ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 OK, 
 
 SYSTEM: 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT, 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 RAIKES CURRIE, Esq., M.P, 
 
 The Rev. JAMES SHERGOLD^ BOONE , 
 
 PERPETUAL CURATE OF ST. JOHN'S, PADDINGTON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. 
 
 iI.DCCC.XLVIII. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Preliminary Statement ----- 1 
 
 1 Character of the Times ----- 2 
 
 2 Constructive fEra of Society - - - If) 
 
 II. Proposal of System; tiie System of One, Manifold 17 
 
 1 Meaning of the Term - - - - - J!> 
 
 2 Conception of the Thing - - - -26 
 
 A. Nature and Extent 27 
 
 B. History and Applications - - - 32 
 
 C. Value and Necessity to Mankind, with 
 
 Notice of Objections - 38 
 
 D. Obligations of Mankind in respect to it; 
 
 and Mode of proceeding to be adopted - 55 
 
 III. Explanatory Remarks ----- 61 
 
 1 General ------- it. 
 
 2 Special - - - - - - - 80 
 
 3 Appertaining to the Religious View of the Sub¬ 
 
 ject - - - - - - - - 87 
 
 4 Conclusion - - - 94 
 
 N. B. As a division into Chapters and Sections would be in¬ 
 consistent with the form and object of this publication, the above 
 Tabic of Contents has been given, to shew the general nature and 
 course of the argument, and to inform the reader of the halting- 
 places which may be found most convenient in its perusal. 
 
ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 OR, 
 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I trust that you will excuse me for thus pub¬ 
 licly connecting your name with the following observations. 
 I would even hope, that you will not regard as a trespass 
 or intrusion upon you, that which I feel to be a privilege 
 and advantage to myself. While disclaiming, as I am 
 bound to disclaim, any right, or indeed any intention, to 
 commit you to the sentiments which this Letter contains; 
 and knowing, as I must know, how improbable it is, that 
 all the opinions expressed in it should be in perfect con¬ 
 formity with your own; I have yet the satisfaction of believ¬ 
 ing, that the subject is one, which, from its intrinsic import¬ 
 ance, will excite some interest in your mind; and I am sure, 
 that you will receive with a favourable indulgence any sug¬ 
 gestions, which have their origin in a love of truth, and a 
 sincere desire to meliorate the condition of humanity. 
 
 The sequel will shew, why it is that I consider a plain 
 and brief announcement of the views which I entertain, to be 
 a matter quite as much of duty, as of choice. It will like¬ 
 wise shew, why I am anxious to throw my remarks into an 
 epistolary form; a form which allows, perhaps, more freedom 
 of discussion than any other. 
 
2 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 The reasons, why I should address them to yourself, 
 are very easily stated. I venture to address this Letter to 
 you, because, from the erection of that Church, of which I 
 have now been minister for many years, you have uniformly 
 taken an active and charitable part in its concerns ; and may, 
 therefore, stand as the representative of a congregation to 
 which I am deeply indebted: I moreover address it to you, 
 as one by whose friendly advice I have on several occasions 
 been benefitted; and to whom I must always be grateful for 
 other acts of kindness, which no words, however, can repay : 
 as one, also, whose name and position in the world may help 
 to secure for the substance of this publication an attention 
 which it might not otherwise command. 
 
 Yet another reason is the following. My present object 
 is to enunciate broadly and in distinct terms a proposition in 
 respect to which I had some conversation with yourself, about 
 six years ago, at your residence in the country.—Little of 
 formal method is needed, or expected, in an address of this 
 kind. But, for the sake of perspicuity, I would distribute 
 what I have to say under three heads; my intention being, in 
 the first place, to state, by way of preamble or introduction, 
 the immediate inducements which now lead me to come 
 forward with the proposition in question; then, to submit 
 the proposition itself, with such definitions and comments as 
 may obviate misapprehension; and, at the close, to. offer some 
 explanatory observations, which could not conveniently be 
 placed under either of the foregoing divisions. 
 
 I. I would begin, then, by prefacing the proposition 
 which is to form the main purport of this letter, by a state¬ 
 ment of the special considerations which urge me to put it 
 forth, without more delay, at the existing conjuncture; and 
 which render me, I confess, earnestly solicitous to gain a hear¬ 
 ing for it. 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 3 
 
 The chief of these considerations, or, I might even say 
 the sum of them, is the character of the times in which we 
 live—the new page which has just been opened in the history 
 of the civilized world. It is natural, indeed, for the men of 
 every generation, seeing and feeling the immediate pressure 
 of circumstances, to look upon their own age as a crisis in the 
 lifetime of nations, and to attach a prodigious importance to 
 the operations and affairs, in which they are themselves 
 actors, or at least spectators. Fear, fancy, the mere love 
 of excitement, can always conjure up critical and terrible 
 exigencies: and all of us whose hair is becoming grey have 
 seen and survived more than one of these, at which it may be 
 difficult to look back without a smile. But the present period, 
 I conceive, really is, what so many other periods have been 
 stated, or supposed to be. Upon the calmest and most impar¬ 
 tial estimate which can be formed, we must arrive at the con¬ 
 clusion, that the occurrences of the year 1848 are almost 
 unprecedented in seriousness and magnitude: that they are 
 pregnant with immense consequences, whether for good or for 
 evil: and that they may be declared, without exaggeration, to 
 constitute an era, or turning-point, in the destinies of the 
 human race. For these transactions are not only wide, multi¬ 
 tudinous, startling in their aspect, but they involve the largest 
 and most fundamental principles: they have not merely 
 spread over the surface of society, but they penetrate its entire 
 structure, and strike down into its roots. 
 
 We stand, in fact, in the presence of amazing events. 
 Europe is just recovering—perhaps scarcely recovering even 
 yet—from one of the mightiest explosions, by which its thrones, 
 its institutions, and its usages, have ever been shaken. Parts of 
 it are still reeling with the shock. The forces of disturbance 
 have all been let loose ; the elements of political and social 
 mutation have been upheaved from their inmost depths. 
 We have beheld revolution itself hurry forward from capital 
 
4 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 to capital almost as swiftly as the news of it could travel. 
 We have heard the North calling to the South, and the South 
 calling to the North, with a voice which cried out for change. 
 We have seen insurrection bursting out almost simultaneously 
 in many quarters, like a fire, till a whole continent was en¬ 
 wrapped in one general conflagration. We have seen nations, 
 like individuals, passing on the torch of innovation from city 
 to city, from province to province; from Paris, the focus 
 of disorder, to Milan, to Rome, to Naples, to Berlin, to 
 Munich, to Vienna. 
 
 Still, after these astonishing occurrences, the world 
 seems once more to enjoy an interval, in which it may pause 
 for a moment, and collect its thoughts. Let us make use of 
 this breathing time, while we may; for we know not how long 
 it will last. Even as I write, even before these few obser¬ 
 vations can be printed, it may have passed again into agitation 
 and storm; and Europe may be plunged into the agonies and 
 paroxysms of another convulsion. Nevertheless, the lull which 
 has actually been diffused affords some opportunity for serious 
 and deliberate reflection, so that we may gather, with less of 
 distraction, one or two of the great lessons of the day. 
 
 One at least of these lessons is, that we should cease to 
 look upon any event as chimerical or visionary, merely 
 because it is of vast extent; or because it does not correspond 
 with ordinary anticipation, nor has been dreamt of in the 
 philosophy of the past. The last six months must have 
 taught us how communities, fond of pleasure, or tranquil in 
 apparent repose, may be as the crater of a volcano: how 
 the most prudent and experienced statesmen may be taken 
 by surprise: how the most sagacious monarch may wake, as 
 from a trance, to find himself an exile: how the workmen of 
 a land may, on the instant, become its sovereigns, and me¬ 
 chanics, as by the wand of a magician, be exalted above kings; 
 how dynasties, deemed secure at least against all present 
 
0R, SYSTEM. 
 
 assault, absolutely require the most trivial and familiar images 
 to express their insecurity, their fragility, their nothingness; 
 for that they are shivered like glass, and thrown down like 
 a house of cards:—nay, how the chief performers in the 
 astounding drama may be themselves astounded at the parts 
 and scenes in which they are engaged. The last six months 
 have shewn us the boldest, the most comprehensive, and not 
 the least ingenious schemes of universal polity placarded upon 
 the walls from hour to hour; and the actions of the people in 
 the streets outstripping the speculations of the philosopher in 
 the closet. The incredible has, in short, become the actual. 
 Imagination herself has panted after the realities, aghast and 
 out of breath. ‘‘The impossibilities of yesterday are the 
 
 Without question, much of all this has been too violent 
 to last. It is altogether 
 
 “ ... too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, 
 
 Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be, 
 
 Ere one can say, It lightens.” 
 
 Neither is it possible to conjecture what will be the next 
 phase of a revolution, which has already been more variable 
 than the changes of the moon ; and to which no parallel can 
 be found, if we take into account together the compass, the 
 depth, and the rapidity of the alterations. Who indeed can 
 prognosticate what strange and portentous appearances, what 
 “ varieties of untried being ” shall arise out of the throes of a 
 heaving and fermenting mass, where “ all things totter, and 
 the shaken world vacillates upon its base 1 ” 
 
 On the one hand, we know that the miseries of anarchy 
 and civil strife are soon felt to be intolerable ; and that few, 
 who have the means of escape, will remain in a metropolis of 
 which the normal state is commotion. True, therefore, it is, 
 that the extreme democrats of France have already by their 
 crimes and frenzies caused a re-action against themselves, and 
 
ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 brought down upon their own heads a terrific and bloody 
 chastisement. We know, too, that if men pretend to live cen¬ 
 turies in a day, and to crowd the work of years into the 
 convulsive efforts of an hour, they will, sooner or later, have 
 to pay the penalty of their precipitation. It can hardly, 
 therefore, be expected that institutions will be permanent, 
 which have so far outrun habits; that they can start at once 
 into a full and robust maturity, having had no time for im¬ 
 plantation and growth, or for becoming interwoven witli the 
 customs and associations of a long-established community. 
 
 But then it is scarcely probable, on the other hand, 
 that the social machine of Europe, after so unexampled 
 and rending a concussion, can spring back, whatever its 
 elasticity, into its former shape; or perform its ancient move¬ 
 ments equably and without interruption. The scattered frag¬ 
 ments can hardly come together, so as to be compacted and 
 cemented anew. No such restoration can be complete. 
 Some may, perhaps, think that a flood of change is now indeed 
 poured over many countries; but that the old things will 
 re-appear in their old places, as soon as the inundation has 
 subsided. I must rather believe, that some at least of the 
 almost immemorial landmarks, to which the eyes and minds 
 of men had been so accustomed, as to consider them destined 
 for perpetual duration, will have irrecoverably vanished; and 
 that the stream of political and social existence can never again 
 flow quite in its former bed. That which we have witnessed, 
 let us remember, is not a mere outbreak—German, or Italian, 
 or even French: it is an European revolution : it is a revo¬ 
 lution more than European : it is in some sense oecumenical. 
 and must be felt, in its results, if not in its immediate action, 
 over the entire globe. They, who reasonably doubt, whether 
 ancient monarchies can be transmuted at a blow into 
 vigorous and healthy republics, may be, nevertheless, con¬ 
 vinced that the stupendous events, which have occurred since 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 7 
 
 February last, must exert upon after times an influence com¬ 
 mensurate with their own greatness. Such things as these 
 cannot come and go, and leave no trace. Where so much 
 has been dislocated, and unhinged; where so many pillars of 
 stateliness and strength have been shattered, as by an earth¬ 
 quake ; where determinations so stern, energies so wild and 
 daring, have been flung up from the central abysses of a popu¬ 
 lation,—it were idle to suppose that government and order, 
 even when they resume their march, will fall precisely into 
 the previous routine, or that European civilization will settle 
 back into the state, which has been so widely and rudely 
 broken up. 
 
 For it must also be borne in mind, that this fiery out¬ 
 burst of revolution, sudden as it has been, and in a certain 
 sense accidental, is yet connected with causes, which long- 
 have been, and still are, in constant operation. And these 
 causes must, of course, be adequate to the effects. The 
 common remark, how slight causes give rise to vast effects, 
 is, after all, a mere fashion of speaking: and either it cannot 
 in reality be true, or it can refer only to the proximate 
 cause, and not to those deeper and more efficient causes, 
 which are somewhat remote from observation. But, for the 
 most part, what we call the proximate cause is not so much 
 the cause, as the occasion. Beautifully, indeed, has it been 
 said, “ Behold, how great a flame a little fire kindleth!” 
 Yet, when a single spark produces the tremendous igni¬ 
 tion, the train must have been laid; or, at least, combus¬ 
 tible materials in a sufficient quantity must have been ready 
 for the blaze. 
 
 The causes too—continuous and growing causes—which 
 are now operating towards momentous changes, both at 
 home and abroad, are either actually patent; or, if not 
 always lying upon the surface, are discoverable without much 
 difficulty, by candid and patient investigation. 
 
ONE, manifold; 
 
 I say, both at home and abroad, because some at least of 
 these causes are at work among ourselves; and the very dif¬ 
 ference, which has been recently so conspicuous between 
 England and the Continent, may tend to throw light upon the 
 subject. 
 
 England, by the Divine blessing, has been enabled to ride 
 out the tempest; while other vessels, many and majestic, have 
 foundered; and, while sea and shore are strewn with their 
 wrecks. In our own good ship—to pursue the metaphor a little 
 further—not a plank has given way, and scarcely a timber has 
 been strained. With us the advice of an illustrious, though 
 expatriated, man, M. Guizot, has been hardly needed, that wo 
 should hold fast to our constitution and to our faith, and 
 reverence our traditions. The attempt to revolutionize Great 
 Britain, after the model of Paris, has been signally and totally 
 put down: crushed, in fact, and overwhelmed, rather than 
 defeated. The cause of law and order has asserted its 
 supremacy among us, with a triumph the more glorious, that 
 it has been achieved without blood. The citizens in our 
 towns at once took the matter into their own hands: so that 
 no necessity arose for having recourse to that humane and 
 disciplined firmness, that admirable union of courage and 
 temper, which our soldiers have almost invariably exhibited 
 in our civil disturbances. Even in Ireland, rebellion has been 
 paralysed, so soon as it would pass from words into deeds, 
 and would lift up its arm to strike. 
 
 Now, what is the inference to be deduced from these 
 notorious facts? In what, humanly speaking, consists the 
 secret of our security ? It consists partly, of course, in the 
 circumstance, that our civil, religious, and domestic scheme of 
 life is time-honoured and time-hallowed; more in the circum¬ 
 stance, that the various parts of it have a firm coherence and 
 agreement among themselves; and more, again, in the cir¬ 
 cumstance, that England already possesses a degree of prac- 
 
OH, SYSTEM. 
 
 9 
 
 tical liberty—of liberty social as well as political,—and tho 
 social is even the more valuable of the two,—larger and more 
 real than is enjoyed, perhaps, in any other region under the 
 sun. In other words, our institutions are broad, and there¬ 
 fore strong: they are not as an enormous edifice with a 
 narrow basis, which the first hurricane is sure to overthrow. 
 We may have no sympathy with the turbulence of mobs, and 
 the noisy selfishness of demagogues; we may repudiate that 
 abusive vituperation which is for ever insisting upon “ the con¬ 
 spiracy of crowned heads against human rightsfrom habit, 
 or taste, or temperament, we may turn with an intuitive dislike 
 from sophists, declaimers, rhetoricians, the framers of ab¬ 
 stract constitutions, which are utterly inapplicable where they 
 are meant to be applied; we may be thoroughly persuaded, 
 that the principle of stability must be joined with the prin¬ 
 ciple of movement, and the principle of adaptation with the 
 principle of progression: but, nevertheless, the indications of 
 the age cannot be mistaken without wilful self-delusion; and 
 neither can they be safely neglected. They convey to us 
 the admonition, that, if we wish institutions to endure and 
 flourish, we must widen the foundations on which they rest. 
 They teach us the two-fold tendency of all things, at once to 
 consolidation and to expansion. 
 
 For the main cause, after all, of political and social 
 changes is the law of progress itself, the great inevitable truth 
 of human development. Never, at any former period, was 
 the fact of this development so visible. How many and how 
 undeniable are the signs! We trace them in the greater 
 breadth of the problems discussed, and the greater number of 
 persons who discuss them; in the scope, the boldness, and 
 the keenness of research; in the extended sphere of mental 
 culture and mental activity; in the increase of educational 
 and instructional provisions; in the grasp and largeness of 
 purpose gradually becoming visible in the undertakings of 
 
10 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 the day; and in the disposition which prevails towards mutual 
 aid and associated action. We trace them in the new views 
 which are entertained of social economy, and the augmented 
 degree of importance which is annexed to social questions, in 
 contradistinction to those which are merely political; we trace 
 them in the growing distaste for war, as belonging only to a 
 savage state of society; in the practice, now so frequently 
 adopted, of submitting national disputes to the arbitration 
 of friendly or neutral powers; and in the decay, if not the 
 extinction, of that barbarous principle, which made inter¬ 
 national enmities a part of national virtue; we trace them 
 in a velocity of locomotion, which our ancestors, in their most 
 soaring visions, never conceived, from place to place, from 
 country to country, by means of steam-vessels and rail-roads: 
 in the greater freedom of commerce; in the increased facilities 
 of intercourse, and in the infinitely multiplied communication 
 between nation and nation, man and man; in the almost 
 instantaneous diffusion of intelligence through the electric 
 telegraph, as “ by the agency of lightning, and with the 
 speed;” we trace them in the more general acquaintance of 
 men with the thoughts and languages of each other, and 
 in that kindly wisdom which is gradually gathering the well- 
 informed persons of the age into a republic of science and 
 letters; we trace them in the amount of charity, in the impetus 
 given to the prosecution of useful and beneficial designs; in 
 the spread of colonization; and, still more, in the dissemi¬ 
 nation of the Bible, and the missionary spirit of Christianity. 
 We trace them in the sounder and more righteous sentiments 
 which are cherished as to the connexion between all classes 
 and all interests; in the dissolution of old parties, the disuse 
 of old party watchwords, and the formation of new and more 
 generous combinations; in the recognition of the “consensus” 
 which must' exist between all the members of the body politic, 
 as of the human frame; their universal interdependence, their 
 
OE, SYSTEM. 
 
 11 
 
 perpetual reciprocity of influence; in the fact, as Louis Blanc 
 expresses it, that the whole of a society must fall together, or 
 be elevated together; or, to borrow the words of Mr. J. S. 
 Mill, “that we can never either understand in theory, or 
 command in practice, the condition of a society in any one 
 respect, without taking into consideration its condition in 
 all other respects.” . 
 
 In short, mechanical, economical, intellectual, moral, 
 and religious causes are now all concurring to one end; they 
 are bringing men into union, and at the same time giving 
 fresh force to their individual wills and capacities. 
 
 The strength and the operation of these causes have an 
 obvious tendency to increase, henceforward, in a geometrical 
 ratio. 
 
 At any rate, the pulses of human life beat, at this 
 epoch of our race, with a quicker and stronger vibration than 
 heretofore. The movements of society are broader, more 
 profound, more powerful, than they have hitherto been. 
 Mankind are forming themselves into larger and larger 
 associations, coalescing with a wider and wider federalism, 
 and familiarizing themselves more and more with conven¬ 
 tions and congresses, called together for a variety of objects, 
 and composed oftentimes of deputies from both hemi¬ 
 spheres. 
 
 We must adapt our measures to our circumstances. No 
 doubt, as more activities are developed, more interests involved, 
 more minds engaged, more volitions exercised, the regulation 
 of the world becomes a graver, a more complicated, a more 
 difficult task ; but the progression of humanity is still certain. 
 We must accept this great fact with all its conditions 
 attached to it. 
 
