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General Introduction; / Or, / Preliminary Treatise on 
 
 Method. / " Non simpliciter nil sciri posse ; sed nil nisi certo ordine certd 
 via sciri posse." Bacon. / Section I. / On the Philosophical Principles of 
 Method. 
 
 Collation : Demy quarto, pp. 43. There is no Title-page proper, the Title (as above) being 
 imposed upon the upper portion of the first page, after the manner of a ' dropped 
 head.' There are head-lines throughout, each verso being headed Introduction, and 
 each recto On the Science of Method. There is no printer's imprint. The text of the 
 Treatise occupies pp. 1 — 43. Upon the reverse of the last page is a table of the Four 
 Divisions of the work. The signatures are b — f (5 sheets, each 4 leaves), plus g 
 (a half-sheet of 2 leaves). 
 
 The First Edition. Bound in polished calf by Riviere, with gilt edges. The leaves measure 
 11 x 81 inches. The book is undated; it was issued in January, ISIS. 
 
 Coleridge's Treatise on Method was first published in the first volume of The Encyclopaedia 
 Metropolitana, 1818. The pamphlet described above is an off-print, of which a few 
 copies were struck for private distribution in advance of the issue of the Encyclopaedia, 
 The number of copies so produced must have been extremely limited. The only othef 
 example I have met with was the property of the late Ernest Hartley Coleridge-, 
 

 Tr.&.A' 
 
 &0%6 S? 
 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION; 
 
 
 OR, 
 
 PRELIMINARY TREATISE ON METHOD. 
 
 Noil siinplicitet nil sciri posse ; sed nil nisi certo ordine certa. viU sciri posse." Bacox. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD. 
 
 The word Encyclopedia is too familiar to modern literature to require, in this Sectioni, 
 place, any detailed explanation. It is current amongst us as the title of various Nature of 
 
 the work. 
 
 Dictionaries of Science, whose professed object is to furnish a compendium of human 
 knowledge, whatever may be their plan. But to methodize such a compendium has 
 either never been attempted, or the attempt has failed, from the total disregard of 
 those general connecting principles, on which Method essentially depends. In pre- 
 senting, therefore, to the Public an entirely new work, intended to be methodically 
 arranged, we are not insensible to the difficulties of our undertaking ; but we trust that 
 we have found a clue to the labyrinth in those considerations which we are now about to 
 submit to the reader. 
 
 As Method is thus avowed to be the principal aim and distinguishing feature of our 
 publication, it becomes us, at the commencement, clearly to explain what we mean in this 
 Introduction by that word ; to exhibit the principles on which alone a correct philoso- 
 phical Method can be founded; to illustrate those principles by their application to 
 distinct studies and to the history of the human mind ; and lastly to apply them to the 
 general concatenation of the several arts and sciences, and to the most perspicuous, 
 
 b 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 elegant, and useful manner of developing each particular study. Such are the objects Section t. 
 of this Essay, which we conceive must form a necessary Introduction to a work, that is 
 designated in its title from the place whence it originates, — the Encyclopaedia Metro- 
 politana; but claims from its mode of execution to be also called "a Methodical 
 Compendium of Human Knowledge." 
 
 m'VT 1 The word Method (fisOoSos), being of Grecian origin, first formed and applied by 
 
 that acute, ingenious, and accurate people, to the purposes of scientific arrangement ; 
 it is in the Greek language that we must seek for its primary and fundamental signi- 
 fication. Now, in Greek, it literally means a way, or path, of transit. Henee the first 
 idea of Method is a progressive transition from one step in any course to another ; and 
 where the word Method is applied with reference to many such transitions in con- 
 tinuity, it necessarily implies a principle of unity with progression. But that 
 which unites, and makes many things one in the mind of man, must be an act of the 
 mind itself, a manifestation of intellect, and not a spontaneous and uncertain pro- 
 duction of circumstances. This act of the mind, then, this leading thought, this 
 " key note " of the harmony, this " subtile, cementing, subterraneous" power, borrow- 
 ing a phrase from the nomenclature of legislation, we may not inaptly call the 
 initiative of all Method. It is manifest, that the wider the sphere of transition is, 
 the more comprehensive and commanding must be the initiative : and if we would 
 discover an universal Method by which every step in our progress through the whole 
 circle of art and science should be directed, it is absolutely necessary that we should 
 seek it in the very interior and central essence of the human intellect. 
 
 aiieScience To this point we are. led by mere reflection on the meaning of the word Method. 
 We discover, that it cannot, otherwise than by abuse, be applied to a dead and arbitrary 
 arrangement, containing in itself no principle of progression. We discover, that there 
 is a Science of Method; and that that science, like all others, must necessarily have its 
 principles; which it therefore becomes our duty to consider, in so far at least as they 
 may be necessary to the arrangement of a Methodical Encyclopaedia. 
 
 its objects, All things, in. us, and about us, are a chaos, without Method : and so long as the- 
 
 tione. mind is entirely passive, so long as there is an habitual submission of the understanding 
 to mere events and images, as such, without any attempt to classify and arrange them, 
 so long the chaos must continue. There may be transition, but there can never be 
 progress; there may be sensation, but there cannot be thought : for the total absence 
 of Method renders thinking impracticable; as we find that partial defects of Method 
 pjoportionably render thinking a trouble and a fatigue. But as soon as the mind 
 becomes accustomed, to contemplate, not things only, but likewise relations of things, 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OP METHOD. 3 
 
 ii.tro.iuc- there is immediate need of some path or way of transit from one to the other of the Sce**>i- 
 
 lion. r J Sa^N'-N-' 
 
 things related ; — there must be some law of agreement or of contrast between them ; 
 there must be some mode of comparison ; in short, there must be Method. We may, 
 therefore, assert that the relations of things form the prime objects, or so to speak, the 
 materials of Method : and that the contemplation of those relations is the indispensable 
 condition of thinking methodically. 
 
 Of these relations of things, we distinguish two principal kinds. One of them is 
 the relation by which we understand that a thing must be : the other, that by which 
 we merely perceive that it is. The one, we call the relation of Law, using that word 
 in its highest and original sense, namely, that of laying down a rule to which the 
 subjects of the law must necessarily conform. The other, we call the relation of 
 Theory. 
 
 The relation of Law is in its absolute perfection conceivable only of God, that Relation of 
 
 * Law. 
 
 Supreme Light, and Living Law, " in whom we live and move, and have our being;" who 
 is £v iravTi, and n-po rtav iravrwv. But yet the human mind is capable of viewing some re- 
 lations of things as necessarily existent ; that is to say, as predetermined by a truth in 
 the mind itself, pregnant with the consequence of other truths in an indefinite progres- 
 sion. Of such truths, some continue always to exist in and for the mind alone, 
 forming the pure sciences, moral or intellectual; whilst others, though originating in 
 the mind, constitute what are commonly called the great laws of nature, and form the 
 groundwork of the mived sciences, such as those of Mechanics and Astronomy. 
 
 The second relation is that of Theory, in which the existing forms and qualities of Relation of 
 
 Theory. 
 
 objects, discovered by observation, suggest a given arrangement of them to the mind, 
 not merely for the purposes of more easy remembrance and communication ; but for 
 those of understanding, and sometimes of controlling them. The studies to which this 
 class of relations is subservient, are more properly called scientific arts than sciences. 
 Medicine, Chemistry, and Physiology, are examples of a Method founded on this 
 second sort of relation, which, as well as the former, always supposes the necessary 
 connection of cause and effect. 
 
 The relations of law and theory have each their Methods. Between these two, lies fine Art*. 
 the Method of the Fine Arts, a Method in which certain great truths, composing, what 
 are usually called the laws of taste, necessarily predominate; but in which there are 
 also other laws, dependent on the external objects of sight and sound, which these arts 
 embrace. To prove the comparative value and dignity of the first relation, it will be 
 sufficient to observe that what is called « tinkling" verse is disagreeable to the accom- 
 plished critic in poetry, and that a fine musical taste is soon dissatisfied with the 
 
 b 2 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Iu tion UC ' Harmonica, or any similar instrument of glass or steel, because the body of the sound J^^_ 
 v ^ v ^ h ^ (as the Italians phrase it), or that effect which is derived from the materials, encroaches 
 too far on the effect derived from the proportions of the notes, which proportions are 
 in fact laws of the mind, analogous to the laws of Arithmetic and Geometry. 
 Principle "We have stated, that Method implies both an uniting and a progressive power. 
 
 of union. -to r 
 
 Now the relations of things are not united in human conception at random — humano 
 capiti — cervicem equinam; but there is some rule, some mode of union, more or less 
 strictly necessary. Where it is absolutely necessary, we have called it a relation of 
 law; and as by law we mean the laying down the rule, so the rule laid down we call, 
 
 ideas. in the ancient and proper sense of the word, an Idea : and consequently the words 
 Idea and Law, are correlative terms, differing only as object and subject, as being 
 and truth. It is extremely necessary to advert to this use of the word Idea; since, in 
 modern philosophy, almost any and every exercise of any and every mental faculty, 
 has been abusively called by this name, to the utter confusion and unmethodising of the 
 whole science of the human mind, and indeed of all other knowledge whatsoever. 
 
 Definite or The idea may exist in a clear, distinct, definite form, as that of a circle in the 
 
 instinctive. » • 
 
 mind of an accurate geometrician ; or it may be a mere instinct, a vague appetency 
 toward something which the mind incessantly hunts for but cannot find, like a name 
 which has escaped our recollection, or the impulse which fills the young poet's eye 
 with tears, he knows not why. In the infancy of the human mind,, all our ideas, are 
 instincts ; and language is happily contrived to lead us from the vague to the distinct, 
 from the imperfect to the full and finished form : the boy knows that his hoop is 
 round, and this, in after years, helps to teach him, that in a circle, all the lines drawn 
 from the centre to the circumference, are equal. It will be seen, in the sequel,, that 
 this distinction between the instinctive approach toward an idea, and the idea itself* 
 is of high importance in methodising art and science, 
 pro^esstonf From the first, or initiative idea, as from a seed, successive ideas germinate. 
 Thus, from the idea of a triangle, necessarily follows that of equality between the sum 
 of its three angles, and two right angles. This is ihep?inciple of an indefinite, not to say 
 infinite, progression ; but this progression, which is truly Method, requires not only the 
 proper choice of an initiative, but also the following it out through all its ramifications. 
 It requires, in short, a constant wakefulness of mind ; so that if we wander but in a 
 single instance from our path, we cannot reach the goal, but by retracing our steps to 
 the point of divergency, and thence beginning our progress anew. Thus, a ship 
 beating off ami on an unknown coast, often takes, in nautical phrase, " a new departure;" 
 and thus it is necessary often to recur to that regulating process, which the French 
 
tioiu 
 
 ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 5 
 
 inuoduc- language so happily expresses by the word sorienter, i. e. to find out the east for our- ^^!i^ 
 selves, and so to put to rights our faulty reckoning. 
 
 The habit of Method, should always be present and effective ; but in order to render j^ of 
 it so, a certain training, or education of the mind, is indispensably necessary. Events adapted w ' 
 and images, the lively and spirit-stirring machinery of the external world, are like light, 
 and air, and moisture, to the seed of the mind, which would else rot and perish. In all 
 processes of mental evolution the objects of the senses must stimulate the mind ; and 
 the mind must in turn assimilate and digest the food which it thus receives from without. 
 Method, therefore, must result from the due mean, or balance, between our passive 
 impressions and the mind's re-action on them. So in the healthful state of the human 
 body, waking and sleep, rest and labour, reciprocally succeed each other, and mutually 
 contribute to liveliness, and activity/ and strength. There are certain stores proper,, 
 and as it were, indigenous to the mind, such as the ideas of number and figure, and 
 the logical forms and combinations of conception or thought. The mind that is rich 
 and exuberant in this intellectual wealth, is apt, like a miser, to dwell upon the vain 
 contemplation of its riches, is disposed to generalize and methodize to excess, ever 
 philosophising, and never descending to action ; — spreading its wings high in the air 
 above some beloved spot, but never flying far and wide over earth and seai to seek 
 food, or to enjoy the endless beauties of nature; the fresh morning, and the warm noon, 
 and the dewy eve. On the other hand, still less is to be expected, toward the metho- 
 dising of science, from the man who flutters about in blindness, like the bat ; or is 
 carried hither and thither, like the turtle sleeping on the wave, and fancying,, beeause he 
 moves, that he is in progress. 
 
 The paths in which we may pursue a methodical course are manifold: at the Proper di. 
 
 c i • t i i rection of. 
 
 head of each stands its pepuhar and guiding idea ; and those ideas are as regularly 
 subordinate in dignity, as the paths to which they point are various and eccentric in 
 direction. The world has suffered much, in modern times, from a subversion of the 
 natural and necessary order of science ; from elevating the terrestrial, as it has been 
 called, above the celestial ; and from summoning reason and faith to the bar of that 
 limited physical experience, to which by the true laws of Method, they owe no obe- 
 dience. The subordination, of which we here speak, is not that which depends on 
 immediate practical utility : for the utility of human powers, in their practical applica- 
 tion, depends on the circumstances of the moment; and at one time strength is 
 essential to our very existence, at another time skill : and even Cresar in a fever could 
 ' cry— 
 
 Give me some drink Titinius, 
 
 As a sick girl.- 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ia «on UC ' * n trut ^ t ^ iere * s scarcel y an y on e of the powers or faculties with which the Divine Section i. 
 
 v- " v * w/ Goodness has endowed his creatures, which may not in its turn be a source of 
 paramount benefit and usefulness ; for every thing around us is full of blessings : nor 
 is there any line of honest occupation in which we would dare to affirm, that by a proper 
 exercise of the talent committed to his charge, an individual might not justly advance 
 himself to highest praise. But we now allude to the subordination which necessarily 
 arises among the different branches of knowledge, according to the difference of those 
 
 S?d d eas 0n ideas D y w hich they are initiated and directed ; for there is a gradation of ideas, as of 
 ranks in a well ordered state, or of commands in a well regulated army; and thus above 
 all partial forms, there is one universal form of good and fair, the KaXoicayaOov of the 
 Platonic philosophy. Hence the expressions of Lord Bacon, who in his great work 
 the Novum Organuni, speaks so much and so often of the lumen siccum, the pure light, 
 which from a central focus, as it were, diffuses its rays all around, and forms a lucid 
 sphere of knowledge and of truth. 
 ■Metaphy- We distinguish ideas into those of essential property, and those of natural 
 
 S1C&1 311(1 
 
 phyjicaL existence; in other words, into metaphysical and physical ideas. Metaphysical ideas, 
 or those which relate to the essence of things as possible, are of the highest class. 
 Thus, in accurate language, we say, the essence of a circle, not its nature; because, in 
 the conception of forms purely geometrical, there is no expression or implication of 
 their actual existence : and our reasoning upon them is totally independent of the fact, 
 whether any such forms ever existed in nature, or not. Physical ideas are those 
 which we mean to express, when we speak of the nature of a thing actually existing 
 and cognizable by our faculties, whether the thing be material or immaterial, bodily 
 or mental. Thus, the laws of memory, the laws of vision, the laws of vegetation, the 
 laws of crystallization, are all physical ideas, dependent for their accuracy, on the more 
 or less careful observation of things actually existing. 
 
