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth, and apt for action;' – [this passage contains some hints as to this author's notion of what a book should be, in form, as well as substance, and, therefore, it would not be strange, if it should apply to some other books, as well] – 'and far removed from that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted those that write in their own professions, to be subject, which is that they exalt it above measure; for your majesty hath truly described, not a king of Assyria or Persia, in their external glory, [and not that kind of king, or kingly author is he talking of] but a Moses, or a David, pastors of their people.

'Neither can I ever lose out of my remembrance, what I heard your majesty, in the same sacred spirit of government, deliver in a great cause of judicature, which was, that kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of nature, and ought rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative, as God doth his power of working miracles. And yet, notwithstanding, in your book of a free monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as well as _the circle of his office and duty. Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your majesty, as a prime or eminent example of Tractates, concerning special and respective duties.' [It is, indeed, an exemplar that he talks of here.] 'Wherein I should have said as much, if it had been written a thousand years since: neither am I moved with certain courtly decencies, which I esteem it flattery to praise in presence; no, it is flattery to praise in absence: that is, when either the virtue is absent, or – the occasion is absent, and so the praise is not natural, but forced, either in truth, or – in time. But let Cicero be read in his oration pro Marcello, which is nothing but an excellent TABLE of Caesar's VIRTUE, and made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent persons, wiser a great deal than such observers, and we will never doubt upon a full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.'

The reader who does not think that is, on the whole, a successful paragraph, considering the general slipperiness of the subject, and the state of the ice in those parts of it, in particular where the movements appear to be the most free and graceful; such a one has, probably, failed in applying to it, that key of 'times,' which a full occasion is expected to produce for this kind of delivery. But if any doubt exists in any mind, in regard to this author's opinion of the rights of his own profession and vocation, and the circle of its office and duties, – if any one really doubts what only allegiance this author professionally acknowledges, and what kingship it is to which this great argument is internally dedicated, it may be well to recall the statement on that subject, which he has taken occasion to insert in another part of the work, so that that point, at least, may be satisfactorily determined.

He is speaking of 'certain base conditions and courses,' in his criticism on the manners of learned men, which he says 'he has no purpose to give allowance to, wherein divers professors of learning have wronged themselves and gone too far,' – glancing in particular at the trencher philosophers of the later age of the Roman state, 'who were little better than parasites in the houses of the great. But above all the rest,' he continues, 'the gross and palpable flattery, whereunto, many, not unlearned, have abased and abused their wits and pens, turning, as Du Bartas saith, Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and estimation of learning. Neither is the modern dedication, of books and writings as to patrons, to be commended: for that books – such as are worthy the name of books, ought to have no patrons, but– (hear) but – Truth and Reason. And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or to entitle the books with their names, or if to kings and great persons, it was some such as the argument of the book was fit and proper for: but these and the like courses may deserve rather reprehension than defence.

'Not that I can tax,' he continues, however, 'or condemn the application of learned men to men in fortune.' And he proceeds to quote here, approvingly, a series of speeches on this very point, which appear to be full of pertinence; the first of the philosopher who, when he was asked in mockery, 'How it came to pass that philosophers were followers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers,' answered soberly, and yet sharply, 'Because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not'. And then the speech of Aristippus, who, when some one, tender on behalf of philosophy, reproved him that he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity, as for a private suit to fall at a tyrant's feet, replied, 'It was not his fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that he had his ears in his feet'; and, lastly, the reply of another, who, yielding his point in disputing with Caesar, claimed, 'That it was reason to yield to him who commanded thirty legions,' and 'these,' he says, 'these, and the like applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience, cannot be disallowed; for, though they may have some outward baseness, yet, in a judgment truly made, they are to be accounted submissions to the occasion, and not to the person.'

And that is just Volumnia's view of the subject, as will be seen in another place.

Now, this no more dishonors you at all,
Than to take in a town with gentle words,
Which else would put you to your fortune, and
The hazard of much blood. —
And you will rather show our general louts
How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon them,
For the inheritance of their loves, and safeguard
Of what that want might ruin.

But then, in the dramatic exhibition, the other side comes in too: —

I will not do't;
Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth,
And by my body's action, teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.

