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DISSERTATION
ON THE
SCIENCE OF METHOD;
OR,
THE LAWS AND REGULATIVE PRINCIPLES
OP
EDUCATION
Br
SAMUEL TAYLOK COLEEIDGE.
EIGHTH EDITION,
LONDON:
CHARLES GRIFFIN AND COMPANY,
STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
M>NDON : PRINTED BV W CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STUEE C.
SYNOPSIS,
SECTION 1.
OxV THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD.
Page
From disregard of the Principles of Method no Encyclopaedia has ever yet been
methodically arranged - - - - - - - - - -13
It is fit to commence the present work by an explanation of the Principles, and
au application of them to the chain of the Arts and Sciences - - - 14
This work :laimsto be a Methodical Compendimn of human knowledge- - 14
The word Method, derived from the Greek, signifies a way of transit. Method
implies Imity with progression. Method must be an act of the Mind itself,
which alone unites or makes many one. An universal Method must be
sought in the very centre of the Human Intellect. Method is never arbitraiy 14
Relations of things are the materials of Method, which is the way of transit from
one to the other of related things --------15
Relation of Law is that whereby we understand that a thing must he ; Relation
of Theory that whereby we perceive that it is - - - - - 15
Relations of Law belong to the Pure Sciences, which deal with necessary truths,
predetermined by the Mind itself, and ever existing in and for the Mind alone ;
and in a looser sense, to the Mixed Sciences, in which truths originating in the
Mind are applied to the world without, and constitute the great Laws ot
Nature - - - - - - - - - - - -16
Relations of Theory are subsei^vient to the Scientific Arts, such as Medicine.
Chemistry, Physiology - - - - - - - - - -16
The Method of the Fine Arts lies between Law and Theory. In it Laws of
Taste predominate, but it contains other Laws dependent on external objects 1 6
Tinkling verse and the Harmonica are alike unsatisfactory, because in them the
material encroaches on the mental, a proof how truly the Fine Arts involve
Laws of the Mind and Relations of Law - - - - - - -16
^'ethod implies a uniting and a progressive power. Law and Idea are coiTela-
tive terms ; the one (Law) is the laying down of the rule or mode of union,
the mental act ; the other (Idea) is the rule laid down, the mental object.
Thus Idea and Law differ as Being and Truth ; the mind objective and sub-
jective, L e., considered as self-beheld and beholding, the subject being that
which, in all workings and movements, of which we are conscious, is iiv-
ferred, as the agent, quod jacet subter, which lies under what appears : the
obiect that in us, whence the subject is infen'ed, id qiuxl jacet oh oculos - 17
B 2
IV SYNOPSIS.
Page
The Idea may exist in a distinct form, or as an unconscious impulse - - 17
Language is well adapted to lead from the vague sense to the clear beholding
of the Idea 17
The Progi-ession in Ideas, which is true Method, starts from a rightly chosen
Initiative ------------18
The habit of Method results from a certain education. Objects of sense stimu-
late the mind, which again acts on the food received from without - - 18
Excess in methodizing is opposed to the accumiJation of fresh material of
thought 19
According to the true Laws of Method, ideas of Reason and Faith must be held
paramount, those of Physical Experience subordinate. This subordination is
independent of immediate practical utility, which is determined by circum-
stances of the moment - - - - - - - - -19
Ideas have a certain relative rank among themselves - - - - - 20
Metaphysical Ideas relate to the essence of things as possible, and are inde-
pendent of actual existence ; these are of the highest class. Physical Ideas
concern the nature of things actually existing ------ 20
The word Nature signifies either the reality of a thing as existent, or the sum
of sensuous things ; a physical Idea, or a sensible Impression - - - 21
Mere arrangement is not Method - - - - - - - -21
Summary ------------21
Method is founded on Relations. There are relations of Law and of Theory.
The Method of the Fine Arts comprises both. The Principles of Method are
Union and Progression. Progress requires in the Mind a due mean between
passiveness under outward impression and activity of abstract reflection - 21
SECTION II.
ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRECEDING PRINCIPLES.
The Principles already stated are to be tested by particular references - - 23
Method is important generally, not in processes of intellect alone, but equally
so in the ordering of active and domestic life ------ 23
The truly methodical man gives a life to Time, distinguishing its parts, which
would otherwise glide on massed together like a stream ; realizing its ideal
dimensions, giving individuality to its moments ----- 24
Method in discourse is the sign of mental power and cultivated intellect - - 24
There must be Method in the performance of Moral Duty - - - - 25
Method in speculative meditation is conducive to worldly interest in the pro-
motion and regulation of useful discovery - , - - « - 25
SYNOPSIS. V
Page
Columbus was led to success by a guiding Idea ------ 25
In the strength of this Idea he conquered at last, though his noble hope was
long contemned, both by Princes and the common People - - - - 26
An Initiative, or previous mental act, is indispensable in physical, as well as in
mathematical studies - - - - - - - - - -26
In Mathematics the perfect Idea makes the object ; the definition precedes the
reasoning : in Physics the definition is representative not constitutive, and
follows the reasoning ----------27
Discoveries of Experimental Philosophy, till they lead to some Law, are in-
secure and unproductive - - - - - - - - -27
The Idea of the Theory of Electricity is one and sure amid various and inse-
cure hypotheses. On this depends the method of arranging the phaenomena.
The Law of Polarity operates in all Electrical phaenomena - - - - 28
Magnetism is contrasted with Electricity in furnishing no Idea, leading to no
Law, and hence to no Method. There is an hypothesis which considers
Magnetism, Electricity, and Galvanism, as results of one power essential to
all material construction - - - - - - - - -28
The Fictions of the Electrician contain an idea ; the Suppositions of the Magnet-
ists do but repeat the same fact in a magnified form. This leads us to recog-
nise the importance of the enlightening fact, which proclaims an Idea. One
fact is often as good as a thousand -------30
Zoology was without unity or system till Hunter, in the preparations for his
Museum, announced, though imperfectly, an Idea, and thereby led to noble
results ------------31
An Idea is wanted indispensably for methodical arrangement in Botany - - 31
Botany is obliged to Linnaeus for a serviceable scheme of arrangement. But for
lack of an Initiative Idea, the true Idea of Sex and of Vegetation itself, he
was unable to systematize the Vegetable with the Animal and Mineral
Kingdoms ------------32
Want of insight into the Idea of Sex precludes a perfect methodical arrange-
ment of vegetable productions. With all the multitude and variety of
particular informations on the subject, brought together by numerous able
investigators. Botany remains merely a vast nomenclature and catalogue, from
default of a methodizing Idea --------33
The Idea which has occurred to some, that the harmony between the Vegetable
and Animal Worlds rests upon contrast, not likeness, if proved an objective
truth, would produce scientific Method -------33
The charm of Chemistry consists in the anticipation of a Law, whereof the
variety of substances, assumed to be indecomposable, are exponents. It is a
pursuit after unity of principle through variety of forms - - - - 34
There is a con*espondence between Physical Science and Poetry, Nature being
idealized by the Poet, Poetry substantiated by the Natural Philosopher - 35
VI SYNOPSIS.
Page
The position that Poetry is capable of Method is founded on the very Philo-
sophy here set forth, and is evidenced in the Plays of Shakspeare - - 35
Shakspeare's information has been shown to be extensive. But his knowledge
was no rude mass, it was methodized by a perception of Relations. He
studied Mankind in the Idea of the Race, and followed out that Idea into its
varieties by a guiding Method ------__ 35
Compare Mrs. Quickly's account of FalstafPs debt, with Hamlet's narration to
Horatio of what took place in his voyage to England - - - - 36
Both discourses are immethodical in form ; but that of the hostess wants order
resulting from power of thought, while that of Hamlet is governed by reflec-
tion. The former is a mere report of passive impressions ; the latter is in-
terrupted by the propensity to generalize -___-. 38
Mrs. Quickly's want of method is common in real life ; and, on the other hand,
many intelligent men, from the disposition to generalize in excess, are apt to
overlook the relation of objects to the apprehension and sympathies of
hearers - - - -.- - - - - - - -38
The habit of Method brings the Remote into Contiguity ; the absence of it pro-
duces distance and disconnection between the parts of a discourse treating of
things near in Time and Space - - - - - - - -39
Not only is there consistency in Shakspeare's Characters : his just display of
Passion arose from the contemplation of Ideas. It was not in the former only
that he followed an accurate philosophic Method - - - - - 39
Condemnatory criticism on Shakspeare may, for the most part, receive two an-
swers ; first that, working from an Idea, he better understood the fit mode of
expressing Passion, — had a more methodical sense of Harmony, than his
critics : secondly, that he pursued two Methods at once, the poetical and the
psychological _______-. ,--40
Shakspeare's moral conceptions are guided by philosophic Method. He exhibits
crime in union with intellectual vigour, never, like less methodic moralists,
conjoined with magnanimity, or as part of a character upon the whole
amiable and admirable - - - - - - - - - -41
Shakspeare is methodical in his style. No other man ever so exquisitely
adapted the discourse of poetic personages to wide varieties of rank and cha-
racter. It was Method that led him to the choice of such happy words and
idioms, still fresh as in their first bloom - - - - - - -41
Shakspeare has been called " not methodical in the structure of his Fable ;" but
the contrary may be proved. He has been said to have violated the unities
of time, place, and action. But Unity is the subject of Ideal Law, and this
is Shakspeare's own peculiar ground, the ground of Idea. Who could alter
the plan of one of his great plays, or transpose its parts, without destroying
the sublime and moving effect of scenes and passages ? - - - - 42
If the wondrous excellence of Shakspeare, in all provinces of the poetic drama,
was thus attributable to Method, let it never be said that Poetry is inde-
pendent of philosophical principles of Method ------ 43
SYNOPSIS. vii
Page
Philosophy, to which belongs the education of Mind, is herself wholly conver-
sant with Method -----.-___ 44
The Ancients had their spurious intellectual Methods. But their Philosophers
pursued a diflferent course from the Sophists. The species, Philosophy, is
sufficiently exemplified by two varieties, Plato and Bacon - - - 44
The object of the better works of Plato is to teach the art of Method. This is
the clue to guide us through his labyrinth. His aim was not so much to
teach any particular tnith, as to clear the way for the reception of Truth at
large ; to excite in the soul those faculties, by the operation whereof it be-
comes self-enriched, rather than to fill it with knowledge from without.