 Nature. In speaking of the word Nature, however, we must distinguish its two principal 
 
 uses, viz. first, that to which we have adverted, and according to which it signifies 
 whatever is requisite to the reality of a thing as existent, such as the nature of an animal 
 or a tree, distinguished from the animal or tree itself : and secondly, the sum total of 
 things, as far as they are objects of our senses. In the first of these two meanings, 
 the word Nature . conveys a physical idea, in the other only a material or sensible 
 impression. 
 
 Mere ai- Even natural substances, it is true, may be classed and arranged for various pur- 
 
 rangemtnt • ° 
 
 poses, in a certain order. Such mere arrangement, however, is not properly metho- 
 dical, but rather a preparation toward Method ; as the compilation of a dictionary is 
 a preparation for classical study. 
 
 4 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 7 
 
 The limits of our present Essay will not allow us to do more than briefly to touch Section L 
 the chief topics of a general dissertation on Method ; but enough we trust has here 
 been said, to render intelligible the principles on which our Methodical Encyclopaedia 
 must be constructed. We have shewn that a Method, which is at all comprehensive, 
 must be founded on the relations of things: that those relations are of two sorts, according 
 as they present themselves to the human mind as necessary, or merely as the result of 
 observation. The former we have called relations of law, the latter of theory. Where 
 the former alone are in question, the Method is one of necessary connection throughout ; 
 where the latter alone, though the connection be considered as one of cause and effect, 
 yet the necessity is less obvious, and the connection itself less close. We have ob- 
 served, that in the Fine Arts there is a sort of middle Method, inasmuch as the first 
 and higher relations are necessary, the lower only the results of observation. The 
 great principles of all Method we have shown to be two, viz. Union and Progression. 
 The relations of things cannot be united by accident : they are united by an idea either 
 definite or instinctive. Their union, in proportion as it is clear, is also progressive. 
 The state of mind adapted to such progress holds a due mean between a passiveness 
 under external impression, and an excessive activity of mere reflection ; and the pro- 
 gress itself follows the path of the idea from which it sets out; requiring, however, a 
 constant wakefulness of mind, to keep it within the due limits of its course. Hence 
 the orbits of thought, so to speak, must differ among themselves as the initiative ideas 
 differ ; and of these latter, the great distinctions are into physical and metaphysical. 
 Such, briefly, are the views by which we have been guided, in our present attempt 
 to methodize the great mass of human knowledge. 
 
SECTION II. 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRECEDING PRINCIPLES. 
 
 The principles which have been exhibited in the preceding section, and in respect SectIon n - 
 to which we claim no other merit, than that of having drawn them from the purest 
 sources of philosophy, ancient and modern, are, we trust, sufficiently plain and 
 intelligible in themselves ; but as the most satisfactory mode of proving their accuracy, 
 we proceed to illustrate them by a consideration of some particular studies, pursuits- 
 and opinions; and by a reference to the general history of the -human mind. 
 
 And first, as to the general importance of Method; — what need have we to dilate 
 on this fertile topic ? For it is not solely in the formation of the human understanding, 
 and in the constructions of science and literature, that the employment of Method is 
 indispensably necessary ; but its importance is equally felt, and equally acknowledged, 
 in the whole business and economy of active and domestic life. From the cottager's 
 Domestic hearth or the workshop of the artisan, to the palace or the arsenal, the first merit, 
 
 economy. 
 
 that which admits neither substitute nor equivalent, is, that every thing is in its place. 
 
 Where this charm is wanting, every other merit either loses its name, or becomes an 
 
 additional ground of accusation and regret. Of one, by whom it is eminently possessed, 
 
 we say proverbially, that he is like clock-work. The resemblance extends beyond the 
 
 point of regularity, and yet falls short of the truth. Both do, indeed, at once divide 
 
 and announce the silent and otherwise indistinguishable lapse of time : but the man 
 
 of methodical industry and honourable pursuits, does more ; he realizes its ideal 
 
 divisions, and gives a character and individuality to its moments. If the idle are 
 
 described as killing time, he may be justly said to call it into life and moral being, 
 
 while he makes it the distinct object not only of the consciousness, but of the 
 
 conscience. He organizes the hours, and gives them a soul : and to that, the very 
 
 essence of which is to fleet, and to have been, he communicates an imperishable and 
 
 a spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies, thus directed, are 
 
 thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed, that he lives in time, than that time lives in 
 
 him. His days, months, and years, as the stops and punctual marks in the records of 
 
 duties performed, will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant when time itself 
 
 shall be no more. 
 
 £t;«. r " Let us carry x>ur views a step higher. What is it that first strikes us, and strikes 
 
lion. 
 
 ON' THE SC1EXCE OF METHOD. 9 
 
 iuimduc- us at once in a man of education, and which, among educated men, so instantly ^j°^ 
 distinguishes the man of superior mind ? Not always the weight or novelty of his 
 remarks, nor always the interest of the facts which he communicates ; for the subject 
 of conversation may chance to be trivial, and its duration to be short. Still less can any 
 just admiration arise from any peculiarity in his words and phrases; for every man of 
 practical good sense will follow, as far as the matters under consideration will permit 
 him, that golden rule of Csesar's — Insolens verbum, ianquam scopulum, cvitare. The true 
 cause of the impression made on us is, that his mind is methodical. We perceive this, 
 in the unpremeditated and evidently habitual arrangement of his words, flowing 
 spontaneously and necessarily from the clearness of the leading idea ; from which 
 distinctness of mental vision, when men are fully accustomed to it, they obtain a habit 
 of foreseeing at the beginning of every sentence how it is to end, and how all its parts 
 may be brought out in the best and most orderly succession. However irregular and 
 desultory the conversation may happen to be, there is Method in the fragments. 
 
 Let us once more take an example which must come " home to every man's business MM 
 
 conduct, 
 
 and bosom." Is there not a Method in the discharge of all our relative duties ? And is 
 not he the truly virtuous and truly happy man, who seizing first and laying hold most 
 firmly of the great first Truth, is guided by that divine light through all the meandring 
 and stormy courses of his existence ? To him every relation of life affords a prolific 
 idea of duty ; by pursuing which into all its practical consequences, he becomes a 
 good servant or a good master, a good subject or a good sovereign, a good son or a 
 good father ; a good friend, a good patriot, a good Christian, a good man ! 
 
 It cannot be deemed foreign from the purposes of our disquisition, if we are scientific 
 anxious, before we leave this part of the subject, to attract the attention of our readers 
 to the importance of speculative meditation (which never will be fruitful unless it be 
 methodical) even to the worldly interests of mankind. We can recall no incident of 
 human history that impresses the imagination more deeply than the moment, when 
 Columbus, on an unknown ocean, first perceived that startling fact, the change of the 
 magnetic needle! How many such instances occur in history, where the ideas of 
 nature (presented to chosen minds by a Higher Power than nature herself) suddenly 
 unfold, as it were, in prophetic succession, systematic views destined to produce the- 
 most important revolutions in the state of man ! The clear spirit of Columbus was 
 doubtless eminently methodical. He saw distinctly that great leading idea, which 
 authorised the poor pilot to become, " a promiser of kingdoms :" and he pursued the 
 progressive developement of the mighty truth with an unyielding firmness, which 
 taught him " to rejoice in lofty labours." Our readers will perhaps excuse us for 
 
 c 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 quoting, as illustrative of what we have here observed, some lines from an Ode of § ^^P«. 
 Chiabrera's, which in strength of thought and in lofty majesty of poetry, has but 
 " few peers in ancient or in modern song." 
 
 Columbus. 
 Certo, dal cor, ch' alto Destin non scelse, 
 Son l'imprese magnanime neglette ; 
 Ma le bell' alme alle bell' opre elette ; 
 Sanno gioir nelle fatiche eccelse : 
 Ne biasmo popolar, frale catena, 
 Spirto d'onore il suo cammin raffrena. 
 Cosi lunga stagion per modi indegni 
 Europa disprezzo l'inclita speme : 
 Schernendo il vulgo (e seco i Regi insieme) 
 Nudo nocchier promettitor di Regni ; 
 Ma per le sconosciute onde marine 
 L'invitta prora ei pur sospinse al fine. 
 Qual uom, che torni al gentil consorte, 
 Tal ei da sua magion spiego l'antenne ; 
 L* ocean corse, e i turbini sostenne 
 Vinse le crude imagini di morte ; 
 Poscia, dell 'ampio mar spenta la guerra, 
 Scorse la dianzi favolosa Terra. 
 Allor dal cavo Pin scende veloce 
 E di grand' Orma il nuovo mondo imprime ; 
 Ne men ratto per 1' Aria erge sublime, 
 Segno del Ciel, insuperabil Croce ; 
 E porse umile esempio, onde adorarla 
 
 Debba sua Gente. 
 
 Chiabrera, vol. 1. 
 
 Matiiema- We do not mean to rest our argument on the general utility or importance of 
 
 tics and . 
 
 physics. Method. Every science and every art attests the value of the particular principles on 
 which we have above insisted. In mathematics they will, doubtless, be readily ad- 
 mitted ; and certainly there are many marked differences between mathematical and 
 physical studies : but in both a previous act and conception of the mind, or what we 
 have called an initiative, is indispensably necessary, even to the mere semblance of 
 Method. In mathematics, the definition makes the object, and pre-establishes the 
 terms, which alone can occur in the after reasoning. If an existing circle, or what is 
 supposed to be such, be found not to have the radii from the centre to the circumference 
 perfectly equal: it will in no manner affect the mathematician's reasoning on the 
 
OV THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 11 
 
 introiiuc- properties of circles; it will only prove that the figure in question is not a circle Section it. 
 ' according to the previous definition. A mathematical idea, therefore, may be perfect. 
 But the place of a perfect idea cannot be exactly supplied, in the sciences of experi- 
 ment and observation, by any theory built on generalization. For what shall determine 
 the mind to one point rather than another ; within what limits, and from what number 
 of individuals, shall the generalization be made ? The theory must still require a 
 prior theory for its own legitimate construction. The physical definition follows and 
 does not precede the reasoning. It is representative, not constitutive, and is 
 indeed little more than an abbreviature of the preceding observation, and the deduc- 
 tions therefrom. But as the observation, though aided by experiment, is necessarily 
 limited and imperfect, the definition must be equally so. The history of theories, 
 and the frequency of their subversion by the discovery of a single new fact, supply 
 the best illustrations of this truth. 
 
 But in experimental philosophy, it may be said, how much do we not owe to Electricity. 
 accident ? Doubtless : but let it not be forgotten, that if the discoveries so made stop 
 there; if they do not excite some master idea; if they do not lead to some law (in 
 whatever dress of theory or hypothesis the fashions and prejudices of the time may 
 disguise or disfigure it) ; the discoveries may remain for ages limited in their uses, 
 insecure and unproductive. How many centuries, we might have said millennia, have 
 passed, since the first accidental discovery of the attraction and repulsion of light 
 bodies by rubbed amber, &c. Compare the interval with the progress made within 
 less than a century, after the discovery of the phsenomena that led immediately to a 
 theory of Electricity. That here, as in many other instances, the theory was 
 supported by insecure hypotheses ; that by one theorist two heterogeneous fluids were 
 assumed, the vitreous and the resinous ; by another, a plus and minus of the same 
 fluid ; that a third considered it a mere modification of light ; while a fourth composed 
 the electrical aura of oxygen, hydrogen, and caloric : all this does but place the 
 truth we have been insisting on in a stronger and clearer light. For, abstract from all 
 these suppositions, or rather imaginations, that which is common to, and involved in them 
 all ; and there will remain neither notional fluid or fluids, nor chemical compounds, nor 
 elementary matter,— but the idea of two—opposite-^forces, tending to rest by equilibrium. 
 These are the sole factors of the calculus, alike in all the theories : these give the law 
 and with it the Method of arranging the phenomena. For this reason it may not be rash 
 to anticipate the nearest approaches to a correct system of electricity from those 
 philosophers who since the year 1798 have presented the idea most distinctly as such, 
 rejecting the hypothesis of any material substratum, and contemplating in all electrical 
 
 c 2 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. N 
 
 ln tion U °- phaenomena the operation of a law which reigns through all nature, viz : the law of seotjonu^ 
 
 ^^^"^ polarity, or the manifestation of one power by opposite forces. 
 
