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Bacon Delia Salter
The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

CHAPTER IX

THE CURE – PLAN OF INNOVATION – NEW DEFINITIONS

 
'Swear by thy double self
And that's an oath of credit.'
 

 
'Having thus far proceeded
… Is it not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other conclusions?'
 

It is the trunk of the prima philosophia then which puts forth these new and wondrous boughs, into all the fields of human speculation and practice, filling all our outdoor, penetrating all our indoor life, with their beauty and fragrance; overhanging every roof, stooping to every door, with their rich curtains and clusters of ornament and delight, with their ripe underhanging clusters of axioms of practice – brought down to particulars, ready for use – with their dispersed directions overhanging every path, – with their aphorisms made out of the pith and heart of sciences, 'representing a broken knowledge, and, therefore, inviting the men of speculation to inquire farther.'

It is from this trunk of a scientific universality, of a useful, practical, always-at-hand, all-inclusive, historical universality, to which the tracking of the principles, operant in history, to their simple forms and 'causes in nature,' conducts the scientific experimenter, – it is from this primal living trunk and heart of sciences, to which the new method of learning conducts us, that this great branch of scientific practice comes, which this drama with its 'transitory shows' has brought safely down to us; – this two-fold branch of ethics and politics, which come to us – conjoined – as ethics and politics came in other systems then not scientific, – making in their junction, and through all their divergencies, 'the forbidden questions' of science.

The science of this essentially conjoined doctrine is that which makes, in this case, the novelty. 'The nature which is formed in everything,' and not in man only, and the faculty, in man, of comprehending that wider nature, is that which makes the higher ground, from which a science of his own specific nature, and the explanation of its phenomenon, is possible to man. Except from this height of a common nature, there is no such thing as a scientific explanation of these phenomena possible. And this explanation is what the specific nature in man, with its speculative grasp of a larger whole – with its speculative grasp of a universal whole, – with its instinctive moral reach and comprehension corresponding to that, – constitutionally demands and 'anticipates.'

And the knowledge of this nature which is formed in everything, and not in man only, is the beginning, not of a speculative science of the human nature merely, – it is the beginning, – it is the indispensable foundation of the arts in which a successful artistic advancement of that nature, or an artistic cure or culture of it is propounded. The fact that the 'human nature' is, indeed, what it is called, a 'nature,' the fact that the human species is a species, – the fact that the human kind is but a kind, neighboured with many others from which it is isolated by its native walls of ignorance, – neighboured with many others, more or less known, known and unknown, more or less kind-ly, more or less hostile, – species, kinds, whose dialects of the universal laws, man has not found, – the fact that the universal, historic principles are operant in all the specific modifications of human nature, and control and determine them, the fact that the human life admits of a scientific analysis, and that its phenomena require to be traced to their true forms, – this is the fact which is the key to the new philosophy, – the key which unlocks it, – the key to the part speculative, and the part operative of it.

And this is the secret of the difference between this philosophy and all other systems and theories of man's life on earth that had been before it, or that have come after it. For this new and so solid height of natural philosophy, – solid, – historical, – from its base in the divergency of natural history, to its utmost peak of unity, – this scientific height of a common nature, whose summit is 'prima philosophia,' with its new universal terms and axioms, – this height from which man, as a species, is also overlooked, and his spontaneous notions and theories criticised, subjected to that same criticism with which history itself is always flying in the face of them, – from which the specific bias in them is everywhere detected, – this new 'pyramid' of knowledge is the one on whose rock-hewn terraces the conflict of views, the clash of man's opinions shall not sound: this is the system which has had, and shall have, no rival.

And this is the key to this philosophy, not where it touches human nature only, but everywhere where it substitutes for abstract human notions – specific human notions that are powerless in the arts, or narrow observations that are restrained and uncertain in the rules of practice they produce, – powers, true forms, original agencies in nature, universal powers, sure as nature herself, and her universal form.

To abase the specific human arrogance, to overthrow 'the idols of the tribe,' is the ultimate condition of this learning. Man as man, is not a primal, if he be an ultimate, fact in nature. Nature is elder and greater than he, and requires him to learn of her, and makes little of his mere conceits and dogmas.