Plato and Shakspeare dealt with ideas, but were only so much the more
awake to actual existences. Plato's philosophy was most wrongfully accused
of neglecting fact and experience ; he pursued the false intellectualism of the
Sophists, even oftener and more vehemently than the usurpation of the
Senses --..-----__. 45
Lord Bacon, though he is strangely cited as authority against Plato, followed the
Platonic method in his own scheme ---__«_ 45
Cicero, the great Philosopher of Eome, venerated Plato. Bacon's detraction
from him is easier to explain than to justify. He was influenced by the Fathers
of the Reformation and by misinterpreters - - - - - -46
Bacon was invidious also to his contemporaries. But we are here concerned
with his philosophical principles only - - - - - -«47
The superficial talkers about Bacon's Philosophy form a wrong and inadequate
estimate of it, from considering only those parts the soundness of which may
be fairly disputed _-_.---___ 47
Bacon collected Particulars in order to concentrate them into Universals ; but
by these means it would have been impossible to have arrived at Law, the
sole object of bringing them together -------48
Bacon performed a worthier task by constructing a methodical system de-
veloped in his Novum Organum. If we extract from Plato and from Bacon
what constitutes the true philosophy of each writer, we shall find it identical
in regard to the Science of Method ; although in both authors, from imper-
fect acquaintance with the laws of nature, the inductions are often erroneous
and the proposed applications impracticable ------ 4<^
Bacon, as much as we, demands the mental initiative, — namely, as the motive
and guide of philosophical experiment, some well-grounded purpose, some
distinct impression of the probable results. With him, as with us, an Idea
is an experiment proposed ; an experiment is an Idea realized - - - 49
What forms the purpose and adapts thereto the experiment ? The under-
standing of the experimenter — lux Intellectus. This light, he argues, is ob-
scured by idols or false opinions. He distinguishes the various kinds of idols,
and, like Plato, prescribes remedies for the blindness they produce : he shows
that Idols are empty notions, whilst Ideas are the very impresses of Nature,
corresponding perfectly to the outward things to which they belong. Bacon's
style betrays in some respects a faulty Method - - - - - 50
VUl SYNOPSIS.
Page
Bacon teaches that there are innate idols or mental fallacies ; that as the mind
in every individual is more or less enfeebled and impaired, it misrepresents,
like an imperfect miiTor, what is presented to it ; that consequently man is
led to take the mechanism of his own reflective faculty for the measure of
Nature and of Deity. According to Plato, as well as to Bacon, so long as
forms merely subjective are taken for the moulds of objective truth, no
fruitful and secure method can be expected ------ 5C
Bacon suggests that the imperfection of the human Intellect may and must be
remedied by a higher power. He assumes that the evidence of the Judgment,
^eset with Idols, may be corrected by the Judgment, enlightened by Ideas.
This corrector and purifier is one and the same light of truth, the condition
ot all pure science. Hence Plato calls Ideas living Laws : Bacon names the
Laws of Nature Ideas. What Plato extolled under the title of Dialectic, is
the discipline whereby the human mind is cleansed from Idols, and raised to
the contemplation of Ideas, or distinguishable powers self-affirmed - - 52
Plato treated principally of Truth as manifested in the world of Intellect ; Bacon
of the same Truth in the world of Sense. The one cultivated Metaphysics
most ; the other Natural Philosophy. Botn proceeded on the same prin-
ciples of Unity and Progression, and alike followed Method as here de-
scribed ------------52
That the Method treated of is founded in the laws and necessary conditions of
human existence, may be inferred from the History of the Human Race, which
has its Infancy, Youth, Manhood, and Middle Age ----- 54
In the first period the Obedience of the Will was taught to Man. Some in that
Early Age cultivated the Moral Sense, gained spiritual knowledge and spiritual
hopes, and therefore cared little to acquire Arts and Sciences and improve
earthly possessions. The latter exclusively observed outward things as the
sole realities. The vicious of Mankind receded from cultivation, while they
hui'ried toward civilization. They worshipped the material elements, and
finally bowed down before material Idols. Here were two opposite Methods ;
that of looking for the good and the true within the mind, and that of finding
it only in the material -- - - - - - - - -54
In the second period Providence awakened Man to the pursuit of an idealized
Method in the development of his faculties. Bards began to spiritualize
Polytheism. Hence the Mysteries shaped themselves into Epic Poetry and
History on one hand, — on the other into Tragedy and Philosophy. The Fine
Arts shot up at once to perfection by a Method founded on a Mental Initia-
tive. The progress of the Ancients in all things that originate in Mind was
contrasted with their slow advance in Natural History and Philosophy - 55
The Romans were mere imitators of the Greeks in Science and Art. The Dark
Ages, which brought the sensual Barbarians from the North to meet the
influences of Christianity in the South, require no long consideration. But
one effect of that influence must be noticed, namely, the gi-adual abolition of
domestic slavery. The Idea of a Human Being, as a Person, in opposition
to a Thing, excludes the Idea of property in that Being - - - - 56
SYNOPSIS. IX
Page
The Leaders of the Reformation were advocates of the Ideal and Internal
against the External or Imaginative. The Revolution of Thought and its
effects on the Science of Method became visible beyond the pale of the Church
or the Cloister. Bacon's attempt to introduce a new method into Learning
was completely successful - - - - - - - - -57
A complete and genuine Philosophy can only exist when one and the same Ideal
Method is applied to external nature and to intellectual existence. The work
of Bacon, in its general scope, contemplates physical Ideas. This fact,
together with some of his expressions, misled many of his followers into the
belief that he hel-i the things of sense to be the only worthy objects of Man's
attention. Hence the modern French school of Philosophy and the monstrous
puerilities of Condillac and Condorcet, whose pupils are important only by
their number _------•«-- 57
SECTION III.
APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF METHOD TO THE GENERAL
CONCATENATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF STUDIES.
A savage Indian, unacquainted with letters, attempting to make use of the
Bible, in the sense that his fate is in some way connected with its contents,
may represent Arrangement guided by no Idea, Orderliness without Method - 59
When the Missionary, arriving, explains to him the nature of written words, he
communes with the spirit of the volume. Thenceforth his vain Arrangement
is discarded ; the results of Method are to him light and truth - - - 60
The attempt to bind together the whole body of the Sciences has been, in some
instances, worse than immethodical. The insinuation of sceptical principles
into works of Science is full of danger to posterity - - - - ' Q^
The Encyclopaedia Metropolitana has been projected to keep up an interest in
the Drinciples of Method - - - - - - - - -61
An Universal Dictionary of Knowledge is not undertaken in this work, but to
build, by a philosophical Method, the Useful on the Essential in Science, — the
Elegant and Agreeable on both - - - -- - - -61
This Method consists in subordinating particxJar things to a preconceived Idea,
or to some lower form of the latter ------ -61
The Moral Origin and Tendency of true Science is the master thought of the
plan 61
The Pure Sciences are built on the Relations of Ideas to each other ; the Mixed
or Applied on the Relations of Ideas to the External World - - - 62
The Pure Sciences represent pure Acts of Mind ------ 62
In them we distinguish between Formal and Real. The former teach the
Forms of Thinking ; the latter treat of Being itself, the true nature and exist-
ence of the External Universe, of the Guiding Principles within us, and of
the Great Cause of all - - - - - • - - - - 62
X SYNOPSIS.
Pai'6
The Formal Sciences are Grammar, Logic, Mathematics ; the Sciences that
deal with substantial realities are Metaphysics, Morals, Theology. These
Sciences are conversant about relations of Law, therefore have all the purity
and certainty of the positive and absolute. In the proper philosophical
Method the speculative knowledge of Metaphysics is united with the reality
of ethical sentiments, and both are consummated in Theology - - - 62
The INIixed and Applied Sciences, as they concern our relations to the external
world, not pure acts of mind alone, depart from Law to embrace Theory, and
thus require a Method adapted to themselves ------ 64
Physical Theories, the materials of which they are constructed being supplied
from without, continually change form, and are imperfect because necessarily
progressive. The Initiative in such cases is supplied by an Hypothesis, an
actual fact represented as universally present, or a fact imagined, being
placed, as it were, centrally, to the support of other facts arranged by the
theory into a certain form ---------65
True Theory is always a locum tenens of Law. A Law occupying the centre,
the circumference may be extended without derangement of the entire scheme,
or alteration of its character --------65
This will show the connexion of the Mixed and Applied with the Pure Sciences,
and the reference of the former to the Human Mind. The terms Science and
Law, however, are used in a less strict sense in reference to the Mixed and
Applied Sciences than to the Pure, since they cannot have the absolute cer-
tainty of the others. The former might best be entitled Studies - - ^Q
The Mixed Studies or Sciences are those in which certain Ideas of the Mind are
applied to the general properties of bodies, as Mechanics, Hydrostatics,
Optics, and Astronomy- - - - - - - - - -67
The Applied Sciences are those in which Ideas or Images that represent them
are applied, 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. Such are Magnetism, Electricity, Galvanism, the
laws of Light and Heat, &c. The uncertainty of the first principles in these
Studies has already been shown --------68
The Fine Arts are Sciences applied to the purposes of Pleasure through the
Imagination. They are Poetry, Painting, Music, Sculpture, Architecture. In
these the Mental Initiative must proceed from within ; in the Mixed and in
the first class of Applied Sciences it may have been received from without.
The Method to be observed in them, as before stated, lies between that ot
Law and that of Theory. As operating by sensible impressions, they belong
to the outward world ; and yet the true Poet is impelled by an inward
power, an impulse, which gradually brightens into an Idea - - - 68
Useful Pursuits — Political Economy, Agriculture, Commerce, Manufac-
tures — are reducible to Method, and refer to Ideas, being dependent on the
Sciences already named - - - - - - - - -69
The failure of Linnaeus in fixing the three great kingdoms of Natural History on
a firm basis is owing to the want of precision in the first Ideas of his Theory 70
SYNOPSIS. xi
Page
Natural History is a rule for the dependent pursuits, such as Medicine, Surgery,
and Anatomy. The desire to improve these should be regulated by a due
regard to the place each holds in the circle of the Sciences, and by observino-
the only proper method that can be pursued in its cultivation - - - 70
The plan of this Encyclopaedia embraces the History of the Human Race. The
great end of History is to acquaint us with the History of Man, and this end is
best answered by giving the most exact portrait. But there must be some
mode of grouping and connecting the Individuals, who are themselves the
great landmarks in the map of Human Nature. Accordingly Histoiy will
sometimes be presented in the form of Biography. The Uses of History will
be treated in an Introduction, and there will be inter-connecting Chapters on
the events of distinguishing periods, as well as on Political Geography and
Chronology _--__---->_ 70
These views relate the Philosophical and Historical branches of the Work.