 Magnetism. How great the contrast between electricity and Magnetism ! From the remotest 
 
 antiquity, the attraction of iron by the magnet was known, and noticed ; but century 
 after century it remained the undisturbed property of poets and orators. The fact of 
 the magnet, and the fable of the Phoenix, stood on the same scale of utility, and by the 
 generality of mankind, the latter was as much credited as the former, and considered 
 far more interesting. In the thirteenth century, however, or perhaps earlier, the 
 polarity of the magnet, and its communicability to iron, were discovered. We 
 remain in doubt whether this discovery were accidental, or the result of theory; if the 
 former, the purpose which it soon suggested was so grand and important, that it may 
 well be deemed the proudest trophy ever yet raised by accident in the service of 
 mankind. But still it furnished no genuine idea ; it led to no law, and consequently, to 
 no Method; though a variety of phenomena, as startling as they are at present mysterious, 
 have forced on us a presentiment of its intimate connection with other great agencies 
 of nature. We would not be understood to assume the power of predicting to what 
 extent, or in what directions, that connection may hereafter be traced ; but amidst the 
 most ingenious hypotheses, that have yet been formed on the subject, we may notice 
 that which, combining the three primary laws of magnetism, electricity, and galvinism,* 
 considers them all as the results of one common power, essential to all material 
 construction in the works of nature. It is perhaps more an operation of the fancy 
 than of the reason, which has suggested that these three material powers are analogous 
 to the three dimensions of space. Hypothesis, be it observed, can never form 
 the ground-work of a true scientific method, unless where the hypothesis is either a 
 true idea proposed in an hypothetical form, or at least the symbol of an idea as yet 
 unknown, of a law as yet undiscovered ; and in this latter case the hypothesis 
 merely performs the function of an unknown quantity in algebra, and is assumed 
 for the purpose of submitting the phaenomena to a scientific calculus. But to recur 
 to the contrast presented by electricity and magnetism, in the rapid progress of the 
 former, and the stationary condition of the latter : What is the cause of this 
 diversity? Fewer theories, fewer hypotheses have not been advanced in the one 
 than in the other; but the theories and fictions of the electricians contained an 
 idea, and all the same idea, which has necessarily led to Method ; implicit indeed, 
 and only regulative hitherto, but which requires little more than the dismission 
 
 * See the experiments of Coulomb, Brugmans, and Goethe. To -which may be added, should they be 
 confirmed, the carious obserrations on Chrystallization, first made in Corsica, and since pursued in France. . 
 
ON THE SCTENCE OF METHOD. 13 
 
 lutroduc- f t]i e imagery to become constitutive, like the ideas of the geometrician. On the So"' " 11 . 
 contrary, the assumptions of the magnetists (as for instance, the hypothesis that the 
 earth itself is one vast magnet, or that an immense magnet is concealed within it ; or 
 that there is a concentric globe within the earth, revolving on its own independent axis) 
 are but repetitions of the same fact or phenomenon, looked at through a magnifying 
 glass ; the reiteration of the problem, not its solution. This leads to the important 
 consideration, so often dwelt upon, so forcibly urged, so powerfully amplified and 
 explained by our great countryman Bacon, that one fact is often worth a thousand. 
 " Satis scimus," says he, "axiomata fectS inventu, tota agmina operum secum trahere." 
 Hence his indignant reprobation of the vis experimentalis, cceca, stupida, vaga, pree- 
 rupta!" Hence his just and earnest exhortations to pursue the experimenta lucifera, 
 and those alone ; discarding for their sakes, even the jructijera experimenta. The 
 natural philosopher, who cannot, or will not see, that it is the "enlightening" fact, 
 which really causes all the others to be facts, in any scientific sense — he who has not 
 the head to comprehend, and the soul to reverence this parent experiment —he to 
 whom the aupijica is not an exclamation of joy and rapture, a rich reward for years of 
 toil and patient suffering — to him no auspicious answer will ever be granted by the 
 oracle of nature. 
 
 We have said that improgressive arrangement is not Method : and in proof of this we Zoology. 
 appeal to the notorious fact, that Zoology, soon after the commencement of the latter 
 half of the last century, was falling abroad, weighed down and crushed as it were by 
 the inordinate number and multiplicity of facts and phenomena apparently separate, 
 without evincing the least promise of systematizing itself by any inward combina- 
 tion of its parts. John Hunter, who had appeared, at times, almost a stranger 
 to the grand conception, which yet never ceased to work in him, as his genius and 
 governing spirit, rose at length in the horizon of physiology and comparative anatomy. 
 In his printed works, the finest elements of system seem evermore to flit before him, 
 twice or thrice only to have been seized, and after a momentary detention, to have been 
 again suffered to escape. At length, in the astonishing preparations for his museum, 
 he constructed it, for the scientific apprehension, out of the unspoken alphabet of nature. 
 Yet notwithstanding the imperfection in the annunciation of the idea, how exhilarating 
 have been the results ! It may, we believe, be affirmed, with safety, that whatever 
 is grandest, in the views of Cuvier, is either a reflection of this light, or a continuation 
 of its rays, well and wisely directed, through fit media, to its appropriate object. 
 
 From Zoology, or the laws of animal life, to Botany, or those of vegetable life, the Botany. 
 transition is easy and natural. In this pursuit, how striking is the necessity of a clear 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introduc, ij ea as initiative of all Method ! How obvious the importance of attention to the conduct Section n. 
 
 tion. * v.— — - 
 
 of the mind in the exercise of Method itself! The lowest attempt at botanical arrange- 
 ment consists in an artificial classification of plants, for the preparatory purpose 
 of a nomenclature ; but even in this, some antecedent must have been contributed by the 
 mind itself; some purpose must be in view; or some question at least must have been 
 proposed to nature, grounded, as all questions are, upon some idea of the answer. As 
 for instance, the assumption, 
 
 " That two great sexes animate the world." 
 
 For no man can confidently "conceive a fact to be universally true who does not pro- 
 portionally anticipate its necessity, and who does not believe that necessity to be 
 demonstrable by an insight into its nature, whenever and wherever such insight can be 
 obtained. We acknowledge, we reverence, the obligations of Botany to Linnaeus, who 
 adopting from Bartholinus and others the sexuality of plants, grounded thereon a scheme 
 of classific and distinctive marks, by which one man's experience may be communicated 
 to others, and the objects safely reasoned on while absent, and recognized as soon as 
 and wherever they occur. He invented an universal character for the language of Botany, 
 chargeable with no greater imperfections than are to be found in the alphabets of every 
 particular language. The first requisites in investigating the works of nature, as in 
 studying the classics, are a proper accidence and dictionary ; and for both of these 
 Botany is indebted to the illustrious Swede. But the inherent necessity, the true idea 
 of sex, was never fully contemplated by Linnaeus, much less that of vegetation itself. 
 Wanting these master-lights, he was not only unable to discern the collateral relations 
 of the vegetable to the mineral and animal worlds, but even in respect to the doc- 
 trine which gives name and character to his system, he only avoided Scylla to fall upon 
 Charybdis : and such must be the case of every one, who in this uncertain state of 
 the initiative idea, ventures to expatiate among the subordinate notions. If we 
 adhere to the general notion of sex, as abstracted from the more obvious modes in 
 which the sexual relation manifests itself, we soon meet with whole classes of 
 plants to which it is found inapplicable. If, arbitrarily, we give it indefinite exten- 
 sion, it is dissipated into the barren truism, that all specific products suppose 
 specific means of production. Thus a growth and a birth are distinguished by the mere 
 verbal definition, that the latter is a whole in itself, the former not : aud when we 
 would apply even this to nature, we are baffled by objects (the flower polypus, &c. &c.) 
 in which each is the other. All that can be done by the most patient and active 
 industry, by the widest and most continuous researches ; all that the amplest survey 
 
lion. 
 
 ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 15 
 
 introduc- f t h e vegetable realm, brought under immediate contemplation by the most stupendous ^^ 
 collections of species and varieties, can suggest ; all that minutest dissection and exactest 
 chemical analysis, can unfold ; all that varied experiment and the position of plants 
 and their component parts in every conceivable relation to light, heat, and whatever else 
 we distinguish as imponderable substances ; to earth, air, water ; to the supposed con- 
 stituents of air and water, separate and in all proportions— in short all that chemical 
 agents and re-agents can disclose or adduce ;— all these have been brought, as conscripts, 
 into the field, with the completest accoutrement, in the bes-t discipline, under the ablest 
 commanders. Yet after all that was effected by Linnaeus himself, not to mention the 
 labours of Ceesalpinus, Ray, Gesner, Tournefort, and the other heroes who preceded 
 the general adoption of the sexual system, as the basis of artificial arrangement- 
 after all the successive toils and enterprizes of Hedwig, Jussieu, Mtrbel, Smith, 
 Knight, Ellis, &c. &c— what is Botany at this present hour? Little more than an 
 enormous nomenclature ; a huge catalogue, bien arrange, yearly and monthly augmented, 
 in various editions, each with its own scheme of technical memory and its own con- 
 veniencies of reference ! The innocent amusement, the healthful occupation, the orna- • 
 mental accomplishment of amateurs ; it has yet to expect the devotion and energies of 
 the philosopher. Whether the idea which has glanced across some minds, that the 
 harmony between the vegetable and animal world is not a harmony of resemblance, but 
 of contrast, may not lead to a new and more accurate method in this engaging science, 
 it becomes us not here to determine : but should its objective truth be hereafter demon- 
 strated by induction of facts in an unbroken series of correspondences in nature, we 
 shall then receive it as a law of organic existence; and shall thence obtain another 
 splendid proof, that with the knowledge of Law alone dwell power and prophecy, deci- 
 sive experiment, and scientific Method. 
 
 Such, too, is the case with the substances of the Laboratory, which are assumed Chemistry. 
 to be incapable of decomposition. They are mere exponents of some one law, which 
 the chemical philosopher, whatever may be his theory, is incessantly labouring to 
 discover. The law, indeed, has not yet assumed the form of an idea in his mind ; it is 
 what we have called an Instinct ; it is a pursuit after unity of principle, through a 
 diversity of forms. Thus as " the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," suggest each other 
 to Shakspeare's Theseus, as soon as his thoughts present him the one form, of which 
 they are but varieties ; so water and flame, the diamond, the charcoal, and the 
 mantling champagne, with its ebullient sparkles, are convoked and fraternized by 
 the theory of the chemist. This is, in truth, the first charm of chemistry, and the 
 secret of the almost universal interest excited by its discoveries. The serious com- 
 
16 ' introduction:. 
 
 introduo placency which is afforded by the sense of truth, utility, permanence, and progression, Sectionir. 
 blends with and ennobles the exhilarating surprise and the pleasurable sting of 
 curiosity, which accompany the propounding and the solving of an enigma. It is 
 he sense of a principle of connection given by the mind, and sanctioned by the 
 correspondency of nature. Hence the strong hold which in all ages chemistry has 
 had on the imagination. If in the greatest poets we find nature idealized through 
 the creative power of a profound yet observant meditation, so through the meditative 
 observation of a Davy, aWoTLASTON, a Hatchett, or a Murray, 
 
 " By some connatural force, 
 
 Powerful at greatest distance to unite 
 With secret amity things of like kind," 
 
 we find poetrv, as it were, substantiated and realized. 
 Poetry. This consideration leads us from the paths of physical science into a region 
 
 apparently very different. Those who tread the enchanted ground of Poetry, often- 
 times do not even suspect that there is such a thing as Method to guide their steps. 
 Yet even here we undertake to show that it not only has a necessary existence, but 
 the strictest philosophical application ; and that it is founded on the very philosophy 
 which has furnished us with the principles already laid down. It may surprise some 
 of our readers, especially those who have been brought up in schools of foreign taste, 
 to find that we rest our proof of these assertions on one single evidence, and that that 
 evidence is Shakspeare, whose mind they have probably been taught to consider as 
 eminently immethodical. In the first place, Shakspeare was not only endowed with 
 treat native genius (which indeed he is commonly allowed to have been), but what is 
 less frequently conceded, he had much acquired knowledge. " His information," says 
 Professor Wilde, " was great and extensive, and his reading as great as his knowledge 
 of languages could reach. Considering the bar which his education and circumstances 
 placed in his way, he had done as much to acquire knowledge as even Milton. A 
 thousand instances might be given, of the intimate knowledge that Shakspeare had of 
 facts. I shall mention only one. I do not say, he gives a good account of the Salic 
 law, though a much worse has been given by many antiquaries. But he who reads 
 the archbishop of Canterbury's speech in Henry the Fifth, and who shall afterwards 
 say, that Shakspeare was not a man of great reading and information, and who loved 
 the thing itself, is a person whose opinion I would not ask or trust upon any matter 
 of investigation." Then, was all this reading, all this information, all this knowledge 
 of our great dramatist, a mere rudis indigestaque moles? Very far from it. Method, 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 17 
 
 ^"tiln" ' we nave seen ' demands a knowledge of the relations which things bear to each other, Se ^^- J 
 ' or to the observer, or to the state and apprehension of the hearers. In all and each 
 of these was Shakspeare so deeply versed, that in the personages of a play, he seems 
 " to mould his mind as some incorporeal material alternately into all their various 
 forms." * In every one of his various characters we still feel ourselves communing with 
 the same human nature. Everywhere we find individuality : no where mere portrait. 
 The excellence of his productions consists in a happy union of the universal with the 
 particular. But the universal is an idea. Shakspeare, therefore, studied mankind in 
 the idea of the human race ; and he followed out that idea into all its varieties, by a 
 Method which never failed to guide his steps aright. Let us appeal to him, to illus- 
 trate by example, the difference between a sterile and an exuberant mind, in respect to 
 what we have ventured to call the Science of Method. On the one hand observe 
 Mrs. Quickley's relation of the circumstances of Sir John Falstaff's debt : 
 
 " Falstaff. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? 
 
 Mrs. Quickley. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me 
 upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in 
 Whitsun week, when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man in Windsor— thou didst 
 swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny 
 it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickley ?— coming in to 
 
 borrow a mess of vinegar: telling us she had a good dish of prawns— whereby thou didst desire to eat some 
 
 whereby I {old thee they were ill for a green wound," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 (Henry IV. P. I. Act II. Scene Lj 
 
 On the other hand consider the narration given by Hamlet to Horatio, of the 
 occurrences during his proposed transportation to England, and the events that 
 interrupted his voyage. (Act V. Scene II.) 
 
 Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting 
 That would not let me sleep : methought I lay 
 Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly, 
 
 And prais'd be rashness for it Let us know, 
 
 Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, 
 When our deep plots do fail: and that should teach us 
 There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will. 
 
 Hon. That is most certain. 
 
 o rqv tavrS ^/vyr\v &<ni vXrjf nVo dawfiaTOv fiop(j>aie voikHKuiq [topfacrae. 
 
 Themistius. 
 d 
 
18 INTRODUCTION-. 
 
 Introduc. HaM. Up from my cabin, Section It 
 
 tion. 
 
 My sfea-gown scarf d about me, in the dark 
 Grop'd I to find out them; had my desire; 
 Finger'd their pocket; and, in fine, withdrew 
 To my own room again : making so bold, 
 My fears forgetting manners, to unseal 
 Their grand commission ; where I found, Horatio, 
 A royal knavery — an exact command, 
 Larded with many several sorts of reasons, 
 Importing Denmark's health, and England's too, 
 With, ho ! such bugs and goblins in my life, 
 That on the supervize, no leisure bated, 
 No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, 
 My head should be struck off! 
 
 Hor. Is't possible ? 
 
 Ham. Here's the commission. — Read it at more leisure. 
 
 I sat me down ; 
 Devis'd a new commission ; wrote it fair. 
 I once did hold it, as our statists do, 
 A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much 
 How to forget that learning ; but, sir, now 
 It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know 
 The effect of what I wrote ? 
 
 Hor. Aye, good my lord. 
 
 Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king, • 
 As England was his faithful tributary ; 
 As love between them, like the palm, might flourish ; 
 As peace should still her wheaten gafland wear, 
 And many such like As's of great charge — 
 That on the view and knowing of these contents 
 He should the bearers put to sudden death, 
 No shriving time allowed. 
 
 Hor. How was this sealed ? 
 
 Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. 
 I had my father's signet in my purse, 
 Which was the model of that Danish seal : 
 Folded the writ up in the form of the other; 
 Subscribed it ; gave't the impression ; plac'd it safely, 
 The changeling never known. Now, the next day 
 Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent, 
 Thou knowest already. 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 19 
 
 If, overlooking the different value of the matter in these two narrations, we ^ ectic ' 
 consider only the form, it must be confessed, that both are unmethodical. We have 
 asserted that Method results from a balance between the passive impression received 
 from outward things, and the internal activity of the mind in reflecting and 
 o-eneralizing ; but neither Hamlet nor the Hostess hold this balance accurately. In 
 Mrs. Quickley, the memory alone is called into action, the objects and events recur in 
 the narration in the same order, and with the same accompaniments, however 
 accidental or impertinent, as they had first occurred to the narrator. The necessity 
 of taking breath, the efforts of recollection, and the abrupt rectification of its failures, 
 produce all her pauses ; and constitute most of her connections. But when we look 
 to the Prince of Denmark's recital the case is widely different. Here the events, 
 with the circumstances of time and place, are all stated with equal compression 
 and rapidity; not one introduced which could have been omitted without injury 
 to the intelligibility of the whole process. If any tendency is discoverable, as 
 far as the mere facts are in question, it is to omission : and accordingly, the 
 reader will observe, that the attention of the narrator is called back to one ma- 
 terial circumstance, which he was hurrying by, by a direct question from the 
 friend (How was this sealed ?)■ to whom the story is communicated. But by 
 a trait which is indeed peculiarly characteristic of Hamlet's mind, ever disposed to 
 generalize, and meditative to excess, all the digressions and enlargements consist of 
 reflections, truths, and principles of general and permanent interest, either directly 
 expressed or disguised in playful satire. 
 
 Instances of the want of generalization are of no rare occurrence : and the 
 narration of Shakspeare's Hostess differs from those of the ignorant and unthinking 
 in ordinary life, only by its superior humour, the poet's own gift and infusion, not by 
 its want of Method, which is not greater than we often meet with in that class of 
 minds of which she is the dramatic representative. Nor will the excess of generali- 
 zation and reflection have escaped our observation in real life, though the great 
 poet has more conveniently supplied the illustrations. In attending too exclusively 
 to the relations which the past or passing events and objects bear to general truth, 
 and the moods of his own mind, the most intelligent man is sometimes in danger 
 of overlooking that other relation, in which they are likewise to be placed to the 
 apprehension and sympathies of his hearers. His discourse appears like soliloquy 
 intermixed with dialogue. But the uneducated and unreflecting talker overlooks all 
 mental relations, and consequently precludes all Method, that is not purely acci- 
 dental. Hence, — the nearer the things and incidents in time and place, the more 
 
 d2 
 
Introduc- 
 tion. 
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 distant, disjointed and impertinent to each other, and to any common purpose, will Section n. 
 'they appear in his narration: and this from the absence of any leading thought in the 
 narrator's own mind. On the contrary, where the habit of Method is present and 
 effective, things the most remote and diverse in time, place, and outward circumstance, 
 are brought into mental contiguity and succession, the more striking as the less ex- 
 pected. But while we would impress the necessity of this habit, the illustrations 
 adduced give proof that in undue preponderance, and when the prerogative of the 
 mind is stretched into despotism, the discourse may degenerate into the wayward, or 
 the fantastical. 
 
 Shakspeare needed not to read Horace in order to give his characters that 
 methodical unity which the wise Roman so strongly recommends : 
 
 Si quid inexpertum scenae committis, et audes 
 Personam formare novam; servetur ad imum 
 Qualis ab inccepto processerit, et sibi constet. 
 
 But this was not the only way in which he followed an accurate philosophic Method : 
 we quote the expressions of Schlegel, a foreign critic of great and deserved reputa- 
 tion — " If Shakspeare deserves our admiration for his characters, he is equally 
 deserving of it for his exhibition of passion, taking this word in its widest signification, 
 as including every mental condition, every tone from indifference or familiar mirth, to 
 the wildest rage and despair. He gives us the history of minds: he lays open to us, in 
 a single word, a whole series of preceding conditions" This last is a profound and 
 exquisite remark : and it necessarily implies, that Shakspeare contemplated ideas, 
 in which alone are involved conditions and consequences ad infinitum. Purblind 
 critics, whose mental vision could not reach far enough to comprize the whole 
 dimensions of our poetical Hercules, have busied themselves in measuring and 
 spanning him muscle by muscle, till they fancied they had discovered some dispro- 
 portion. There are two answers applicable to most of such remarks. First, that 
 Shakspeare understood the true language and external workings of passion better 
 than his critics. He had a higher, and a more ideal, and consequently a more 
 methodical sense of harmony than they. A very slight knowledge of music will 
 enable any one to detect discords in the exquisite harmonies of Haydn or Mozart ; 
 and Bentley has found more false grammar in the Paradise Lost than ever poor boy 
 was whipped for through all the forms of Eton or Westminster : but to know why the 
 minor note is introduced into the major key, or the nominative case left to seek for 
 its verb, requires an acquaintance with some preliminary steps of the methodical 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 21 
 
 lnti-miuc- sca ] e> a t the top of which sits the author, and at the bottom the critic. The second Section n. 
 answer is, that Shakspeare was pursuing two Methods at once ; and besides the 
 psychological* Method, he had also to attend to the poetical. Now the poetical 
 method requires above all things a preponderance of pleasurable feeling : and where 
 the interest of the events and characters and passions is too strong to be continuous 
 without becoming painful, there poetical method requires that there should be, what 
 Schlegel calls " a musical alleviation of our sympathy." The Lydian mode must 
 temper the Dorian. This we call Method. 
 
 We said that Shakspeare pursued two methods. Oh ! he pursued many, many 
 more — " both oar and sail" — and the guidance of the helm, and the heaving of the lead, 
 and the watchful observation of the stars, and the thunder of his grand artillery. What 
 shall we say of his moral conceptions ? Not made up of miserable clap-traps, and the 
 tag-ends of mawkish novels, and endless sermonizing; — but furnishing lessons of profound 
 meditation to frail and fallible human nature. He shows us crime and want of principle 
 clothed not with a spurious greatness of soul ; but with a force of intellect which too 
 often imposes but the more easily on the weak, misjudging multitude. He shows us the 
 innocent mind of Othello plunged by its own unsuspecting and therefore unwatchful 
 confidence, in guilt and misery not to be endured. Look at Lear, look at Richard, look 
 in short at every moral picture of this mighty moralist ! Whoso does not rise from 
 their attentive perusal " a sadder and a wiser man" — let him never dream that he 
 knows any thing of philosophical Method. 
 
 Nay, even in his style, how methodical is our " sweet Shakspeare." Sweetness 
 is indeed its predominant characteristic ; and it has a few immethodical luxuriances of 
 wit; and he may occasionally be convicted of words, which convey a volume of 
 thought, when the business of the scene did not absolutely require such deep medita- 
 tion. But pardoning him these dulcia vitia, who ever fashioned the English language, 
 or any language, ancient, or modern, into such variety of appropriate apparel, from 
 " the gorgeous pall of scepter'd tragedy," to the easy dress of flowing pastoral. 
 
 More musical than lark to shepherd's ear, 
 When wheat is green and hawthorn buds appear. 
 
 Who, like him, could so methodically suit the very flow and tone of discourse to cha- 
 racters lying so wide apart in rank, and habits, and peculiarities, as Holofernes and 
 
 * We beg pardon for the use of this insokns terbum ; but it is one of which our language stands in 
 great need. We have no single term to express the philosophy of the human mind : and what is worse, 
 the principles of that philosophy are commonly called metaphysical, a word of very different meaning. . 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introduc- Q U een Catharine, Falstaff and Lear? When we compare the pure English style of Sec,ionI1- 
 ' Shakspeare with that of the very best writers of his day, we stand astonished at the 
 Method, by which he was directed in the choice of those words and idioms, which are as 
 fresh now as in their first bloom ; nay, which are at the present moment at once more 
 energetic, more expressive, more natural, and more elegant, than those of the happiest 
 and most admired living speakers or writers. 
 
 But Shakspeare was " not methodical in the structure of his fable." Oh gentle 
 critic ! be advised. Do not trust too much to your professional dexterity in the use of 
 the scalping knife and tomahawk. Weapons of diviner mould are wielded by your 
 adversary : and you are meeting him here on his own peculiar ground, the ground of idea, 
 of thought, and of inspiration. The very point of this dispute is ideal. The question is 
 one of unity : and unity, as we have shown, is wholly the subject of ideal law. There 
 are said to be three great unities which Shakspeare has violated ; those of time, place, 
 and action. Now the unities of time and place we will not dispute about. Be ours 
 the poet, 
 
 qui pectus inaniter angit 
 
 ■ 
 
 Irritat, mulcet, falsis terrorisms iraplet 
 
 Ut magus, et modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis. 
 
 The dramatist who circumscribes himself within that unity of time, which is regulated 
 by a stop-watch, may be exact, but is not methodical ; or his method is of the least 
 and lowest class. But 
 
 Where is he living dipt in with the sea, 
 
 That chides the banks of England, Wales, or Scotland^? 
 
 who can transpose the scenes of Macbeth, and make the seated heart knock at the 
 
 ribs with the same force as now it does, when the mysterious tale is conducted from 
 
 the open heath, on which the weird sisters are ushered in with thunder and lightning, 
 
 to the fated fight of Dunsinane, in which their victim expiates with life, his credulity 
 
 and his ambition ? To the disgrace of the English stage, such attempts have indeed 
 
 been made on almost all the dramas of Shakspeare. Scarcely a season passes which 
 
 does not produce some v^fov tt^ot^ov of this kind in which the mangled limbs of our 
 
 great poet are thrown together " in most admired disorder." There was once, a 
 
 noble author, who by a refined species of murder, cut up the play of Julius Caesar 
 
 into two good set tragedies, M. Voltaire, we believe, had the grace to make but one 
 
 of it; but whether his Brutus be an improvement on the model from which it was 
 
 taken, we trust, after what we have already said, we shall hardly be expected to 
 
 discuss. 
 
111)11. 
 
 ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 23 
 
 intmduc- jj uis we j iave sceu> that Shakspeare's mind, rich in stores of acquired knowledge, ^ectkmiL 
 
 ' commanded all these stores and rendered them disposable, by means of his intimate 
 acquaintance with the great laws of thought, which form and regulate Method. We 
 have seen him exemplifying the opposite faults of Method in two different characters ; 
 we have seen that he was himself methodical in the delineation of character, in the display 
 of passion, in the conceptions of moral being, in the adaptations of language, in the 
 connection and admirable intertexture of his ever-interesting fable. Let it not, after 
 this, be said, that Poetry— and under the word Poetry we will now take leave to 
 include all the works of the higher imagination, whether operating by measured sound, 
 or by the harmonies of form and colour, or by words, the more immediate and universal 
 representatives of thought — is not strictly methodical ; nay, does not owe its whole 
 charm, and all its beauty, and all its power, to the philosophical principles of Method. 
 
 But what of philosophy herself? Shall she be exempted from the laws, which she Philosophy, 
 has imposed on all the rest of the known universe? Longe absit ! To philosophy 
 properly belongs the education of the mind: and all that we have hitherto said may 
 be regarded as an indication (we have room for no more) of the chief laws and 
 regulative principles of that education. Philosophy, the " parent of life," according to 
 the expression of the wise Roman orator ; the " mother of good deeds and of good 
 sayings," the " medicine of the mind," is herself wholly conversant' with Method. 
 
 True it is, that the ancients, as well as the moderns, had their machinery 
 for the extemporaneous coinage of intellect, by means of which the scholar was 
 enabled to make a figure on any and all subjects, on any and all occasions. They too 
 had their glittering vapours, which (as the comic poet tells us) fed a host of sophists — 
 
 SfyaXai eat avSpaaiv apyols 
 At7rfp yvu^i-qv ii) diakc^iv icj vovv r/fiiv Trapi^ovctr, 
 KaJ repartiav iSj irepi\el-iv kj Kpovmv Kj KaTaXrjfiv. 
 