 Besides, without indulging in dreams of human perfec¬ 
 tibility on earth, and without denying that the forces of 
 confusion and mischief are abroad, the symptoms of advance- 
 
12 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 ment and improvement are, on the whole, abundantly suffi¬ 
 cient to encourage and animate us. 
 
 On the other side, it must be confessed, that there remain 
 serious chasms and deficiencies even in those respects where 
 the present generation has done more than the preceding. 
 It is also true that another picture might be drawn—yet this 
 too should animate us—the picture of the evils and disorders 
 which still afflict human communities, with our own among 
 the rest, and the need of providing some large scheme of 
 speedy and effective remedies. But I refrain from attempting 
 the delineation in these few preliminary remarks; lest I should 
 either seem to exaggerate it by statements made without 
 the requisite qualifications, or should utterly fail to do justice 
 to the affecting and solemn warning which it ought to 
 present. 
 
 Enoughmust havebeen said to demonstrate,:that, in addition 
 to those ominous phenomena which have shot up like meteors in 
 the sky of France, there must throng and press around us a 
 multitude of other circumstances, which may now make every 
 thinking man look with a peculiar solicitude to the future 
 fortunes of the species. Before, indeed, those events occurred, 
 which have convulsed Europe from end to end, a vague and 
 general feeling had displayed itself in the common discourse, 
 the journals, and the literature of the day, to the effect that 
 a new sera was commencing, and that the world, in some re¬ 
 spects, was about to start upon a fresh career. To this effect, 
 there has been long a dull and muttered sound, week after 
 week waxing louder and more distinct. The essential proper¬ 
 ties of human nature, it was said in more quarters than one, 
 are the same in all ages and all climes. But many of the forms 
 of social existence are antiquated, effete, and must pass away. 
 The mould itself is broken, and society cannot be recast in it. 
 
 In these sentiments, thus expressed, I cannot altogether 
 participate. God forbid, for instance, that the red flag of 
 
OH, SYSTEM. 
 
 13 
 
 communism should he hoisted on our shores, or be seen floating 
 from our steeples ! Generally, too, that which is beneficial to 
 nations is gradual transition, careful expansion and amend¬ 
 ment, rather than abrupt and violent change. Still the horizon 
 of thought and action is extending itself, and will extend it¬ 
 self, with an indefinite, and as yet incalculable, enlargement. 
 Thousands and thousands of lines are stretching themselves 
 out in all directions, and yet at the same time converging to 
 a common centre. The current of human life rolls on with 
 an ampler volume ; for the tributary waters are more in num¬ 
 ber, and there is a confluence of all their streams. This or 
 that wave may apparently recede; but, if we only watch, we 
 cannot fail to perceive that the tide is flowing, and with an 
 accumulated force. I use by design the ordinary, and even 
 trite figures and analogies, as best conveying the prevalent 
 impression; and, therefore, I would add this other of a 
 somewhat different kind, namely, that we might as well 
 think of resting a pyramid upon its apex, as of now resting 
 the whole of human affairs upon a few persons, or a few 
 interests. 
 
 But there is on this account, I would reiterate, no room 
 for despondency. However men may have trembled, and 
 with reason, at some of those awful shapes which have 
 emerged out of the late chaos on the Continent, we are now 
 able in some measure to discriminate the general and abiding 
 features of the time, from such as are only variable and 
 transient: and perhaps even those things which have shocked 
 and terrified us, may be turned to advantage, and made to 
 have a better and brighter aspect. It is no real matter of 
 lamentation, that, in countries which have been kept down by 
 despotism or oligarchy, many portions of the ancient regime 
 have gone, or must go. Thus, it is evident, that might, 
 physical and material might, must be the ultimate arbiter of 
 disputes, and that it is a weapon of which rulers must 
 
14 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 make use in extremities; but it has become an instrument, 
 on which they cannot presume or place reliance, or which 
 may even prove as a reed, weak to restrain others, yet sharp 
 to pierce themselves, when the population,—I do not say 
 the rabble,—is arrayed against them. Not the right employ¬ 
 ment of police and armies, but the reign of military domi¬ 
 nation, must go. With all that has just happened in France 
 before our eyes, I repeat it, the reign of military domination 
 must go: because despotic states must discover the possi¬ 
 bility, that troops, however brave and stanch in the case of 
 unjustifiable and wanton sedition, will be reluctant to act 
 against their fellow-citizens if insulted and oppressed. The 
 reign of mere coercion must go: for a whole people cannot 
 be coerced. The reign of mere dictation must go: for, 
 although knowledge will be power, and although the stronger 
 minds will lead the weaker, still public opinion will prevail 
 over individual dogmatism; and authority, though in civil 
 matters supreme, must, even there, rest upon this public 
 opinion; while, in other matters, the prestige of mere autho¬ 
 rity has departed, and men will think for themselves, rather 
 than take things upon trust. But, if these premises are cor¬ 
 rect, what follows ? It simply follows, that resort must really 
 and fully be had to intellectual and moral influences; that, 
 as some forces which have mainly governed the world, now, 
 without being extinguished, or being stripped of their law¬ 
 ful province, yet sink, or wane, in comparison with their 
 previous dominion, other forces must mount into the ascend¬ 
 ant, and take the lead in the world’s government: that the 
 business must be to enlighten, train, and Christianize com¬ 
 munities ; and then to lay before them those wide and diver¬ 
 sified, yet harmonious, arrangements, which enlightened, 
 moral, and Christian communities may approve. 
 
 Under such circumstances, it may be safely affirmed, 
 more of genuine deference, more of true obedience, will be 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 15 
 
 paid to legitimate and constituted rule, as less of abject 
 submission is exacted by penal enactments, or by the sword. 
 Under such circumstances, a country, at least, like England, 
 will continue to be the home and sanctuary of unviolated 
 order, and of a religious respect for the laws, and their ad¬ 
 ministrators. Personal judgment, the sense of freedom, the 
 habit of self-government, will be the props which uphold the 
 throne; will confirm attachment and veneration for those 
 institutions and ordinances, which they have themselves a 
 share in framing and maintaining. 
 
 But I need not dwell upon these common-places. I 
 should not have mentioned them, but that I would not be 
 supposed to advocate extravagant and extreme notions; and 
 that I wish to be clearly understood on a matter, on which, 
 nevertheless, it is not easy, as I know, to prevent miscon¬ 
 ception. The main point, as all will agree, is, that men 
 must now devote themselves to the great and serious pur¬ 
 poses for which they have received the inestimable gift of 
 life; and must address themselves together to these pur¬ 
 poses, with an energetic and comprehensive spirit. Happy 
 is it, that the true ends of existence being better understood 
 than in times past, more persons are actually beginning to 
 devote themselves to these purposes, and address themselves 
 to them in this spirit; looking to the sway of religion, of 
 reason, of truth, of right, of love,—to the dominion of great 
 ideas. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, I would draw the following con¬ 
 clusion from this brief review, or summary, of the present 
 aspect of affairs. We are on the eve, it seems to me, of 
 what may be called the constructive mra of society. That, 
 as the human race marches onward to its ultimate destina¬ 
 tion, the arrival of such an aera must become a mere question 
 of time, is a conviction, I am persuaded, to which every 
 religious and philosophical inquirer cannot but come: that 
 
16 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD ; 
 
 there has been long a growing tendency towards it, and that 
 the last twenty years have vastly accelerated its approach, is 
 an opinion, which every student of Modern History must at 
 least acknowledge to be plausible. I do not regret that 
 the limits which must be assigned to this Letter preclude 
 me from expatiating on the melancholy topic, how a very 
 large portion of human exertion and human power lias been 
 hitherto expended, consumed, wasted, in the work either of 
 destruction, or of obstruction; that is, not in any joint and 
 positive efforts, made by mankind in concert, for the common 
 welfare, but in neutralizing, counteracting, baffling, nullify¬ 
 ing, the efforts of each other; so that these have been em¬ 
 ployed in undoing and demolishing what those have laboured 
 to do. My hope is, and such a hope is worth encouragement 
 by every man within himself,—my hope is, as I have said, 
 that such a state of things is now about to be, in part at 
 least, succeeded by the sera of construction. The very men¬ 
 tion of it, the very expectation of it, may have some influence 
 towards helping forward its advent. 
 
 I understand by the term “ construction,” something 
 which very nearly corresponds with the scriptural expressions, 
 “edify,” “edification,” or “the whole building fitly framed 
 togetherI mean, in fact, by the constructive sera of society, 
 an sera in which the moral, intellectual, and physical powers 
 of mankind, acting upon all the materials at their disposal, 
 shall be employed in erecting on solid foundations the edi¬ 
 fice of good. 
 
 If such a construction be at all practicable, either now, or 
 at any future period of God’s development of humanity, the 
 very momentous consideration arises, What are the principles 
 which should characterize and direct it 1 Immense must be 
 the danger, if it be attempted by a wrong process—unspeak¬ 
 able the benefit, if it can be so conducted as to secure pro¬ 
 gress and improvement, without confusion and lawlessness. 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 17 
 
 Be this, however, as it may: be this constructive mra 
 at hand or at a distance, one point will be allowed. In a 
 state of humanity, such as has been described, so full of hope, 
 and yet so full of uncertainty; so cheering in some respects, 
 so gloomy and dark in others; so big with significance in all: 
 at a period, when so many things long consecrated by usage 
 and prescription, are ■ brought into dispute, or unsettled, or 
 swept away; when all questions are agitated by all men; 
 when the gravest and profoundest problems are flung into 
 the midst, as it were, for everybody’s solution; when the 
 most novel and surprising theories are set forth in clubs, or 
 proclaimed in the market-place; when all things, in short, 
 are so curiously and unscrupulously inspected, that they may 
 be almost literally said to be turned inside out: at such a 
 period, any man, who sincerely believes that ho has any 
 suggestion to make which may prove serviceable to the 
 human race, is more than justified in making it;—provided 
 only that he does not promulgate his sentiments without dis¬ 
 passionate and patient reflection; and that he is not actuated 
 by mere vanity of mind, or thirst for notoriety, or any light 
 and frivolous ambition, utterly incongruous with the circum¬ 
 stances around him, with the serious and critical character of 
 the age on which he is cast. The conjuncture, in fact, is one, 
 when the most careless must be startled out of their indiffer¬ 
 ence, and when earnest men are almost compelled to give 
 utterance to what they think. 
 
 II. I come, then, to the proposition itself, which I would 
 submit to public consideration. It is simply this:—that 
 the great necessity of the age is the formation of system:—that 
 fhe great want of the world, and the great tash that now aicaits 
 lit, is really to systematize the collective and the individual life 
 ff man; to work out the idea of system loth in theory and in 
 practice. With this idea of system must be connected the idea 
 : B. M. S. 2 
 
 i 
 
18 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 of One Manifold, losing sight neither of Unity in Variety, nor of 
 Variety in Unity ; neither of Oneness in the Manifold, nor of 
 Manifoldness in the One. 
 
 The mention and refutation of objections will be seen 
 to belong to a subsequent stage of this investigation; but it 
 is indispensable, as has been already hinted, just to obviate 
 certain misapprehensions, which would otherwise be stumbling- 
 blocks upon the very threshold. 
 
 It may be said, for instance, that the thing required is, 
 not to put the world upon system, but to regulate it in ac¬ 
 cordance with true religion, in accordance with Christianity. 
 Now, assuredly, if the former of these things be opposed to 
 the latter, it must fall to the ground; and we must live ac¬ 
 cording to the spirit of Christianity, if we would indeed have 
 life. But the two objects have a perfect compatibility, and 
 even a close affinity, with each other:—and as system is the 
 first law of God, so it must coincide with the economy of the 
 Gospel, regarded either as a creed, or as an institution.— 
 But, then, system is the word of wider signification, as having 
 immediate reference to material things as well as to moral, 
 to the forces and elements of nature, as well as to the affec¬ 
 tions and dispositions of the heart; and is therefore more 
 adapted to the purpose which is here in view :—while Chris¬ 
 tianity, the crown indeed and consummation of system, be¬ 
 cause having a real bearing upon every department of existence, 
 and itself teaching and constituting the supreme existence, 
 proceeds on its distinct pathway of heavenly light; and, in 
 the sublimity of its mysteries, and the ineffable tenderness 
 of its compassions, might be almost fettered and degraded 
 by too minute a contact with those subjects with which 
 it was not specially designed to intermeddle. Wise in its 
 omissions as in its precepts, it leaves to man the independent 
 prosecution of his secular inquiries, the free exercise of his 
 capacities and energies in those pursuits of this world, to 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 19 
 
 which Revelation, intent on its own gracious and solemn end, 
 but incidentally and indirectly alludes. 
 
 Others may say, that life is to be adjusted, not according 
 to system, but according to nature, or to just knowledge, or to 
 science, or to the rule of right; or, in the words of Fichte, 
 that “ our relations should be ordered, with freedom, accord¬ 
 ing to reason.” The correctness of such statements cannot 
 be absolutely denied; yet they are capable of a reply, some¬ 
 what similar to the foregoing, and with this addition:—the 
 misfortune is, that men, in making use of such expressions as 
 those just specified, hardly approach a step nearer to the end 
 of their controversies. They may discuss for ever, for exam¬ 
 ple, what is right, and what it is to live according to right. 
 The exact meaning, or proper application, of any such phrase, 
 however glorious and precious the conception which it should 
 bring with it, is liable to perpetual disagreement: whereas to 
 live according to system must be in perfect consonance with 
 these other elements of good; while system itself is a term 
 comprehensive, and yet precise; it presents a more distinct 
 image; its properties and conditions may be more nicely and 
 accurately defined; it affords a kind of positive law, or objec¬ 
 tive standard, to which reference may be made; it is far easier, 
 in short, to determine what system is, than what right is. 
 
 And there is this further advantage. The idea of system 
 may be conceived as a single trunk, branching out into an 
 endless number of ramifications. By taking this one idea, 
 with the two or three undeniable axioms, or postulates, 
 which evidently belong to it, we may place an immense inquiry 
 upon the simplest basis; and by a strict logical demonstration 
 we may educe from it an entire series of truths, affecting, 
 harmonizing, adjusting, completing, all the exertions of man¬ 
 kind in every domain of being. 
 
 But, then, the term system must be rightly understood ; 
 and, therefore, some explication of it becomes necessary. 
 
20 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 When the word system is mentioned, men, for the most 
 part, immediately think of the especial system of some parti¬ 
 cular person:—they, at least, mix up their conception with the 
 system of Aristotle or Plato, Newton or Leibnitz, Linnseus 
 or Buffon, Hutton or Werner, Berkeley or Reid, Locke or 
 Kant, Schelling or Hegel, Cousin or Comte, Dugald Stewart 
 or Jeremy Bentham; or even, perhaps, of St. Simon, or 
 Fourier, or Cabet, or Robert Owen. They find “ system” 
 used in books and conversation, and represented in dictionaries 
 and lexicons, as the “ scheme,” or “ plan,” or “ method,” or 
 “ theory,” which any individual adopts; and any improvement, 
 real or supposed, any alteration which any man suggests in 
 any thing, even down to the making of pens, is called his 
 “ systemhence, there comes a prevailing distrust of the ex¬ 
 pression ; and there is oftentimes thrown over it something 
 of ridicule. 
 
 Moreover, from this dislike of particular systems, many 
 are induced to regard system in general as an artificial array 
 of things, depending upon some arbitrary hypothesis, and 
 bound together by some strained, or imaginary, principle of 
 connexion. It appears to their minds as something at 
 once abstruse and fanciful, presumptuous and unsound. It 
 appears, besides, as something which belongs to men who 
 dream, or theorize,rather than to men who act ;_to academical 
 speculation, rather than to the conduct of life;—to the schools, 
 rather than to the moving and busy world. These notions, 
 too, I believe, are more common in this country than else¬ 
 where. Very frequently, Englishmen take a pride in being 
 unsystematic. For in their eyes system is theory, and 
 theory is opposed to practice; but England is a practical 
 nation; it is by its practical energy that England has at¬ 
 tained to its present height of renown and greatness;’ and 
 therefore England and system ought to have nothing to 
 do with each other: and Englishmen are right in holding 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 21 
 
 in abhorrence and contempt “ systems ” and “ system-mon¬ 
 gers.” 
 
 All the fallacies imbedded in this mode of reasoning,—if, 
 indeed, it deserves such an appellation,—I cannot stop to 
 point out. How injurious has been the effect of such fal¬ 
 lacies upon the science, the legislation, and the social eco¬ 
 nomy of Great Britain, and how much discredit the absence 
 of system, and the consequent want of recurrence to large, 
 deep, and connecting principles, has brought in some cases 
 upon our thinkers and writers, in the estimation of the philo¬ 
 sophers and philosophical statesmen of the Continent—these, 
 again, are matters, which must now be left to the recollection 
 of those who are really conversant with the subject. 
 
 If, however, we required an instance of the mischief, as 
 well as the perplexity, which accrues from the misapprehen¬ 
 sion or misapplication of terms, more especially of such as 
 are of wide meaning, and in daily use, we could find none, in 
 the whole compass of inquiry, more conspicuous, or more ad¬ 
 monitory,than that which occurs with respect to the word system. 
 The loose signification put upon it in the easy negligence of 
 familiar or popular discourse might be, in itself, of trivial 
 importance. But, in point of fact, there is introduced a 
 pervading confusion of thought and language;—a general 
 ambiguity, often, as has been said, amounting to positive mis¬ 
 conception;—of which one example has just been given, and 
 another, more serious perhaps, as having somewhat more 
 foundation in the reality of things, remains to be brought 
 forward. 
 
 System is very often designated, and considered, as a 
 body, or arrangement of things, whether in science, or art, or 
 any kind of organization, so compacted and dovetailed to¬ 
 gether, and supposed at least to be so complete, as no longer 
 to leave room for alteration or addition. Hence follows the 
 inference, that the formation of system must be oftentimes a 
 
22 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 vast hinderance to true knowledge and right action, inasmuch 
 as it would preclude all further observation and experiment; 
 and the very attempt to form it, before a sufficient number 
 of particulars has been collected, must be not only abortive 
 and useless, but actually pernicious. For the most part, 
 the realization is impossible, and even the aspiration worse 
 than vain. 
 
 It is a matter of some difficulty, and delicacy, to dis¬ 
 entangle what is true from what is erroneous, in this repre¬ 
 sentation. Without doubt, a common definition of system in 
 technological dictionaries and other compilations, is a complete 
 My of anyart or science, which hasbeen distinguished variously, 
 according to the different views of those who have digested 
 the materials into a connected form ; or, more generally, “ a 
 complete body or treatise, as opposed to the way of writing 
 by essays, or aphorisms.” Nor is it less certain that names of 
 the loftiest eminence are to be found among those, who, survey¬ 
 ing the matter in this light, have spoken in dispraise of system, 
 and in recommendation of the contrary mode of proceeding— 
 the name of Boyle, for instance, and, to a certain extent, the 
 still higher name of Bacon. In many cases, the scientific 
 rigidness, the formal and finished shape, which has been as¬ 
 sumed too soon, has been fairly considered as a detriment. 
 Occasion has been thus given for asserting, that to affect 
 to have formed a system, is as much as to say, “the scheme is 
 made up, rounded off, walled and fenced about within its own 
 definite and sacred enclosure:—the door is now shut against 
 further accessions of information; for these would only dis¬ 
 turb its neatness and entireness, embarrass and bring again 
 into question all its conclusions.” But in treating of the great 
 aggregate of things, we are hardly bound by these technical 
 views. They are, in a certain sense, both just and valuable: 
 but they have reference only to that which pretends to be a 
 perfect and final system. When such a pretence is made, it 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 23 
 
 is, of a truth, incumbent upon us to boar in mind, that no 
 system can be final and perfect without a full mastery, whe¬ 
 ther intellectual or actual, over all the existences to be com¬ 
 prised in it. But these views lose their justness and value, if 
 they are carried to the extent of maintaining, that the for¬ 
 mation of system is not to be sought, is not to be within the 
 scope of our endeavours, until system can at once be carried 
 to its final perfection. They would then, if they had any 
 validity, prove infinitely too much. For system is a necessity 
 of man, although we should be cautious in our attempts to 
 frame it; just as we must generalize, although we are bound 
 to guard against false, rash, hasty, and premature general¬ 
 ization. Both the one process and the other, of generalizing 
 and of systematizing—yet the two are, in fact, scarcely dis¬ 
 tinct—must demand care, and cannot be quite unaccom¬ 
 panied with danger: but men may both recognize the existence 
 of system in the creation of God, and cultivate in themselves 
 the spirit of system, without making any pretensions that 
 they have yet arrived at that stage of ultimate perfection, of 
 which even their own labours are susceptible. So far as man 
 is concerned, system, like everything else, good or great, 
 which can be his, must have its beginning and its rudiments, 
 long before it can have its consummation: it cannot be grasped 
 suddenly and at once: it must, from the infirmities and de¬ 
 ficiencies of human nature, be in some sense progressive and 
 even tentative: and it can only bo attained, if attained at all, 
 after many efforts and by slow degrees. Nay: perfect system 
 is an aim which man should keep stedfastly in view; although 
 he must feel, that, at last and at best, he can but approximate 
 the goal, rather than reach it. 
 