Of the Miscellaneous and Alphabetical it is not necessary to make any detailed
statement ------------72
To the Philosophical, as most important, every other part of the arrangement is
suboi'dinated. The Philosophical governs and regulates the Alphabetical - 73
Trade and Literature, the one of which has for its object the wants of the body,
the other the wants of the mind, are the two great impulses of Modern times.
Without these combined there can be no Nation ; without Commerce and
Science no bond of Nations. Our Method embraces this two-fold distinction
of human activity .----.-..-74
This conducts us to the distinguishing object of the present undertaking, in ex-
plaining which we have dwelt on Method, the main characteristic of every just
an-angement of Knowledge. To convey methodically the pure and unsophisticated
knowledge of the Past, so as to aid the progress of the Future, has been already
announced as the dlstingnishing claim of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.
SECTION I.
ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD.
The word Encyclopaedia is too familiar to Modem Literature Nature of
to require, in this place, any detailed explanation. It is current
amongst us as the title of various Dictionaries of Science, whose
professed object is to furnish a compendium of Human Know-
ledge, 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 presenting,
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 dis- The Ency-
tinguishing feature of our publication, it becomes us at the Metropoli-
commencement, clearly to explain in this Introduction what ^^;j^;^f
we mean by that word ; to exhibit the Principles on which Compen-
T>i •! • dium of
alone a correct Philosophical Method can be founded ; to Human
illustrate those principles by their apphcation to distinct studies °
and to the History of the Himian Mind ; and lastly to apply
them to the general concatenation of the several Arts and
Sciences, and to the most perspicuous, elegant, and useflil
manner of developing each particular study. Such are the
objects of this Essay, which we conceive must form a necessary
Introduction to a Work, that is designated in its title from the
14 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. I.
place whence it originates, — Encyclopedia Metropolitana ;
but claims from its mode of execution to be also called " a
Methodical Compendium of Human Knowledge^
The word Tlie word Method (fxidodoo) being of Grecian origin, first
formed and applied by tliat 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 funda-
mental signification. Now, in Greek, it literally means a way,
or path, of transit. Hence the first idea of Method is a pro-
gressive transition from one step in any course to another ; and
where the word Method is applied with reference to many such
transitions in continuity, it necessarily implies a Principle oi
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 production of circumstances. This act of the
Mind, then, this leading thought, this " key note " of the
harmony, this " subtile, cementing, subterraneous " power,
borrowing a phrase from the nomenclature of legislation, we
may not inaptly call the INITIATIVE of all Method. It is mani-
fest, that the wider the sphere of transition is, the more com-
prehensive 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.
The Science To this point wc 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 there-
fore becomes our duty to consider, in so far at least as they
SEC. I.] PRIXCIPLES OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 15"
may be necessary to tlie arrangement of a Methodical Encyclo-
paedia.
AU things, in us, and about us, are a Chaos, without Method : Its Objects
and so long as the mind is entirely passive, so long as there is Relations,
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 proportionably render thmking a trouble and
a fatigue. But as soon as the mmd becomes accustomed to
contemplate, not things only, but likewise relations of things,
there is immediate need of some path or way of transit from
one to the other of the 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 3Iethod ; 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 per-
ceive that it is. The one, we call the relation of Law, usmg
tliat 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 Relation of
only of Gi-OD, that Supreme Light, and Living Law, "in whom
we live and move, and have our being ;" who is h Travn, and 7rp6
7 u)v TrdvTiop. But yet the Human Mind is capable of viewing
16 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. I.
some relations of tilings 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 progression.
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 Mixed Sciences, such as those of Mechanics
and Astronomy.
fteiation of The second relation is that of Theory, in which the existing
forms and qualities of 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.
Middle or The relations of Law and Theory have each their Methods.
Method of Between these two, lies the Method of the Fine Arts, a
Arts ^"^ 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 accomplished Critic in Poetry, and
that a fine Musical taste is soon dissatisfied with the Harmonica,
or any similar instrument of glass or steel, because the body of
the sound, (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
FEC. I.] PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 17
are, in fact. Laws of tlie Mind, analogous to the Laws of
Arithmetic and Greometry.
We have stated, that Method implies both an uniting and a principle
progressive power. Now the relations of tilings are not united ^ '^'^"*
in Human conception at random — hiimano capiti — cervicem
equinam ; but there is some rule, some mode of imion, 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 la}'ing down the rule, so the rule laid down we call, in the
ancient and proper sense of the word, an Idea ; and conse- Ideas,
quently 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 immethodizing of the wdiole Science of
the Human Mind, and indeed of all other Knowledge what-
soever.
The Idea may exist in a clear, distinct, definite form, as that Definite or
.-.-._. -p ^ .. . Instinctive
01 a circle m the Mmd oi an accurate (ieometncian ; or it may
be a mere instinct, a vague appetency towards something which
the Mind incessantly hunts for, but cannot find, like a name
which has escaped our recollection, or the impulse which fills
the yoimg 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 wiU be seen, in
jhe sequel, that this distinction between the instinctive approach
toward an Idea, and the Idea itself, is of high importance in
Methodizing Art and Science.
18 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. I.
There is a From the first, or initiative Idea, as from a seed, successive
progTrssion I^i^as germinate. Thus, from the Idea of a triangle, necessarily
in Ideas. foUows that of equality between the sum of its three angles and
two right angles. This is the Principle 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 wakefuhiess 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 diver-
gency, and thence beginning our progress anew. Thus, a ship
beating off and 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 Language so
happily expresses by the word s'orienter, i. e. to find out the ,
East for ourselves, and so to put to rights our faulty reck-
oning.
state of The habit of Method should always be present and effective ;
adapted to but in Order to render it so, a certain training, or education of
i etiKK . ^-j^^ Mind, is indispensably necessary. Events 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 w^ithout. Method, therefore, must result
from the due mean, or balance, between our passive impressions
and the Mind's reaction on them. So in the healthful state of
the Human body, waking and sleeping, rest and labour, reci-
procally succeed each other, and mutually contribute to liveli-
ness; 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 com-
SEC. I.J PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 19
binations of conception or thought. The Mind that is rich Excess in
and exuberant in this intellectual wealth, is apt, like a miser, j^g opposed
to dwell upon the vain contemplation of its riches, is disposed ^° the accu-
to ffenerahze and methodize to excess, ever philosopliizinff, and of fresh
^ . . ' . . ^. . .^' material of
never descending to action ; — spreading its wmgs high in the thought.
air above some beloved spot, but never flying far and wide over
earth and sea, to seek food, or to enjoy the endless beauties of
Kature ; the fresh morning and the warm noon, and the dewy
eve. On the other hand, still less is to be expected, toward
the Methodizing of Science, from the man who flutters about
in blindness, like the bat ; or is carried liither and thither, like
the turtle sleeping on the wave, and fancying, because he moves,
that he is in progress.
The patlis in which we may pursue a Methodical course are Proper
manifold : at the head of each stands its pecuHar and guiding Method.
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 sufiered much, in modem 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 Eeason and Faith to the bar of
that Hmited Physical experience, to which, by the true laws of
Method, they owe no obedience. The subordination, of which
we here speak, is not that which depends on immediate prac-
tical utility : for the utility of Human powers, in their practical
appHcation, depends on the circumstances of the moment ; and
at one time strength is essential to our very existence, at
another time skill : and even Cassar in a fever could cry.
Give me some drink, Titinius,
As a sick girl.
In truth there is scarcely any one of the powers or faculties
with which the Divine Goodness has endowed his creatures,
which may not in its turn be a source of paramount benefit and
C2
20 LNTKODUCTION. [SEC. I.
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 Ideas by which they are
Gradation initiated and directed ; for there is a gradation of Ideas, as of
ranks in a well-ordered State, or of commands in a well-regu-
lated army ; and thus above all partial forms, there is one uni-
versal form of GOOD and FAIR, the Ka\oKq.yaQov of the Platonic
Philosophy. Hence the expressions of Lord Bacon, who in his
great Work, the N'ovum Organum, 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.
JMotaphy- We distinguish Ideas into those of essential property, and
Physical those of natural existence ; in other words, into Metaphysical
.deas. ^^^ 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 Geome-
trical, 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 cogni-
zable by our faculties, whether the thing be material or imma-
terial, bodily or mental. Thus, the laws of memory, the laws
of vision, the laws of vegetation, the laws of crystallisation, are
all Physical Ideas, dependent for their accuracy, on tlie more
or less careful observation of tilings actually existing.
In speaking of the word Nature, however, wc must dis-
eEC. I.] PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 21
tinffuisli its two principal uses, viz. first, tliat to which we have Two uses of
° r r ^ ^j^g ^Qj,^l
adverted, and according to which it signifies whatever is Nature,
requisite to the reality of a thing as existent, such as the
nature of an aninial or a tree, distmguished 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.
Even natural substances, it is true, may be classed and Mere ar-
-I p . . . rangement
arranged for various purposes, m a certain order. Such mere is not
arrangement, however, is not properly Methodical, but rather a
preparation toward Method ; as the compilation of a Dictionary
is a preparation for classical study.
The limits of our present Essay will not allow us to do more Summary,
than briefly to touch the chief topics of a general dissertation
on Method ; but enough we trust has here been said, to render
intelhgible the principles on which our Methodical Encyclo-
paedia must be constructed. We have shown that a Method,
which is at all comprehensive, must be founded on the relatimis
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 observed, that in the Fine Arts there is a sort of
middle Method, inasmuch as the first and higher relations are
necessary, the lower are 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
22 INTRODUCTION^. [SEC. I.
Union and or instinctive. Their union, in proportion as it is clear, is also
Progression . r»Tifl-TT -i ^ tit
are the progressive. Ine state oi Mmd adapted to such progress holds
of^Method ^ ^^^ mean between a passiveness imder external impression,
and an excessive activity of mere reflection ; and the progress
itself follows the path of the Idea from wliich 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.
( 28 )
SECTION II.
ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRECEDING PRINCIPLES .