 APIXTO<I>. Ne^», Ik. s. 
 
 Great goddesses are they to lazy folks, 
 
 Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech, 
 
 Sense most sententious, wonderful fine effect. 
 
 And how to talk about it and about it, 
 
 Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawing. 
 
 But the philosophers held a course very different from that of the sophists. We shall 
 not trouble our readers with a comparative view of many systems ; but we shall present 
 to their admiration one mighty ancient, and one illustrious modern, Plato, and Bacon. 
 These two varieties will sufficiently exemplify the species. 
 
Plato 
 
 24 . - INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Of Plato's works, the larger and more valuable portion have all one common end, section ir. 
 which comprehends and shines through the particular purpose of each several dialogue; 
 and this is, to establish the sources, to evolve the principles, and to exemplify the art 
 of Method. This is the clue, without which it would be difficult to exculpate the noblest 
 productions of the " divine" philosopher from the charge of being tortuous and 
 labyrinthine in their progress, and unsatisfactory in their ostensible results. The latter 
 indeed appear not seldom to have been drawn, for the purpose of starting a new 
 problem, rather than of solving the one proposed as the subject of previous discussion. 
 But with the clear insight, that the purpose of the writer is not so much to establish 
 any particular truth, as to remove the obstacles, the continuance of which is preclusive 
 of all truth, the whole scheme assumes a different aspect, and justifies itself in 
 all its dimensions. We see, that the Education of the intellect, by awakening the 
 method of self-developement, was his proposed object, not any specific information that 
 can be conveyed into it from without. He desired not to assist in storing the passive 
 mind with the various sorts of knowledge most in request, as if the human soul were 
 a mere repository, or banqueting room, but to place it in such relations of circum- 
 stance as should gradually excite its vegetating and germinating powers to produce 
 new fruits of thought, new conceptions, and imaginations, and ideas. Plato was a 
 poetic philosopher, as Shakspeare was a philosophic poet. In the poetry, as well as 
 in the philosophy, of both, there was a necessary predominance of ideas ; but this did 
 not make them regardless of the actual existences around them. They were not 
 visionaries, or mystics ; but dwelt in " the sober certainty" of waking knowledge. 
 It is strange, yet characteristic of the spirit that was at work during the latter half 
 of the last century, that the writings of Plato should be accused of estranging 
 the mind from plain experience and substantial matter-of-fact, and of debauching it 
 by fictions and generalities, Plato, whose method is inductive throughout, who 
 aro-ues on all subjects not only from, but in and by, inductions of facts ! Who 
 warns us indeed against the usurpation of the senses, but far oftener, and with 
 more unmitigated hostility, pursues the assumptions, abstractions, generalities, and 
 verbal legerdemain of the sophists. Strange ! but still more strange, that a notion, so 
 groundless, should be entitled to plead in its behalf the authority of Lord Bacon, 
 whose scheme of logic, as applied to the contemplation of nature, is Platonic throughout. 
 It is necessary that we should explain this circumstance at some length, in order to 
 establish by the concurrence of authorities, vulgarly supposed to be contradictory, the 
 truth of a system which we have already maintained on so many other grounds. 
 Baton. What Lord Bacon was to England, Cicero was to Rome— the first and most 
 
OV THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 25 
 
 eloquent advocate of philosophy. It is needless to remind the classical scholar of that s «t;o«iT. 
 almost religious veneration with which the accomplished Roman speaks of Plato, 
 whom, indeed, he calls, in one instance, " cleus itye tiosler," and in other places, " the 
 Homer of philosophers ;" their " prince ;" the " most weighty of all who ever spoke, or 
 ever wrote ;" " most wise, most holy, divine." This last appellation, too, it is well known, 
 long remained, even among Christians, as a distinguishing epithet of the great ornament 
 of the Socratic school. Why Bacon should have spoken detractingly of such a man ; why 
 he should have stigmatised him with the name of " sophist," and described his 
 philosophy (with the tyrant Dionysius), as " verba otiosorum senum ad imperitos juvenes," 
 it is much easier to explain, than to justify, or even to palliate. He was, perhaps, 
 influenced, in part, by the tone given to thinking minds by the Reformation, the 
 founders and fathers of which saw in the Aristotelians, or schoolmen, the antagonists 
 of Protestantism, and in the Italian Platonists (as they conceived) the secret enemies 
 of Christianity itself. In part, too, Bacon may have formed his notions of Plato's 
 doctrines from the absurdities of his mis-interpreters, rather than from an unpreju- 
 diced and diligent study of his works. — -Be it remembered, however, that this unfairness 
 was not less manifested to his contemporaries ; that his treatment of Gilbert was cold, 
 invidious, and unjust ; and that he seems to have r disdained to learn either the exist- 
 ence or the name of Shakspeare. At this conduct no one can be surprised, who has 
 studied the life of this 
 
 wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind. 
 
 But our present business is not with his weaknesses, or his failings, but with those 
 philosophical principles, which, especially as displayed in the Novum Organum, have 
 deservedly obtained for him the veneration of succeeding ages. 
 
 Those who talk superficially about Bacon's philosophy, that is to say, nineteen- 
 twentieths of those who talk about it at all, know little more than his induction, 
 and the application which he makes of his own method, to particular classes of phy- 
 sical facts; applications, which are at least as crude, for the age of Gilbert, Galileo, and 
 Kepler, as were those of Aristotle (whom he so superciliously reprehends) for the 
 age of Philip and Alexander. Or they may perhaps have been struck with his recom- 
 mendation of tabular collections of particulars; and hence have placed him at the head 
 of a body of men, but too numerous in modern days— the minute philosophers. We 
 need scarcely say, that this is venturing his reputation on a very tottering basis. Let 
 any unprejudiced naturalist turn to Bacon's questions and proposals for the investigation 
 of single problems; to his "Discourse on the Winds;" or to what may almost be 
 called a caricature of his scheme, in the " Method of improving Natural Philosophy,'' 
 
 e 
 
26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introduc- by Robert Hooke* (the history of whose philosophical * life is alone a sufficient Section ir. 
 
 tion. J ^—.^-^ / 
 
 answer to all such schemes) — and then let him fairly say whether any desi- 
 rable end could reasonably be hoped for, from this process — whether by this mode of 
 research any important discovery ever was made, or ever could be made ? Bacon, 
 indeed, always takes care to tell us, that the sole purpose and object of collecting 
 together these particulars, is to concentrate them, by careful selection, into universals: 
 but so immense is their number, and so various and almost endless the relations in 
 which each is to be separately considered, that the life of an ante-diluvian patriarch 
 would be expended, and his strength and spirits wasted, long before he could com- 
 mence the process of simplification, or arrive in sight of the law, which was to 
 reward the toils of the over-tasked Psyche. | 
 
 Had Bacon done no more, than propose these impracticable projects, we should have 
 been far from sharing the sentiments of respect every where attached to his philoso- 
 phical character. But he has performed a task of infinitely greater importance, by 
 constructing that methodical system, which is so elegantly developed in the Novum 
 Organum. It is this, which we propose to compare with the principles long before 
 
 * We refer particularly to pp. 22 to 42 of the above-mentioned work; and we would, above all, notice the 
 following admirable specimen of confused and disorderly minuteness : — " The history of potters, tobacco-pipe- 
 makers, glaziers, glass-grinders, looking-glass-makers or foilers, spectacle-makers and optic-glass makers, 
 makers of counterfeit pearl and precious stones, bugle-makers, lamp-blowers, colour-makers, colour-grinders, 
 glass-painters, enamellers, varnishers, colour-sellers, painters, limners, picture-drawers, makers of baby heads, of 
 little bowling stones or marbles, fustian-makers, (query whether poets are included in this trade ?) music-masters, 
 tinsey-makers, and taggers. — The history of schoolmasters, writing-masters, printers, book-binders, stage- 
 players, dancing-masters, and vaulters, apothecaries, chirurgeons, seamsters, butchers, barbers, laundresses, and 
 cosmetics! &c. &c. &c. &c. (the true nature of each of which being exactly determined) will hugely facili- 
 tate OUR INQUIRIES IN PHILOSOPHY"!!! 
 
 " In parallel, or rather in contrast, with the advice of Mr. Robert Hooke, may be fairly placed that of the 
 celebrated Dr. Watts, which was thought, by Dr. Knox, to be worthy of insertion in the Elegant Extracts, 
 vol. ii. p. 456, under the head of 
 
 Directions concerning our Ideas. 
 " Furnish yourselves with a rich variety of Ideas. Acquaint yourselves with things ancient and modem; 
 things natural, civil, and religious ; things of your native land, and of foreign countries ; things domestic and 
 national ; things present, past, and future ; and above all, be well acquainted with God and yourselves ; with 
 animal nature, and the workings of your own spirits. Such a general acquaintance with things will be of very great 
 advantage." 
 
 t See the beautiful allegoric tale of Cupid and Psyche in the original of Apuleius. The tasks imposed on 
 the hapless nymph, through the jealousy of her mother-in-law, and the agency by which they are at length self- 
 performed, are noble instances of that hidden wisdom " where more is meant than meets the ear '." 
 
on the science: £? Method. 27 
 
 feh-oduc- enunciated by Plato. In both cases, the inductions are frequently as crude and erro- Section!!. 
 
 lion. " \^"V^»' 
 
 ' neous, as might readily be anticipated from the infant state of natural history, chemistry, 
 and physiology, in their several ages. In both cases, the proposed applications are 
 often impracticable ; but setting aside these considerations, and extracting from each 
 writer that which constitutes his true philosophy, we shall be convinced that it is 
 identical, in regard to the science of Method, and to the grounds and conditions of that 
 science. We do not see, therefore, how we can more appropriately conclude this 
 section of our inquiry, than by a brief statement of our renowned countryman's own 
 principles of Method, conveyed, for the greater part, in his own words : or in what 
 more precise form, we can recapitulate the substance of the doctrines asserted and 
 vindicated in the preceding pages. For we rest our strongest pretensions to appro- 
 bation on the fact, that we have only re-proclaimed the coinciding precepts of the 
 Athenian Verulam, and the British Plato. 
 
 In the first instance, Lord Bacon equally with ourselves, demands, as the motive Tlieireora - 
 
 x "• mon system. 
 
 and guide of every philosophical experiment, what we have ventured to call the intel- 
 lectual or mental initiative; namely, some well-grounded purpose, some distinct impres- 
 sion of the probable results, some self- consistent anticipation, the ground of the 
 " prudens qucestio " (the forethoughtful enquiry), which he affirms to be the prior half 
 of the knowledge sought, dimidium scientice. With him, therefore, as with us, an 
 idea is an experiment proposed, an experiment is an idea realized. For so be 
 himself informs us : — " neque scientiam molimur tarn sensu, vel instrumentis, quam ex- 
 perimentis ; etenim experimentorum longe major est subtilitas, quam sensus ipsius, licet 
 instrumentis exquisitis adjuti. Nam de Us loquimur experimentis, quae, ad intentionem ejus 
 quod quaritur, periti, et secundum artem excogitata et apposita sunt. Itaque perceptioni 
 sensus immediate et propria? non multum tribuimus : sed e6 rem deducimus, ut sensus 
 tantum de cxperimento, experimentum de rejudicet." The meaning of this last sentence is 
 intelligible enough ; though involved in antithesis, merely because Bacon did not pos- 
 sess, like Shakspeare, a good method in his style. What he means to say is, 
 that we can apprehend, through the organs of sense, only the sensible phenomena pro- 
 duced by the experiment ; but by the mental power, in virtue of which we shaped the 
 experiment, we can determine the true import of the phenomena. 
 
 Now, he had before said, that he was speaking only of those experiments, which 
 were skilfully adapted to the intention, or purpose of him, who conducted the research. 
 But what is it, that forms the intention, or purpose, and adapts thereto the experiment ? 
 What Bacon calls lux intellects ; viz. the understanding of the individual man, who 
 makes the experiment. This light, however, as he argues at great length, is obscured 
 
 e a 
 
28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by idols, which are false and spurious notions. His peculiar use of the word idols, is ssaim it. 
 again a proof of faulty method in his style; for it gives a sort of pedantic air to his 
 reasonings; but in truth, he means no more by it, than what Plato means by opinion, 
 (SoU) which the latter calls " a medium between knowledge and ignorance." So, Bacon 
 distinguishes the idols of the mind into various kinds (idola speeds, tribhs, fori, theatri), 
 that is, opinions derived from the passions, prejudices, and peculiar habits of each 
 man's understanding : and as these idols, or opinions, confessedly produce a sort of 
 mental obscurity, or blindness ; so, the ancient and the modern master of philosophy 
 both agree in prescribing remedies arid operations calculated to remove this disease | 
 to couch the " "mind's eye ;" and to restore it to the enjoyment of a purer vision. Bacon 
 establishes an unerring criterion between the ideas arid the idols of the mind ; namely, 
 that the latter are empty notions, but the former are the very seals and impresses of 
 nature ; that is to say, they always fit and cohere with those classes of things, to which 
 they belong ; as the idea of a circle fits and coheres with all true circles. His words 
 are these : " Non leve quiddam interest inter humanae mentis idola, et divinse mentis 
 ideas, hoc est, inter placita queedam inania, et veras sigriaturas atque impressiones 
 factas in creaturis, prout Ratione sana et sieci luminis, quam, docendi causa, inter- 
 pretem naturae vocare consuevimus, inveniuntur." Novum OrgaNum, xxiii. & xxvi. 
 Some idols, says Bacon, are adventitious to the mind ; others innate. And here, 
 we may observe, that he goes somewhat farther than the rnere doctrine of innate 
 ideas, by holding that of innate idols. However, we say not this in disparagement of 
 his system, which is clear and correct ; nor, on the other hand, do we mean to espouse 
 all its parts, which must be left to speak for themselves. What he means by innate 
 idols, he thus illustrates : — not only do the rays of truth, from without, fall obliquely 
 on the mirror of the mind, but that mirror itself is not pure and plain ; it discolours, 
 it magnifies, it diminishes, it distorts. Hence, he uses the words intellectus humanus, 
 mens hominis, &c. in a sense now peculiar, but in his day conformable to the language 
 of the schools, to signify not intellect in general, or mind in its perfection, but the in- 
 tellect or mind of man, weakened and corrupted, as it is, more or less, in every individual. 
 A necessary consequence of this corruption, is the arrogance, which leads man to 
 take the forms and mechanism of his own reflective faculty, as the measure of nature, 
 and of the Deity. Of all idols, or of all opinions, this is the most difficult to remedy, or 
 extirpate ; and therefore, in this view, the intellect of man is more prone to error, than 
 even his senses. Such is the sound and incontrovertible doctrine of Bacon ; but herein 
 he does no more, than repeat what both Plato and Heraclitus had long before urged, 
 with most impressive argument. The forms of the reflective faculty are subjective; the 
 
til. II. 
 