 These things being premised, by way of caution, we may 
 be quite willing to accept any of those definitions of system 
 which are to be found in the usual books of reference; as, for 
 instance, according to Dr. Johnson, that it is “any com- 
 
24 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 plexure, or combination, of many things acting togetheror, 
 “ a scheme which reduces many things to regular dependence, 
 or co-operationor, “ a scheme, which unites many things in 
 order: ” or, again, according to Richardson, that it is “ a col¬ 
 location; a construction; a combination, or connexion of 
 parts into a whole; a series of connected or dependent 
 parts;” or, again, that it is “a scheme which reduces many 
 things to regular dependence and subordination.” We may 
 also at once admit, that the adjective, “systematic,” or 
 “ systematical,” means “written, or formed, with regular sub¬ 
 ordination of one part to another.” 
 
 In these several definitions, the variations, it will be seen, 
 are exceedingly slight, as compared with the agreements. 
 Our purpose may be abundantly answered by taking those 
 common elements which are implied in them all; namely, 
 orderly composition or construction; consistency and sym¬ 
 metry of divers objects or conceptions; the relation, or con¬ 
 nexion, of whole and parts, and of parts among themselves. 
 
 Let us observe, then, to what point we have arrived. 
 
 1. The assertion is, that life is to be regulated accord¬ 
 ing to system; and that advantages may result from this 
 mode of expression greater, in many respects, than if it were 
 said, that life is to be regulated according to reason, or to 
 true knowledge, or to the rule of right. 
 
 2. System is not to be regarded as synonymous with 
 theory, speculation, or artificial method; but is to be taken 
 in the sense which most exactly corresponds with its ety¬ 
 mology, and its more approved acceptation; as the placing 
 of things together, or the structure of things when so placed; 
 the arrangement and adjustment of things in reference 
 to the whole and to each other; the regular constitution 
 of things upon a plan, and with a purpose; or, a coherent 
 harmonious scheme of thought and action. It would be 
 trifling and idle to contend eagerly for a mere word, or to 
 
OE, SYSTEM. 
 
 25 
 
 lay an undue stress upon it. But some term, whatever it 
 is to be, is absolutely required for the conception and the 
 fact which must meet us always and everywhere; and to 
 express this fact or conception, there is, so far as I know, no 
 term fitter, or more generally received, than system, to be 
 found in any language. It has the convenience too, not how¬ 
 ever without some attendant ambiguity, of being used both 
 subjectively, for the formation of plan, and objectively, for 
 the plan formed or constructed. 
 
 3. The thing desired, and now had in view, is the for- 
 -mation not of a system, but of system; not the peculiar 
 scheme or arrangement of this or that individual, associated 
 with his name,' based upon some peculiar principle, and linked 
 together by some peculiar bond or law of connexion, of which 
 he happens to be enamoured; but system simply as system, 
 having the constituent elements which essentially belong to 
 it, and bound together by the law of system itself. It is an 
 important point, that the one of these things be sedulously 
 and carefully disengaged from the other. 
 
 4. The formation of system may and must be gradual; 
 it should always be contemplated, and may, to a certain 
 extent, be attained; although it cannot at the commence¬ 
 ment, or perhaps at any assignable period, be altogether com¬ 
 pact and entire. 
 
 5. The system, of which we are to speak, is the system 
 of one manifold. 
 
 In strict reasoning, perhaps, the enunciation of this last 
 proposition is needless; for the idea of system, and the 
 idea of one manifold, if not actually identical, yet involve or 
 suppose each other. System, at least, according to a defi¬ 
 nition just given, and by the very force of the term, is the 
 union of many things in order; and is, therefore, manifestly 
 impossible, unless there be two or more things to stand, or 
 to be put together; and, also, unless these two or more things 
 
26 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD ; 
 
 so stand, or are so put together as, in some sense, to become 
 one. The primary condition or property of system is, plurality 
 in unity; or, what is little more than the same truth differ¬ 
 ently expressed, the gathering of parts into a whole. 
 
 There is, however, a real utility in stating that the sys¬ 
 tem to be formed is a system of one manifold. For, by one 
 manifold, we are to understand not merely plurality in unity, 
 not merely multiformity in unity, but variety in unity. This 
 is the first law, or “ formula,” of nature ; and system, which 
 must agree with nature, must itself, therefore, be one manifold, 
 or have variety in unity. On the side of variety, it will 
 admit of modifications, according to the different cases in 
 which it is to be applied; on the side of unity, the same 
 essential principles will be, with some latitude, always pre¬ 
 served. “A system, or constitution,” says Bishop Butler, 
 “ implies variety; and so complicated a one as this world, 
 very great variety.” 
 
 6. System, and especially the system of one manifold, 
 presupposes, of course, all things that are necessary for the 
 formation of system: as, for instance, some examination and 
 knowledge, quantitative and qualitative, of the number, pro¬ 
 perties, and relations of the several entities, in order that we 
 may know how, and in what proportions, they are to be com¬ 
 bined or systematized. 
 
 And at this point I might for the present pause; inas¬ 
 much as the immediate object of this publication is thus accom¬ 
 plished; by proposing the formation of System—the system 
 of one manifold—as the great work remaining for mankind ; 
 and by setting forth in what manner the term system is to 
 be understood. That the proposition, however, may not seem 
 quite bare and unfruitful, it may be expedient to go some¬ 
 what further, and to indicate some, at least, of the steps and 
 .considerations to which it leads. Yet here this indication 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 27 
 
 can only be given in the way of a mere outline or skeleton- 
 map ; or rather, perhaps, as the syllabus of a course of lec¬ 
 tures, or the scheme of contents prefixed to a book. This 
 syllabus, or scheme, is not intended to go into minute particu¬ 
 lars ; and, in the actual prosecution of the design, the order, 
 or sequence, may in some instances be altered. 
 
 First, after the exposition of the meaning of the term, 
 must come the conception of the thing. This conception 
 ought to be clear, just, and adequate : clear, that it may 
 avoid the obscurity and perplexity by which the subject is 
 still surrounded: just, that it may reject the notions not 
 properly inherent in it: adequate, or complete, that it may 
 discover and develope all that it really includes. As it is a 
 matter of necessity to get rid of that which is false, so it 
 is also needed to embrace the whole truth. 
 
 In order to obtain such a conception of the system of 
 one manifold, we must regard it both as a question of pure, 
 abstract, or formal science, and also as a matter of science 
 mixed and applied. Moreover, we must understand, 
 
 1st. The nature and extent of system: that is, the 
 system of one manifold. 
 
 2udly. Its history and statistics, as well as its philo¬ 
 sophy : its practical applications, as well as its 
 theory. 
 
 3rdly. Its value and necessity to mankind. 
 
 4tldy. Their obligations in respect to it, together with 
 the actual mode of proceeding to be adopted. 
 
 1. In its nature must be included the principles belong¬ 
 ing to the idea of system; such as connexion or coherence ; 
 design or plan; law or rule ; adaptation and arrangement; 
 combination and concert; method and order; harmony and 
 proportion; the right disposition and due gradation of 
 things. 
 
ONE, manifold; 
 
 There must also be included the principles belonging t 0 
 
 the idea of one manifold ; to 
 
 either of these ideas when 
 
 taken by itself, and to the two when taken together. 
 
 The principles which flow respectively from the one and 
 the manifold, or which are logically attached to the former 
 idea, or to the latter, may be best shewn by the following 
 
 scheme. 
 
 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 
 One 
 
 Manifold 
 
 Unity 
 
 Variety 
 
 Wholeness, or Totality 
 
 Partition 
 
 Union 
 
 Division 
 
 Generalization 
 
 Particularization 
 
 Consolidation 
 
 Diffusion 
 
 Conjunction 
 
 Separation 
 
 Synthesis, or 
 
 Analysis, or 
 
 Composition 
 
 Resolution 
 
 Agreements 
 
 Differences 
 
 Resemblance 
 
 Diversity 
 
 Collectivity 
 
 Individualism 
 
 Co-operation 
 
 Distinctive Action 
 
 The Common to all 
 
 The Peculiar to each 
 
 The Generic 
 
 The Specific 
 
 Attraction, or Cohesion 
 
 Repulsion 
 
 Interdependence 
 
 Independence 
 
 Order 
 
 Freedom 
 
 Simultaneity 
 
 Succession 
 
 The Constant 
 
 The Variable 
 
 Sameness 
 
 Change 
 
 Continuity 
 
 Transition 
 
 Stability 
 
 Progress 
 
 &c. 
 
 &c. 
 
 The conceptions which flow out of the twofold idea of 
 one manifold, when it is taken at once, and in its integrity, 
 are either those which have been already specified as belong¬ 
 ing to the main idea of system itself; or else such as fede¬ 
 ralism, classification, and generally, the balance of forces, and 
 that combination of opposite principles, on which depend the 
 safety, the harmony, and the beauty of the universe. It will 
 thus be seen, that the principles here placed in the two 
 
OK, SYSTEM. 
 
 29 
 
 parallel columns, though in some sense antagonistic, are yet 
 correlative, necessary, serviceable to each other, and have 
 actually a common origin. Yet a real contradistinction is 
 observable in the midst of the interfusion; and thus we 
 must gather from the idea of one manifold, that the true law 
 of nature is universal connexion, instead of that baneful doc¬ 
 trine of universal identity, which would make spirit and 
 matter, or even good and evil, to be the same thing. 
 
 But the mention of these words, universal connexion, 
 brings us to the next consideration, namely, the extent of the 
 system of one manifold. A just conception of its extent is 
 as indispensable as a just conception of its nature. But, 
 whether regarded in the logical and formal, or in the actual, 
 point of view, this matter admits of no doubt. Wherever 
 there is connexion, there ought to be system. To say this is 
 to say all. For connexion without system becomes mere 
 confusion and disorder, utter and inextricable entanglement. 
 But connexion is universal: therefore system ought to be 
 universal. Wherever things run into each other, or have a 
 reciprocal influence and interdependence, there ought to be 
 system. But what things can be mentioned, which have no 
 influence or dependence on each other, immediate or mediate ? 
 The continuity is unbroken, the interdependence is never 
 lost. The connexion between the extremes is not dissolved 
 by any number of intermediate links. The connexion be¬ 
 tween the remote, though less direct, is not less real than 
 between the proximate. 
 
 There are bonds, then, which hold together all things in 
 the vast and complicated unity of being. And, again, as all 
 things have a connexion in space, so they form a series, or 
 catenation, or sequence, in time. The existing state of things 
 is the product of that which has existed; and the whole 
 future will be the product of the whole past and the whole 
 present. The whole future of the whole past: because the 
 
30 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 separate part is not the mere result of the separate part; but 
 the whole is the result of the whole: everything which can 
 be named is an effect of all causes, and a cause of all effects. 
 
 But again; as we may speak without error of causes 
 and effects, or, at least, of antecedents and consequents, it is 
 manifest that the connexion of all thiDgs with all is actual 
 as well as theoretical. Many things pass into each other; 
 and all things act upon all for certain purposes to the pro¬ 
 duction of certain ends. They are connected by their rela¬ 
 tions and movements, even more than by their nature and 
 properties. There is a system of forces, as well as of sub¬ 
 stances : or, to borrow an expression which has been already 
 drawn and expanded out of its native region in mathema¬ 
 tical science, the world exhibits everywhere a vast system of 
 dynamics as well as statics. 
 
 System, therefore, if it is to have any consistency or any 
 truth, must be universal , or a system of the whole. It must 
 follow every link of that mighty chain which binds together 
 the entire mass, and the smallest atom ; the objective world 
 and the subjective; matter and form; the actual and the pos¬ 
 sible; the real and the ideal; the immediate and the ultimate; 
 the profoundest abstractions of mathematical or psychological 
 science with the roughest operations of manual labour; the 
 most soaring flights of the imagination with the most sober 
 business of society; the most ethereal and transcendental 
 thought with the food which sustains us, or the clod of earth 
 on which we tread. It must spread, too, as throughout all 
 space, so throughout all duration; from the first morning of 
 the creation to the present hour, and from the present hour 
 to every hour which is to come. It must regard, as both the 
 collective and the individual, so both the mortal and the 
 immortal, life of man; stretching, as to communities, through¬ 
 out all generations of the human species; and, as to individuals, 
 into the endless futurity beyond the grave. 
 
OH, SYSTEM. 
 
 31 
 
 Moreover, as it must be universal in its extent or compre¬ 
 hensiveness., so it must strive at least to be universal in its 
 completeness. Its aim must be to gather all existences into 
 itself. For, if there be no gap or chasm in nature, no 
 saltus, no hiatus; if in the entire compass and assemblage of 
 being, from extreme boundary to boundary, nothing is insu¬ 
 lated ; nothing stands apart, uninfluencing and uninfluenced; 
 but every thing is fastened, whether by stronger or finer, 
 by more palpable or more subtle, ligaments, to all the rest; 
 and if every item, more or less, affects the sum; then it 
 follows of necessity, not merely that, as anything is omitted 
 or shut out, the whole calculation is vitiated; but that system 
 ceases to be system, in proportion as it fails to be all-inclu¬ 
 sive. As we must take the whole, so we must take all the 
 parts of which the whole is composed. 
 
 Yet once more; it must be universal in its all-pervading- 
 ness :—that is, as it should be present in all departments of 
 being, so it should be present in all dimensions and scales. 
 For Natura semper smilis sibi, et consona : the Author of the 
 universe has caused this great law of system to run through 
 the universe: the same principles, operations, and processes, 
 are repeated, again and again, in narrower and narrower 
 spheres; as the vast tree of existence multiplies itself into its 
 branches; and as the parts become, in their turn, subordinate 
 or smaller wholes. 
 
 System, finally, must be universal in its own structure;— 
 that is, for instance, it must be a system of action, as well as 
 a system of contemplation; a practical as well as a theoretical 
 system; a system which regards the adaptation of means to 
 ends, as well as the discovery of causes and consequences: 
 and, above all, a moral as well as a material system; because 
 moral existences, properties, relations, agencies, purposes, are 
 quite as real, and quite as certain, as any others which the 
 universe presents. 
 
32 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 These truths are self-evident, as flowing either from the 
 pure logical conception of system, or from the conception of 
 it as applied to this universal hsmos ,—this world of regu¬ 
 larity and order, and yet of infinite and beautiful diversity. 
 It further, then, becomes evident at eve17 step, that system 
 itself, like this kosmos, of which it is the law or type, must 
 have variety in its unity; inasmuch as it belongs to a multiune 
 congeries or frame of being, where no two things are alike; 
 and where, perhaps, not any one thing remains absolutely the 
 same for two successive moments of duration: where all 
 things cross, intersect, interpenetrate, each other, not merely 
 in one way, but in a thousand ways; where there are different 
 modes and intensities of connexion and coherence, different 
 kinds and degrees of unity; and where system, therefore, as 
 being a system of time, a system belonging to existences in 
 movement and undergoing change, might be supposed, from 
 antecedent considerations of analogy and fitness, to admit, 
 in the midst of its oneness, variation and progressive deve¬ 
 lopment. 
 
 2. I proceed to another point.—It has been said, that 
 we must understand the history and statistics of system, as 
 well as its philosophy:—its practical applications, as well as 
 its theory. 
 
 This fact has already become apparent; but it will be yet 
 more apparent upon a somewhat closer investigation; and we 
 shall have a clearer insight into the history and the applica¬ 
 tions, by recurring for a moment to a general view of the 
 pure philosophical notion. 
 
 In the system, then, of one manifold, the whole, down to 
 the atom, must be regarded as one conception, involving, 
 under co-ordinate or subordinate groups, and throughout all 
 the intermediate stages, innumerable conceptions: the whole 
 is one inquiry, embracing countless inquiries; one problem, 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 33 
 
 embracing countless problems; one argument, comprising an 
 infinite diversity of arguments ; one action or agency, involv¬ 
 ing unnumbered actions or agencies; one instrumentality, 
 '.including a vast series of instrumentalities; one end, including 
 a multiplicity of ends ; one law, involving all laws; one con¬ 
 struction, and a thousand constructions in one. 
 
 But all the things which have been just specified, such 
 as inquiry, agency, instrumentalities, ends, are not only one 
 manifold, when viewed in themselves; but one manifold, when 
 viewed together. Indeed, the very idea of one manifold, as 
 well as the experienced realities of existence, must assure us, 
 that knowledge and action, theory and practice, though with 
 clear differences between them, are in some sense one: they 
 are, at least, bo blended and intermingled together, they 
 have so true and intimate a connexion, that they can never 
 be dissociated in that which is assumed to be system. 
 
 As system is not system unless it be universal, so neither 
 is it system unless it be practical. 
 
 Yet further: system, as we have seen, belongs to both 
 space and time; to both the objective world and the subject¬ 
 ive ; to the world of external existences, the world of ideas, 
 the world of signs: to both persons and things; to both 
 ^physical means and moral purposes: and, moreover, as it is a 
 system of one manifold, and as it is universal, and spreads 
 throughout the creation from end to end; so its principles, 
 'which in every instance, in every domain, aid and require 
 (each other, must be universal too; and must be applied 
 'in their greatest extent. There must be the greatest unity 
 and the greatest plurality: the most entire whole or totality, 
 land the most minute partition: the utmost combination, and 
 Ijfche utmost individualism: the utmost comprehensiveness, and 
 |the most particular analysis, enumeration, and specification of 
 She several units: the utmost ensemble, the simul et semel; 
 S.nd the utmost subdivision or separation: all things taken 
 
34 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 together and at once; each thing by itself, or one by one: all 
 acting upon all throughout all duration; and each acting 
 upon each at every fraction of time. 
 
 We recur, then, to the observation, that there must be 
 an actual application coinciding with the abstract theory. 
 
 For, in truth, as some philosophers insist upon a prac¬ 
 tical reason, as well as a speculative reason, so there exist 
 practical principles to correspond with these theoretical prin¬ 
 ciples: and little of real advancement can ever be made, 
 unless the whole scheme of existences be not merely specula¬ 
 tively regarded as one manifold; but actually taken, and 
 reduced to practice, as one manifold. 
 
 It becomes still more impossible to resist this conclusion, 
 when we reflect that even the abstract and the concrete, the 
 actual and the ideal, not only throw light upon each other, 
 but are themselves indissolubly connected in the one manifold 
 of universal being. 
 