The Principles wKicli have been exliibited in the preceding Test of the
Section, and in respect to which we claim no other merit, tiie princi-
than that of having drawn them from the purest sources of ^^^f' ^ ^^^ -^
Philosophy, ancient and modem, 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 General
need have we to dilate on this fertile topic ? For it is not of jiethod*^
solely in the formation of the Human Understanding, and in
the constructions of Science and Literature, that the employ-
ment 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 in the
hearth or the workshop of the artisan, to the Palace or the aitive"a^d
Arsenal, the first merit, that which admits neither substitute J^omestic
hie.
nor equivalent, is, that ever?/ 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 clockwork. The resemblance extends beyond the
point of regularity, and yet faUs short of the truth. Both do,
indeed, at once divide and announce the silent and otherwise
24 IxXTRODUCTION. fSEC. II.
Character indistinguishable lapse of time; but the man of Methodical
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, wliile 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.
Method in Let US carry our views a step higher. What is it that first
the^sis^n V strikes us, and strikes us at once in a man of education, and
mental which, among educated men, so instantly distinguishes the man
of superior Mind ? Not always the weight or novelty of his
remarks, nor always the interest of the facts which he com-
municates ; 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 C«sar — Insolens verhum, tanquam scopulum, evitare. The
true cause of the impression made on us is, that his mind is
and of methodical. We perceive tliis in the unpremeditated and
mtellect, evidently habitual arrangement of his words, flowing spon-
taneously 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 instance how it is to end, and how all its
SEC. II. J ILLUSTRATIOXS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 25
parts may be brouglit out in the best and most orderly suc-
cession. However irregular and desultory the conversation
may happen to be, there is MetJwd in the fragments.
Let us once more take an example which must come '' home Method in
to every man's business and bosom." Is there not a Method in formance of
tlie discharge of all our relative duties ? And is not he the ™°^^^ ^^^^
truly virtuous and truly happy man, who seizing first and
laymg 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 afibrds 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 Method in
Disquisition, if we are anxious, before we leave this part of the conducive
subiect, to attract the attention of our readers to the importance to /worldly
'J ' -T interest m
of speculative meditation (wliich never wiU be fruitful unless it the promo-
be methodical) even to the worldly mterests of mankind. We regulation
can recall no incident of human history that impresses the discovery,
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 Cohimbus
methodical. He saw distinctly that great leading Idea, which cess by a
authorized the poor pilot to become " a promiser of kingdoms :" f^^a^"^
and he pursued the progressive development of the mighty
truth with an unyielding firmness, which taught him to " rejoice
in lofty labours." Our readers will perhaps excuse us for
26
INTRODUCTION.
In the
strength of
an Idea he
conquers,
at last,
though long
contemned
both by
Princes
and the
Populace.
An initia-
tive or
previous
mental act
indispensa-
ble in
physical as
well as in
mathema-
tical
studies.
[sec. II.
quoting, as illustrative of what we have here observed, some
lines from an Ode of Chiabrera's, which, in strength of thought
and lofty majesty of Poetry, has but ** few peers in ancient or
in modern Song."
Columbus.
Certo da cor, ch' alto destin non scelse.
Son I'imprese magnanime neglette ;
Ma le beir alme alle bell' opre elctte
Sanno gioir nelle fatiche eccelse :
Ne biasmo popolar, frale catena,
Spirto d'onore, il suo cammin raifrena.
Cos! lunga stagion per modi indegni
Europa disprezzo I'inclita speme,
Schernendo il vulgo, e seco i Regi insierae,
Nudo nocchier, promettitor di Regni ;
Ma per le sconosciute onde marine
L'invitta prora ei pur sospinse al fine.
Qual tiom, che torni alia gentil consorte,
Tal ei da sua magion spiego I'antenne ;
L'ocean corse, e i turbini sostenne,
Vinse le crude immagini di morte ;
Poscia, deir ampio mar spenta la guerra,
Scorse la dianzi favolosa teiTa.
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, I'insuperabil Croce ;
E porge umile esempio, onde adorarla
Debba sua gente. Chiabrera, P. I. 12.
We do not mean to rest our argument on the general utility
or importance of 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
admitted; 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
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 27
is supposed to be such, be found not to bave the radii from the In Mathe-
centre to the circumference perfectly equal, it will in no pei-fect Idea
manner affect the Mathematician's reasoning on the properties ^^.^^J ^Jj^^
of circles ; it will only prove that the figure in question is not definition
. . A TV r 1 • 1 P^^^^'^^^ the
a circle according to the previous definition. A Mathematical reasoning.
Idea, therefore, may be perfect. But the place of a perfect
Idea cannot be exactly supplied, in the sciences of experiment
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, shaU
the generalization be made ? The theory must still require a
prior theory for its own legitimate construction. The Physical I'^ Physics
^ . y ° . *^ , thedefini-
defimtion follows and does not precede the reasoning. It is tion is
representative, not constitutive, and is indeed little more than tivTiwt^
an abbreviature of the preceding observation, and the deduc- JPJ^stitu-
tions therefrom. But as the observation, though aided by /o^^o«^s the
MT'i !• n Tr««« reasoning.
experiment, is necessarily limited and imperfect, the definition
must be equally so. The history of theories, and the fre-
quency 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 Discoveries
do we not owe to accident ? Doubtless : but let it not be for- mental
gotten, that if the discoveries so made stop there ; if they do yaiuele?^
not excite some master Idea ; if they do not lead to some *^^^ *^^y
T /• 1 1 ^ J ^ ^ lead to
Law ; (m whatever dress of theory or hypothesis the fashions some Law.
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 pJicenomena that led
immediately to a theory of Electricity. That here, as in
28 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II.
Eictricity. 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 Hght; while a fourth composed the
electrical aura of oxygen, hydrogen, and caloric : all this does
but place the truth we have been insistmg on in a stronger and
clearer light. For, abstract from all these suppositions, or
rather unaginations, 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 equi-
librium. 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 phcenomena. For this reason it may not be rash
to anticipate the nearest approaches to a correct system of Elec-
tricity 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 phenomena the operation of a Law wliich reigns
through all Nature, viz. the law of polarity, or the manifesta-
tion 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 Xlllth century, however, or perhaps
earlier, the polarity of the magnet, and its communicability to
iron, were discovered. We remain in doubt whether this dis-
covery were accidental, or the result of theory ; if the former.
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 29
the purpose wliich 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 genmne 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 higenious hypotheses
that have yet been formed on the subject, we may notice that
which, corabining the three primary Laws of Magnetism, Hypothesis
Electricity, and Galvanism,^ considers them all as the results of considers
one common power, essential to all material construction in the ^f °f ^-^^J"'
works of Nature. It is, perhaps, more an operation of the ^"^^ Gaiva-
• 1 nism as
Fancy than of the Eeason, which has suggested that these three results of
material powers are analogous to the three dimensions of space. ess^enSrHo
Hypothesis, be it observed, can never form the groundwork of ^^^ ^l^t^"''*!
, , ° construc-
a true scientific method, unless when the hypothesis is either a tion.
true Idea projDOsed in an hypothetical form, or at least the
symbol of an Idea as yet unknown, of a Law as yet undis-
covered ; and in tliis latter case the hypothesis merely performs*
the function of an unknown quantity in Algebra, and is
assumed for the purpose of submitting the 'plicenomena 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;
* See the experiments of Coulomb, Brugmans, and Goethe. To which may be
added, should they be confirmed, the curious observations on crystallisation, first
made in Corsica, and since pursued in France.
30 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. 11.
implicit indeed, and only regulative liitherto, but wliich
requires little more tlian the dismission of the imagery to
become constitutive, like the Ideas of the Geometrician. On
the 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 inde-
pendent axis) are but repetitions of the same fact ox phcenomemoriy
looked at through a magnifying glass; the reiteration of the
Importance problem, not its solution. This leads to the important con-
lightening sideration, so often dwelt upon, so forcibly urged, so powerfully
m-ociaimr ^i^P^ifi^d and explained by our great countryman ^Bacon, that
an Idea. Qj^g f^c^ ig often worth a thousand. 8atis scimus, says he,
axiomata recte inventa, tota agmina operum secum trahere.
Hence his indignant reprobation of the vis experimentalis, cceca,
stupida, vaga, prcerupta I Hence his just and earnest exliort-
ations to pursue the experimenta lucifera, and those alone;
discarding, for their sakes, even the fructifera experimemta.
The Natural Philosopher, who cannot, or will not see, that it is
the " enlightening " fact, which really causes all the others to
he 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 evpr]ica 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.
Zoology. We have said that improgressive arrangement is not Method :
and in proof of this we appeal to the notorious fact, that
Zoology, soon after the commencement of the latter half of
the last century, was falling abroad, weighed doAvn and crushed
as it were by the inordinate number and multiplicity of facts
and phcenomena apparently separate, without evincing the least
promise of systematizing itself by any inward combination of its
SEC. il] illustrations of the science of method. 31
parts. John Hunter, wlio liad appeared, at times, almost a
stranger to the grand conception, wliicli yet never ceased to
work in Hm, as liis 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 ever-
more to flit before liim, 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 notwitlistanding the
imperfection in the annunciation of the Idea, how exliilarating
have been the results 1 It may, we believe, be afiirmed, 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 Botany,
those of vegetable life, the transition is easy and Natural. In
this pursuit, how striking is the necessity of a clear Idea, as
initiative of aU Method! How obvious the importance of
attention to the conduct of the Mind in the exercise of Method
itself ! The lowest attempt at Botanical arrangement 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 proportionally anticipate its necessity, and
who does not believe that necessity to be demonstrable by an "
insight into its nature, whenever and wherever such insight
32 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II.
Obligations can be obtained. We acknowledge, we reverence, tlie obliga-
te Linnaus tions of Botany to LlNN^US, wlio adopting from Bartliolinus
servtceable ^^^ otliers the sexuality of plants, grounded thereon a sclieme
scheme of of classific and distinctive marks, by wliick one man's experience
arrange- . .
meat, 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 vege-
tation 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
doctrine 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 extension, 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 :
and 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
SEO. n.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 33
that tKe amplest survey of the 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 constituents 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 best discipline, under the ablest commanders. Yet after
all that was effected by Linnaeus himself, not to mention the
labours of Caesalpinus, Ray, Gresner, 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 enterprises of Hedwig, Jussieu, Mirbel, Simith,
Knight, Ellis, &c. &c. — wliat is Botany at this present hour ?
Little more than an enormous nomenclature ; a huge catalogue.
Men arrange, yearly and monthly augmented, in various
editions, each with its own scheme of technical memory and its
OAvn conveniences of reference ! The innocent amusement,
the healthful occupation, the ornamental accomplislnnent 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 demonstrated 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
D
34 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II.
alone dwell power and propKecy, decisive experiment, and
scientific Method.