 ON THE SCIENCE Of METHOD. 29 
 
 i.,tro,i„o truths to be embraced are objective: but according to Plato, as well as to Bacon, there ^^ 
 can be no hope of any fruitful and secure Method, so long as forms, merely subjective, are 
 arbitrarily assumed to be the moulds of objective truth, the seals and impresses of nature. 
 What then ! Does Bacon abandon the hope of rectifying the obliquities of the 
 human intellect ; or does he suggest, that they will be remedied by the casual operation 
 of external impressions ? Neither of these. He considers, that its weaknesses and 
 imperfections require to be strengthened and made perfect by a higher power ; and that 
 this is possible to be done. He supposes, that the intellect of the individual, or homme 
 particu/icrc, may be refined by the intellect of the ideal man, or homme generate. He 
 assumes, that as the evidence of the senses is corrected by the judgment, so the evi- 
 dence of the judgment, beset with idols, may be corrected by the judgment, walking 
 in the light of ideas. It is surely superfluous to urge, that this corrector and purifier 
 of all reasoning, this inextinguishable pole star — 
 
 Which never in the ocean waves was wet; 
 
 whether it be called, as by Bacon, lumen siccum, or as by Plato, vsc, or fag vo^ov, is one 
 and the same light of Truth, the indispensable condition of all pure science, contempla- 
 tive, or experimental. Hence, it will not surprise us, that Plato so often denominates 
 ideas living laws, in and by which the mind has its whole true being and permanence ; or 
 that Bacon, vice versa, names the laws of nature, ideas; and represents the great leading 
 facts of science as signatures, impressions, and symbols of those ideas. A distinguishable 
 power self-affirmed, and seen in its unity with the Eternal Essence, is, according to 
 Plato, an Idea : and the discipline by which the human mind is purified from its idols, and 
 raised to the contemplation of Ideas, and thence to the o secure and progressive, 
 investigation of truth and reality, by scientific method, comprehends what the 
 same philosopher so highly extols, under the title of Dialectic. According to Lord 
 Bacon, as describing the same truth, applied to natural philosophy, an idea would be de- 
 fined as — Intuitio, sive inventio, quae in perceptione sensus non est(ut quee purae et sicci 
 luminis Intellectioni sit propria) idearum divinae mentis, prout in creaturis, persignaturas 
 suas, sese patefaciant. " That (saith the judicious Hooker) which doth assign to 
 each thing the kind, that which determineth the force and power, that which doth 
 appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a Law." 
 
 From all that has been said, it seems clear, that the only difference between Plato 
 and Bacon was, that, to speak in popular language, the one more especially cultivated 
 natural philosopliy, the other metaphysics. Plato treated principally of truth, as ma- 
 nifested in the world of intellect ; Bacon of the same truth, as manifested in the world 
 
30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introduc f sense ; Du t far from disagreeing, as to the mode of attaining that truth, far from SectionU. 
 '^^ v ^**' differing in their great views of the education of the mind, they both proceeded on the 
 same principles of unity and progression ; and consequently both cultivated alike the 
 Science of Method, such as we have here described it. If we are correct in these state- 
 ments, then may we boast to have. solved the great problem of conciliating ancient and 
 modern philosophy. 
 /Historical-, That the Method, of which we have hitherto treated, is not arbitrarily assumed in 
 
 view. 
 
 any, or all of the pursuits, to which we have adverted ; nor is peculiar to these in parti- 
 cular but is founded in the laws and necessary conditions of human existence, is 
 further to be inferred from a general view of the history of the human race. As in 
 the individual, so in the whole community of mankind, our cogitations have an infancy 
 of aimless activity ; and a youth of education and advance towards order ; and an 
 opening manhood, of high hopes and expectations; and a settled, staid, and sober 
 middle age, of ripened and deliberate judgment. 
 Krstperiod. " The antiquity of time was the youth of the world and of knowledge," said Bacon. 
 In that early age, the obedience of the will was first taught to man. He was required 
 to look up, in submission, to that Spirit of Truth, which, after all, we find to be at the 
 'head of wisdom. This innocent age was happily prolonged, among those, whose first 
 care was to cultivate the moral sense, and to seek in faith the evidence of things nOt 
 seen. To them were propounded a Spiritual Creator, and a spiritual worship, and the 
 assured hope of a future and spiritual existence ; and therefore they were less curious 
 to watch the motions of the stars, or to become " artificers in brass and iron," or to 
 " handle the harp and the organ." They were less wise in their generation, than 
 the " mighty men of old, the men of renown ;" but their ideas were plain, and 
 distinct; they were " just and perfect men;" and they "walked with God;" whilst, 
 of the others " every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil con- 
 tinually." For the latter wilfully chose an opposite method: they determined to shape 
 their convictions and deduce their knowledge from without, by exclusive observation 
 of outward things, as the only realities. Hence they became rapidly civilized. They built 
 cities, and refined on the means of sensual gratification, and the conveniences of 
 courtly intercourse. They became the great masters of the agreeable, which frater- 
 nized readily with cruelty and rapacity : these being, indeed, but alternate moods 
 of the same sensual selfishness. Thus, both before and after the flood, the vicious of 
 mankind receded from all true cultivation, as they hurried towards civilization. 
 Finally, as it was not in their power to make themselves wholly beasts', and to remain 
 without a semblance of religion, and yet, as they were faithful to their original maxim,— 
 
 | 
 
 ' # 
 
OX THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 31 
 
 intake- determined to receive nothing as true, but what they derived, or believed themselves to section it. 
 
 lion. ° " \^r~^-^t^ 
 
 derive from their senses, or (in modern phrase) what they could prove a posteriori, — they 
 became idolaters of the Heavens, and of the material elements ; and finally, out of the 
 idols of the mind, they formed material idols : and bowed down to stocks and stones, 
 as to the unformed and incorporeal Divinity. 
 
 A new era next appeared, representative of the youth and approaching manhood of Sec . ond 
 the human intellect : and again Providence, as it were, awakened men to the pursuit of 
 an idealised Method, in the developement of their faculties. Orpheus, Linus, Musseus, 
 and the other mythological bards, or perhaps brotherhoods of bards impersonated 
 under individual names, whether deriving their light, imperfectly and indirectly, from 
 the inspired writings of the Hebrews, or graciously visited, for high and important 
 purposes, by a dawning of truth in their own breasts, began to spiritualise Polytheism, 
 and thereby to prevent it from producing all its natural, barbarising effects. Hence the 
 mysteries and mythological hymns; which, on the one hand, gradually shaped 
 themselves into epic poetry and history, and, on the other, into tragedy and philosophy : 
 whilst to the lifeless statuary of the Egyptians was superadded a Promethean animation; 
 and the ideal in sculpture soon extending itself to painting, and to architecture, the 
 Fine Arts at once shot up to perfection, by a Method founded wholly on a mental 
 initiative, and conducted throughout its progress by the developement of ideas. This 
 rapid, advance, in all things which owe their existence and character to the mind's own 
 acts, intellectual or imaginative, forms a singular contrast with the rude and imperfect 
 manner, in which those acts were applied to the investigation of physical laws and 
 phenomena. While Phidias, Apelles, Homer, Demosthenes, Thucydides, and Plato, 
 had, each in his individual sphere, attained almost the summit of conceivable ex- 
 cellence, the natural history and the natural philosophy of the whole world may be 
 said to have lain dormant ; especially if we compare them with the efforts which the 
 moderns made in these directions, in the very morning of their strength. 
 
 Of the Roman era it is scarcely necessary to speak at large, inasmuch as the Romwu. 
 Romans were confessedly mere imitators of the Greeks in every thing relating to 
 science and art. They sustained a very important part in the civil, and military, and 
 ecclesiastical history of mankind ; and their devotion to these objects was, in their 
 own eyes, a sufficient apology for their want of originality in what they held to be far 
 inferior pursuits. 
 
 Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera : 
 
 Credo equidera, vivos ducent de marmore vultus : 
 
 Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento. 
 
Reforma- 
 tion. 
 
 32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Still less will it be expected, that we should devote much space to the consideration section ir. 
 of those dark ages, which brought the countless hordes of sensual barbarians from 
 their northern forests to meet, in the southern and middle parts of Europe, the 
 spiritualizing influence of Christianity: but one remarkable effect of that influence we 
 cannot suffer to pass unnoticed. We allude to the gradual abolition of domestic 
 slavery, in virtue of a principle essential to Christianity, by which a person is eternally 
 differenced from a thing ; so that the idea of a human being necessarily excludes the 
 idea of property, in that being. 
 
 We come down, then, to the great period of the Reformation, which, regarded 
 as an epoch in the education of the human mind, was second to none for its striking 
 and durable effects. The defenders of a simple and spiritual worship, against one Avhich 
 was full of outward forms and ceremonies ; the partisans of religious liberty, against 
 the dominion of a visible head over the whole Christian church ; and generally speaking, 
 the advocates of the ideal and internal, against the external, or imaginative ; maintained 
 a zealous, and in great part of Europe, a prosperous conflict. But the revolution of 
 thought, and its effects on the science of Method, were soon visible beyond the pale of 
 the church or the cloister : and the schoolmen were attacked as warmly in their 
 philosophical, as they had before been in their ecclesiastical character. It is needless to 
 dwell on the various attempts toward introducing into learning a totally new method. 
 That of our illustrious countryman, Bacon, was completely successful : and we have 
 already shown, that it was, in truth, the completion of the ideal system, by applying 
 the same method to external nature, which Plato had before applied to intellectual 
 existence. 
 B niio5™h fr * s on ty m * ne umon °f these two branches of one and the same method, that a 
 complete and genuine philosophy can be said to exist. To this consideration the great 
 mind of Bacon does not seem to have been fully awake ; and hence, not only is the 
 general scope of his work directed almost exclusively to the contemplation of physical 
 ideas; but there are occasional expressions, which, seem to have misled many of his 
 followers into a belief, that he considered all wisdom and all science, both to begin and 
 to end with the object of the senses. In this gross error are laid the foundations of the 
 modern French -school, which has grown up into the monstrous puerilities of Con- 
 dillac, and Condorcet; men whose names it would be absolutely ridiculous to 
 mention, in a history of science, if their pupils did not unhappily compensate, in num- 
 ber, what their works want in common sense and intelligibility ; and if upon such 
 writers, the French nation did not mainly rest its pretensions to give the law to Europe, 
 in matters of science and philosophy. 
 
SECTION III. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF METHOD TO THE GENERAL CONCATENATION AND DEVELOPEMENT 
 
 OF STUDIES. 
 
 introduc- We have' already dwelt so much on the general importance of Method — we have section m. 
 
 ^recurred to it so frequently— we have placed it in so many various lights, that we ought 
 perhaps to apologise for venturing on one more attempt to illustrate our meaning, 
 partly in the way of simile, and partly of example. Let us, however, imagine an 
 unlettered African, or rude, but musing Indian, poring over an illumined manuscript 
 of the inspired volume; with the vague, yet deep impression, that his fates and 
 fortunes are, in some unknown manner, connected with its contents. Every tint, 
 every group of characters, has its several dream. Say, that after long and dissatis- 
 fying toils, he begins to sort, first, the paragraphs that appear to resemble each other ; 
 then the lines, the words; nay, that he has at length discovered, that the whole is formed 
 by the recurrence and interchange of a limited number of cyphers, letters, marks and 
 points, which, however, in the very height and utmost perfection of his attainment, 
 he makes twenty-fold more numerous than they are, by classing every different 
 form of the same character, intentional or accidental, as a separate element. And yet 
 the whole is without soul or substance, a talisman of superstition, or a mockery 
 of science ; or is employed perhaps, at last, to feather the arrows of death, or to 
 shine and flutter amid the plumes of savage vanity. The poor Indian too truly 
 represents the state of learned and systematic ignorance — arrangement guided by 
 the light of no leading idea ; mere orderliness without method ! 
 
 But see, the friendly missionary arrives ! He explains to him the nature of written 
 words, translates them for him into his native sounds, and thence into the thoughts of his 
 heart : how many of these thoughts are then first unfolded into consciousness, which yet 
 the awakening disciple receives not as aliens ! Henceforward the book is unsealed for 
 Mm ; the depth is opened ; he communes with the spirit of the volume, as with a living 
 oracle. The words become transparent: he sees them, as though he saw them not; 
 whilst he mentally devours the meaning they contain. From that moment, his former 
 chimerical and useless arrangement is discarded, and the results of method are to 
 him life and truth. 
 
 If some particular studies are yet confessedly deficient in the vivifying power 
 of Method, we much fear that the attempts to bind together the whole body of science 
 
 f 
 
34 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introduc- have been, in certain instances, worse than immethodical. A slight glance at the SKCt!on ni - 
 
 tion. v " 
 
 particular department of literature which we have chosen, especially as it has been 
 filled on the Continent; from the memorable combination of deistical talent in the 
 Dictiorinaire Encyclopedique, to a work, on the same principles, said to be now 
 publishing in France, will demonstrate, that the best interests of mankind have 
 suffered serious injury from this cause ; that the fountains of education may be 
 poisoned, where the stream appears to flow on with increasing power and smoothness ; 
 and that the insinuation of sceptical principles into works of Science, is fraught with 
 the greatest danger to posterity. 
 