 But very important consequences ensue. For these con¬ 
 siderations necessarily lead to a new or peculiar mode of 
 viewing all things, and dealing with all things. 
 
 In the first place, they must be carried throughout as a 
 guide and test, for the examination of the actual condition of 
 the world:—of sciences, institutions, occupations, usages, 
 modes of life, both in their origin, and in their present state. 
 The essential principles of system must greatly influence our 
 judgment of them, and our manner of treating them. The 
 historical and statistical must be tried by the philosophical; 
 and the philosophical will be illustrated by the historical and 
 statistical. 
 
 Again, these principles must be applied in all knowledge 
 and action; in the formation of new sciences , or in the eleva¬ 
 tion of old to their proper place in the scale and order of 
 science;—in the establishment of new undertakings, and, 
 generally, in the regulation of life, collective and personal; 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 35 
 
 including all the intervals and spheres, between the single 
 existence of the individual, and the collective existence of the 
 whole human race; and always keeping in view the indissoluble 
 interdependence of this social and this personal existence, with 
 the necessity of improving each for the sake of each. 
 
 Thus as to science. In system, such as we have defined 
 it to be, it is a logical necessity, since all knowledge is one 
 manifold, all truth is one manifold, that there should be one 
 science, including, and yet distinguishing, all sciences. 
 
 There must be a science of the ichole , a prima philosopMa, 
 embracing the first principles, relations, and connexions of all 
 knowledge: the composition of parts into the whole, and the 
 distribution of the whole into its parts. 
 
 There must be a real positive science of classification, or 
 arrangement. We must, however, discern at once the neces¬ 
 sity of this science, and the inherent imperfection. Classifi¬ 
 cation is necessary; because, otherwise, the mind would be 
 lost in the bewildering labyrinth and multiplicity of particular 
 objects:—it is natural; because, in the multiune scheme of 
 the world, some of the parts are bound together by closer 
 affinities and more special connexions: they are gathered into 
 clusters, forming classes and orders; or, in other words, 
 from the highest class or genus, down to the lowest species, 
 there exist subordinate, or inferior, systems, distinct within 
 themselves, yet attached, nevertheless, to the higher system, 
 or systems, and the one universal whole. A t the same time, 
 classification cannot be absolutely perfect; because the divi¬ 
 sion, or distinction, in nature is not absolutely perfect: the 
 oneness, or continuity, of things is never entirely broken; 
 they so touch at their confines, they are so shaded off into 
 each other, that a precise line of demarcation can nowhere 
 be drawn: and most of all, no single mode of classification 
 can be sufficient, because things have many sides, many rela¬ 
 tions, many links of connexion: and classification, or division, 
 
ONE, manifold; 
 
 must be made on a variety of principles, according to the 
 various aspects under which the whole may be viewed, and the 
 diversity of ways in which the parts are connected between 
 themselves. For the same thing considered from different 
 points of view, may belong to one group or to another: and 
 the same thing, considered with reference to the same other 
 thing, may be a whole under one aspect, and a part under 
 another. In a word, classification is natural and necessary, 
 because things are both one and manifold: yet all classifi¬ 
 cation must be imperfect, because things are one: and still 
 more, any single mode of classification must be imperfect, 
 because things are manifold. 
 
 The system of one manifold, requires, in addition to the 
 universal classification of things, an universal digest, collation, 
 and codification of things. Moreover, in accordance with the 
 foregoing principles, it requires the utmost degree of synopsis, 
 or conspectus; and the greatest diversity of particular deli¬ 
 neations—the most comprehensive outline, and the most com¬ 
 plete filling up. 
 
 Again, the system of one manifold, must, to say the 
 least, point attention to the need of a systematic terminology, 
 and a revision of the science of signs. In philosophy, as in 
 common life, the unsystematic use of language, even in the 
 primary and most important terms, is a source of lamentable 
 confusion. 
 
 Some term, for example, would be extremely useful 
 for a general science of earth, of which a specific portion is 
 now called Geology: —as there must be likewise a general 
 science of man, or Anthropology; and a general science of 
 good, or Agathology; including the whole good of all, and the 
 particular good of every separate being. 
 
 It can scarcely be requisite to add, that the system of 
 one manifold must have its applications to the whole subject 
 of education; regarded both as instruction and as training; 
 
OK, SYSTEM. 
 
 37 
 
 to the education of the individual, and to the progressive 
 education of the species ; to the formation of national and of 
 individual character. It must involve its own method of con¬ 
 templating and teaching: since all things must be contem¬ 
 plated and taught as one manifold. This single application of 
 the principle,—the conjunction of unity and variety, of simul¬ 
 taneity and separation, in the great work of education—of 
 gathering up into one view the whole in all its aspects, and 
 distributing it into its several parts or divisions—is a subject 
 which might well demand a volume for itself; or rather, 
 which might fill many volumes. I would here only observe, 
 that it is an application which should have reference to all 
 grades and conditions of social existence, from the youthful 
 prince, who will one day, as we trust, continue in his own 
 person the British monarchy, to the child of the poorest pea¬ 
 sant or mechanic in the land. 
 
 A similar remark might be made with respect to the 
 immense subject of organization, to which the system of 
 one manifold has an evident and most appropriate applica¬ 
 bility ;—as, to organization, national as well as departmental; 
 international as well as national; to the organization of 
 ■society , with the different provinces of men and women; the 
 Organization of labour; the organization of charity or benef¬ 
 icence; the organization of the State; of the Church; of corpo¬ 
 rations and companies; of central and local government; and 
 Sthe relations of these with each other, and with individuals. 
 ; For, there is an action of the whole, as well as a science 
 of the whole. And of this whole of action there must be 
 distribution and arrangement, as of the whole of science. 
 Organization is practical classification; as classification is 
 speculative organization; or classification belongs rather to 
 jthings, and organization rather to persons; though even the 
 Idistinction between things and persons follows the common 
 Irule; and, while real and necessary, is not absolute and com- 
 
ONE, manifold; 
 
 plete; bo that they also must be regarded in conjunction as 
 well as apart. 
 
 A peculiar application might be made to the vexed question 
 of co-operation and competition: or, again, to the intricate 
 question of voluntary associations, considered in their number 
 and objects; their general and their respective character; 
 their connexion with the other forms of modern civilization, 
 and their internal distribution among themselves. I do not 
 of course say, that the doctrine of system can determine these 
 questions; but it may shed a strong light upon them, and at 
 least ensure their comprehensive and methodical treatment. 
 
 In short, the application of system must comprise the 
 contemplation or knowledge of things; the working of things; 
 the representation or exhibition of things; or, in other words, 
 the special, yet ever associated, functions of the discoverer, 
 the doer, and the describer: it must comprise a systematic 
 conception of the abstractedly right or possible; and a sys¬ 
 tematic view of the actual, with a regular plan of reports and 
 registrations, having both unity and variety: it must also 
 comprise the adaptation of these things, either to other; for 
 they also are one, as well as manifold, connected as well as 
 distinct. 
 
 It would be easy to enumerate other applications; as to 
 colonization; to the distribution of the population and pro¬ 
 ductions of the globe; or, universally, to the development 
 and employment of means and resources. But these instances 
 are sufficient in the way of suggestion ; and suggestion is all 
 that is required for the present purpose, or that would be 
 consistent with the proper limits of this statement, 
 
 3. The same sort of suggestion is all that will now 
 be attempted in coming to the third point; namely, the value 
 and necessity of system to mankind, together with which cer¬ 
 tain objections must come under review. 
 
OK, SYSTEM. 
 
 39 
 
 This value and this necessity depend upon considerations, 
 both general and special; upon those inherent in the immu¬ 
 table constitution of men and things, and those appertaining 
 to the advances of civilization, the tendencies of society, the 
 history and progress of mankind, so far as system is con¬ 
 cerned. 
 
 The former set of these considerations will shew us, that 
 system is always necessary and useful for mankind : 
 
 A. From the constitution of the objective world, or 
 world of external existences; which is, strictly, one mani¬ 
 fold:—from the constitution of the subjective world, or inner 
 world of mind, which is, strictly, one manifold:—and from 
 the marvellous association and harmony between these two ; 
 so that they also are, in reality, one manifold : 
 
 B. From the whole nature of man, on which variety in 
 unity is the pervading impress; and from his peculiar posi¬ 
 tion in the universe, which so wonderfully connects him with 
 the whole system of space and time. For, among the inha¬ 
 bitants of this earth, man alone seems to possess that faculty 
 of generalization on which system rests: man alone has those 
 great prerogatives,—combination of action among men of the 
 same period, and continuity of action from generation to 
 generation,—with which system is interwoven, and which 
 man flings away, as he flings away system. This capacity 
 for system is, in fact, his compensation for the littleness of 
 his powers, and the shortness of his present existence. The 
 inferior animals have not the same capacity for system: supe¬ 
 rior intelligences, such as we conceive angels to be, have not 
 the same need of it; for each angelic being is more sufficient 
 to himself; and among immortal beings, we cannot suppose 
 any succession of generations. System specially belongs to 
 man, as man : to his actual life, and to his peculiar place in 
 the scale of creation : 
 
40 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 C. From h 1 ’ 8 relation, therefore, to the universe. For 
 man cannot create any thing; he cannot annihilate any thing; 
 he cannot really change the nature of any thing. His true 
 business is to systematize:—that is, to obtain a systematic 
 knowledge of things, with a view to a systematic action upon 
 them: systematically to unfold, adjust, and exert his own 
 faculties and resources; systematically to develops, collocate, 
 and employ the materials at his disposal: 
 
 D. From the circumstance, that as system is, properly, 
 the vocation of man, so it is, still more properly, the vocation 
 of the Christian man: or, in other words, from the structure 
 of the Christian Scripture, which has its own variety in 
 unity:—from the scheme of the Christian faith, the economy 
 of the Christian Church, the whole distinctive character of 
 the Christian religion. 
 
 Again: as system is, generally, the necessity of man, so 
 it has become, specially, the necessity of the age. 
 
 Here, the most impressive demonstration would be a full 
 portraiture of the evils which result from the absence, or 
 deficiency, of system, in whatever degree that absence, or 
 deficiency, exists. The majority of men have lived always, and 
 they live still, without system, in the true sense of the word. 
 They live without a real concert with each other, or a real 
 harmony, or arrangement, of their individual being. They 
 live at hazard and at random, loosely and without rule. Their 
 life slides away from them, vague, desultory, incoherent, aim¬ 
 less, purposeless. They have insulation without right parti¬ 
 tion ; confusion, or entanglement, without right combination. 
 The amount of disorder and mischief arising from this cause 
 has been at all times great: if left without check or counter¬ 
 action, it must be greater in this age, than in preceding ages; 
 and it will be even greater in future ages than in the pre¬ 
 sent :—for it must inevitably increase with the mere increase 
 of the earth’s population, of the multitude of competitions 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 41 
 
 and rivalries, of the struggles and entanglements of political 
 and social life, of the crush and complication of all human 
 interests. 
 
 By a' providential dispensation, however, there subsists 
 with this ever-growing necessity for system, an ever-growing 
 tendency towards it, and an ever-growing possibility of, to 
 a certain extent, attaining it. Indeed, the necessity, and the 
 possibility, would almost seem to advance with the same rate 
 of progression. 
 
 The sources of this tendency and this possibility have 
 been already mentioned in that portion of these remarks, 
 where an attempt was made to prove that man is approach¬ 
 ing the constructive mra of society. In the infancy of the 
 race, as of the individual, man is more a separate being, and 
 fixes his attention more upon particular objects. Yet, even 
 then, he forms a kind of incipient system with his own few 
 ideas; and with his own family, his clan, his tribe. In the 
 lapse of time, as new wants and new associations arise, other 
 systems are framed; but still they are most defective and 
 confined, opposing country to country, and mistaking parts 
 for wholes. By degrees, however, as there comes more of 
 enlightenment, more of mechanical and locomotive power, 
 and a more constant interchange of opinions, men expand 
 their sphere of thought and action; and yet are drawn more 
 closely together: at least some prejudices and some hostilities 
 gradually give way: design becomes wider and more appa¬ 
 rent in human concerns: and the scheme of existence, while 
 it is divided into more numerous sections, spreads more and 
 more into universality. The natural and necessary course of 
 tilings is from what may almost be called no system to partial 
 system; and from partial system to universal. That such is 
 really the case might be shewn by the philosophical a priori 
 argument, by the historical argument of facts and events, and 
 by the religious, or Christian argument; and these concurrent 
 
42 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 evidences, as they make manifest the necessity and feasibility 
 of system, make manifest also its value. 
 
 At any rate, the truth is demonstrable, that the forma¬ 
 tion of system must bring immense benefits along with it. 
 
 Its general benefits are conspicuous. For system must 
 be the most effective instrument in discovering and main¬ 
 taining the true equilibrium of the world; and in finding for 
 all persons and things their rightful part, place, and pro¬ 
 vince ; in fitting agents to employments, and employments to 
 agents; in providing that every work shall be done once and 
 completely by the most appropriate and competent doers— 
 not many times in many quarters partially, imperfectly, irre¬ 
 gularly ; in preventing that enormous waste, or misdirection, 
 which is still deplorably visible, of labour and skill, of physi¬ 
 cal and material force, of moral and mental energy; and in 
 furnishing that two-fold desideratum of inestimable price;— 
 the maximum of power, and the optimum of its application. 
 
 On the supposition of universal system, these benefits, it 
 is obvious, belong to all spheres and departments of political 
 and social, public and private life. 
 
 A glance has already been given at the connexion of 
 system with the formation of human character. It mani¬ 
 festly tends to the symmetry of the whole man; to the full 
 and harmonious development, the joint and several use, of all 
 his properties, qualifications, and capabilities; to the perfec¬ 
 tion of his entire being, so far as perfection is attainable. 
 
 In descending from the unity of man’s being to the 
 various portions, it is still attended by its retinue of benefits. 
 
 Let us observe its intellectual uses, for instance. It is 
 not too much to say, that the system of one manifold, 
 objective and subjective, is the true organon of knowledge to 
 mankind: for it consists in the adjusted application of all 
 the mental powers to the adjusted study and disposition of 
 all the objects of knowledge, with the adjusted use of all 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 43 
 
 signs, as vehicles and as instruments of thought. It will 
 promote, and subserve whatever men can do, collectively, in 
 arriving at truth; in obtaining, publishing, circulating infor¬ 
 mation : and, as to the individual man, it will help to bring 
 out, to invigorate, and to facilitate the perceptive, or cogni¬ 
 tive, faculty; the faculty of judging, the faculty of reason¬ 
 ing, the faculty of remembering: and, moreover, it may 
 render the utmost service in improving knowledge into wis¬ 
 dom ; in reducing it to its unity, and thus preventing its 
 stores, however multifarious, from becoming an incumbrance 
 or a mischief: in causing the researches and capacities of the 
 mind to be at once concentrated without being confined, and 
 expanded without being dispersed or dissipated. Moreover, 
 when objectively considered, the system of one manifold is 
 the great clue to the interpretation of the volume of nature; 
 the great key to the cypher in which it is written. It 
 combines, or rather constitutes, the great induction and the 
 great deduction of the universe. 
 
 Generally, too, the true notion of system strikes at the 
 root of those errors and those strifes of opinion—by far the 
 gravest and most numerous of all,—which proceed from 
 narrow and partial views, from taking only one side or aspect 
 of a subject, and omitting or even scornfully rejecting those 
 other sides or aspects, that are, nevertheless, real and essential 
 items in the sum, of which the truth, that is, the whole 
 truth, is made up. But it is as yet difficult to calculate how 
 beneficial a power the formation of system might, in many 
 ways, exert, with regard to the discovery of truth, and the 
 adjustment of the diversities of human opinion. 
 
 Let us observe its moral uses. It must, obviously, and 
 in the highest degree, aid the true moral regulation of the 
 life and being; the great work of self-government, self¬ 
 culture, and self-discipline; and it is the main secret of mode¬ 
 ration, or measure in all things. Again, how beneficial must 
 
44 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 be its influence, as it tends to form a whole scheme, or 
 science of duty. For, now, how many duties are unfulfilled, 
 simply because the relations, which involve them, are not 
 understood! How many acts of duty does man fail to per¬ 
 form, simply because he has not been taught to recognize as 
 belonging to him, such, or such, a sphere of action! He has 
 had no system of duty. 
 
 The consideration, too, although we must recur to it, 
 may be here just hinted, how the moral significance and 
 importance of every word or action will be best learnt from 
 the conception of a vast continuous system, in which all 
 influences all, and every thing stretches out into infinity; in 
 which the first word that was ever spoken still floats upon 
 the air, and the slightest action, or movement, has its effect 
 for ever on the whole of existences. 
 
 Yet further: it will be found impossible to separate 
 system from right, the want of system from wrong. There 
 exists a necessary connexion, as in the ideas, so almost in 
 the very terms. 
 
 This, at least, is certain. System and good, want of 
 system and evil, are allied and akin. We cannot systematize 
 evil: at least, we cannot weave it into a large and general 
 system. Evil is essentially a thing of impulse, passion, and 
 violence; of disorder, derangement, and disproportion. It is 
 also, essentially, narrow and short-sighted. It will not admit 
 of comprehensive deliberation, of connected thought, of nice 
 arrangement, of steady forecast: of being put into just shape, 
 consistency, and coherence. These things belong to good, 
 and not to evil; to good in its unity; and the various kinds, or 
 constituents, of good—right, truth, beauty, happiness,—have 
 an affinity with system, which can never be dissolved. 
 
 Every man will be wiser, better, and very much happier, 
 as he cherishes in himself the spirit of Bystem, and strives to 
 exhibit it in all the departments of his existence; and as this 
 
0R, SYSTEM. 
 
 45 
 
 spirit is cherished and exhibited, the world at large will have 
 its happiness immeasurably increased by the increased wisdom 
 and goodness of its inhabitants. 
 
 This section of the inquiry must be closed by just touch¬ 
 ing upon the uses of system in its bearings upon religion. 
 Its religious are its noblest uses. 
 
 As we endeavour to stretch our thoughts over the bound¬ 
 less aggregate of being—that infinite variety bound together 
 by connecting principles and laws—one primary and per¬ 
 vading fact must force itself upon our convictions. This is, 
 that there exists an immense system, of which the system of 
 earth and man is a part infinitesimally small: that there is a 
 swperhvman system, on which the human entirely depends; 
 to which the human must be subordinated and accommodated; 
 and which affords a pattern for the human in the laws, prin¬ 
 ciples, and analogies which it presents. 
 
 So much will be generally acknowledged, even by the 
 atheist, who can ascribe the existence of this universal system 
 to blind chance, or to mechanical necessity. Even he must 
 acknowledge this system to be superhuman, and to depend 
 upon some agency which is superhuman; since he knows 
 that man is not, in reality, the supreme lord and ruler even 
 on that globe which he claims for his inheritance; that he 
 cannot alter any one of its main features; and that, if the 
 sun, for instance, were extinguished, or but for a short time 
 removed, the entire system of man and earth would be 
 frozen up. . 
 
 But, the due consideration of system itself, and of this 
 vast superhuman system,—this system of order, of design, of 
 intelligent action, of moral purpose,—should lead to the belief, 
 that it requires a divine Conceiver, a divine Framer, a divine 
 Regulator; and, therefore, that it is itself divine. 
 
 Irreligion is almost always the offspring of waywardness, 
 inconsiderateness, the want of large observation, or deep 
 
46 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 serious reflection. All comprehensive, connected, systematic 
 thought, carries man up to religion: and he lives in an atmo¬ 
 sphere of religion, just as he feels himself to live in the pre¬ 
 sence of an infinite system, to which he must conform his own. 
 If he only strives to put his human system in harmony with 
 the superhuman, he will not be far from some religion. 
 