Chemistry. Such, too, is the case with the substances of the Laboratory,
which are assumed 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 to 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
complacency which is afforded by the sense of truth, utility,
permanence, and progression, 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 the 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 Davt, a
WoLLASTON, a Hatchett, or a Murray,
By som€ connatural force,
Powerful at greatest distance to unite
With secret amity things of like kind,
we find poetry, as it were, substantiated and realized.
Tliis consideration leads us from tlie paths of Physical
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF iHE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 35
Science into a region apparently very different. Those who Poetry
tread the enchanted ground of Poetry, oftentimes do not even Method,
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 appli-
cation ; 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, wdiose Mind they have,
probably, been taught to consider as eminently immethodical. cAndenced
In the first place, Shakspeare was not only endowed with great piays of
native genius, (which indeed he is commonly allowed to have ^ "^P^^^^-
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 liis 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 ^^^^^^'
° ° . ^ speare's
that Shakspeare had of facts. I shall mention only one. I do knowledge
not say, he gives a good account of tlie Salic law, though a by his
much worse has been given by many antiquaries. But he who of rdatious,
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 aU this reading, all
this information, all this knowledge of our great dramatist, a
mere rudis indigestaque moles ? Very far from it. Method,
we have seen, demands a knowledge of the relations which
things bear to each other, or to tlie observer, or to the state and
d2
36 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II.
appreliension of the hearers. In all and eacli of these was
Shakspeare so deeply versed, that ha 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 commmiing with
the same human nature. Everywhere we find mdividuality :
nowhere 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 illustrate,
by example, the difference between a sterile and an exuberant
mind, in respect to what we have ventured to call the Science
Comparison of Method. On the one hand observe Mrs. Quickly 's relation
Quickly's of the circumstanccs of Sir John Falstaff 's debt : —
relation of Falstaff. What is the gross sum that I owe thee ?
falstaff s •^jj.g^ Quickly, 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 Quickly ? — 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 told thee they were ill for a green wound," &c. &c. &c.
{Henry IV. P. I. Act 11. Scene I.)
On the other hand consider the narration given by Hamlet
to Horatio, of the occurrences during his proposed transporta-
tion to England, and the events that interrupted liis voyage.
{Act V. Scene II)
a narration Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
of Hamlet That would not let me sleep : methought I lay
to Horatio. Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
And prais'd be rashness for it Let us know,
6 T^v eavTOv 'ipvxh>^ Si-T€i vArjv riva acrwfiaTOV fj.op •
methodical narrations, we consider only the lorm, it must be confessed that
m form. ^^^^ ^^^ immethodieol. 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 re-
flecting and generalizing ; but neither Hamlet nor the Hostess
That of holds this balance accurately. In Mrs. Quickly, the memory
Quickly alone is called into action, the objects and events recur in the
resulting ^^ narration in the same order, and with the same accompani-
rrom the ments, howcver accidental or impertinent, as they had first
power of i. ' J
thought, 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.
That of But when we look to the Prince of Denmark's recital the case
governedby is widely different. Here the events, with the circumstances
reflection ^£ ^-^^ ^^^ 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
material circumstance, which he was hurrying by, by a direct
question (How WAS THIS SEALED ?) from the friend 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 occur-
rence ; 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
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 39
its want of Method, wliicli is not greater tlian we often meet The Hos-
witli in that class of minds of which she is the dramatic repre- of methoil
sentative. Nor will the excess of generalization and reflection ^°"?"?J!" '^
have escaped our obser\^ation in real life, though the great Poet
' has more conveniently supplied the illustrations. In attending
too exclusively to the relations wliich 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 over-
looking that other relation, in which they are likcAvise 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 accidental. Hence, the nearer the things and incidents
in time and place, the more distant, disjointed, and impertinent
to each other, and to any common purpose, will 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 eiFectire, things the most remote and
diverse in time, place, and outward circumstance, are brought
into mental contiguity and succession, the more strildng as the
less expected. 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 Consistency
characters that Methodical Unity which the wise Roman so speare's"
strongly recommends : — characters.
Si quid inexpertum scenae oommittis, et audes
Personam fonnare novara ; servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incoepto processerit, et sibi constet.
But this was not the only way in wliich he followed an accu-
rate Philosophic Method • we quote the expressions of SCHI/E-
40 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II:
His just GEL, a foreign critic of great and deserved reputation : — " If
of Passion Shakspeare deserves our admiration for his characters, he is
arose from ^q^allj deserving of it for his exhibition of Passion, taking
tempiation this word in its vddest 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 r 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 comprise the whole dimensions of our
poetical Hercules, have busied themselves in measuring and
spanning him muscle by muscle, till they fancied they had
Coiidemna- discovered some disproportion. There are two answers appli-
cisms on Cable to most of such remarks. First, that Shakspeare under-
answered^*^ stood the true language and external workings of Passion better
than his critics. He had a higher, and a more Ideal, and con-
sequently 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 scale, at the top of which sits the author.
His and at the bottom the critic. The second answer is, that
^loeUcal^and Shakspeare was pursuing two Methods at once ; and besides
psychoio- the Psychological^ Method, he had also to attend to the
^ We beg pardon for the use of this insolens verbum ; but it is one of which our
Language stands in great need. We have no single term to express the Philosophy
of the Human J^Iind : and what is worse, the Principles of that Philosophy are
commonly called Metaphysical, a word of very different meaning.
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 41
Poetical. Now the Poetical Method requires above all tilings
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 Sclxlegel calls " a musical
alleviation of our sympathy." The Lydian mode must temper
tJie 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. Wliat 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 furnisliing lessons of
profound meditation to frail and fallible Human Nature. He
shows us Crime and Want of Principle clothed not with a Shak-
spurious greatness of soul, but with a force of intellect wliich ^qyz\ con-
too often imposes but the more easily on the weak, misjudging ^^P^^*^fs
multitude. He shows us the innocent mind of Othello plimged ptilosophi-
, . . 1 1 r* ^ n ^ (' ~^ ^^^ method,
by its own unsuspectmg, and therefore unwatchful confidence,
into guilt and misery not to be endured. Look at Lear, look
at Eichard, 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 anything of Philosophical Method.
Nay, even in his style, how Methodical is our '' sweet His stylo
Shakspeare." Sweetness is, indeed, its predominant character-
istic ; 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 meditation. But pardoning him
these dulcia vitia, who ever fashioned the English Language,
or any Language, ancient or modern, into such variety of appro-
42 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. U.
__^ priate 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.
Wlio, like him, could so Methodically suit the very flow and
tone of discourse to characters lying so widely apart in rank,
and habits, and peculiarities, as Holofernes and Queen Katha-
rine, FalstafF and^Lear ? When we compare the pure English
style of Shakspeare with that of the very best writers of liis
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, w^hich 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 inspi-
Shak- ration. The very point of this dispute is Ideal. The question
alleo-ed is one of Unit?/ : and Unity, as we ha>e shown, is wholly the
Ihe Unices subject of Ideal law. There are said to be three great Unities
examined, wliich 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 terrorihus implet
Ut magus, et mode me Thebis, mode ponit Athenis.
The Dramatist who circumscribes liimself 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
SEC. n.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 43
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 light-
ning, to the fatal fight of Dunsinane, in which their victim
expiates with life, his credulity and his anfbition ? To the dis-
grace 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 varepov Trporepoy 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 C«sar into two good set Tragedies. 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.
Thus we have seen that Shakspeare's mind, rich in stores of Poetry
acquired knowledge, commanded all these stores and rendered whole
them disposable, by means of his intimate acquaintance with the j^^^jj
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 liimself
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
liis 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 repre-
44 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. IT.
sentatives of Tliouglit — is not strictly Methodical ; nay, does
not owe its wliole cliarm, and all its beauty, and all its power,
to the Pliilosopliical Principles of Method.
Philosophy g^t what of Philosophy herself? Shall she be exempted
Wholly . .
conversant from the Laws, which she has imposed on all the rest of the
Mothod. known Universe? Longe absitl 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 Eoman 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 wliich 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 —
fieydXai 6ea\ avdpdffiv apyo7i,
a'lTrep yv(tifj.T}v kol did\e^LV Kol vovv riixiu Tcap4xov(Ti,
Koi TepaTciav, Koi irepiAe^LV, Kal Kpovcriv, koi KaTaXrjrpiv.
API2T0$. Nee/). 316.
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 thawy.
But the Philosophers held a course very different from that of
the Sophists. We shall not trouble our readers with a com-
parative 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.
Of Plato's Works, tlie larprer and more valuable portion
SEC. n.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 45
have all one common end, wliicli comprehends and shines Plato
through the particular purpose of each several Dialogue; and art1)f
this is, to establish the sources, to evolve the Principles, and to ^^^thod.
exemplify the Art of Method. This is the clue, without
wliich 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, mdeed, appear not seldom to
have been drawn, for the purpose of startiag 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 liis proposed object, not any specific information that can be
conveyed iiito 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 Pliilosophic Poet. In the Poetry, as well as
in the Philosophy, of both, there was a necessary predominance
of Ideas ; but tliis did not make them regardless of the actual
existences around them. They were not visionaries, nor
mystics ; but dwelt in '^ the sober certainty" of waking know-
ledge. It is strange, yet characteristic of the spirit that was at Plato
work during the latter half of the last century, that the writings accused of
of Plato should be accused of estranging the Mind from plain JJ^S^e^tiug
experience and substantial matter-of-fact, and of debauclung it experience.
46 INTKODUCTIOX. [SEC. II
by fictions and generalities. Plato, wliose Method is inductive
tlirongliout, wlio argues on all subjects not only from, but in
and bt/, inductions of facts ! who warns us, indeed, against the
usurpation of the Senses, but far oftener, and with more un-
mitigated hostility, pursues the assumptions, abstractions,
generalities, and verbal legerdemain of the Sophists. Strange 1
but still more strange, that a notion so groundless should be
Bacon. entitled to plead in its behalf the authority of Lord Bacox,
whose scheme of Logic, as applied to the contemplation of
Nature, is Platonic throughout 1 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 con-
tradictory, the truth of a System which we have already main-
tained on so many other grounds.
What Lord Bacon was to England, Cicero was to Rome —
the first and most eloquent advocate of Philosophy. It is need
less to remind the classical scholar of that almost religious
veneration with which the accomplished Roman speaks of Plato,
whom indeed he calls, in one instance, deus ille noster, 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 dis-
tinguishing epithet of the great ornament of the Socratic School.