 To oppose an effectual barrier to the rage for desultory knowledge, on the 
 one hand, and to support that body of independent attachment to the best prin- 
 ples of all knowledge, which happily distinguishes this country, on the other, the 
 Encyclopedia Metro politana has been projected. 
 
 We do not undertake, what the most gigantic efforts of man could not atchieve, 
 an universal Dictionary of Knowledge, in the most absolute sense of the terms. But 
 estimating the importance of our task rather by the principles of unity and com- 
 pression, than by those of variety and extent, we have laboured to build upon what is 
 essential, that which is obviously useful, and upon both whatever is elegant or agree- 
 able in science ; and this, we conceive, cannot be well and usefully effected, but by 
 such a philosophical Method, as we have already indicated. 
 
 We have shown that this Method consists in placing one or more particular 
 things or notions, in subordination, either to a pre-conceived universal idea, or to some 
 lower form of the latter; some class, order, genus, or species, each of which derives its 
 intellectual significancy, and scientific worth, from being an ascending step toward 
 the universal ; from being its representative, or temporary substitute. Without this 
 master-thought, therefore, there can be no true Method : and according as the general 
 conception more or less clearly manifests itself throughout all the particulars, as 
 their connective and bond of unity ; according as the light of the idea is freely diffused 
 through, and completely illumines, the aggregate mass, the Method is more or less 
 
 perfect. 
 
 The first pre-conception, or master- thought, on which our plan rests, is the 
 moral origin and tendency of all true science ; in other words, our great objects are to 
 exhibit the Arts and Sciences in their philosophical harmony ; to teach Philosophy in 
 union with Morals ; and to sustain Morality by Revealed Religion. 
 
 There are, as we have before noticed, two sorts of relation, on the due obser- 
 vation of which all Method depends. The first is that, which the ideas or laws of 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 3"j 
 
 intimiuc- the mind bear to each other; the second, that which they bear to the external world : Action if r. 
 V ^" N '~ W on the former are built the Pure Sciences ; on the latter those which we call Mixed and 
 Applied. 
 
 The Pure Sciences, then, represent pure acts of the mind, and those only ; whether p V r f 
 employed in contemplating the forms under which things in their first elements are 
 necessarily viewed and treated by the mind ; or in contemplating the substantial reality 
 of those things. 
 
 Hence, in the pure sciences, arises the known distinction of formal and real: and FormaI aad 
 
 ' J real. 
 
 of the first, some teach the elementary forms, which the mind necessarily adopts in the 
 processes of reasoning ; and others, those under which alone all particular objects 
 can be grasped and considered by the mind ; either as distinguishable in quantity and 
 number, or as occupying parts of space. The real sciences, on the other hand, are con- 
 versant with the true nature and existence, either of the created universe around us ; or 
 of the guiding principles within us, in their various modifications and distinguishing- 
 movements ; or, lastly, with the real nature and existence of the great Cause of all. 
 
 We begin, then, with that class of pure sciences which we have called formal ; Grammar, 
 and of these, the first two that present themselves to us, are Grammar and Lo^ic. 
 By Grammar we are taught the rules of that speech, which serves as the medium of 
 mental intercourse between man and man; by Logic, the mental operations are them- 
 selves regulated and bound together, in a certain method or order. As the communi- 
 cation of knowledge is the more immediate object of our present discussion, so we 
 begin with that science by which it is regulated in its forms. Grammar, then, apart 
 from the mere material consideration of the sound of words, or shape. of letters, and 
 regarding speech only as a thing significant, teaches that there are certain laws 
 regulating that signification ; laws which are immutable in their very nature : for the 
 relation which a noun bore to a verb, or a substantive to an adjective, was the same in 
 the earliest days of ^oirwv avQ^unuv, in the first intelligible conversations of men, as it 
 is now; nor can it ever vary so long as the powers of thought remain the same in the 
 human mind. This, then, is a pure science proceeding from a simple or elementary 
 idea of the form necessary for the conveyance of a single thought, and thence 
 spreading and diffusing itself over all the relations of significant language. 
 
 Grammar brings us, naturally, to the Science of Logic, or the knowledge of those Logic. 
 forms which the conceptions of the mind assume in the processes of reasoning. And 
 it is manifest, that this science is no less subject than the former, to fixed laws; for the 
 reasoning power in man can only operate within those limits which Almighty Wisdom 
 has thought fit to prescribe. It is a discursive faculty, moving in a given path, and by 
 
 f 2 
 
BG INTRODUCTION. 
 
 liitrodue- allotted means. There is no possibility of subverting or altering the elementary rules Section m. 
 K ^~ <r ^^ / of Logic ; for they are not hypothetical, or contingent, or conventional, but positive 
 
 and necessary. 
 Matbema- Under the general term Mathematics, are comprised the sciences of Geometry? 
 
 lies. 
 
 which is conversant about the laws of figure, or limitations of space ; and Arithmetic, 
 which concerns the laws of number. Now these laws are purely ideal. It is not 
 externally to us that the general notion of a square, or a triangle ; of the number three,, 
 or the number five, exists ; nor do we seek for external proof of the relations of those 
 notions; but on the contrary, by contemplating them, as ideas in the mind, we discover 
 truths which are applicable to external existence. 
 Meupiiy- The sciences, which we have hitherto noticed, relate to the forms of our mental 
 
 sics, JVIo- 
 
 ™is and conceptions; but it is natural for man to seek to comprehend the principles and 
 conditions of real existence, both with regard to the universe in general, with regard 
 to his own internal mover, or conscience, and, above all, with regard to the cause, by 
 which conscience and the whole universe were called into being, and continue to exist, 
 namely, God. Hence, as we advance from form to reality, the sciences of Metaphysics 
 and Morals first present themselves to view, and these lead us forward to the summit 
 of human knowledge ; for at the head of all pure science stands Theology, of which the 
 great fountain is revelation. It is obvious, that both Metaphysics and Morals are 
 conversant solely about those relations, which we have called relations of law ; for it 
 would be a contradiction to say, that a real existence could be, at the same time, a 
 mere theory or hypothesis. These sciences have, therefore, all the purity and all the 
 certainty, which belong to that which is positive and absolute ; and as far as they are 
 distinctly apprehended by the mind, they approach the nearest to that clear intellectual 
 light, which, in the peculiar phraseology of Lord Bacon, is called lumen siccum. In the 
 proper philosophical method, the reality of our speculative knowledge, exhibited in the - 
 science of Metayhysics, unites itself at last with the reality of our ethical sentiments 
 displayed in that of Morals ; and both together are at once lost and consummated in 
 Theology, which rises above the light of reason to that of faith. 
 Mixed and These are all the sciences which embrace solely relations of law : and it is plain 
 
 sdeaces. that in these, not only the initiative, but every subsequent step, must be an act of the 
 mind alone. But when we descend to the second order of relations, namely those 
 which we bear to the external world, Theory is immediately introduced ; new sciences 
 are formed, which in contradistinction from the pure, are called the mixed and applied 
 Sciences; and in these new considerations relative to Method, necessarily find a 
 place. 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 37 
 
 Every physical theory is in some measure imperfect, because it is of neces- Section nr - 
 sity progressive ; and because we can never be assured that we have exhausted the 
 terms, or that some new discovery may not affect the whole scheme of its relations. 
 The discoveries of the ponderability of air, of its compound nature, of the increased 
 weight of the calces, of the gasses in general, of electricity, and more recently the 
 stupendous influences of Galvanism on the successive chemical theories; are all so 
 many exemplifications of this truth. The doctrines of vortices, of an universal ether, 
 of a two-fold magnetic fluid, &c. are theories of gravitation : but the science of 
 Astronomy is founded on the law of gravitation, and remains unaffected by the rise 
 and fall of the theories. In the lowest condition of Method, the initiative is supplied 
 by an hypothesis ; of which we may distinguish two degrees. In the former, a fact of 
 actual experience is taken, and placed experimentally as the common support of certain 
 other facts, as equally present in all : thus, that oxygen is a principle of acidification 
 and combustion, is an experienced fact ; and became an hypothesis, by the assumption 
 that it is the sole principle of acidification and combustion. In the latter, a fact is 
 imagined : as, for instance, an atom or physical point, prseternaturally hard, and 
 therefore infrangible in the corpuscular philosophy; or a primitive unalterable figure, 
 in some systems of crystalization. 
 
 In all this, we see, that knowledge is a matter not of necessary connection, but of 
 a connection arising from observation, or supposition ; that is> it consists not of law, 
 but of theory, or hypothesis. True theory is always in the first and purest sense a 
 locum tenens of law ; when it is not, it degenerates into hypothesis, and hypothesis 
 melts away into conjecture. Both in law and in theory, there must be a mental ante- 
 cedent ; but in the latter, it maybe an image or conception received through the 
 senses, and originating from without ; yet even then there is an inspiring passion, or 
 desire, or instinctive feeling of the truth, which is the immediate and proper offspring of 
 the mind. Now, we may consider the facts which are to be reduced to theory, as 
 arranged over the whole surface of a plane circle. If by carrying the power of theory 
 to a near identity with law, we find the centre of the circle, then proceeding toward 
 the circumference, our insight into the whole may be enlarged by new discoveries ; 
 it never can be wholly changed. A magnificent example of this has been realized in 
 the science of Astronomy ; a recent addition of facts has been effected by the discovery 
 of other planets, and our views have been rendered more distinct by the solution of the 
 apparent irregularities of the moon's motion, and their subsumption under the general 
 law of gravitation. But the Newtonian was not less a system before, than. since, the 
 discovery of the Georgium Sidus ; not by having ascertained its circumference, but by 
 
38 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introduc- i iav i n g found its centre ; the living and salient point, from which the method of discovery Section in. 
 
 s **" v "^" / diverges, the law in which endless discoveries are contained implicitly, and to which 
 as they afterwards arise, they may be referred in endless succession. 
 
 These reasonings, it is hoped, will sufficiently explain the nature of the transition, 
 from the Pure Sciences to the Mixed and Applied Sciences, and will serve to trace the inse- 
 parable connection of the latter with the constitution of the human mind. And as each 
 of these great divisions of knowledge has its own department in the grand moral science 
 of man, it is obvious that a scheme, which, like our own, not only contains each 
 separately, but combines both as indivisible, the one from the other ; must present, in 
 the most advantageous point of view, whatever is useful and beautiful in either. In 
 speaking of the mixed and applied sciences, we must be permitted, however, to remark 
 that the word science, is evidently used in a looser and more popular form, than when we 
 denominate mathematics, or metaphysics, a science ; for we know not, for instance, the 
 truth of any general result of observation in nosology, as we know that two and two 
 make four, or that a human person cannot be identical with another human person. 
 And in like manner, when the word law, is used with relation to the mixed and 
 applied sciences; -as when we speak of any supposed law of vegetation ; we use a 
 more popular language than when we speak of a law of the conscience, which is not 
 to be prevaricated. The strictness of ancient philosophy, therefore, refused the name 
 of science to these pursuits : and it might at least be convenient, if in speaking generally 
 of the pure, the mixed, and the applied sciences, we gave them the common name of 
 studies, inasmuch as we study them all alike, but we do not know them all with the 
 same sort of knowledge. 
 
 Mixed. Of these, then (be they studies or sciences), we call those mixed in which certain 
 
 ideas of the mind, are applied to the general properties of bodies, solid, fluid, and 
 aerial; to the power of vision, and to the arrangement of the universe ; whence we 
 obtain the sciences of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Optics, and Astronomy. It 
 is matter not of certain science, but of observation, that such properties do really exist 
 in bodies, that vision is effected in such or such a manner, and that the universe is 
 disposed in this or that relative position, and subjected to certain movements of its 
 parts. Therefore these sciences may vary, and notoriously have varied; and though 
 Kepler would demonstrate that Euclid Copernicised; or had some knowledge of the system 
 afterwards adopted by Copernicus; yet of this there is little proof: and certainly for many 
 ages after Euclid it was the universal opinion, that the earth was the fixed and immove- 
 able centre, of the universe. Nor have we here unadvisedly used the word opinion; 
 since, as we before showed, it is the ancient expression, signifying a medium 
 
OX THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 39 
 
 latroduc- DC t W ecn knowledge and ignorance : and well did that acute Italian exclaim, Sect!on nr 
 
 w ' Opiiiionc, rcgina del mondo! — for as it is impossible that ignorance, which cannot govern 
 
 itself, should govern any thing else ; so to expect that all the world should be 
 
 wise enough to submit to the government of wisdom, would be to show that we had 
 
 followed very little Method in our study either of history, of living men, or even of 
 
 ourselves. 
 
 When certain ideas, or images representative of ideas, are applied still more Applied. 
 
 particularly, not to the investigation of the general and permanent properties of all 
 
 bodies, but .of certain changes in those properties, or of properties existing in bodies 
 
 partially, then we popularly call the studies relative to such matters by the name of 
 
 Applied Sciences; such are Magnetism, Electricity, Galvinism, Chemistry, the laws of Experi- 
 mental phi- 
 
 Light and Heat, Sec. We have already so fully shown the uncertainty of the first prin- loso P h y- 
 ciples in these studies, and have so distinctly traced the cause of that uncertainty, in 
 every case, to a want of clearness in the first idea or mental initiative of the science, 
 that it will be unnecessary here to do more than refer to our preceding observations. 
 