It is the same poet who says in another place: —

Almost my nature is subdued to that it works in.

'But to return,' as our author himself says, after his complimentary notice of the king's book, accompanied with that emphatic promise to give an account of himself upon a full occasion, and we have here, apparently, a longer digression to apologize for, and return from; but, in the book we are considering, it is, in fact, rather apparent than real, as are most of the author's digressions, and casual introductions of impertinent matter; for, in fact, the exterior order of the discourse is often a submission to the occasion, and is not so essential as the author's apparent concern about it would lead us to infer; indeed he has left dispersed directions to have this treatise broken up, and recomposed in a more lively manner, upon a full occasion, and when time shall serve; for, at present, this too is chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof.

And in marking out the grounds in human life, then lying waste, or covered with superstitious and empirical arts and inventions, in merely showing the fields into which the inventor of this new instrument of observation and inference by rule, was then proposing to introduce it, and in presenting this new report, and this so startling proposition, in those differing aspects and shifting lights, and under those various divisions which the art of delivery and tradition under such circumstances appeared to prescribe; having come, in the order of his report, to that main ground of the good which the will and appetite of man aspires to, and the direction thereto, – this so labored ground of philosophy, – when it was found that the new scientific platform of good, included – not the exclusive good of the individual form only, but that of those 'larger wholes,' of which men are constitutionally parts and members, and the special DUTY, – for that is the specific name of this principle of integrity in the human kind, that is the name of that larger law, that spiritual principle, which informs and claims the parts, and conserves the larger form which is the worthier, – when it was found that this part included the particular duty of every man in his place, vocation, and profession, as well as the common duty of men as men, surely it was natural enough to glance here, at that particular profession and vocation of authorship, and the claims of the respective places of king and subject in that regard, as well as at the duty of the king, and the superior advantages of a government of laws in general, as being more in accordance with the order of nature, than that other mode of government referred to. It was natural enough, since this subject lies always in abeyance, and is essentially involved in the work throughout, that it should be touched here, in its proper place, though never so casually, with a glance at those nice questions of conflicting claims, which are more fully debated elsewhere, distinguishing that which is forced in time, from that which is forced in truth, and the absence of the person, from the absence of the occasion.

But the approval of that man of prodigious fortune, to whom this work is openly dedicated, is always, with this author, who understands his ground here so well, that he hardly ever fails to indulge himself in passing, with a good humoured, side-long, glance at 'the situation,' this approval is the least part of the achievement. That which he, too, adores in kings, is 'the throng of their adorers'. It is the sovereignty which makes kings, and puts them in its liveries, that he bends to; it is that that he reserves his art for. And this proposal to run the track of the science of nature through this new field of human nature and its higher and highest aims, and into the very field of every man's special place, and vocation, and profession, could not well be made without a glance at those difficulties, which the clashing claims of authorship, and other professions, would in this case create; without a glance at the imperious necessities which threaten the life of the new science, which here also imperiously prescribe the form of its TRADITION; he could not go by this place, without putting into the reader's hands, with one bold stroke, the key of its DELIVERY.

For it is in the paragraph which follows the compliment to the king in his character as an author, in pursuing still further this subject of vocations and professions, that we find in the form of 'fable' and 'allusion,' – that form which the author himself lays down in his Art of Tradition, as the form of inculcation for new truth, – the precise position, which is the key to this whole method of new sciences, which makes the method and the interpretation, the vital points, in the writing and the reading of them.

'But, to return, there belongeth farther to the handling of this part, touching the Duties of Professions and Vocations, a relative, or opposite, touching the frauds, impostures and vices of every profession, which hath been likewise handled. But how? Rather in a satire and cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit to deride and traduce much of that which is good in PROFESSIONS, than with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt. For, as Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction. But the managing of this argument with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be planted. For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk, that if he see you first, you die for it, but if YOU SEE HIM FIRST – HE DIETH; so it is with deceits and evil arts, which if they be first ESPIED lose their life, but if they prevent, endanger.' [If they see you first, you die for it; and not you only, but your science.

Yet were there but this single plot to lose,
This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,
And throw it against the wind.]