Why Bacon should have spoken detractingly of such a man, —
His depreci- why he should have stigmatized him with the name of
I'Jato. '' 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 Pro-
testantism, and in the Italian Platonists (as they conceived) the
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 47
secret enemies of Christianity itself. In part, too. Bacon may
have formed his notions of Plato's doctrines from the absurdities
of his misinterpreters, rather than from an -unprejudiced and
diligent study of his Works. Be it remembered, however, that
tliis unfairness was not less manifested to his contemporaries ;
that his treatment of Gilbert was cold, invidious, and imjust ;
and that he seems to have 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
fiiilings, but with those Philosophical Principles which, espe-
cially as displayed in the Novum Organuniy have deservedly
obtained for him the veneration of succeeding Ages.
Those who talk superficially about Bacon's Philosophy, that
is to say, nineteen-twentietlis 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 Physical
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 Pliilip and
Alexander. Or they may, perhaps, have been struck with his
recommendation of tabular collections of particulars, and hence
have placed him at the head of a Body of men, but too nume- The Minute
rous in modem days — the Minute Philosophers. We need phgi-g. '
scarcely say that this is venturing his reputation on a very
tottering basis. Let any unprejudiced ISTaturalist 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," by PiOBERT HoOKE'* (the
■♦ We refer particularly to p. 22 to 42 of the above-mentioned Work ; and we
would, above all, notice the following admii'able specimen of conlliscd and dis-
48 INTRODUCTION. [sEC. II.
liistory of whose PHlosopliical life is alone a sufficient answer
to all sucLl schemes) — and then let him fairly say whether any
desirable 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 col-
lecting 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 wliich
each is to be separately considered, that the life of an antedi-
luvian Patriarch would be expended, and his strength and
spirits wasted, long before he could commence the process of
simplification, or arrive in sight of the Law, which was to reward
the toils of the over-tasked PsYCHE.^
orderly 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-
blowei's, 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 school-
masters, writing-masters, printers, book-binders, stage-players, dancing-masters,
and vaulters, apothecaries, chirurgeons, seamsters, butchers, barbers, laundresses,
and cosmetics ! &c. &c. &c. (the true nature of each of which being exactly deter-
mined,) WILL HUGELY FACILITATE 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 modern, 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."
5 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 !"
SEC. II.l ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 49
Had Bacon done no more than propose these impracticable Bacon's
projects, we should have been far from sharing the sentiments Organum.
of respect everywhere attached to his Pliilosophical character.
But he has performed a task of infinitely greater importance,
by constructing that Methodical System, wliich is so elegantly
developed in the Novum Organum. It is this wliich we pro-
pose to compare with the Principles long before enunciated by
Plato. In both cases the inductions are frequently as crude
and erroneous as might readily be anticipated from the infant
state of Katural History, Chemistry, and Physiology, in their
several Ages. In both cases the proposed appKcations are often
impracticable ; but setting aside these considerations, and ex-
trajctiag from each writer that wliich constitutes his true Phi-
losophy, 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 approbation en 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, The com-
demands, as the motive and guide of every Philosophical experi- of Plato
ment, what we have ventured to call the intellectual or mental ^" *'*^"'
initiative ; namely, some well-grounded purpose, some distinct
impression of the probable results, some self-consistent anticipa^
tion, the ground of the prudens qucestio, (the forethoughtfid
mquiry,) wliich he affirms to be the prior half of the knowledge
sought, dimidium scientice. With him, therefore, as with us,
iin Idea is an experiment proposed, an experiment is an Idea
50 INTKODUCTION. [SEC. II.
realized. For so lie himself informs us : — Neque scientiam
molimur tarn sensu, vel instrumentis, quam experimentis ;
etenim experimentorum longe major est suhtilitas, quam sensus
ipsius, licet instrumentis exquisitis adjuti. Nam de iis loquimur
experimentis, quoe, ad intentionem ejus quod quoeritur, perite,
et secundum artem excogitata et apposita sunt. Itaque per-
ceptioni sensus immediatce et proprice non multum tribuimus :
sed eo rem deducimus, ut sensus tantum de experimento, experi-
mentum de re judicet. The meaning of tliis last sentence is in-
telligible enough, though involved in antithesis, merely because
Bacon did not possess, Hke Shakspeare, a good Method in his
style.. Wliat he means to say is, that we can apprehend,
through the organs of sense, only the sensible phaenomena 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 phcenomena.
Bacon's Now, he had before said, that he was speaking only of those
Mind. 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 intellectus ; viz. the Un-
derstanding of the individual man, who makes the experiment.
This light, however, as he argues at great length, is obscured
by Idols, which are false and spurious notions. His peculiar
use of the word Idols is 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, (3o^a,) which the latter calls " a medium between
knowledge and ignorance." So, Bacon distinguishes the Idols
of the Mind into various kinds, {Idola specus, trihus, 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 obscu-
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 51
rity, or blindness, so the ancient and tlie modem master of
PMlosopliy botli agree in prescribing remedies and operations
calculated to remove tbis disease ; to coucb tbe " Mind's eye/'
and to restore it to tbe enjoyment of a purer vision. Bacon
establisbes an unerring criterion between tbe Ideas and the
Idols of the Mind ; namely, that the latter are empty notions, ^^^^^^^^^
but the ' former are the very seals and impresses of Nature ; Id^as and
6111 pty
that is to say, they always fit and cohere with those classes of notions,
tilings 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 humance Mentis Idola, et divinoe
Mentis Ideas, hoc est, inter placita qucedam inania, et veras
signaturas atque impressiones factas in ereaturis, prout ratione
sand et sicci luminis, quam, docendi causa, interpretem
Naturae vocare consuevimus, iiiveniuntur. — Novum Organum,
xxiii. and xxvi.
Some Idols, says Bacon, are adventitious to the Mind ; others
innate. And here, we may observe, that he goes somewhat
further than the mere 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. A^Hiat he means by innate Idols, he thus illus-
trates : — not only do the rays of Truth, from without, faU
obHquely on the mirror of the Mind, but that mirror itself is not
pure and plane; it discolours, it magnifies, it diminishes, it
distorts. Hence, he uses the words intelleetus humanus, mens
hominis, &c. in a sense now peculiar, but in liis day conformable
to the language of the Schools, to signify not Intellect in general,
or Mind ia its perfection, but the Intellect or Mind of man
weakened and corrupted, as it is, more or less, in every indi-
vidual. A necessary consequence of this corruption, is the
arrogance which leads Man to take the forms and mechanism
e2
52 INTRODUCTION [SEC. IT.
of Ms own reflective faculty as tlie 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 facahy are subjective ,
the truths to be embraced are objective : but according to Plato
as well as to Bacon, there can be no hope of any fruitful an<
secure Metliod, so long as forms, merely subjective, are arbi
trarily assumed to be the moulds of objective Truth, the seal
and impresses of Nature.
Bacon's What then ! Does Bacon abandon the hope of rectifjdng th
rectifyino- obliquitics of the Human Intellect ; or does he suggest, tha
lutellecT^^^ they will be remedied by the casual operation of external im
pressions? Neither of these. He considers that its weak
nesses and imperfections require to be strengthened and mad •
perfect by a higher power ; and that this is possible to be done
He supposes, that the Intellect of the individual, or homm
particuUer, may be refined by the Intellect of the Ideal Man
or homme general. He assumes, that as the evidence of th'
Senses is corrected by the Judgment, so the evidence of th*
Judgment, beset with Idols, may be corrected by the Judg
ment, walking in the light of Ideas. It is surely superfluou
to urge, that this corrector and purifier of aU reasoning, tlii;
inextinguishable Pole-star —
Which never in the ocean waves was wet :
whether it be called, as by Bacon, lumen siccum, or as by
Plato, vovg, or (pCjg voepuv, is one and the same light of Truth,
the indispensable condition of aU pure Science, contemplative or
experimental. Hence, it will not surprise us, that Plato so
often denominates Ide^as living Laws, in and by whicli the
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIOXS OF THE SCIENCE OF ^METHOD. 53
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 pov/er 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 con-
^templation of Ideas, and thence to the secure and progressive
investigation of truth and reahty, by Scientific Method, com-
prehends 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 defined as — Intuitio, sive inventio, quoe in perceptione sensus
non est (ut quoe puree et sicci luminis Intellectioni sit propria)
Idearum Divince Mentis, prout in creaturis, p)er signaturas
suas, sese patefaciant. " That," saith the juclicious HoOKER,
" which doth assign to each thing the kind, that which deter-
mineth 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
difference between Plato and Bacon was, that, to speak in p^lJ^7o^!^nd
■popular language, the one more especially cultivated Natural Bacon.
Philosophy, the other Metaphysics. Plato treated principally
of Truth, as manifested in the world of Intellect ; Bacon of the
isame Truth, as manifested in the world of Sense ; but far from
idisagreeing, as to the mode of attaining that Truth, far from
differing in their great views of the education of the Mind,
they both proceeded on the same principles of unity and pro-
gression ; and conseqiiently both cultivated alike the iSeience
of Method, such as we have here described it. If we are
correct in these statements, then may we boast to have solved
the great problem of conciliating ancient and modern Phi-
losophy.
54 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. n.
Historical That the Method, of which we have hitherto treated, is not
view.
period.
arbitrarily assumed in any, or all of the pursuits, to which we
have adverted ; nor is peculiar to these in particular, but is
founded in the Laws and necessary conditions of Human exist-
ence, 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.
First " The antiquity of time was the youth of the world and
of knowledge," said Bacon. In that early age, the obedience
of the ivill was first taught to Man. He was required to look
up, in submission, to that Spirit of Truth, wliich, after all, we
find to be at the head of wisdom. This innocent age was
happily prolonged among those whose first care was to cidti-
vate 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 " arti-
ficers 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
SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF IMETHOD. 55
gratification, and tlie conveniences of courtly intercourse. Tliey
became the great masters of the agreeable, which fraternized
readily with cruelty and rapacity; these being, indeed, but
alternate moods of the same sensual selfishness. Thus, both
before and af iter 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 Eeligion,
and yet, as they were faitliful to their original maxim, — deter-
mined to receive nothing as true, but what they derived, or
believed themselves to derive, from their senses, or (in modem
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
incorporeal Divinity.
A new era next appeared, representative of the youth and Second
T)6rio(l
approaching manhood of the Hiunan Intellect : and again.