 He will hardly be far from the religion of Jesus Christ. 
 At least, between system and Christianity there will be found, 
 as has been already suggested, many ties. A view of system 
 teaches us, like the Gospel, both the intimate connexion 
 between the social and the individual existence of man, with 
 the impossibility of improving the one without improving the 
 other; and, likewise, the intimate connexion between all the 
 parts of duration, between the present life, and the past and 
 future eternity; it teaches us also to take, so far as we can, 
 all agencies into account; and, therefore, at least urges upon 
 man the solemn consideration, whether, or not, immortal 
 spiritual agencies are at work upon him, have any real exist¬ 
 ence or operation in regard to him. The ethics of system 
 will aid the ethics of the Gospel in blending the human race 
 into one family; in restraining pride, anger, uncharitableness, 
 and introducing love, meekness, forbearance, peaceableness, 
 amity, courtesy, from the mere sense of mutual dependence: 
 the unity of system leads to the unity of its author as a self- 
 evident truth; while the one manifold of system is supported 
 by most striking citations from the Old and from the New 
 Testament; and may help us forward, in its turn, to the pro¬ 
 founder and sublimer doctrines, respecting the modes of the 
 Divine Being, and the wonderful union between the human 
 and divine natures, which remain, however, inscrutable 
 mysteries, and around which the curtain of darkness is drawn. 
 
 But certain objections have been, or may be urged, which 
 would deny, either expressly or virtually, either wholly or in 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 47 
 
 part, the value of system to mankind. It would be uncandid 
 not to take some slight notice of such objections in this 
 place. 
 
 Some of them, however, have been answered by antici¬ 
 pation : — the objection, for instance, that system is mere 
 theory:—whereas the system of one manifold is a constant 
 attestation, that theory and practice cannot be divorced: 
 or, again, the objection, that system is a fixed, inflexible, 
 unelastic thing, unsusceptible of modification or progress; 
 whereas a system, which, in reference to duration, as in re¬ 
 ference to space, is a system of one manifold, is also, from its 
 very nature, one of advancement, of development, ever flow¬ 
 ing and widening with the stream of time. 
 
 Development and progress, it is needless to add, must 
 belong more to the intelligent and moral, than to the physical 
 and mechanical departments, of an universal system. Yet, 
 even as to these latter, a distinguished writer, Mrs. Somerville, 
 has said, that “ stupendous changes may be but cycles in 
 those great laws of the universe, where all is variable but the 
 laws themselves and He who has ordained them.” 
 
 Still, system can be regarded as a mere frame-work; a 
 dull, rigid, monotonous uniformity; it can be regarded as 
 cold, dead, spiritless, irrespective of holy ends, uncongenial 
 with warm sympathies and inspiring principles; it can even 
 be regarded as untrue to nature; inasmuch as nature, we 
 may be told, in its exhaustless varieties of loveliness and 
 grandeur, is not thus stiff and prim; is not thus crystallized 
 and stereotyped into a hard array of formalities: the world 
 is “harmoniously confused;” its substances are not sorted, 
 parcelled out, and labelled, like the goods in a warehouse; 
 whereas system is always cutting and dividing things into 
 set portions and shapes: it would, therefore, strike out of the 
 world all the images of beauty, all the grace and poetry of 
 life: it would allow no liberty, or ease, or choice, to individual 
 
48 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 volitions; it would pay. no attention to the idiosyncrasies 
 of man; the differences of taste, temperament, natural con¬ 
 stitution, or incidental circumstances; but would make the 
 whole of existence run, as it were, in one groove. 
 
 The true reply to this sort of compound objection is, that 
 it arises from repudiating, or overlooking, that juster idea of 
 system, which some pains have been taken to set forth. 
 System, it must be remembered, is, in its right acceptation, 
 not cramped and narrow, but broad and universal; and, as 
 being a system of one manifold, it not only admits, but re¬ 
 quires, much of diversity and latitude amidst the unity of its 
 essential and eternal laws. It would not neglect any prin¬ 
 ciples ; and, assuredly, not those which are the loftiest and 
 most animating: for it requires all to be included, that none 
 may be exaggerated; and would always assign to all their 
 due rank and importance. The system, too, of human 
 formation must correspond with the Teal system of the uni¬ 
 verse ; where all things are blended together, and yet are 
 also arranged into groups and classes, so as to harmonize 
 with our mental, or subjective, tendencies to classification and 
 arrangement. Such a system must minister to the ethical, 
 the assthetical, and the imaginative, as well as to the logical, 
 part of man : to the love and feeling of the picturesque, as 
 well as to the exacter demands of scientific thought; to 
 those hours, when man would give himself calmly up to the 
 passive reception of influences, as well as to those, when he 
 would -put forth the energetic activity of his powers: for, to 
 the true system of man, there belongs spontaneity as well as 
 subordination; relaxation as well as tension; just as rest 
 is no less indispensable than exercise, or sleep than food. 
 Systematic unity is not mere uniformity; nor can monotony 
 
 ever be a real characteristic of any large system:_for, to 
 
 employ the most familiar instances, system, as applied to the 
 construction of a . house or public building, will be other and 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 49 
 
 stricter than system, as applied to the laying out of grounds; 
 system may be found in the tree stretching forth its boughs in 
 the forest, as much as in a tree, at once formal and fantastic, 
 clipped into the shape of beast or bird; and in the more 
 free and natural style of a landscape-garden, as much as in 
 the trimness of a Dutch parterre. In short, such objections 
 as these fall away of themselves, as the true idea of system is 
 stamped upon the mind; that system which, in its complex 
 unity, would afford to the intrinsic attributes and properties 
 of each several thing, or person, the very fullest development, 
 which is compatible with the well-being of the wider assem¬ 
 blage of things and persons. 
 
 A system of mere variety could not exist; because the 
 first element, or condition, of system is unity; and, without 
 it, all must be loose and disjointed, like the scattered parts 
 of a machine taken to pieces. A system of absolute unity 
 would resemble that polity of ancient Sparta, where private 
 life was almost absorbed and swallowed up in the life of the 
 state. A system of variety in unity, or one manifold, is that, 
 where neither the community is sacrificed to the individual, 
 nor the individual to the community :—where there is reci¬ 
 procal dependence without the forfeitui’e of personal volition 
 or freedom; and where every human being is both a wheel, 
 or spring, in an immense engine, or series of engines; and 
 himself, also, a whole complicated engine, having its own 
 arrangement of wheels and springs in its own internal and 
 wondrous mechanism;—so that a system of one manifold 
 must be an additional instrument for securing to every one 
 the largest portion of natural freedom consistent with the 
 organization of society, “and of reconciling, in the highest 
 possible degree, the several advantages of man’s individual 
 and his civil condition.”—But it may be objected, that the 
 formation of system, such as it has been shadowed forth, is 
 as yet altogether premature: and that it belongs, if it can 
 B. M. S. 4 
 
50 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 ever become possible, to some distant stage of civilization, 
 some unapproached condition of human life, now lying hid 
 in the dimness of futurity. A few suggestions have been 
 already offered on this topic: and we may again encounter 
 it, as we proceed. Here, therefore, I would merely observe, 
 that, although it must indeed be premature to think of 
 the consummation of a system, which embraces the whole 
 of human beings and human interests, it can scarcely lie too 
 soon to attempt to lay its foundations, to establish, or at 
 least dismiss, the principles which must lie at its base. 
 
 But a contrary objection may be taken. It may be 
 thought, that all which has been now propounded, is either 
 done, or in the course of being done. The complete reply 
 to this objection could only be found in an examination, at 
 once historical and critical, at once wide and minute, of the 
 actual state of the world. The position, here assumed, has 
 been, that, from the natural and inevitable tendency of 
 things, the world is growing and coalescing, more and more, 
 into a systematic unity: but that any patient and accurate 
 observer must still perceive a sad defectiveness of system, 
 in its science, and still more, in its modes of action,— 
 in its arrangements public and domestic, ecclesiastical and 
 civil. I am firmly persuaded, that no retrograde move¬ 
 ment can now take place in civilization; “that the diffusion 
 of Christian virtues and of knowledge, even more than of the 
 mechanical arts, ensures the steady advancement of man in 
 those, high moral and intellectual qualities that constitute 
 his true dignitybut I am persuaded also, that a great 
 effort is required, not merely to increase his rate of progress, 
 but even, in many respects, to set his footsteps in the right 
 path, and lead them uniformly in the proper direction. 
 
 But it may be urged, further, that an attempt at the 
 formation of wide and universal system would, if it has any 
 results, be revolutionary; and revolutionary in the bad sense ; 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 51 
 
 because it would unsettle what it could not restore, and thus 
 be productive of subversion and disarrangement, not of har¬ 
 mony and good order. The answer is, that true and wide 
 system can, in this sense, never be revolutionary: for its aim 
 is to adopt and adapt, to combine and carry forward, much 
 more than to innovate. It would take the actual, as an 
 adjunct and counterpoise to the ideal: and, therefore, as a 
 large, important, and indispensable element in all its calcula¬ 
 tions. It would, moreover, always respect existing institu¬ 
 tions and customs, even because they exist; and because, 
 although they may have come from casual growth, rather 
 than from preconcerted design, yet they could not have been 
 effects without causes, nor have arisen without some founda¬ 
 tion in the nature or necessity of things. And besides:— 
 subversion and derangement usually proceed from not con¬ 
 sulting the fitness and congruity of an entire constitution, 
 but making in some one portion of it unadvised changes, 
 which will not agree with the remaining portions. System is 
 the opposite of this rashness and violence. For its very essence 
 is to look at a whole scheme of arrangements at once, and 
 never even to precipitate any part so much in advance, as to 
 be out of character and consistency with the rest. System is 
 at least irreconcilable with dismemberment. 
 
 But the great objection remains, that such an attempt 
 can lead to no results: for that it is altogether chimerical 
 and impracticable.—The thing proposed, it may be stated, is 
 an universal system of one manifold. But the formation of 
 such a system demands an universal concurrence. There 
 must be an union of all agents, in the prosecution of the 
 whole work, and for the attainment of the one common 
 end. There must be also the right action of particular 
 persons, or agents, for the attainment of each particular end. 
 Moreover, all things must be taken; because every thing 
 affects the whole. And all things must be taken in all 
 
52 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 lights, and in all their connexions; both together and apart, 
 both in their greatest combination and in their greatest 
 division. There must be required, then, an universal, com¬ 
 plete acquaintance with things, and an universal, complete 
 command of them ; in other words, omniscience and omnipo¬ 
 tence. But these are attributes which belong not to man, 
 but to God. Who dares to imagine that such conditions 
 can ever be satisfied? Who can dream that this world 
 shall ever see the realization of this idea ? 
 
 Now, without doubt, it is a formidable objection, that an 
 entire scheme is a plain and even presumptuous impractica¬ 
 bility. If it were entirely true, it would be altogether fatal. 
 But as some evidence, that it cannot be entirely true, that it 
 has only a show, or portion, of truth, we may refer to that 
 brief sketch of man’s natural position, and his social progress, 
 which has just been given. Nevertheless, if we ought not to 
 neglect those objections, or even cavils, which spring mainly 
 from misapprehension, still less should we conceal, or disguise, 
 the seriousness and the magnitude of those difficulties and 
 obstacles which the reality of the matter involves. It is, more¬ 
 over, beyond question, that we are bound to take into account, 
 not only the nature and extent of system, abstractedly con¬ 
 sidered ; but also the nature and limits of human capacity 
 in the formation of system: not only what a thing is in 
 itself; but what it is in respect to us. What can we 
 know ? what can we do ? There are some few things, per¬ 
 haps, which we imagine ourselves to understand: yet we see 
 not any one thing that has not secrets which it withholds 
 from us; and of other things, magnificent and countless, 
 we catch but the faintest glimpse: and when we have ad¬ 
 vanced to the very verge of our horizon, there lies an im¬ 
 mensity beyond, which we cannot pierce at all: and when 
 we proceed to act upon what we behold, we are compelled at 
 every step to feel our utter feebleness, and are tied down 
 
OH, SYSTEM. 
 
 53 
 
 by a hundred conditions, which we have not made, and which 
 we cannot annul or escape. Thus, the capacities of mankind 
 are circumscribed within narrow boundaries as to their know¬ 
 ledge ; and within boundaries yet narrower as to their powers 
 of action. The capacities of the race are limited; and limited 
 in a much stricter degree are the capacities of the individual. 
 
 If the world were but an inert uniform mass of homogeneous 
 parts indefinitely divisible, unspeakably arduous would be the 
 task of arranging and systematizing it, as a mere problem of 
 number and quantity. But when, instead of being uniform and 
 homogeneous, it spreads out its various substances, with all 
 their innumerable diversity of properties, modes, relations, 
 this arduousnoss is increased a thousand-fold; and a thousand¬ 
 fold again is it increased, as we think of all these substances 
 working and interworking with each other, in a perpetual state 
 of flux, movement, and change. But further, as we rise to 
 organic life, and not merely to organic life, but to conscious, 
 reasonable, moral life: as we rise to the myriads of intel¬ 
 ligences, or minds, each within itself a new universe of 
 thoughts and imaginations, and to the myriads of wills, 
 each a new centre of action, and, therefore, a new centre, 
 potentially at least, of disturbance and derangement to all 
 other action; then we indeed stand in the midst of difficul¬ 
 ties, which it is impossible to overrate, and, perhaps, impos¬ 
 sible even to conceive. But is the survey of system, or the 
 desire to form it, therefore, useless, or without profit ? I be¬ 
 lieve that the lessons of humility which we must learn from a 
 sense of our insufficiency and weakness, is at least as valuable as 
 any lesson of energy which we can learn from a sense of our 
 powers, or of our wants. We are taught to feel, how the 
 finite must shrink into nothingness before the face of the 
 Infinite; and to bow down in reverential admiration at the 
 footstool of the majesty of that Being who is the supreme 
 disposer of all things, and who will not, we are assured, put 
 
54 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD ; 
 
 out of His own hands into ours the reins of universal domi¬ 
 nion. 
 
 At the same time, when these considerations have been 
 fairly weighed, our legitimate conclusion is, that the seal 
 of imperfection must always rest on all that man is, or 
 does;—not that we are to remain slothful and quiescent 
 under ills, which we can mitigate, because the utmost im¬ 
 provements which we can effect in this initiatory stage of 
 being will not at last change it from what God has designed 
 it to be. 
 
 Still, again, however, the difficulties are enhanced; 
 because, in the construction of system, we have not a clear 
 space, on which to build: but are embarrassed by many 
 existing fabrics, which ought not to remain, yet which cannot 
 be touched without great peril. We must have oftentimes 
 to contend with accumulations of error, which have been 
 invested by age with a kind of sacredness : or with a state of 
 things where good and evil are so intermingled, that we 
 cannot remove the one, without shaking or endangering the 
 other. We must have oftentimes to contend with iguoranee, 
 prejudice, perverseness, jealousies, estrangements, the obsti¬ 
 nate adherence to effete and expiring forms, or the ambitious 
 thirst for novelties which may confer notoriety; in a word, 
 as with our own frailties, passions, and vices, so with the 
 frailties, passions, and vices of other men. 
 
 But what then ? the questions must still recur; Is system, 
 or is it not, a necessity to mankind; and what is the true 
 theory, or rationale, of system ? If these questions have here 
 been rightly viewed, difficulties should rather stimulate than 
 deter us, unless they be absolutely and hopelessly insurmount¬ 
 able. Few operations are more common among mankind, 
 or more -mischievous, than the making of impossibilities out 
 of difficulties. But it must be proved that we are struggling 
 with a matter, where the resistance is altogether too strong 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 55 
 
 for us, or whore the thing sought must elude our grasp,— 
 that we are indeed beating either the rook or the air:—for 
 otherwise, the very difficulties which will attend the formation 
 of system, when taken in conjunction with the value and 
 advantages of system, only lead us on to the other topic 
 here proposed for examination:—namely, what are our obli¬ 
 gations in respect to it; and what is the actual mode of 
 proceeding to be adopted. 
 
 -]•. I would treat this portion of the argument with 
 especial reference to that other portion, in which the appli¬ 
 cations of system have been considered; and I would also 
 endeavour to follow up in it the connexion which exists between 
 the idea of system on the one hand, and our moral convic¬ 
 tions and emotions on the other. For it is important to 
 observe, that, as the idea of system brings us, generally, to a 
 scheme of duty, so a scheme of duty must involve obligations 
 with regard to system itself. 
 
 These obligations, I would assert, are real, positive, im¬ 
 perative. The cardinal duty, I would assert, of every rational 
 and moral being is to take his part in that vast system to 
 which he is attached, and in all the spheres, or smaller systems, 
 which, as it were, are folded up in it. As he proceeds from 
 the inner to the outer of these concentric rings, the lines 
 which mark the circles will grow gradually fainter until they 
 become almost indistinguishable; but so far as such expansion 
 is possible, his thoughts and sympathies must go with him to 
 the furthest circumference. For of this vast system he is 
 a component fraction: and the largest combination of this 
 globe’s inhabitants, with this great globe itself, can be 
 nothing more than fractions: while in another sense, as has 
 been seen, he is a whole in himself, quite as much as they can 
 be wholes. And thus his entire existence has a meaning for 
 him: there is revealed to him the true greatness of his 
 
56 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 destiny, the true scope and bearing of all his actions, even 
 together with an overwhelming conviction of his personal 
 insignificance. For to whom does this vast system belong ? 
 It belongs to him, as he to it. It belongs to all and to 
 each. It belongs to the poorest, the lowliest, the obscurest 
 of the children of men. Well may there dwell upon him 
 a mysterious sense of the omnipresence of every thing ; — a 
 profound and almost terrible sense that all which he says, or 
 does, runs, and is felt, along every fibre of the universe. 
 Everywhere he finds relations, everywhere duties; or one vast 
 duty, in which all other duties are comprised. And what is 
 that one duty; so one, so manifold 1 It is the duty, I reiterate, 
 of taking his part in the universal system to which he is at¬ 
 tached. In this mighty drama he has some part to enact: 
 and the manner in which he enacts it has an influence upon 
 all its interests and all its events. 
 
 Our life—the life of any man, the collective life of 
 mankind,—is like a game at chess; where each single move 
 of each single piece has an effect upon the fortune of all the 
 pieces, and the result of the whole game. The real differ¬ 
 ence is, whether the moves shall be made, as a child might 
 make them, unconnectedly and at random; or with foresight, 
 with concert, upon some continuous plan, with some view 
 or reference to this whole result. Thus every man, and 
 every man’s every movement, are implicated in the entire 
 scheme of existence; and here, the real difference is, whe¬ 
 ther he shall be merely a blind, unconscious, unintelligent 
 instrument, or a conscious, intelligent, moral participator: 
 whether he shall act the part of a mere machine, or of a 
 brute headlong unreasoning animal, or the part of a rational, 
 spiritual, immortal Man. It seems to me, that the great 
 idea of system, when understood and appreciated, helps to 
 confer upon him his real elevation, no less than to teach 
 him his real duty. As some countries are raised above the 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 57 
 
 rest, just as they are included, and make themselves felt, in 
 the general- confederacy, or system, of earth’s civilization; 
 while those are, of necessity, the lowest, rudest, least en¬ 
 lightened, and most barbarous, which are left out of its pale; 
 so is the individual man more exalted than he would other¬ 
 wise he, just in proportion as, endued with a wise and com¬ 
 prehensive energy, he incorporates himself with the great 
 unity of all things, and not only studies the laws which bind 
 it together, but feels himself to have a share in it, seeks to 
 improve it, and would rejoice to stamp some impress of him¬ 
 self upon the connected order of being with which he is in- 
 twined. As the idea of system grows and fixes itself upon 
 him, he sees the world with new eyes, and walks through it 
 with a more solemn feeling of his varied responsibilities ; and 
 this intenser feeling of his varied responsibilities induces him, 
 in its turn, to think and act more upon system. 
 
