Bacon Delia Salter
The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded
Here, too, the philosopher refers us again to the common discourse of men, as containing wiser observations on this subject, than their books. 'But much the best matter of all,' he says, 'for such a treatise, may be derived from the more prudent historians, and not so well from eulogies or panegyrics, which are usually written soon after the death of an illustrious person, but much rather from a whole body of history, as often as such a person appears, for such an inwoven account gives a better description than panegyrics… But we do not mean that such characters should be received in ethics, as perfect civil images.' They are to be subjected to an artistic process, which will bring out the radical principles in the dispositions and tempers of men in general, as the material of inexhaustible varieties of combination. He will have these historic portraits merely 'for outlines and first draughts of the images themselves, which, being variously compounded and mixed, afford all kinds of portraits, so that an artificial and accurate dissection may be made of MEN'S MINDS AND NATURES, and the secret disposition of each particular man laid open, that from the knowledge of the whole, the PRECEPTS concerning the ERRORS of THE MIND may be MORE RIGHTLY FORMED.' Who did that very thing? Who was it that stood on the spot and put that design into execution?
But this is not all; this is only the beginning of the observation and study of differences. For he would have also included in it, 'those impressions of nature which are otherwise imposed upon by the mind, by the SEX, AGE, COUNTRY, STATE OF HEALTH, MAKE OF BODY, as of beauty and deformity, and THE LIKE, which are inherent and not external:' and more, he will have included in it – in these practical Ethics he will have included – 'POINTS OF FORTUNE,' and the differences that they make; he will have all the differences that this creature exhibits, under any conditions, put down; he will have his whole nature, so far as his history is able to show it, on his table; and not as it is exhibited accidentally, or spontaneously merely, but under the test of a studious inquiry, and essay; he will apply to it the trials and vexations of Art, and wring out its last confession. This is the practical doctrine of this species; this is what the author we have here in hand, calls the science of it, or the beginning of its science. This is one of the parts of science which he says is wanting. Let us follow his running glimpse of the points here, then, and see whether it is extant here, too, and whether there is anything to justify all this preparation in bringing it in, and all this exceeding marvelling at the want of it.
'And again those differences which proceed from FORTUNE, as SOVEREIGNTY, NOBILITY, OBSCURE BIRTH, RICHES, WANT, MAGISTRACY, PRIVATENESS, PROSPERITY, ADVERSITY, constant fortune, variable fortune, rising per saltum, per gradus, and the like.' These are articles that he puts down for points in his table of natural history, points for the collection of instances; this is the tabular preparation for induction here; for he does not conclude his precepts on the popular, miscellaneous, accidental history. That will do well enough for books. It won't do to get out axioms of practice from such loose material. They have to ring with the proof of another kind of condensation. All his history is artificial, prepared history more select and subtle and fit than the other kind, he says, – prepared on purpose; perhaps we shall come across his tables, some day, with these very points on them, filled in with the observations of one, so qualified by the truth of direction to make them 'severe'. It would not be strange, for he gives us to understand that he is not altogether idle in this part of his Instauration, and that he does not think it enough to lay out work for others, without giving an occasional specimen of his own, of the thing which he notes as deficient, and proposes to have done, so that there may be no mistake about it as to what it really is; for he appears to think there is some danger of that. Even here, he produces a few illustrations of his meaning, that it may appear the better what is, and whether it be extant.
'And therefore we see, that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an OLD man beneficent. St. Paul concludeth that severity of discipline was to be used to the Cretans, ("increpa eos dure"), upon the disposition of THEIR COUNTRY. "Cretenses semper mendaces, malæ bestize, ventres pigri." Sallust noteth that it is usual with KINGS to desire contradictories; "Sed plerumque, regiæ voluntates, ut vehementes sunt sic mobiles saepeque ipsæ sibi adversæ." Tacitus observeth how rarely THE RAISING OF THE FORTUNE mendeth the disposition. "Solus Vespasianus mutatus in melius." Pindar maketh an observation that great and sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men. So the Psalm showeth it more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune; "Divitiæ si affluant nolite cor apponere."' 'These observations, and the like,' – what book is it that has so many of 'the like'? – 'I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses.' One would think it was another philosopher, with pretensions not at all inferior, but professedly very much, and altogether superior to those of Aristotle, whose short-comings were under criticism here; 'but they (these observations) were never INCORPORATED into moral philosophy, to which they do ESSENTIALLY appertain, as THE KNOWLEDGE of THE DIVERSITY of GROUND and MOULDS doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the DIVERSITY of COMPLEXIONS and CONSTITUTIONS doth to the physician; except' – note it – 'except we mean to follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to all patients.'