From the height of that new simplicity which this philosophy has gained – not as the elder philosophies had gained theirs, by pure contemplation, by hasty abstraction and retreat to the à priori sources of knowledge and belief in man, – which it has gained, too, by a wider induction than the facts of the human nature can supply – with the torch of these universal principles cleared of their historic complexities, with the torch of the nature that is formed in everything, it enters here this great, unenclosed field of human life and practice, this Spenserian wilderness, where those old, gnarled trunks, and tangled boughs, and wretched undergrowths of centuries, stop the way, where those old monsters, which the action of this play exposes, which this philosophy is bound to drag out to the day, are hid.

The radical universal fact – the radical universal distinction of the double nature of GOOD which is formed in everything, and not in man only, and the two universal motions which correspond to that, the one, as everything, is a total or substantive in itself, with its corresponding motion; for this is the principle of selfishness and war in nature – the principle which struggles everywhere towards decay and the dissolution of the larger wholes, and not in man only, though the foolish, unscientific man, who does not know how to track the phenomena of his own nature to their causes, – who has no bridge from the natural internal phenomena of his own consciousness into the continent of nature, may think that it is, and reason of it as if it were; – this double nature of good, 'the one, as a thing, is a total or substantive in itself, the other as it is, a part or member of a greater body, whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, as it tends to the conservation of a more general form' – this distinction, which the philosopher of this school has laid down in his work on the scientific advancement of the human species, with a recommendation that it should be strongly planted, which he has planted there, openly, as the root of a new science of ethics and policy, will be found at the heart of all this new history of the human nature; but in this play of the true nobility, and the scientific cure of the commonweal, it is tracked openly to its most immediate, obvious, practical application. In all these great 'illustrated' scientific works, which this new school of learning, with the genius of science for its master, contrived to issue, all the universally actual and active principles are tracked to their proper specific modifications in man, and not to their development in his actual history merely; and the distinctive essential law of the human kind – the law whereby man is man, as distinguished from the baser kinds, is brought up, and worked out, and unfolded in all its detail, from the bosom of the universal law – is brought down from its barren height of isolation, and planted in the universal rule of being, in the universal law of kinds and essence. This double nature of good, as it is specifically developed in man, not as humanity only, for man is not limited to his kind in his intelligence, or in his will, or in his affections, – this double nature of good, as it is developed in man, with his contemplative, and moral, and religious grasp of a larger whole than his particular and private nature can comprehend – with his large discourse looking before and after, on the one hand, and his blind instincts, and his narrow isolating senses on the other – with that distinctive human nature on the one hand, whereby he does, in some sort, comprehend the world, and not intellectually only – that nature whereby 'the world is set in his heart,' and not in his mind only – that nature which by the law of advancement to the perfection of his form, he struggles to ascend to – that, on the one hand, and that whereby he is kindred with the lower natures on the other, swayed by a gosling's instinct, held down to the level of the pettiest, basest kinds, forbidden to ascend to his own distinctive excellence, allied with species who have no such intelligent outgoing from particulars, who cannot grasp the common, whose sphere nature herself has narrowed and walled in, – these two universal natures of good, and all the passion and affection which lie on that tempestuous border line where they blend in the human, and fill the earth with the tragedy of their confusion, – this two-fold nature, and its tragic blending, and its true specific human development, whereby man is man, and not degenerate, lies discriminated in all these plays, tracked through all their wealth of observation, through all their characterization, through all their mirth, through all their tempests of passion, with a line so firm, that only the instrument of the New Science could have graven it.

Of all the sciences, Policy is the most immersed in matter, and the hardliest reduced to axiom'; but setting out from that which is constant and universal in nature, this philosopher is not afraid to undertake it; and, indeed, that is what he is bent on; for unless those universal, historical principles, which he has taken so much pains to exhibit to us clearly in their abstract form, 'terminate in matter and construction according to the true definitions, they are speculative and of little use.' The termination of them in matter, and the new construction according to true definitions, is the business here. This, which is the hardliest reduced to axiom of any, is that which lies collected on the Inductive Tables here, cleared of all that interferes with the result; and the axiom of practice, which is the 'second vintage' of the New Machine, is expressed before our eyes. 'For that which in speculative philosophy corresponds to the cause, in practical philosophy becomes the rule.'