 "We come now to another class of applied sciences, namely, those which are applied Fine Arts. 
 to the purposes of pleasure, through the medium of the imagination ; and which are 
 commonly called the Fine Arts. These are Poetry, Painting, Music, Sculpture, 
 Architecture. We have before said, that the Method to be observed in these, holds a 
 sort of middle place between the method of law, or pure science, and the Method of 
 theory. In regard to the mixed sciences, and to the first class of applied sciences, 
 the mental initiative may have been received from without; but it has escaped some 
 critics, that in the fine arts the mental initiative must necessarily proceed from within. 
 Hence we find them giving, as it were, recipes to form a poet, by placing him in certain 
 directions and positions ; as if they thought that every deer-stealer might, if he pleased, 
 become a Shakspeare, or that Shakspeare's mind was made up of the shreds and 
 ' patches of the books of his day; which by good fortune he happened to read in such an 
 order, that they successively fitted into the scenes of Macbeth, Othello, the Tempest, 
 As you like it, &c. Certainly the fine arts belong to the outward world, for they all 
 operate by the images of sight and sound, and other sensible impressions; and without 
 a delicate tact for these, no man ever was, or could be either a musician, or a poet ; 
 nor could he attain to excellence in any one of these arts : but as certainly he must 
 always be a poor and unsuccessful cultivator of the arts, if he is not impelled first by a 
 mighty, inward power, a feeling, quod nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantum ; nor can he make 
 great advances in his art,if in the course of his progress, the obscure impulse does not 
 gradually become a bright, and clear, and living idea ! 
 
40 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introdiic- Pursuits of utility, we daily find, are capable of being reduced to Method. Thus Section m. 
 
 Useful Arts. 
 
 tion. 
 
 'Political Economy, and Agriculture, and Commerce, and Manufactures, are now consi- 
 
 dered scientifically ; or as the more prevalent expression is, philosophically. It may, 
 perhaps, be difficult, at first, to persuade the experimental agriculturist, that he also 
 pursues, or ought to pursue, an ideal Method : nor do we mean by this that he must 
 deal only in ideal sheep and oxen, and in the groves and meads of Fairy Land. But 
 these studies, soberly considered, will be found wholly dependent on the sciences of 
 which we have already treated. It is not, surely, in the country of Arkwright, that 
 the philosophy of commerce can be thought independent of mechanics : and where 
 Davy has delivered lectures on agriculture, it would be folly to say that the most phi- 
 losophic views of chemistry were not conducive to the making our vallies laugh with 
 corn. 
 Natural We have already spoken of Linnaeus, the illustrious Swede, to whom the three king- 
 
 history. 
 
 doms, as they are aptly called, of Natural History, are so deeply indebted : and if, with 
 all his great talents, he yet failed in establishing the united empire of those three 
 mighty monarchies, on firm laws, and a fixed constitution ; we have shewn, that it was 
 only owing to a want of precision in the first ideas of his theory. 
 Appiica- Natural history itself becomes a rule for dependent pursuits, such as those of Medi- 
 
 tions of. 
 
 cine (under which are Pharmacy, and the Materia Medica), and Surgery, in which is 
 included Anatomy. That in these and the other theoretical studies, so much still re- 
 mains to be done, ought not to be a subject for regret ; but, on the contrary, for a 
 laudable and generous ambition. Yet that ambition should be regulated and moderated 
 by a due consideration of the place, which the particular pursuit in question, holds in 
 the great circle of the sciences ; and by observing the only proper Method which can be 
 pursued for its improvement. If, in what we have here said, we have done any thing 
 towards the excitement, the regulation, and the assistance of that ambition; if we 
 have faintly sketched an outline of the great laws of Method, which bind together the 
 various branches of human knowledge, we may not improperly indulge a hope that 
 the ensuing work, in its progress, will be found conducive to the promotion of the best 
 
 interests of mankind. 
 
 i 
 
 History and Our Plan would not completely meet the views of those to whom such 
 Biograp y. wor k g ag tne following are eminently useful and agreeable, if besides the philoso- 
 phic Method already described, we did not present some view of the actual 
 history of mankind. We have therefore devoted a large portion of our labours 
 to the History of the Human Race, on a new, and we trust it will be found an 
 improved system. Biography and history tend to the same points of general instruc- 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 41 
 
 introduce tj on> i n t wo ways: the one exhibiting human principles and passions, acting upon a StlIo " ,,r 
 large scale ; the other shewing them as they move in a smaller circle, but enabling 
 us to trace the orbit which they describe with greater precision. The one brings 
 man into contact with society, actuated by the interests which agitate and stimulate 
 him in the various social combinations of his existence ; and human nature presents 
 itself in the varied shapes impressed upon it by the different ranks which it occupies. 
 The other brings before us the individual, when he stands alone, his passions asleep, 
 his native impulses under no external excitement ; in the undress of one who has 
 retired from the stage, on which he felt he had a part to sustain ; and even the monarch, 
 forgetting the pomp and circumstance of his royalty, remembers here only that he is a 
 man. Assuredly the great use of History is to acquaint us with the Nature of Man. 
 This end is best answered by the most faithful portrait ; but Biography is a collection of 
 portraits. At the same time there must be some mode of grouping and connecting the 
 individuals, who are themselves the great landmarks in the map of human nature. It 
 has therefore occurred to us, that the most effectual mode of attaining the chief objects 
 of historical knowledge, will be to present History in the form of Biography, chronologi- 
 cally arranged. * This will be preceded by a general Introduction on the Uses of History, 
 and on the line which separates its early facts from fable ; and it will, in the course of 
 its progress, be interspersed with connecting chapters on the events of large and 
 distinguishing periods of time, as well as on political Geography and Chronology. 
 Thus will the far larger portion of History be conveyed, not only in its most interesting, 
 but in its most philosophical and real form ; while the remaining facts will be inter- 
 woven in the preliminary and connecting chapters. If in tracing thus the " eventful 
 history" of man, and particularly of our own country, we should perceive, as we must 
 necessarily do in all that is human, evils and imperfections ; these will not be without 
 their uses, in leading us back to the importance of intellectual Method as their 
 grand and sovereign remedy. Hence shall we learn its proper national application, 
 namely, the education of the mind, first in the man and citizen, and then, inclusively, 
 in the State itself. 
 
 Such are our views in the philosophical and historical branches of our work. Of Alphabetic 
 the Miscellaneous or Alphabetical Division we have little to add. But well aware that m"m. ge " 
 works of this nature are not solely useful to those who have leisure and inclination 
 to study science in its comprehensiveness, and unity ; but are also valuable for daily 
 reference on particular points, suggested by the desires or business of the individual ; 
 we could not hold ourselves dispensed from consulting the convenience of a numerous 
 and most respectable class of Readers ; while the preceding remarks will go to prove 
 
 S 
 
42 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 introdue- that for many local and supplementary illustrations of science, no other depository sectiouiii 
 
 tion. 
 
 could be furnished. 
 
 As the philosophical arrangement is, however, most conducive to the purposes 
 of intellectual research and information, as it will most naturally interest men of 
 science and literature ; will present the circle of knowledge in its harmony ; will give 
 that unity of design and of elucidation, the want of which we have most deeply felt in 
 other works of a similar kind, where the desired information is divided into innume- 
 rable fragments scattered over many volumes, like a mirror broken on the ground, 
 presenting, instead of one, a thousand images, but none entire ; this division must 
 of necessity, have that prominence in the prosecution of our design, which our con- 
 viction of its importance to the due execution of the plan demands ; and every 
 other part of the arrangement must be considered as subordinate to this principal 
 organization. With respect to the whole work, it should be observed, that ■ 
 in what concerns references we are guided by principle, not by caprice ; nor do 
 we ever recur to them as our only means of escape from an exigency. Throughout 
 the Encyclopaedia Metropolitans, the philosophical arrangement predominates 
 and regulates; the alphabetical arrangement, and the references, whether to it or 
 from it, are auxiliary. We never refer from the first and second Divisions to the 
 fourth, or from the first to the second, for the explanation of a term, the esta- 
 blishment of a principle, or the demonstration of a proposition. The reference, 
 whenever it occurs, unless it be retrospective, is not for the purpose of essential 
 information, but for that which is collateral and subordinate. The theory of the 
 balance, for example, is given where it ought to be, in the Treatise on Mechanics'; 
 but they who wish to acquaint themselves with the various constructions of balances 
 for the purposes of commerce or philosophy, knowing that these cannot be intro- 
 duced into a scientific treatise, without destroying the symmetry of its parts by a 
 suspension of the logical order, will naturally turn, whether there be a reference or 
 not, to the alphabetical department of the work. So again, the principles of the 
 telescope are given in the treatise on Optics ; the varieties of construction in the alpha- 
 betical department : the principles of the thermometer, when treating of the effects of 
 heat ; its varieties of construction in the alphabetical department. Practical detail, 
 and niceties or peculiarities of construction, can seldom be interwoven with propriety 
 among the regular deductions of a methodical treatise : in all cases where they cannot, 
 our general principle, as it comprehends proportion, accuracy, utility, and convenience, 
 demands a reference, whether expressed or not, to the appropriate place for all that is 
 subservient ; that is, to the fourth or alphabetical division. 
 
ON THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 43 
 
 This final division of our work will bring the whole into unison with the two great Scctionni. 
 impulses of modern times, trade and literature. These, after the dismemberment of 
 the Roman empire, gradually reduced the conquerors and the conquered at once into 
 several nations and a common Christendom. The natural law of increase, and the 
 instincts of family, may produce tribes, and under rare and peculiar circumstances, 
 settlements and neighbourhoods : and conquest may form empires. But without trade 
 and literature, combined, there can be no nation; without commerce and science, 
 no bond of nations. As the one has for its object the wants of the body, real or 
 artificial, the desires for which are for the greater part excited from without ; so the 
 other has for its origin, as well as for its object, the wants of the mind, the gratifica- 
 tion of which is a natural and necessary condition of its growth and sanity. In the 
 pursuits of commerce the man is called into action from without, in order to appro- 
 priate the outward world, as far as he can bring it within his reach, to the purposes of 
 his corporeal nature. In his scientific and literary character he is internally excited to 
 various studies and pursuits, the ground-work of which is in himself. 
 
 This, again, will conduct us to the distinguishing object of the present under- 
 taking ; in endeavouring to explain which we have dwelt long upon general principles ; 
 but not too long, if we have established the necessity of what we conceive to be the 
 main characteristic of every just arrangement of knowledge. 
 
 Our method embraces the two-fold distinction of human activity to which we have 
 adverted ; — the two great directions of man and society, with their several objects and 
 ends. Without advocating the exploded doctrine of ■perfectibility, we cannot but regard 
 all that is human in human nature, and all that in nature is above herself, as together 
 working forward that far deeper and more permanent revolution in the moral world, 
 of which the recent changes in the political world may be regarded as the pioneering 
 whirlwind and storm. But woe to that revolution which is not guided by the historic 
 sense; by the pure and unsophisticated knowledge of the past : and to convey this 
 methodically, so as to aid the progress of the future, has been already announced 
 as the distinguishing claim of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. 
 
The principles of Method, developed in the preceding Essay, will, it is hoped, render 
 perfectly intelligible the Plan of our whole work, which is comprehended under Four Divisions 
 as follow : 
 
 FIRST DIVISION. 
 
 FORMAL. 
 
 PURE 
 
 SCIENCES. 
 
 2 Vols. 
 
 REAL. 
 
 Universal Grammar and Philology : or the forms of Languages. 
 
 Logic, particular and universal : or the forms of Conceptions and 
 their combinations. 
 
 Mathematics : (Geometry, Arithmetic, Algebra, <fec.) or the forms aud 
 constructions of Figure and Number. 
 
 Metaphysics: or the universal principles and conditions of Experi- 
 ence, having for its object the Reality of our speculative knowledge 
 in general. 
 
 Morals: or the principles and conditions of the coincidence of the 
 individual will with the universal reason, having for its object the 
 Reality of our practical knowledge : (hence, in a lower stage, Polities 
 and Human Law.) 
 
 Theology : or the union of both in their application to God, the 
 Supreme Reality. 
 
 SECOND DIVISION. 
 
 MIXED. 
 
 MIXED 
 
 AND 
 
 APPLIED 
 SCIENCES. 
 
 6 Vols. 
 
 APPLIED. 
 
 Mechanics. 
 
 Hydrostatics. 
 
 Pneumatics. 
 
 Optics. 
 
 Astronomy. 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE USEFUL 
 
 ARTS. 
 
 IV. 
 NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 APPLICATION 
 
 OF 
 
 NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 Magnetism. 
 
 Electricity, including Galvanism. 
 
 Chemistry. 
 
 Light. 
 
 Heat. 
 
 Colour. 
 
 Meteorology. 
 
 Poetry, introduced by Psycology. 
 
 Painting. 
 
 Music. - 
 
 Sculpture. 
 
 Architecture. 
 
 Agriculture, introduced by Political Eco- 
 nomy. 
 
 Commerce. 
 
 Manufactures. 
 
 Introduced by Physiology in its Widest 
 sense. 
 
 Inanimate : — Chrystallography, Geology, 
 Mineralogy. 
 
 Insentient : — Phytonomy, Botany. 
 
 Animate : — Zoology. 
 
 Anatomy. 
 
 Surgery. 
 
 Materia Medica. 
 
 Pharmacy. 
 
 Medicine. 
 
 THIRD DIVISION. 
 
 4 Biography chronologically arranged, interspersed with introductory Chapters 
 of National History, Political Geography and Chronology, and accompanied with cor- 
 respondent Maps and Charts. 
 
 FOURTH DIVISION. 
 
 Alphabetical, Miscellaneous, and Supplementary :— containing a GAZETTEER, 
 or complete Vocabulary of Geography: and a Philosophical and Etymological 
 Lexicon of the English Language, or the History of English Words;— the citations 
 arranged according to the Age of the Works from which they are selected, yet with 
 every attention to the independent beauty or value of the sentences chosen, which is 
 consistent with the higher ends of a clear insight into the original and acquired 
 V meaning of every word. 
 
 The INDEX.— Being a digested and complete Body of Reference to the whole Work ; in which the known English 
 name, as well as the scientific name, of every subject of Natural History, will be found in its alphabetical place. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 AND 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 8 Vols. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 AND 
 
 LEXICOGRAPHICAL. 
 8 Vols. 
 
 1