Truly this does appear to give us some vistas of a science, and a 'pretty one,' for these particulars and illustrations are here, that we may see the better what it is, and whether it be extant. That is the question. And it happens singularly enough, to be a question just as pertinent now, as it was when the philosopher put it on his paper, two hundred and fifty years ago.
There is the first point, then, in the table of this scientific history, with its subdivisions and articulations; and here is the second, not less essential. 'Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching THE AFFECTIONS; for, as in medicining the body,' – and it is a practical science we are on here; it is the cure of the mind, and not a word for show, – 'as in medicining the body, it is in order, first, to know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases; and, lastly, the cures; so in medicining of the mind, – after knowledge of the divers characters of men's natures, it followeth, in order, to know the diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers of the affections.' And we shall find, under the head of the medicining of the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which could be better said there than here, because the wrath of professional dignitaries, – the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others. For though 'the Doctors' in that department, did manage, in the dark ages, to possess themselves of certain weapons of their own, which are said to have proved, on the whole, sufficiently formidable, they were not, as it happened, armed by the State as the others then were; and it was usually discretionary with the patient to avail himself, or not, of their drugs, and receipts, and surgeries; whereas, in the diseased and suffering soul, no such discretion was tolerated. The drugs were indeed compounded by the State in person, and the executive stood by, axe in hand, to see that they were taken, accompanying them with such other remedies as the case might seem to require; the most serious operations being constantly performed without ever taking 'the sense' of the patient.
So we must not be surprised to find that this author who writes under such liabilities ventures to bring out the pith of his trunk of sciences, – that which sciences have in common, – the doctrine of the nature of things, – what he calls 'prima philosophia,' when his learned sock is on – a little more strongly and fully in that branch of it, with a glance this way, with a distinct intimation that it is common to the two, and applies here as well. There, too, he complains of the ignorance of anatomy, which is just the complaint he has been making here, and that, for want of it, 'they quarrel many times with the humours which are not in fault, the fault being in the very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diet and medicines familiar.' There, too, he reports the lack of medicinal history, and gives directions for supplying it, just such directions as he gives here, but that which makes the astounding difference in the reading of these reports to-day, is, that the one has been accepted, and the other has not; nay, that the one has been read, and the other has not: for how else can we account for the fact, that men of learning, in our time, come out and tell us deliberately, not merely that this man's place in history, is the place of one who devoted his genius to the promotion of the personal convenience and bodily welfare of men, but, that it is the place of one who gave up the nobler nature, deliberately, on principle, and after examination and reflection, as a thing past help from science, as a thing lying out of the range of philosophy? How else comes it, that the critic to-day tells us, dares to tell us, that this leader's word to the new ages of advancement is, that there is no scientific advancement to be looked for here? – how else could he tell us, with such vivid detail of illustration, that this innovator and proposer of advancement, never intended his Novum Organum to be applied to the cure of the moral diseases, to the subduing of the WILL and the AFFECTIONS, – but thought, because the old philosophy had failed, there was no use in trying the new; – because the philosophy of words, and preconceptions, had failed, the philosophy of observation and application, the philosophy of ideas as they are in nature, and not as they are in the mind of man merely, the philosophy of laws, must fail also; – because ARGUMENT had failed, ART was hopeless; – because syllogisms, based on popular, unscientific notions were of no effect, practical axioms based on the scientific knowledge of natural causes, and on their specific developments, were going to be of none effect also? If the passages which are now under consideration, had been so much as read, how could a learned man, in our time, tell us that the author of the 'Advancement of Learning' had come with any such despairful word as that to us, – to tell us that the new science he was introducing upon this Globe theatre, the science of laws in nature, offered to Divinity and Morality no aid, – no ministry, no service in the cure of the mind? And the reason why they have not been read, the reason why this part of the 'Advancement of Learning,' which is the principal part of it in the intention of its author, has been overlooked hitherto is, that the Art of Tradition, which is described, here – the art of the Tradition, and delivery of knowledges which are foreign from opinions received, was in the hand of its inventor, and able to fulfil his pleasure.