He starts here, with this grand advantage which no other political philosopher or reformer had ever had before; he has the true definition in his hands to begin with; not the specific and futile notions with which the human mind, shut up within itself, seeks to comprehend and predict and order all, but the solid actual universals that the mind of man, by the combination and scientific balance of its faculties, is able to ascend to. He has in his hands, to begin with, the causes that are universal and constant in nature, with which all the historical phenomena are convertible, – the motives from which all movement proceeds, the true original simple powers, – the unknown, into which all the variety of the known is resolvable, or rather the known into which all the variety of the unknown is resolvable; the forms 'which are always present when the particular nature is present, and universally attest that presence; which are always absent when the particular nature is absent, and universally attest that absence; which always increase as the particular nature increases; which always decrease as the particular nature decreases;' that is the kind of definitions which this philosopher will undertake his moral reform with; that is the kind of idea which the English philosopher lays down for the basis of his politics. Nothing less solid than that will suit the turn of his genius, either in speculation or practice. He does full justice to the discoveries of the old Greek philosophers, whose speculation had controlled, not the speculation only, but all the practical doctrine of the world, from their time to his. He saw from what height of genius they achieved their command; but that was two thousand years before, and that was in the south east corner of Europe; and when the Modern Europe began to think for itself, it was found that the Greeks could not give the law any longer. It was found that the English notions at least, and the Greek notions of things in general differed very materially – essentially – when they came to be put on paper. When the 'representative men' of those two corners of Europe, and of those two so widely separated ages of the human advancement, came to discourse together from their 'cliffs' and compare notes, across that sea of lesser minds, the most remarkable differences, indeed, began to be perceptible at once, though the world has not yet begun to appreciate them. It was a difference that was expected to tell on the common mind, for a time, principally in its 'effects.' Everybody, the learned and the unlearned, understands now, that after the modern survey was taken, new practical directions were issued at once. Orders came down for an immediate suspension of those former rules of philosophy, and the ship was laid on a new course. 'Plato,' says the new philosopher, 'as one that had a wit of elevation situate upon a cliff, did descry that forms are the true object of knowledge,' that was his discovery, – 'but lost the fruit of that opinion by' – shutting himself up, in short, in his own abstract contemplations, in his little world of man, and getting out his theory of the universe, before hand, from these; instead of applying himself practically and modestly to the observation of that universe, in which man's part is so humble. 'Vain man,' says our oldest Poet, 'vain man would be wise, who is born like a wild ass's colt.'

But let us take a specimen of the manner in which the propounder of the New Ideal Philosophy 'comes to particulars,' with this quite new kind of IDEAS, and we shall find that they were designed to take in some of those things in heaven and earth that were omitted, or not dreampt of in the others, – which were not included in the 'idols.' He tells us plainly that these are the ideas with which he is going to unravel the most delicate questions; but he is willing to entertain his immediate audience, and propitiate the world generally, by trying them, or rather giving orders to have them tried, on other things first. He does not pride himself very much on anything which he has done, or is able to do in these departments of inquiry from which his instances are here taken, and he says, in this connection: – 'We do not, however, deny that other instances can perhaps be added.' In order to arrive at his doctrine of practice in general, he begins after the scientific method, not with the study of any one kind of actions only, he begins by collecting the rules of action in general. By observation of species he seeks to ascend to the principles common to them. And he comes to us with a carefully prepared scheme of the 'elementary motions,' – outlined, and enriched with such observations as he and his school have been able to make under the disadvantages of that beginning. 'The motions of bodies,' he observes, 'are compounded, decomposed and combined, no less than the bodies themselves,' and he directs the attention of the student, who has his eye on practice, with great emphasis, to those instances which he calls 'instances of predominance,' – 'instances which point out the predominance and submission of powers, compared' [not in abstract contemplation but in action,] 'compared with each other, and which,' [not in books but in action,] – 'which is the more energetic and superior, or more weak and inferior.'

'These "elementary notions" direct and are directed by each other, according to their strength, – quantity, excitement, concussion, or the assistance, or impediments they meet with. For instance, some magnets support iron sixty times their own weight; so far does the motion of lesser congregation predominate over the greater, but if the weight be increased it yields.'

[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, principally to this class 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 lordships, 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 quantity of water flows through a chink, and so far the motion of greater congregation predominates over that of continuity; but if the chink 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 assisted 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 class of instances is valued chiefly for its illustration 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 class 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 class 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 pass,' there is no difficulty in inserting such intimations as to the latitude 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 quantities 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 illustrations 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 anticipation, 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 class 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 space 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 illustrious web is made of its involutions, – is a point of 'illustration.'

Yes, here he is again. Here he is at last, in that promised field of his labours, – that field of 'noblest 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 chink,' or resisting gravity, if the chink 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 masses, or in the lever, assisted by human hands, vanquishing 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 God 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, analyses, 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 assent, 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.