Providence, as it were, awakened men to the pursuit of an
Idealized Method, in the development of their faculties.
Orpheus, Linus, Musasus, and the other Mythological Bards,
or perhaps Brotherhoods of Bards impersonated under indi-
vidual names, whether deriving their light, imperfectly and
indirectly, from the inspired writings of the Hebrews, or gra-
ciously visited, for high and important purposes, by a dawning
of Truth in their own breasts, began to spiritualize Polytheism,
and thereby to prevent it from producing all its natural,
barbarizing 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 Archi-
56 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II.
lecture, tlie Fine Arts at once sKot . up to perfection by a
Method founded wliolly on a mental initiative, and conducted
througliout its progress by the development of Ideas. Tliis rapid
advance, in all tilings 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 phaenomena. Wliile Phidias, Apelles, Homer, Demosthenes,
Thucydides, and Plato, had, each in his individual sphere,
attained almost the summit of conceivable excellence, 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 direc-
tions, in the very morning of their strength.
Romaus. Of the Eoman era it is scarcely necessary to speak -at large,
inasmuch as the Eomans were confessedly mere imitators of the
Greeks in everything relative to Science and Art. They sus-
tained 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 pur-
suits.
Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera :
Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vviltus :
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.
Dark Ages. Still less wiU it be expected, that we ' should devote much
space to the consideration of those Dark Ages, which brought
the comitless hordes of sensual Barbarians from their ISTorthern
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
SEO. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 57
eternally difierenced from a thing ; so tliat the Idea of a
Hirnian Being necessarily excludes the Idea of property in
tKat Being.
We come down, tlien, to the great period of the Eeforma- Reforma-
TIOX, 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 worsMp,
against one which was full of outward forms and ceremonies ;
the partisans of Eeligious liberty, against the dominion of a
Visible Head over the whole Cliristian 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
Schoohnen were attacked as warmly in their Philosopliical, as
they had before been in their Ecclesiastical character. It is
needless to dwell on the various attempts towards 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
wliich Plato had before appHed to intellectual existence.
It is only in the union of these two branches of one and the nyiofjgj.,,
same Method that a complete and genuine Philosophy can be Philosophy,
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 liis followers
into a behef that he considered aU Wisdom and aU Science
both to begin and to end with the objects of the senses. In
this gross error are laid the foundations of the modern French
58 INTEODUCTION. [sEC. IT.
School, wliicli has grown up mto the monstrous puerilities oi
CONDILLAC and CoNDORCET ; men whose names it would be
absolutely ridiculous to mention in a History of Science, if their
pupils did not unliappily compensate, in number, what their
Works want in common sense and intelligibility ; and if upon
such Writers, the French Nation did not mainly rest its pre-
tensions to give the law to Europe in matters of Science and
Philosophy.
( 59 I
SE(]TioK nr.
APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF IVIETHOD TO THE GENERAL
CONCATENATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF STUDIES.
We have alread)r dwelt so mucli on the general importance of Systematic
_ ■ , . „ , - Ignoranca
Method — ^we have recurred to it so irequently — we have illustrated,
placed it in so many various lights, that we ought perhaps
to apologize for venturmg on one more attempt to illustrate
our meamng, 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
Ysrith its contents. Every tint, every group of characters, has its
several dream. Say that, after long and dissatisfying toils, he
begins to sort, first, the paragraplis 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 ciphers, letters, marks,
and points, wliich, 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
sliine and flutter amid the plumes of savage vanity. The poor
60 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III.
Indian too truly represents the state of learned and systematic
Orderliness ignorance — arrangement guided by tlie light of no leading
without T T • 1 n/r t
Method. idea; mere ordernness 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 con-
sciousness, which yet the awakening disciple receives not as
aliens 1 Henceforward the book is unsealed for him ; 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 have been, in certain
instances, worse than immethodical. A slight glance at the
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 Dictionnaire
Encyclopediqiie, to a Work on the same principles, said to be
now publishing in France, will demonstrate, that the best
interests of Mankind have sufiered 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 eiFectual barrier to the rage for desultory
knowledge, on the one hand, and to support that body of inde-
pendent attachment to the best principles of all knowledge.
SEC. ni.] '^:^plicatio:t of the science of method. 61
wMdi happily distinguislies tliis country, on tlie other, the Encyclo-
EnCYCLOP^DIA MeTROPOLITANA has been projected. tropoiitan'a
We do not undertake, what the most gigantic efforts of Man ^^"^^^^
could not acliieve, a Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, in principles
. . of Method.
the most absolute sense of the terms. But • estunatmg the
importance of our task rather by the principles of unity and
compression 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 agreeable in
Science ; and this, we conceive, cannot be well and usefully
effected, but by such a Philosophical Method as we have
abeady iudicated.
We have shown that this Method consists in placing one
or more particular tilings or notions, in subordination, either
to a preconceived universal Idea, or to some lower form of the
latter; some class, order, genus, or species, each of wliich
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
tliroughout all the particulars, as their comiective and bond of
unity; according as the light of the Idea is fireely diffiised
tlirough, and completely illumines, the aggregate mass the
Method is more or less perfect.
The first preconception, or master-thought, on which our The mwal
plan rests, is the moral origin and tendency of all true Science ; tendency
in other words, our great objects are to exliibit the Arts and ^^}^^
Sciences in their Philosophical harmony ; to teach Philosophy the master.
in imion mth Morals ; and to sustain Morahty by Eevealed the plan.
Religion.
There are, as we have before noticed, two sorts of relation,
on the due observation of which aU Method depends. The
62 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. Ill
first is that whioK the Ideas or Laws of the Mind bear to each
other ; the second, that wliich they bear to the external world :
on the former are built the Pure Sciences ; on the latter those
which we call Mixed and Applied.
Pure The Pure Sbiences, then, represent pure acts of the Mind,
and those only ; whether 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.
Foi-mal Hence, in the Pure Sciences, arises the known distinction of
aiid Real.
formal and real : and 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 conversant
with the true nature and existence, either of the created
Universe around us, or of the guiding Principles within us, in
the^r various modifications and distinguishing movements ; or,
lastly, with the real nature and existence of the great Cause
of all.
Grammar. "We begin, then, with that class of Pure Sciences which we
have called formal ; and of these, the first two that present
themselves to us are Qrammar and Logic. By Grammar we
are taught the rules of that speech which serves as the mediimi
of Mental intercourse between man and man ; by Logic, the
Mental operations are themselves regulated and bound together
in a certain Method or order. As the communication of know-
ledge is the more immediate object of our present discussion,
so we begin with that Science by which it is regulated in its
forms. Granunar, then, apart from the mere material con-
sideration of the sound of words, or shape of letters, and
regarding speech only as a tiling significant, teax^hes that there
SEC. IIlJ APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 63
are certain laws regulating that signification ; laws wliich are
inunutable in their very nature ; for tlie relation wliich a noun
bore to a verb, or a substantive to an adjective, was the same
in the earliest days fxipo-n-wy avOpu^iroiv, in the first inteUigible
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. Tliis, then, is a Pure Science proceeding fi:om a simple
or elementary Idea of the form necessary for tlie 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 Logic,
the knowledge of those 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 operate only witliin
those limits which Almighty Wisdom has thought fit to pre-
scribe. It is a discursive faculty, moving in a given path, and
by allotted means. There is no possibility of subverting or
altering the elementary rules of Logic ; for they are not
hypothetical, or contingent, or conventional, but positive and
necessary.
Under the general term Mathematics are comprised the j\Lithe-
Sciences of Geometri/, which is conversant about the laws of ^^ '^**
figure, or limitations of space ; and Arithmetic, wliich 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 nimiber 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 appHcable to external
existence.
The Sciences which we have hitherto noticed relate to the
forms of our Mental conceptions ; but it is natural for Man to
64 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III.
seek to compreliend the principles and conditions of real exist-
ence, 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 Uni-
verse were called into being, and continue to exist, namely,
Meta- God. Hence, as we advance from form to reality, the Sciences
Morals,' and of Metapliysics and Morals first present themselves to view,
^^ °^^' and these lead ns forward to the summit of Human Know-
ledge ; for at the head of all Pure Science stands Theology, ol
which the great fountain is Eevelation. It is obvious that
both Metaphysics and Morals are conversant solely about those
relations which we have called Eolations 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 dis-
tinctly apprehended by the Mind, they approach the nearest to
that clear intellectual light which, in the peculiar phraseology
of Jliord Bacon, is called lumen siccum. In the proper Philo-
sophical Method, the reahty of our speculative knowledge,
exhibited in the Science of Metaphysics, 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 Eeason to that of Faith.
Slixed and These are all the Sciences which embrace solely relations of
Sciences. Law : and it is plain 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 imme-
diately introduced ; new Sciences are formed, which, in contra-
distinction from the Pure, are called the Mixed and Applied
Sciences ; and in these, new considerations relative to Method
necessarily find a place.
SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 65
Every Physical Theory is in some measure imperfect, because Physical
. . ^ Theories
it IS 01 necessity progressive ; and because we can never be imperfect
assured that we have exhausted the terms, or that some new „!^!^ff •!„
discovery may not affect the whole scheme of its relations, progressive.
The discoveries of the ponderabiKty of air, of its compound
nature, of the increased weight of the calces, of the gases in
general, of Electricity, and more recently the stupendous
influences of Galvanism on the successive Chemical Theories ;
are all so many exemphfications of tliis 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 com-
bustion is an experienced fact, and became a 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, preternaturally hard, and therefore
infrangible, in the Corpuscular Philosophy ; or a primitive
unalterable figure, in some systems of Crystallisation.
In all this we see, that Knowledge is a matter not of neces- True
sary connection, but of a connection arising from observation lo^^Jn *
or supposition ; that is, it consists not of Law, but of Theory ^f^^ ^^
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 may be an image or conception
received through the senses, and originating from without;
F
iD6 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III.
yet even then there is an inspiring passion, or desire, or in-
stinctive feeling of the truth, wliich is the inmiediate and
proper oifspring 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 Grravitation. But the
Newtonian was not less a system before than since the dis-
covery of the Georgium Sidus ; not by having ascertained its
circumference, but by having found its centre ; the livuig and
salient point, from which the Method of discovery diverges,
the Law in which endless discoveries are contained implicitly,
and to wliich, as they afterwards arise, they may be referred
in endless succession.