After the knowledge of the divers characters of men's natures then, the next article of this inquiry is the DISEASES and INFIRMITIES of the MIND, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers of THE AFFECTIONS. For as the ancient politicians in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea, and the orators to the winds, because the sea would of itself be calm and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would be peaceable and tractable, if the seditious orators did not set them in working and agitation; so it may be fitly said, that the mind, in the nature thereof, would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And here, again, I find, strange as before, that Aristotle should have written divers volumes of Ethics, and never handled THE AFFECTIONS, which is the principal subject thereof; and yet, in his Rhetorics, where they are considered but collaterally, and in a second degree, as they may be moved by speech, he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the quantity, but where their true place is, he permitteth them. (Very much the method of procedure adopted by the philosopher who composes that criticism; who also finds a place for the affections in passing, where they are considered collaterally, and in a second degree, and for the quantity, he handleth them well, and who knows how to bring his Rhetorics to bear on them, as well as the politicians in popular estates did of old, though for a different end; but where their true place is, he, too, permitteth them; and, in his Novum Organum, he keeps so clear of them, and permits them so fully, that the critics tell us he never meant it should touch them.) 'For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to the particular affections as light is to the particular colours.' Is not this a man for particulars, then? And when he comes to the practical doctrine, – to the art– to the knowledge, which is power, – will he not have particulars here, as well as in those other arts which are based on them? Will he not have particulars here, as well as in chemistry and natural philosophy, and botany and mineralogy; or, when it comes to practice here, will he be content, after all, with the old line of argument, and elegant disquisition, with the old generalities and subtleties of definition, which required no collection of particulars, which were independent of observation, or for which the popular accidental observation sufficed? 'Better travels, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I can gather by that which we have at secondhand. But yet it is like it was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions, which, in a subject of this nature, are but curiosities, than in ACTIVE and AMPLE DESCRIPTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS. So, likewise, I find some particular writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections; as of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance, and others.' And such writings were not confined to the ancients. Some of us have seen elegant writings of this nature, published under the name of the philosopher who composes this criticism, and suggests the possibility of essays of a more lively and experimental kind, and who seems to think that the treatment should be ample, as well as active.
'But the POETS and WRITERS of HISTORY are the best Doctors of this knowledge, where we may find, painted forth with great life, how affections are kindled and incited, and how pacified and refrained;' – certainly, that is the kind of learning we want here: – 'and how, again, contained from act and further degree' – very useful knowledge, one would say, and it is a pity it should not be 'diffused,' but it is not every poet who can be said to have it; – 'how they disclose themselves —how they work – how they vary;' – this is the science of them clearly, whoever has it; – 'how they gather and fortify – how they are enwrapped one within another;' – yes, there is one Poet, one Doctor of this science, in whom we can find that also; – 'and how they do fight and encounter one with another, and other like particularities.' We all know what Poet it is, to whose lively and ample descriptions of the affections and passions – to whose particularities– that description best applies, and in what age of the world he lived; but no one, who has not first studied them as scientific exhibitions, can begin to perceive the force – the exclusive force – of the reference. 'Amongst the which, this last is of special use in MORAL and CIVIL matters: how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another, even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise, percase, we could not so easily recover.' The Poet has not only exhibited this with very voluminous and lively details, but he, too, has concluded his precept; —
'One fire burns out another's burning' —
'One desperate grief cures with another's languish' —
'Take thou some new infection to thine eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.'
Romeo and Juliet.
'As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity;
And pity to the general wrong of Rome
Hath, done this deed _on Cæsar.'
Julius Cæsar.
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. – ALTERATION
Hast thou not learn'd me how
To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so,
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,
(Unless thou think'st me devilish,) is't not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other 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.