 After all, something, nay much, does lie in the power of 
 individuals, and a great duty does rest upon them; and with 
 individuals we must begin. We talk of difficulties, and 
 with justice. Yet, in the formation of a human system, as 
 subordinated to the divine, the impediments, though grave, 
 are not insuperable: for they reside, not so much in the 
 nature of things, or in the ordinations of God’s providence, 
 as in a want of knowledge among individual men, which is, 
 in some measure at least, removeable; or, in a want of in¬ 
 clination, which they, themselves, should labour to remove. 
 
 Let individuals do what they can, and the work is already 
 more than half accomplished. 
 
 But on the supposition that men would confront the 
 difficulties instead of being disheartened by them; and that 
 they would seriously strive to construct a general system, so 
 far as they have ability; then, since the whole consummation, 
 which may be ultimately possible, cannot be immediately 
 attained, and, as yet, can scarcely be in prospect, what are 
 
58 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 the first steps to be taken, what should be the actual mode, 
 or order, of proceeding ? 
 
 Upon the first step of all, we have already been insisting 
 at some length. It is no other than a true conception of 
 system, as it subsists in itself, or as it is exhibited to us in 
 the resemblances and diversities, the affinities and distinc¬ 
 tions, the composite simplicity, the multiform unity, of this 
 majestic and beautiful creation. Man must have a system 
 of thought; and, indeed, all real thought is system. The 
 idea of system must impart breadth, consistency, and har¬ 
 mony, to all his contemplations. 
 
 The next step,—and it is quite a practicable step,—is 
 really to put Ms oion life upon system. He must be at har¬ 
 mony with himself; he must consult his whole nature, 
 affording room for its passive, as well as its active elements, 
 for meditation, solitude, self-concentration, self-communion, 
 as well as for the occupations of the world. He must make 
 it his great business rightly to discern and estimate what his 
 whole life, his whole being is. He must examine whether, 
 or not, it is indeed bounded by the cradle and the sepulchre ; 
 or is destined for an indefinite expansion in an immortal futu¬ 
 rity; he must examine what he knows, or can know, and 
 what are the sources of his knowledge ; what he may hope, 
 or expect, and what are the grounds of his hopes and expec¬ 
 tations. He will then be enabled, and he ought, to sys¬ 
 tematize the distribution of his faculties, his time, his money, 
 and of all that appertains to him. He can also proceed to 
 systematize his relations; that is, according to the preceding 
 exposition, he can take their entire scheme: he can at least 
 recognize the truth that he must attend to his human rela¬ 
 tions in all their spheres. As he puts his personal life upon 
 system, so he can also put upon system his domestic life, and 
 his relations with his family; his relations professional or 
 industrial, as employer or employed; his relations as a mem- 
 
0H, SYSTEM. 
 
 59 
 
 ber of a local community, or several local communities, civil 
 or ecclesiastical; as a citizen of the state, as a member of 
 tho Church at large, as a member of the human race. He 
 can pay regard to all these relations in their connected 
 interdependent unity, as well as when considered by them¬ 
 selves. 
 
 But he cannot stop here in the one manifold of his rela¬ 
 tions. He may, and he must inquire, if he means to put 
 his life upon system, whether, or not, lie has a relation with 
 a Supreme Intelligence, a Divine Moral Ruler: whether, or 
 not, this relation is as real, as necessary, as important,—yet 
 to say but this, is to say nothing,—as any which he has, or 
 can have, with his fellow-men. In short, the first step, after 
 a due conception of system, is the real adoption of system, 
 as to ones self. 
 
 In the next place, education, or at least instruction, may 
 be systematized. It may sound as an extravagant assertion, 
 yet I believe it to be a correct one, that every child—or 
 rather every person who receives education,—should take 
 what Lord Bacon took, namely, “the whole of knowledge 
 for his province.” I do not, of course, mean that he can 
 pursue it all into the infinity of its details; but he can obtain 
 a conspectus ,—so to speak—of those large general principles 
 which gather it into one, and form its apex. He may be 
 instructed to observe the unity of knowledge, the unity of 
 truth, as well as its varieties. As his views must be wrong 
 and out of proportion, if he would regard the geography of a 
 single country, altogether without reference to the entire 
 geography of the globe, or any particular history without 
 reference to universal; so, still more, must they be wrong, 
 and out of proportion, unless, generally, he has a scheme of 
 knowledge, a correct outline of the whole, and is taught to 
 see the parts with reference to that whole and to each other. 
 Gradually, and as his faculties find their development, ho 
 
ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 must be led up to this whole, and down from it:—it must 
 be kept always in view: and then there will be profit without 
 risk, to whatever extent he may afterwards divide and ana¬ 
 lyze, as well as combine and trace connexions. He can 
 safely choose the particular subjects which he shall specially 
 investigate, and the portions of the scheme to which he shall 
 devote himself throughout life, when he has noted, in the first 
 instance, their relative size and position, and their inter¬ 
 dependence with the other portions and subjects. But the 
 largest multiplicity of loose miscellaneous information will 
 never train his understanding aright, without this great fontal 
 and central idea. 
 
 The very terms suggest, that all Universities should have 
 professorships of the Universal; in every place of general 
 education some teacher should be appointed, who should 
 apply himself to the connected whole of knowledge, and act 
 in concert with others, who should give instruction in its 
 several branches: and I conceive that no place of education 
 can deserve the name, which does not regard as the foremost 
 of all sciences, the science of one manifold. 
 
 A scheme of knowledge cannot, of course, be quite dis¬ 
 connected from the scheme of action. It follows, then, that 
 another and most useful measure might be adopted, if the 
 rulers in the State and in the Church, the Directors of public 
 bodies, Associations, and Institutions, the heads of Universities 
 and other large establishments, and all, in fact, in their 
 respective stations, would render assistance to that systematic 
 view of the Actual, which I have already mentioned as likely 
 to be of very material aid to the attainment of the ultimate, 
 and the just conception of the Possible or the Ideal. There 
 seems good reason to recommend, that not only societies, but 
 municipal and other bodies, should have their several reports ; 
 that the main substance of these should be drafted and 
 gathered into some one general report: and so, at length, 
 
OH, SYSTEM. 
 
 61 
 
 that there should be an entire and comprehensive digest 
 methodically made. 
 
 Every association owes a report of itself to its members : 
 every state, or local government, owes a report of itself to the 
 nation, or to the locality: the report of what is done has 
 always a tendency to correct and complete what is done: 
 thus, the action, as well as the record, of smaller communi¬ 
 ties might be improved: the improvement might spread on 
 to the larger communities; and, although mankind are far 
 indeed, as yet, from being knit into a brotherhood, still, 
 the existence of international law, the attempts at inter¬ 
 national copyright, international leagues for different pur¬ 
 poses, synchronous observations, as, for instance, astronomical 
 and meteorological, made, in concert, in different countries, 
 and under the sanction of different governments,—these, and 
 many other signs, give some promise of the eventual realiza¬ 
 tion of a federal unity, with which an almost infinite variety 
 of independent action, national, departmental, and private, 
 would be perfectly consistent and congenial. 
 
 I have set forth these particulars, at the risk of some 
 repetition, with the view of showing, that, if a just conception 
 of system he once entertained, the formation of it, instead of 
 being a vision, may proceed step by step; and is already, in 
 many respects, within the compass of almost immediate prac¬ 
 ticability. But 1 would render the matter still more clear. 
 
 III. I come, then, to the third division, that was to be 
 appended to this Letter, for the sake of offering some explana¬ 
 tory remarks, which could not conveniently be placed under 
 either of the foregoing heads. These explanations will be, in 
 part, general; in part, special and local. 
 
 1. The general explanations may serve, in addition to 
 some other uses, partly for an elucidation, and partly for 
 
62 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD ; 
 
 a retrospect, of those portions of the inquiry, which it 
 seems more peculiarly desirable to impress upon the public 
 mind. 
 
 The whole is stated to be an introductory argument: and 
 such is strictly its character. For its object is to clear the 
 ground for future inquiries and operations:—in some respects, 
 a dull and uninteresting labour; yet more useful, perhaps, than 
 an attempt to raise a showy and imposing fabric, before the 
 necessary preparations have been made, and the necessary 
 materials collected. 
 
 In a subject so vast as system, and comprising in its 
 unity so many considerations, three matters stand out in 
 strong relief. 
 
 The first of these is the conception of system, including the 
 meaning of the term, the nature and extent of the thing, 
 together with the prerequisites, or primary conditions essential 
 to its formation. 
 
 The second is the careful examination of those existences 
 in the universe, whether persons or things, of which system 
 is really to consist; and of the manner in which the theory 
 of system is to be applied to them in their separate being, or 
 in their combinations: in other words, a comprehensive view, 
 not of speculative system, but of actual systematisation. 
 
 The third is, systematization itself: not the view of it, but 
 the process of it; the setting in motion of divers agencies 
 and instruments for its attainment; its living construction 
 and realization in the world of humanity. 
 
 Now the present argument has addressed itself, almost 
 entirely, to the first of these matters: the observations, or 
 suggestions, which have gone beyond it, have been for the 
 purpose of rendering the conception of system more exact, 
 the exposition of it less liable to misapprehension; and also 
 of removing certain objections and impediments, which might 
 otherwise lie in the way of all further progress. 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 63 
 
 To prevent this statement from swelling into too large 
 a bulk, the many authorities, ancient and modern, which 
 might easily be adduced, have been, for the present at least, 
 omitted. Both redundancies and deficiencies may probably 
 be found in it, as it stands: but it is, I hope, intelligible, 
 and, as to its outline, even complete: though it must be 
 afterwards worked out with a more particular and minute 
 elaboration; and though absolute completeness is hardly pos¬ 
 sible, in an extensive and, in some respects, a new field of 
 inquiry. 
 
 Yet, in using the w'ord “new,” I would wish to avoid 
 the imputation of putting forth inordinate and unfounded 
 pretensions. There can bo nothing new in so trite a term 
 as “ systemneither can there be any novelty in speaking 
 of the universe as a connected whole; or of variety, or, at 
 least, plurality, or multiformity, in unity, as constituting its 
 chief law or type. This twofold truth has been recognized to 
 a certain extent, and by more or fewer persons, almost from 
 the first dawn of investigation and reflection. We may 
 track its vestiges from the earliest days of Greek philosophy; 
 we have some, glimpses of it in a philosophy older than the 
 Greek; it is embodied, as in the Parmenides and some other 
 dialogues of Plato, so in the most recent lectures of the 
 professors of every German university; and it may be spe¬ 
 cially discerned, among other instances, in the mode of writing 
 history, which is now practised in Italy and France, as well 
 as in Germany. Indeed, if, in any matter which depends, 
 not upon nice and subtle experiments, but upon the observa¬ 
 tion of wide facts, patent to mankind from the beginning, 
 any man should lay claim to perfect novelty, the very claim 
 would afford a presumption against himself; against his good 
 faith, or against the extent of his knowledge, or against the 
 soundness of his understanding. If the claim were well- 
 grounded, it would possess this very equivocal merit only by 
 
64 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 the introduction of some error or intellectual heresy; but it 
 probably will be very far from well-grounded, and thus prove 
 a thorough want of acquaintance, on the part of the assertor, 
 with the performances of other men and other ages, with the 
 past and present state of human research. It is, in fact, 
 scarcely within the compass of possibility, that any philoso¬ 
 phical doctrine should be now altogether new. We live too 
 late. And absolute novelty could, perhaps, hardly be predi¬ 
 cated even of those speculations which have made illustrious 
 the greatest names. 
 
 Still, a sense there is, in which almost every man who 
 thinks for himself will have some novelty, or at least pecu¬ 
 liarity, in his own views. Unless I believed that there was 
 some novelty, or at least peculiarity, in that which is now 
 proposed, I should not have intruded it upon public atten¬ 
 tion. But what is it 1 The world has not been wanting in 
 universal theories, nobler perhaps and loftier, than our times 
 can hope to emulate. It has been truly observed by F. 
 Schlegel, that philosophy among the Greeks meant scientific 
 investigation, universal in its scope, and not confined to any 
 one purpose, or subject. Such, too, has been the philo¬ 
 sophy of Bacon, of Leibnitz, of many other men, since the 
 revival of letters. Again, the world has teemed with sys¬ 
 tems :—“Systems of the World," “Systems of Nature'' have 
 sprung up in abundance. Little would be gained by adding 
 one more to their number. The peculiarity of the present 
 attempt consists, I think, in this: that it takes, by itself, the 
 idea of system as system, quite irrespective of any particular 
 hypothesis, or law of connexion:—that it would separate, or 
 eliminate from this idea all arbitrary or adventitious consider¬ 
 ations ; that it would then endeavour to unfold, and extract 
 from this idea all the principles which lie involved in it; 
 then use and apply it as a test and criterion of existing forms 
 and institutions; and, finally, strive to reduce it to universal 
 
OH, SYSTEM. 
 
 65 
 
 practice, not as in an Utopia, or a new Atlantis, but with 
 direct immediate reference to the world in which we live. 
 It consists, as I conceive, in the endeavour to methodize 
 and harmonize the entire range of human exertion, physical 
 and moral, mental and mechanical; or, in other words, to 
 construct a regular plan of investigation and action, upon 
 the basis of a few elementary principles, which are either 
 self-evident axioms, or conclusions so legitimately and strictly 
 deduced from them, as to be propositions capable of rigorous 
 demonstration, almost as much as any truths of geometrical 
 science. 
 
 These elementary principles might, perhaps, be reduced to 
 the two following: 
 
 (1.) The business of man is to examine what is, and to 
 act in accordance with what is. 
 
 (2.) In examining what is, we find that the great fact 
 of all being is the existence of a system of one manifold. 
 
 But, as the affectation of extreme precision might ap¬ 
 pear superfluous—to say the least,—in a publication of this 
 kind, the statement may be thus made somewhat more at 
 large. 
 
 The great la\v of the world is system. 
 
 The great want of the world is system. 
 
 For the future, the great work of the world must be the 
 formation of system. 
 
 The necessity for system meets us in every phase, and in 
 every department of existence. 
 
 The growing tendency towards it, and the comparative 
 facilities afforded for its formation, are becoming not less 
 apparent than its necessity. 
 
 There is a divine, or superhuman, system, which must be 
 the model for the human. 
 
 In other words, there is a system which we have to con¬ 
 struct ; as there is a vaster system which we must study, and 
 B. M. S. 5 
 
ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 to which we must Conform ourselves: while the Divine Being, 
 on His part, has in His wisdom and goodness determined, 
 that the spontaneous agency of man shall be interwoven even 
 with the immutable dispensations of His own overruling Pro¬ 
 vidence. 
 
 In proof of this system, and for the preservation of it, 
 correspondences, analogies, adaptations, exist between all the 
 realms and provinces of the universe; — more especially, 
 between matter and mind, the world around us, and the 
 world mirrored, contained, or formed within ourselves. 
 
 In speaking of the laws, analogies, or emblems, which 
 render the superhuman system a guide or model for the 
 system of man, we mean such as these, for example; 
 
 The co-existence of centripetal and centrifugal forces, 
 and the harmony produced by their reciprocal counteraction: 
 
 The mutual attraction of all things, and the strength of 
 attraction varying in the inverse ratio of distance: 
 
 A two-fold movement,—as of the earth, in its rotation 
 upon its own axis, and its revolution, together with other 
 bodies, around a common centre, and as part of a common 
 whole:—a principle, which extends, as we are taught to 
 believe, immeasurably beyond our solar system; and which 
 everywhere represents the combination of the individual, or 
 separate, with the sympathetic, or federal, principle. 
 
 The general law of totality and partition; teaching us, 
 that, as the whole is the sum of all its parts, or the result of 
 the concurrent action of all its parts; so, while nothing is to 
 be interpolated which does not exist, nothing, which does 
 exist, is to be omitted: that the whole will be rightly under¬ 
 stood, and rightly treated, in proportion as all the parts 
 which compose it are taken into account; and the parts will 
 be rightly understood and rightly treated, in proportion as 
 we see the whole to which they belong, and their relation to 
 the whole and to each other. 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 67 
 
 But, in truth, these laws, or principles, with several 
 others, winch will occur to almost every reader’s own mind, 
 resolve themselves at last, more or less directly, into the law, 
 or principle, of one manifold. 
 
 These principles, too, are either self-evident, or are in 
 the present state of science so universally acknowledged, that 
 the youngest student has stored them in his memory; while 
 Laplace can affirm them as readily as Newton, and Epicurus 
 and Lucretius, if they were now alive, would admit them quite 
 as much as the most religious of thinkers. 
 
 It would, however, be something worse than a false 
 shame not to declare at once, what will be more fully set forth 
 in another place, namely, that these principles may aid the 
 sense of religion, and that the sense of religion may aid the 
 force and efficacy of these principles. We who love to 
 behold and trace, throughout the universe, not only system, 
 but a living, vivifying. Almighty architect of system, must be 
 more anxious to take a superhuman agency as the pattern 
 for our own; while mindful of those immense differences 
 which cannot now be examined, but which must always exist, 
 between a being such as man, and a being of infinite intel¬ 
 ligence and infinite power. 
 
 We shall be admonished more than others by the mo¬ 
 mentous truth, that all things throughout creation are doing 
 their appointed work. In nature, we find no abstractions, 
 no ideal generalizations; though these have their subjective 
 usefulness, their subjective necessity. But, in nature, we 
 trace the laws only in, and by, their operation. We do not 
 perceive speculative and inert principles; but we learn the 
 principles on which existences act and are moved, by the very 
 movements and actions of those existences themselves. The 
 law is only the expression for the general fact: and system 
 itself comes to us as the great fact of all: “ le fait par excel¬ 
 lence ; le fait general et de'finitif.” 
 
 5—2 
 
68 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 We shall also be admonished more than others by the 
 kindred truth, that the existences of nature, while each is 
 performing its own proper functions, are all acting and 
 working together. It is not merely that one thing is moving 
 forward to one end, but that all things are moving forward 
 concurrently to all ends; and may be all made to move for¬ 
 ward in conjunction to the one manifold end of universal 
 well-being. How instructive, as how gratifying, is the con¬ 
 sideration, that the Framer and Ruler of the world has made 
 ample provision not only for all the wants and capacities of 
 man, but for all these wants and capacities conjointly, as well 
 as separately; that the air which I must breathe, or die, also 
 fills me with enjoyment; that this corn-field, or this water, on 
 which I gaze, ministers not only to my sustenance, but to my 
 delight; that this glorious assemblage of natural objects 
 speaks at once to my eye, my ear, to all my senses; and not 
 only to my senses, but to my taste, my understanding, my 
 imagination, my heart and soul; that moral emotions of the 
 purest and most exquisite kind may flow out of the view' of 
 external forms; and that, as I behold earth' and sky, with 
 rapture and reverence, even that which is physical about me 
 seems almost to become spiritualized by the beauties and 
 harmonies of the material creation. Surely we should be taught 
 even by our contemplation of nature to carry forward the 
 great work of good, individual, social, sanitary, economical, edu¬ 
 cational, religious, connectedly and simultaneously: for that, 
 while every part must receive a distinct attention, each part 
 will be managed and conducted with more efficiency and even 
 more ease, as other parts are managed and conducted along 
 with it: that the maxim is true of things, as of persons, that 
 each exists for all, and all for each: and that all must be 
 taken to test and verify, to correct and balance, to aid and 
 support, to adjust, improve, and strengthen all. 
 