Transition These reasonings, it is hoped, will sufficiently explain the
P^ ^ nature of the transition from the JPure Sciences to the Mixed
fh^^M-^^ J^ and Applied Sciences, and will serve to trace the inseparable
and Applied 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 usefiil 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
SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 67
a looser and more popular form tlian wlien 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, wliich is not
to be prevaricated. The strictness of ancient Philosophy, there-
fore, 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 aU
alike, but we do not know them all with the same sort of
knowledge.
Of these, then, (be they Studies or Sciences,) we call those Mixed
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 Oopernieised, or had some knowledge of the System
afterwards adopted by Copernicus ; yet of tliis there is little
proof: and certainly, for many ages after Euclid, it was the
universal opinion, that the Earth was the fixed and immoveable
centre of the Universe. Nor have we here unadvisedly used
f2
68 INTKODUCTION. [SEC. IIL
the word opinion ; since, as we before showed, it is the ancient
expression signifying a medium between Knowledge and Igno-
rance : and well did that acute Italian exclaim, Opinione,
regina del mondo ! — for, as it is impossible that Ignorance,
which cannot govern itself should govern anything 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.
Applied When certain Ideas, or images representative of Ideas, are
applied still more 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,
JElectricity, Gralvanism, Chemistry, the Laws of Light and
Experi- Heat, &c. We have already so fully shown the uncertainty oi
Philosophy, the first Principles 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.
Fine Arts. We come now to another class of Applied Sciences, namely,
those which are applied to the purposes of pleasure through
the medium of the Imagination ; and which are commonly
called the Fine Akts. 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
SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 69
from witliin. Hence wg find tliem giving, as it were, recipes
to form a Poet, by placing liim in certain directions and posi-
tions ; as if tliey 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,
wliich 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 mon-
strare, 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!
Pursuits of utility, we daily find are capable of being reduced Useful
to Method. Thus Political Economy, and Agriculture, and
Commerce, and Manufactures, are now considered scientifically,
or, as the more prevalent expression is. Philosophically. It
may, perhaps, be difficult, at first, to persuade the experi-
mental Agiiculturist 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 stated. It is not, surely, in the Country of Arkwright,
tliat 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 Pliilosopliic
70
INTRODUCTION.
Natural
History.
Appli-
cations of
Natural
History.
Histoiy and
Biography.
[SEC. III.
views of Cliemistry were not conducive to tlie making our
valleys laugh -witli corn.
We have already spoken of LiNN^US, the illustrious Swede,
to whom the three kingdoms, as they are aptly called, of
Natural History are so deeply indebted ; and if, with all liis
great talents, he yet failed in establishing the united empire of
those three mighty monarchies on firm laws and a fixed con-
stitution, we have shown, that it was only owing to a want
of precision in the first Ideas of his theory.
Natural History itself becomes a rule for dependent pur-
suits, such as those of Medicine (under which are Pharmacy
and the Materia Medico) and Surgery, in which is included
Anatomy. That in these and the other theoretical studies so
much still remains 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 mode-
rated 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 pur-
sued for its improvement. If, in what we have here said, we
have done anything towards the excitement, the regulation,
and the assistance of that ambition; if we have faintly sketched
an outhne of the great laws of Method, which bind together
the various branches of Human Knowledge, we may not im-
properly indulge a hope that the ensuing Work, in its progress,
will be found conducive to the promotion of the best interests
of Mankind.
Our Plan would not completely meet the views of those to
whom such Works as the following are eminently useful and
agreeable, if, besides the Philosophic Method already described,
we did not present some view of the actual History of Man-
kind. We have therefore devoted a large portion of our
labours to the History of the Human Pace, on a new, and, we
SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 71
trust it will be foimd, an improved System. Biograpliy and
History tend to tlie same points of general instruction, in two
ways : the one exhibiting Human Principles and Passions,
acting upon a large scale ; tlie other showing 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 wliich it occu-
pies. 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 Xature of
Man. Tliis 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 Hmnan Nature. It has therefore occurred to us,
that the most effectual mode of attaining the chief objects of
Historical knowledge will be occasionally to present History
in the form of Biography, chronologically 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 distin-
guishing periods of time as well as on Political Geography and
Chronology. Thus will a large portion of History be con-
veyed, not only in its most interesting, but in its most philo-
sopliical and real form ; while the remaining facts will be
72 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III.
interwoven in tlie preliminary and connecting Chapters. If
in tracing thus the " eventful History " of Man, and particu-
larly 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.
Alphabetic Such are our views in the Philosophical and Historical *
m nt^*^" branches of our Work. Of the Miscellaneous or Alphabetical
Division we have little to add. But well aware that Works of
tliis 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 conve-
nience of a numerous and most respectable class of Eeaders ,
while the preceding remarks will go to prove that, for many J
local and supplementary illustrations of Science, no other
depository could be furnished. ^
As the Philosophical arrangement is, however, most con-
ducive to the purposes of intellectual research and information ;
as it will most naturally interest men of Science and Literature ; I
will present the circle of Knowledge in its harmony ; will give
that unity of design and of elucidation, the want of which we J
have most deeply felt in other Works of a similar kind, where I]
the desired information is divided into innumerable 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 wliich our con-
•
SEC. ni.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 73
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 Encyclopedia Metro- The Phi-
POLITANA, the Philosophical arrangement predominates and arrange-
regulates the Alphabetical arrangement; and the references, ™^^* ,
whether to it or from it, are auxiliary. We never refer regulates
T • • • 1 p 1 y *^^ Alpha-
from the first and second Divisions to the fourth, or from the betical.
arst to the second, for the explanation of a term, the establish-
ment 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 introduced 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 Alphabetical Department : the Principles
cf 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
74
INTEODUCTION.
Trade and
Literature
essential to
the exist-
ence of a
Nation.
Distin-
guishing
object of
the Ency-
clopaedia
Metropo-
litana.
[sec. III.
expressed or not, to tlie appropriate place for all that is sub-
servient ; that is, to the fourth or Alphabetical Division.
This final Division of our Work will bring the whole into
unison with the two great impulses of Modern times, Trade
and Literature These, after the dismemberment of the Eoman
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 pro-
duce Tribes, and, under rare and peculiar circumstances.
Settlements and Neighbourhoods; and Conquests 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 wliich 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 gratification 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 appropriate the outward world,
as far as he can bring it within his reach, to the purposes of m
his corporeal nature. In his Scientific and Literary character "
he is internally excited to various studies and pursuits, the
groundwork of which is in himself
This, again, will conduct us to the distinguishing object of
the present undertaking, 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 twofold 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 o^ perfectibility, we
cannot but regard all that is Human in Human Nature, and all
5EC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 75
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 unsopliisticated 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 Encyclopedia Metropolitana.
January, 1818.
LONDON :
FBINTSO BT \V. CLOWES AND SONS, STAllFOBI) STREET
AND CHABING CEOSS.
PLAN
OF THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA METROPOLITANA.
SECOND EDITION
PLAN OF THE ENCYCLOP/EDIA METROPOLITANA.
The INTRODUCTION.— On the Laws and regulative Principles of EDUCATION ;
or in the Language of the Schools, the Elements of METHODOLOGY.
FIRST DIVISION.
PURE SCIENCES.
Section I. — Formal Sciences.
Philosophy of Language.
Logic.
Rhetoric.
Mathematics : —
Geometry.
Arithmetic.
Algebra.
Geometrical Analysis.
Theory of Numbers.
Trigonometry.
Analytical Geometry.
Conic Sections.
Differential and Integral Calculus.
Calculus of Variations.
Calculus of Finite Differences.
Calculus of Functions.
Theory of Probabilities.
Definite Integrals.
Section II. — Real Scienceo.
Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.
Law : —
General Principles of Law.
Roman Law.
English Law —
Laws of England.
Laws of Ireland.
Laws of Scotland.
Colonial Law.
Canon Law.
Politics : —
Law of Nations —
Diplomacy.
Political Philosophy —
Statistics,
Political Economy —
Commerce.
Theology : —
Natural Theology.
Evidences of Revelation.
Scripture Doctrine.
Biblical Literature.
Biblical Antiquities.
Religions and Religious Customs.
SECOND DIVISION.
MIXED AND APPLIED SCIENCES.
Section I.
Mechanical Philosophy-.
(Mixed Mathematics.^
Mechanics.
Hydrodynamics.
Pneumatics.
Optics.
Astronomy : —
Plane Astronomy.
Nautical Astronomy.
Physical Astronomy.
Figure of the Earth.
Tides and Waves.
Section II.
Experimental Philosophy.
Magnetism.
Electro-Magnetism.
Electricity.
Galvanism.
Heat.
Light.
Chemistry.
Sound.
Meteorology.
Section III. — The Fine Arts.
Architecture.
Sculpture.
Painting.
Heraldiy.
Numismatics.
Poetry.
Music.
Engraving.
Section IV. — The Useful Arvs.
Agriculture.
Horticulture.
Floriculture.
Arboriculture.
Carpentry and Joineiy.
Fortification.
Engineering.
Naval Arcliitectui'e.
Manufactures.
Mechanical Arts.
Cheniical Arts.
Section V. — ^Natukal History.
Inanimate : — Crystallography.
Mineralogy.
Geology.
Insentient :— Botany.
Animate : — Zoology.
Physiology.
Comparative Anatomy —
Vertebrals : — Mammalia.
Birds.
Reptiles.
Fishes.
In vertebrals : —
Molluscs.
Insects.
Crustaceans.
Arachnidans.
Myriapods.
Spined Skins.
Sia Nettles.
Infusories.
Polyps.
Section VI.
Applications of Natural HisTOKr*
Anatomy.
Materia Medica
Medicine.
Surgery.
Veterinary Art.
Phannacy.
THIRD DIVISION.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND GEOGRAPHY.
Introduction : —
Dissertation on the Uses of History.
Chronology.
Chronological Tables.
Ethnology.
Ancient History : —
Sacred History.
Greece.
Greek Literature.
Greek Philosophy and Ail.
Ancient Oriental Nations.
Rome.
Roman Literature.
Roman Philosophy.
Classical Antiquities.
Heathen Mythology.
Middle Ages.
Modern History : —
The Christian Church.
Greek Empire.
Ottoman Empire.
The Crusades.
Italy.
Germany.
France.
Spain.
Portugal.
Netherlands.
Switzerland.
Britain.
Northern Europe.
America.
India.
Popular Antiquities
Physical Geographi .
Political Geography :
European.
American.
Oriental.
African.
Classical.
British Topography,
FOURTH DIVISION.
LEXICOGRAPHICAL.
INDEX VOLUMR
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