 Therefore, in short, we must have system; and this system 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 69 
 
 must be universal; and by universal system we mean a system, 
 where the idea of one manifold is made the foundation of all 
 contemplation and all conduct: we mean the science and 
 action of the whole and of all its parts; so that all things 
 shall be gathered up into their unity or totality, and then 
 regularly distributed and subordinated into their minutest 
 sub-divisions; the same principle, ever and throughout, as 
 in nature, preserving, ramifying, multiplying itself, with a 
 constant repetition. 
 
 It is plain, therefore, that we do not mean by system a 
 pedantic monotony, as if all life were to be arrayed with the 
 rigid stiffness of a military drill: but we mean a system, which 
 can wait, so to speak, upon the diversities as well as the 
 agreements of the universe : which admits and even involves, 
 great latitude, great multiformity, and infinite modifications 
 consequent upon the lapse of time and the alteration of 
 circumstances: which can adapt itself to the multiplicity 
 of tastes, and the ever-shifting play of the imagination, as 
 well as to the severe unity of the logical understanding: 
 which delights in resemblances in the midst of differences, 
 and differences in the midst of resemblances; in sameness in 
 the midst of change, and change in the midst of sameness; in 
 transition in the midst of continuity, and continuity in the 
 midst of transition. 
 
 And so much might, perhaps, suffice by way of explana¬ 
 tion. But my wish is, I confess, that these remarks should 
 be recommendatory of system, as well as explanatory. I 
 have offered them as an argument: I would fain offer them 
 as an appeal . Would that they might go some way both to 
 convince and to persuade! 
 
 For, believing, as I believe, that the greatest good 
 Which men could bestow on men, must be to set in order 
 this disjointed frame of things, and help to put individual life 
 
70 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 in harmony with nature, with itself, with the designs of God’s 
 providence; believing, in other words, that system—a system 
 of constant principles, mingled, however, in various and even 
 variable proportions,—is the supreme object, which mankind 
 have to place before themselves, in the present stage of 
 human progress, it would be impossible for me to rest satis¬ 
 fied that any statement respecting it should be regarded 
 merely as an otiose and dreamy contemplation, as a barren 
 unproductive conjecture of a single mind, not affecting, or 
 calculated to affect, the actual condition and prospects of 
 earth’s teeming population. Statements, I know, propounded 
 under far higher auspices, have had to contend with that 
 worst sort of prejudice—amounting, in fact, to bad faith, or 
 intellectual dishonesty—which determines to misunderstand, 
 even when the fullest explanations have been given; with 
 that imbecility or timidity of spirit, which for ever halts and 
 hesitates, and cannot raise, or expand, itself to the true 
 magnitude or grandeur of the principles which it professes 
 to adopt; with that dull, yet frivolous indolence, which 
 treats every grave proposition submitted to it, as either a 
 crotchet, or a chimera, or at best, as simply a speculation, 
 more or less correct, more or less ingenious; which denies it 
 with a sluggish dissent, or accepts it with a faint and vapid 
 acquiescence; and then sinks back into its arm-chair, not 
 choosing to be disturbed further, and disliking nothing so 
 much as to be called upon to act. But let us now hope 
 better things. We, at least, must be in earnest; for the 
 world around us is earnest. These are not times for round¬ 
 ing sentences, or playing with figures of speech. Passions, 
 sentiments, ideas, feelings, the most potent, are in motion, 
 are in conflict. A great struggle awaits mankind. Let it 
 not become a - great tragedy. Philosophy must now—I will 
 not say, descend, but—step forward, to speak to the people 
 with accents which shall be understood. The eternal philo. 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 71 
 
 sophy of life must be interwoven, if it be possible, with the 
 hourly conduct of life. 
 
 For the advancement of the good and the true, every 
 engine is needed that can be rendered available. That the 
 scheme now proposed, when viewed in the full compass of 
 its theory, does include, or require, through all space and all 
 time, the perception, the enumeration, the denomination, the 
 classification, of all substances and attributes, the observation 
 of all laws and conditions, the development, disposition and 
 employment of all materials and all forces, the action of all 
 agents, the use of all instruments, by all means and modes of 
 agency, for the attainment of all ends; that it includes, or 
 requires, these things, both in their entire oneness, and in 
 their utmost divisibility; blending, while it discriminates; dis¬ 
 criminating, while it blends; “and yet an union in partition; ” 
 that it stretches itself from the secret thoughts of the indi¬ 
 vidual to the collective operations of mankind; “finding the 
 whole every where, and the action of every part every where, 
 the whole made up by the action of every part, and eveiy 
 part only by means of the whole having become what it is;”— 
 that it constitutes, therefore, an immense and stupendous 
 undertaking; one which mocks at the efforts of any single 
 person, and, of itself, bids man, as man, recognize his impo¬ 
 tence, even while he collects his energies and calls forth his 
 powers;—these are verities, which we not only have ac¬ 
 knowledged, but again gladly proclaim, in the assurance that 
 a two-fold benefit may be at the same instant derived from 
 these opposite emotions, these mutually regulative considera¬ 
 tions. 
 
 Yet such an undertaking, though vast, is not vague: 
 though all-comprehensive, is still distinct and determinate. 
 
 And, after all, the real question is, not whether our 
 power is unlimited, but how we may best do that which lies 
 in our power: not whether all that we might desire can 
 
72 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 be accomplished, but how we may accomplish most. And 
 here we say, that system, the system of one manifold, is the 
 greatest solution of perplexities, the greatest corrective of 
 evils, the greatest instrument of good. It has, besides, be¬ 
 come indispensable to our actual position. As it is the 
 business of mankind to systematize, so it must be their busi¬ 
 ness more and more. Men are now bewildered and tost about 
 amidst a countless multitude of plans, fancies, speculations, 
 undertakings, movements. What is most needed is to con¬ 
 nect and bring together these desultory inconsecutive inquiries, 
 these miscellaneous, fragmentary enterprizes; to regard and 
 form them in a due order: and, even while breaking them 
 up, that we may arrange them into new combinations, not 
 to deal with them merely by scraps, but to view the whole 
 cycle, and mark how far it has been filled in; to see what is 
 omitted, what is superfluous; and to determine the respective 
 plan and province of particular existences in the general de¬ 
 sign of all things. In other words, what is most needed, is 
 not so much to discern and invent, as really to develope 
 and use what has been long discovered; not so much to 
 introduce principles, which are quite strange and novel, as to 
 blend principles which have been taken separately; to invest 
 with their rightful prominence and supremacy principles 
 which have heen almost lost amidst a crowd of others less 
 comprehensive and important; practically to apply principles 
 which are acknowledged in theory to be true and valuable; 
 and to extend into their universality principles which have 
 received a more narrow and partial recognition. 
 
 Shall we do this, or not? Shall we, or shall we not, en¬ 
 deavour to build a whole upon the same kind of foundation, 
 which is of necessity laid when we would build any particular 
 portion? Do these truths lose their truth when they are 
 generalized and expanded ? Does this expediency become 
 inexpediency as we enlarge its dimensions ? If such be not 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 73 
 
 the case, if it be the very reverse of the case, surely it is at 
 once a mental weakness and a moral cowardice, not to carry 
 onward our principles to their legitimate extent. It appears 
 to me, that, in whatever shape the question is put, and 
 whether philosophy or experience is to decide it, the same 
 answer must be returned. Given the materials of the world, 
 how shall we obtain the most accurate acquaintance with them 
 and the most serviceable disposal of them 2 Given the means, 
 how shall we best employ them, and avail ourselves of 
 them 2 Given the ends, how shall we most completely attain 
 them! How shall we arrive at the fullest and most correct 
 view of the universe, how act upon it at the greatest intel¬ 
 lectual and mechanical advantage 2 By system—always by 
 system. 
 
 I would gather up the argument itself, then, from its 
 variety into its unity. System is good. It is good on the 
 small scale; does it cease to be good on the large 2 On the 
 contrary, the larger is the scale, and more elements are in¬ 
 cluded, the truer, proportionably, is our calculation, and the 
 greater, proportionably, is our power. Yet further: unless we 
 can reach the largest scale, and include all elements, our mode 
 of proceeding, although our weakness may leave us no alter¬ 
 native, must, to a certain extent, be wrong: and if we wil¬ 
 fully take a part, instead of the whole; if we are contented, 
 and more than contented, to make our speculative and prac¬ 
 tical treatment of things detached and piecemeal, without 
 connexion or proportion, without beginning, middle, or end; 
 it must be radically, fundamentally, and most mischievously 
 erroneous. 
 
 A prima facie case then, and a very strong one, seems 
 to be made out in favour of universal system, so far as man 
 can attain to universality. I do not see how it is to be 
 resisted. Certainly, the burden of proof must rest with 
 those who can oppose themselves to th e prima facie evidence, 
 
74 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 so plain, so uniform, and coming from so many quarters. If 
 they would assign a limit, it is for them to shew where the 
 boundary line is to be drawn. 
 
 But I hear it said by some, Why use so many words, 
 and take so much trouble, to vindicate and enforce a propo¬ 
 sition which will be at once conceded to you? We allow 
 that system is preferable to the absence of system. We 
 allow that universal system is better than partial. But how 
 is it to be formed 1 What part are the various agents and 
 instruments respectively to take in its formation! What 
 shape are its arrangements to assume 2 What are to be its 
 classifications 2 What its modes of connexion and division 2 
 These are the real questions at issue: and he who cannot 
 determine them, or at least does not grapple with them, has 
 done nothing. We should hail and welcome one general 
 construction, with which all the smaller constructions of men 
 can be adjusted and harmonized. But where is the ground- 
 plan of such a construction2 What is to be its elevation! 
 Where are the specifications and working drawings of this 
 intended edifice 2 
 
 Now, I am far from denying that these questions are 
 relevant, and have their weight. The course of this inquiry 
 must bring us to their serious consideration. But it was 
 needful, I think, that the preparatory and preliminary step 
 should be taken in the first instance. That step was the 
 attempt to prove that a large systematization is really and 
 truly most desirable and precious, in itself; and again, that 
 it is the growing want of mankind, the growing want of the 
 species, the growing want of the individual. These positions 
 I have endeavoured to establish, by touching upon those 
 general and constant principles which are imbedded in human 
 nature; and by alluding to the special circumstances and 
 events of a time, believed, and not without reason, to be 
 among those critical junctures in human history, which are, 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 75 
 
 as it were, the points of transition from one great period to 
 another. 
 
 In many cases, without controversy, the best way, by 
 far, of shewing that a thing can be done, is by doing it. But 
 the formation of a general system is not altogther a case of 
 this kind:—since it depends upon the co-operation of many 
 persons; and this co-operation cannot be expected, until 
 there comes a wide and penetrating conviction of its neces¬ 
 sity, or its usefulness: and this conviction must be produced 
 by the proper evidences: that is, this necessity, or this use¬ 
 fulness, must be demonstrated, as partly by experience, so 
 partly by antecedent reasoning. We may rejoice to think 
 that both antecedent reasoning and the experience of man¬ 
 kind are now converging to this demonstration. 
 
 The present, we may be persuaded, cannot be the ulti¬ 
 mate state of human society, more than barbarism or feudalism 
 has been. The present state of Africa, for instance, or of Asia, 
 or of Turkey, or of Russia, cannot possibly be its ultimate 
 state. Why should absolute finality be predicated of our own 
 country ? Why should we suppose that Great Britain must 
 be stationary? We may well hazard the prediction, that, 
 here as elsewhere, the future will be an advance upon the 
 present, as the present upon the past. And we may hazard 
 this other prediction, namely, that the ultimate state will be 
 one in which there shall be framed a general system of huma¬ 
 nity, in its collective and in its individual phases of existence. 
 
 But is there, in the mind of the majority of persons, a 
 genuine, cordial, thorough recognition of this truth ? Or, is 
 there any earnest desire to bring it out of the region of 
 speculation into the region of practice ? Let men examine 
 and ask themselves, whether they feel the expediency and the 
 value of an universal system, and whether they will help its 
 realization ? With the will must come the way. The gene- 
 
76 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 ral desire to perform sucli a work is already half to have 
 performed it. 
 
 And therefore, I believe, the time will not have been 
 lost in developing at some length the idea of system—the 
 most concentrated of all ideas, and, at the same time, the 
 most comprehensive and the most prolific: the most natural 
 of all ideas, and yet, at the same time, the most connected 
 with the highest and widest signification of the word, art. 
 I believe that there may be even a peculiar advantage in 
 setting forth this idea, simply, broadly, and by itself; in dis¬ 
 encumbering it from all extraneous and subsequent, all doubt¬ 
 ful and disputable allegations. We may err, as we proceed 
 to shew, hereafter, in what special forms, or by what special 
 agencies, the various parts of a vast system ought to be con¬ 
 structed : but we can hardly err in urging the construction 
 itself. Hence it is, among other reasons, that this primary 
 idea has been now, as far as was possible, disengaged and 
 separated from all else. It will be a great point gained, if 
 the public mind of England can be brought really to enter¬ 
 tain this idea at all. For England is that portion of the 
 habitable globe, in which, from its intellectual and its religious, 
 its political and its social position, the general framing of 
 system may be most safely and most effectually commenced: 
 and more especially at a period when larger and profounder 
 views are gradually winning ground; and when there have 
 been recently written by Englishmen, on the subjects of 
 speculative science and social economy, solid and compre¬ 
 hensive works, which would shed lustre on the philosophical 
 literature of any age or country. 
 
 It is with an unfeigned diffidence that I would venture 
 to' raise any questions as worthy the notice of such men. 
 Yet the -questions which I would raise are these: whether, 
 from their constitution and position, mankind possess the 
 
OB, SYSTEM. 
 
 77 
 
 power of acting in concert upon the whole of things, as well 
 as separately upon each particular thing: whether, if they 
 possess this power, there must be wisdom and profit in 
 exerting it: whether, up to the present age, they have exerted 
 it as they might, and as they ought; and have, therefore, 
 really acted upon a general system: whether the time for 
 thus acting has arrived, or is at hand :—and, moreover, what 
 have been severally the results, as men have observed system, 
 or neglected it. 
 
 Civilization yearns for a practical answer to these ques¬ 
 tions. For the truth always recurs, that the whole matter 
 of system is most eminently practical. It is not only a 
 philosophy, but an organization: it is not only a theory, but 
 a work. It is a thing to be done. It involves in itself the 
 common work of all; and the peculiar work of each. So 
 practical is its nature, that, without it, the world would fall 
 to pieces; and it is a matter in which every human being is 
 interested, and ought to be engaged. It is the universal con¬ 
 cern of all: yet each, as he is performing his own part, will see 
 that the parts which others perform, are as necessary as his 
 own; will observe, how wisely God has ordained, that, in an 
 arrangement so infinitely diversified, the tastes and powers 
 of men should be different, as their functions and occupations 
 must be different; will perceive, that, in the vast scheme of 
 existences, the scheme of knowledge and of action, of demand 
 and supply, of means and ends, there is room for every prin¬ 
 ciple ; for trust as for prudence; for enthusiasm as for calcula¬ 
 tion; for faith as for free inquiry; for authority as for private 
 judgment; for parental guidance as for filial obedience;— 
 will discern how the respective duties of maturity and youth, 
 of men and women, of governors and the governed, consist 
 and harmonize with the one general obligation alike incum¬ 
 bent upon all, of taking a share in the great system of the 
 universe. 
 
78 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 But again: as the construction of system is not the work 
 of one man, so neither is it the work of one period of huma¬ 
 nity : it is the continuous work of all the successive genera¬ 
 tions of mankind. Sufficient honour must it be for any 
 individual to be the simplest pioneer, or the humblest 
 labourer, in that which is the business of all persons in all 
 times. It is a process to be handed down from age to age; 
 from those who begin to those who shall advance nearer to 
 the completion. One age lays the foundations, other ages by 
 degrees carry upward the superstructure. The main point 
 is, that the foundation be laid aright, and that the dis¬ 
 couraging operation of removing and taking down shall not 
 always interfere with the happier toil of erection. 
 
 But then, on the other side, as system is not only a 
 philosophy, but an organization, so it is not only an organiza¬ 
 tion, but a philosophy : as it is not only a theory, but a work, 
 so it is not only a work, but a theory. And the theory, the 
 philosophy, must come first. It must precede in the order of 
 time, as in the order of logical sequence. Half that has 
 been said would be incorrect and idle, unless there existed an 
 interconnexion between these two things; but still the gene¬ 
 ral principles must be understood, before we proceed to the 
 manner of execution. The reflection is indeed obvious; if 
 system must be defective, or even wrong in principle, unless 
 it be universal; and yet, if it be preposterous to suppose, 
 while so many, political and moral obstacles lie in the way, 
 that mankind will all start together and at once in the forma¬ 
 tion of universal system, how is this dilemma to be overcome ? 
 Well: we must at least meet it as we may. The mental 
 conception must, in any case, direct the practical operations. 
 And if the conception be just, the operations will at least be 
 immensely facilitated: exactly as we may commence, without 
 imprudence or inexpediency, with the wiDg, or apartment of 
 a building, when we have its entire plan before us; or as men 
 
Olt, SYSTEM. 
 
 79 
 
 may begin at both ends the tunnel of a railroad, when they 
 know how their labours are to meet. 
 
 Without question, while the tissue of things is so com¬ 
 plicated, so interwoven, and almost “ without seam through¬ 
 out,” some practical inconvenience there must always be, 
 where only part of a system can be embraced. The more 
 circumscribed the portion, the fewer the instruments and 
 methods of action, which men have at their disposal, by so 
 much the more, we have already argued, they must work 
 at a disadvantage: because they are the more liable to be 
 interrupted, thwarted, baffled, by disturbances and derange¬ 
 ments from without, by external relations and circumstances 
 over which they have little or no control. To be engaged 
 in adjusting a smaller system, which lies within a larger, and 
 is pressed by it at all points; to aim at improving a part, 
 while the other parts are left unimproved; to attempt poli¬ 
 tical ameliorations without social, or social without political, 
 moral without material, or material without moral, collective 
 without individual, or individual without collective, is to labour 
 not in vain, indeed, but with comparatively poor and stunted 
 results : just as a model-house, or lodging, may lose half its 
 good effects, if placed in an unwholesome street, full of pollu¬ 
 tions and vitiating influences; whereas the benefits of a model- 
 street might derive a manifest augmentation, if fortified by the 
 general arrangements of a model-town. On the other hand, 
 it is no less plain, that the necessity is very often imperative 
 for beginning one thing at a time, instead of waiting until all 
 can be undertaken by all;—that in a great measure knowledge 
 is to be gained by the particular inspection of particular ob¬ 
 jects in their specific properties, and internal relations; and 
 good is to be done by the hourly action of individuals upon in¬ 
 dividuals ; that if a business be too vast and cumbrous for those 
 who set it on foot, it soon becomes unwieldy and unmanage¬ 
 able ; and that every man, like everybody of men, who assigns 
 
80 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 himself a task, must look to his own competency, or incom¬ 
 petency, for its performance. But these different truths,— 
 these opposite poles of truth—only bring us round to the same 
 conclusion; namely, that a right general conception, the mental 
 scheme, or idea, of the whole, is indispensable, in order to 
 think justly, or act with a full and lasting success, in any 
 matter, or portion, whatever: that every man, nevertheless, 
 must prosecute his own special and proper work, while he 
 entertains this general conception; that the principles can 
 hardly be too comprehensive, the exemplifications hardly too 
 particular ; that to take the wide without the minute, or the 
 minute without the wide, is equally a delusion and a snare ; 
 that the two-fold law, unity of design and division of labour, 
 is alike applicable on the largest scale, and on the smallest; 
 and must be carried with us, throughout all stages, into all 
 spheres: or in short, that from first to last, always and every¬ 
 where, there must be a system of one manifold. 
 
 2. It will be no inappropriate sequel to these remarks, 
 that I should offer a brief concluding explanation of a more 
 special and private nature. For each portion of the subject 
 bears upon each: on the one hand, as the laws of system 
 are continued throughout all departments of life, the special 
 exemplification must reflect light on the general principles ; 
 and, on the other hand, we should injure the cause which 
 we are anxious to promote, if we suffered it to appear that 
 the pursuit of the wide objects must divert us from the 
 particular; or, that in imagining some code, or scheme, of 
 universal institutes, we lost sight of the good which might be 
 effected at our own doors. Nothing could be more contrary 
 to the true spirit of system than such a course. As it is 
 system which tells every man, that he has both particular and 
 general spheres of action, so it is system which warns him that 
 he cannot be wanting to either, without mischief and blame. 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 81 
 
 Moreover, I would submit these remarks, as generally to 
 the public at large, so especially to those persons with whom 
 I have a ministerial connexion, and to whom my time and 
 faculties belong as their right. This is the best, or at least 
 the most direct proof which I can give, that system, in 
 my view of it, belongs to quite another domain, besides 
 that of abstract metaphysical idealism; and that what has 
 been here suggested has everywhere its local, as well as its 
 broader applicability. Even the public at large may be so 
 far at least interested in the particular instance, that it 
 affords some illustration of the ground on which this publi¬ 
 cation rests, and some evidence of the practicability and 
 reality of its purpose. But then, again, every man, and, 
 much more, every Clergyman, must have some spot in the 
 wide earth, where he has a peculiar concern in impressing the 
 fundamental truths, that neither the exigencies, nor the pri¬ 
 vileges, of mankind admit of that empty, aimless existence, 
 which is rather playing at life, than living ; that men should 
 make system the governing law of their conduct, and place it 
 in the foreground of their thoughts; that, as in every sphere 
 of society, so in every district, or section, of the Christian 
 Church, there is appointed to every man his work, “ to every 
 man according to his several abilitythat, in every such 
 sphere, or section, there should be a scheme of things, and a 
 combination of persons; that in this scheme, and in this 
 combination, all the things, and all the persons, which pro¬ 
 perly appertain to it, should be included; and that such 
 scheme, and such combination, may have its system of good 
 offices, without any undue interference with domestic or with 
 individual life, to either of which, though not altogether cut 
 off from the more general system, is annexed a system of 
 its own. 
 
 You will thus perceive, my dear Sir, one chief reason 
 which I have had for writing this letter, instead of preparing 
 B. M. S. 6 
 
82 
 
 ONE, manifold; 
 
 a more formal treatise or disquisition. I do not wish that 
 this argument should be regarded as a mere literary exerci- 
 tation; not from the absurd affectation of pretending to dis¬ 
 parage literary eminence, which, in any manner or measure, 
 it must be honourable to attain, if no higher objects are 
 abandoned for it; but because I should be sorry for this pub¬ 
 lication to be considered as something altogether separate 
 and alien from my appointed duties and pursuits; and be¬ 
 cause a letter addressed to a Member of the Senate, possess¬ 
 ing, as without flattery or compliment you must be said to 
 possess, so many qualifications for distinction and usefulness 
 in public life, appears more real, earnest, and business-like: 
 and real, earnest, business-like is what I desire this produc¬ 
 tion to be ; since it, in fact, contains a definite proposal, and 
 is almost as a large prospectus of ulterior labours. The sub¬ 
 ject of it has been long upon my thoughts. My mind and 
 heart are, I confess, bent upon this undertaking: the great 
 and necessary undertaking, as I would affirm it to be, of 
 putting into system man’s collective and individual being. 
 Your friendship, upon which I have thus taken the liberty of 
 obtruding myself, will excuse me for stating that, many years 
 ago, in the ardent hopefulness of a spirit fresh from the Uni¬ 
 versity, I flung upon the world a course of Lectures, called 
 “ Paneumathics in the belief that many things were dis¬ 
 coveries of my own, which I afterwards found in books; and 
 with the intention of shewing, that while thought should 
 take an encyclopaedic range, the world also required some¬ 
 thing else besides an encyclopaedia, one-half of which might 
 be almost antiquated, before the other half was compiled. 
 From that time, at different intervals, and amidst many in¬ 
 terruptions, I have kept the same object in view, and have 
 both asserted, in more than one branch of inquiry, the prin¬ 
 ciples which lie at the foundation of the present design, and 
 also endeavoured practically to exemplify them, so far as my 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 83 
 
 means and station afforded me opportunity. In several mat¬ 
 ters relating to the education of the people ; in the proposed 
 publication, under some high sanctions, of a Yearly Report 
 of the State and Proceedings of the Church; in an attempt, 
 made in conjunction with the publisher of this letter, to call 
 the public mind to “ social’' questions and objects, at a period 
 when they were by no means so fashionable and popular as 
 they have since become; I have still been always brought 
 round to the necessity of some system of investigation, some 
 system of philanthropy, some system of knowledge, some 
 system of action, some system of knowledge and action to¬ 
 gether: —because the two cannot be quite divorced; but the 
 pursuit of knowledge is a main department of action; and 
 action in its turn must spring from knowledge, and lead to 
 it. Moreover, in addition to some private suggestions laid 
 before distinguished men, in the year 1842 I advertised a 
 work under the title of “ One , Manifold; or. the System of 
 Whole and Parts: being an attempt to establish the first prin¬ 
 ciples of Universal Philosophy and Universal Organisation, in 
 accordance with the Divine Constitution and Administration of 
 the World" —a title which, I would hope, is not now rendered 
 less logical and comprehensive that it is simplified and 
 abridged. Part of the work was at the time written and 
 prepared for the press ; and my hope was, that the whole 
 might be comprised in two or three volumes, and appear in 
 the course of a few months. But many circumstances taught 
 me that I had miscalculated, on the one side, the magnitude 
 and complication of the undertaking itself; and, on the other 
 side, the number of hours which I could devote to the prose¬ 
 cution of it. Amidst the distractions of London, and the 
 urgency of professional avocations, little time remained for 
 the mechanical act of writing, and still less for close and con¬ 
 secutive thought; and what was done in a few weeks of 
 leisure, during the summer and autumn, sometimes required 
 6—2 
 
84 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 subsequently to be undone: because, in the rapid march of 
 events, the illustrations which one year furnished had become 
 obsolete before the next year came round. But a far more 
 serious difficulty was the growing conviction, that a system of 
 one manifold required the three things, which have already 
 been suggested: 
 
 1st. A systematic conception, or ideal, of the right 
 and possible: 
 
 2nd. A systematic view of the actual; which, as the 
 world has many aspects, must consist of many 
 views, and may require some great institute as 
 an exchange, or centre, of information: 
 
 3rd. The application of the one of these things to the 
 other, with reference both to the present, and to 
 the ultimate state of human society:— 
 
 I repeat, that, as requiring these three things, it could 
 not be a mere disquisition to be embraced in two volumes, or 
 in any number of volumes ; but that it must be, as well as a 
 speculative investigation, a real construction, a continuous 
 work, in which the share of any single individual must be 
 comparatively insignificant. 
 
 But another consideration has had its weight and influ¬ 
 ence. It has been our endeavour, as you know, to realize 
 among ourselves the true idea of the Church, as far as our 
 circumstances would allow. In co-operation with many most 
 estimable men, and yourself among the number, it has been 
 my pride and pleasure to assist in meetings, in friendly discus¬ 
 sions, in inviting the attendance of all classes and the free ex¬ 
 pression of their sentiments; in contributions according to our 
 means,—contributions, which may ultimately perhaps result, 
 if I may venture on the statement of a personal wish, in the 
 self-assessment of a Voluntary Rate for proper objects;—and 
 thus to aim at a scheme of Christian agency, which might be 
 highly beneficial in itself, without at all clashing with the 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 85 
 
 province of any other bodies, or individuals. According to 
 my belief the result of that experiment has been, that, where 
 we have acted upon system it has succeeded: it has failed, 
 where we have been deficient in a systematic adherence to 
 our principles. In connexion, too, with this experiment, I 
 had thought of writing to a gentleman, whom it is not forme 
 to praise, on the Local Organization of a Christian Commu¬ 
 nity :—but I found, as every one must find, that the subject 
 of local organization could not be treated as it ought, without 
 reference to the vast subject of Organization at large, to the 
 broad principles on which all organization is founded, and to 
 the general questions involved in the whole structure of the 
 Church and of all voluntary Associations. 
 
 Now these personal details have not been given from 
 mere egotism, or without a purpose: they will shew that some 
 experience of life, some study of its existing arrangements, 
 some participation in its actual business, have led me to the 
 opinions promulgated in this letter, as well as something of 
 reflection and speculative research. I do not speak as a mere 
 theorist: though I should never be ashamed of being, or of 
 being thought, a theorist, in the proper sense of the word. 
 It is a conviction, experimental as well as rational, which 
 has forced itself upon my understanding, that as every locality 
 must be regulated upon system, so every local system must 
 rest upon those common laws, or axioms, which should direct 
 the entire compass of systematic agency ; as for instance, 
 that wherever there exists connexion, or interdependence, 
 the action of each person or thing must be assisted by the 
 consentaneous or harmonious action of every other person or 
 thing:—or,—to express the same truth in a somewhat dif¬ 
 ferent form—that the freedom and efficiency with which any 
 part works, must constantly receive increment, or decrement, 
 in proportion, as, on the one side, the other parts are set in 
 operation conjointly with it; or as, on the other side, these 
 
86 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 other parts are either inert, or else operate on some other 
 plane or principle: above all, that a right conception of the 
 whole is requisite for the proper administration of any part; 
 and that regard must be had both to all the internal rela¬ 
 tions of any smaller system considered in itself, and to all its 
 external relations with a more general system. 
 
 These details, and these dates have been also given, 
 because I have observed the tendency towards a general com¬ 
 prehensiveness in ideas and projects; and because, while I 
 would not lay much stress upon any claims to originality, but 
 am aware, that such originality, wherever, and in whatever 
 degree, it exists, must make itself evident in the compactness 
 and coherence of a man’s views, and in the strength and vivid¬ 
 ness of feeling with which he sets them forth, much more than 
 in any emphasis of assertion that such views are original, I yet 
 would not be supposed to have borrowed, without acknowledge¬ 
 ment, from recent authors, notions which were formed and 
 expressed for some considerable time before their work's were 
 published. Such details may also indicate, that the con¬ 
 ceptions, which are here submitted to notice, have not been 
 lightly taken up, in a fit of enthusiasm, nor can be lightly laid 
 aside in a fit of disappointment; but that they are convictions 
 which have been deeply fixed in my reason, and are not likely 
 to pass away from it; since, in fact, the relinquishment of par¬ 
 tial and smaller aims has been simply caused by an abiding 
 determination to follow up the general idea of system, to the 
 utmost of my power, in all the capacities and spheres in which 
 it is my lot to-act and move. 
 
 And these things carry me back to the assertion, with • 
 which I started, namely, that the composition of this letter 
 has been with me a matter not only of choice, but of duty. 
 Sentiments such as these ought not to be concealed, or dis¬ 
 guised, from those persons with whom a Christian minister 
 has official, intimate, and sacred relations. If cherished with 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 87 
 
 sincerity and in earnest, they must give a tone to all his 
 ministrations. I am sensible that they have given a tone to 
 mine; for my persuasion has been, and is, that at least as much 
 mischief accrues to religion as to any thing else, from the 
 want of universal system. Hence, I think, it happens, that 
 religion is not, as it ought to be, diffused, like an atmosphere, 
 over the whole being: it does not influence, as it ought, every 
 portion of our existence. Too often it loses very much that 
 it ought 'toj'possess, of reality, of freshness, of interest, of 
 power; because it is not surveyed methodically and compre¬ 
 hensively, yet likewise with a direct view to all its actual and 
 present bearings :—because it stands apart; is treated only 
 in a dry, formal, technical manner; and even when so treated, 
 receives, perhaps, even in its technical aspect, only a narrow, 
 confused, fragmentary investigation. 
 
 3. The principles, therefore, which it has been sought to 
 establish, have an especial application to religion. 
 
 If the kingdoms of nature, of providence, and of grace, 
 all spring from the same Author, and are ruled by the same 
 Sovereign Potentate; it might have been expected, from 
 antecedent considerations, that they also should observe the 
 same great law of the universe; and that system should have 
 its work in marking the connexions, as well as the distinc¬ 
 tions, between the three. 
 
 We have abundant reason to know that such is the case; 
 and to know also, that to the proved analogies between the 
 religion of Christ, and the constitution and course of nature, 
 this is to be added;—that our business, in the one as in the 
 other, is to trace a systematic unity amidst variety and appa¬ 
 rent confusion. 
 
 Religion, too, is both general and special. Even Thomas 
 Paine declared, that “ all things are to be considered theolo¬ 
 gically;” and, without question, theology has its universal 
 
ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 relation to all other studies, while it is the sublimest of 
 studies in itself; and regard must be had to the wider aspect 
 of our faith, care only being taken, that we are not as if 
 afraid or ashamed of its peculiar mysteries. 
 
 As truth is one manifold, as good is one manifold, so the 
 great principle of unity in variety must mount up into that 
 region which is the centre of truth and good. Never will 
 religion be treated aright, until it be treated both as a sepa¬ 
 rate inquiry, or rule of conduct, and also in its connexion 
 with all other inquiries and rules of conduct. Again, as 
 Natural Theology is insufficient without the Christian revela¬ 
 tion, so the Christian revelation is favourable, and is allied, to 
 Natural Theology. And when I think of the teaching of 
 Jesus himself, of its spirit and its letter, its matter and 
 its manner, I cannot but entertain the persuasion, that, if 
 there be any who would shut up religion entirely in a book, 
 and conceive that, to he “ Bible Christians,” they must study 
 nothing else but the Bible, and shall understand the Bible 
 better, by disregarding other subjects with which it has links 
 and relations, and which are a perpetual commentary upon 
 its records, with excellent intentions they commit a serious 
 mistake, and do equal injustice to nature and to Christianity; 
 In one sense, Christianity is more than all; in another sense, 
 it is a supplement to the one manifold instruction of the 
 universe. 
 
 This matter may also be regarded with profit from a 
 somewhat different point of vision. 
 
 The idea of system makes an appeal to all men of all 
 ranks, conditions, and employments. But to whom, after 
 all, does it make its most forcible appeal ? It is not to 
 those who desire, from worldly motives, the elevation of the 
 labouring classes, or to the labouring classes themselves : it 
 is not to the statesman, who would endeavour to adjust the 
 balance between competition and communism, securing to 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 89 
 
 individuality its rights, yet promoting old, and introducing 
 new forms of co-operation and mutual assistance; placing 
 property on a firm basis, yet not resisting many and large 
 improvements in social organization; it is not to the studious 
 man, who notes, from his watch-tower of contemplation, the 
 various springs of action, the modes in which they operate, 
 and the unity into which their operations are combined; it 
 is not to the moralist, who feels, as Lamartine has written, 
 how “it is almost always in private life that the secret of 
 public life is reposed;” it is not to the metaphysician, who 
 now turns to his subjective “ ego'' and sees in his own con¬ 
 sciousness the mould, the matrix, the container of the uni¬ 
 verse, creating or projecting worlds after its own image ; now 
 puts himself, as it were, out of himself, and regards himself 
 as but a trifling unit in the immense aggregate of humanity; 
 now surveys himself as both object and subject in one ; it is 
 not even to the mere Churchman, who casts a sagacious eye 
 upon ecclesiastical institutions and their management:—no, it 
 is to none of these, but to him who really surveys man and 
 life from the religious point of view. 
 
 Such a man will believe with the German philosopher, 
 that “ we must make our life and being a part of the one great 
 life and being of mankind,” for else “ life is a patchwork of 
 individual parts, possessing no essential or organic unity:” 
 but he will also believe that, since we are individual wholes, 
 it is only in a peculiar sense that “mere individuality is a life 
 opposed to reason: ’’ for that, in another sense, our individual 
 life is infinitely the most important. One thought or deed, 
 one purpose or sacrifice of a moral agent, may be, in reality, 
 of more consequence than all the substances and all the 
 movements of a material creation, which can be dissolved 
 and pass away: even though we might inspect and regulate 
 all the great throbs of this world’s life, and set in play all 
 means and instruments of merely temporal amelioration. The 
 
90 
 
 one, manifold; 
 
 mortal existence of the individual man is, indeed, a small 
 space in the life-time of the world; but the life-time of this 
 world may be nothing to the future life-time of the individual. 
 The secular well-being of all the successive generations of 
 mankind is, at last, but a finite quantity: the future well¬ 
 being of any single individual, if we suppose an everlasting 
 duration and an intense consciousness, is an infinite quantity. 
 It is, therefore, among the plainest deductions of reason, as 
 well as among the first and most familiar of religious convic¬ 
 tions, that the latter must not only be of more consideration 
 and importance than the former, but must be so in a degree 
 which transcends all the calculation, or comparison, that 
 can ever be made; for that, in fact, the two things are in¬ 
 commensurable. 
 
 But it is not the less evident, that God has bound our 
 two lives, our two worlds, indissolubly together; even as 
 we may just dimly and dubiously conjecture how this illimit¬ 
 able universe, with all the conceptions which it involves, all 
 its revolutions in all orbits, all its changes and successions 
 in duration, all its phenomena of growth, decay, dissolution, 
 reproduction, is, to the Divine mind, one idea, one movement, 
 one eternal present in space and time. Nothing can untie 
 the connexion between the social and the individual, the 
 present and the future, the material and the spiritual life of 
 man. And therefore the religious, the Christian philosopher, 
 is, of all persons, the most bound to give its full practical 
 development to the idea of the system of one manifold;— 
 that idea, which renders paradoxes certainties, and connects 
 apparent contradictions into luminous, harmonious truths. 
 For it is this idea which throws a bridge over the yawning- 
 chasm of the sepulchre, and bids us see, how the line, which 
 death breaks or terminates, yet runs on after death: how 
 man vanishes, and yet survives: how his actions follow him 
 to his immortality, and yet remain behind him, to make his 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 91 
 
 influence immortal where he has been: how, in short, every 
 thing which appertains to him is fugitive as a dream, evane¬ 
 scent as a vapour, lighter than vanity itself; and yet is of 
 moment unutterable, as the great scheme is carried forward 
 from earth and earthly things to the mysterious Infinite be¬ 
 yond earth and its concerns. 
 
 These views must assure us, that the inculcation of a 
 general system cannot be at variance with the functions of a 
 minister of the Gospel. It is not for him indeed to pursue 
 the matter into its minute ramifications and infinite details, 
 with many of which he must in all human probability be 
 utterly unacquainted, and which must at least carry him too 
 far from the proper teachings of the pulpit, and from the 
 pastoral cure of souls. But the great principle of one mani¬ 
 fold cannot itself be inconsistent with the communications of 
 that Book, which lays before us our momentous relations 
 both with the visible and with the invisible world: which 
 declares, that there are differences of administrations, and 
 diversities of operations, but the same Spirit and the same 
 Lord: that there are many members in one body: that we 
 are members one of another: that all things work together 
 for good to them that love God: that all things are to be 
 gathered together into one in Him, even in Christ Jesus. 
 
 If, in recommending the formation of system,—that is, a 
 general system of persons and things, of means and ends, 
 descending, by regular gradations, into all its co-ordinate and 
 subordinate branches,—any man proposed it as a light and 
 trivial thing, or other than a matter of vast magnitude, vast 
 complication, and calculated to lead to wide and important 
 results, he would only prove that he did not understand the 
 nature and extent of his own proposition. If, again, he 
 proposed it as an undertaking which depended upon individual 
 talent or individual resources, he might well shrink from the 
 task in utter despondency: but, as it is the common concern 
 
92 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 of all men, he may say without scruple, that it is a view of 
 the whole, and of ourselves as parts of it, which gives dignity 
 and grandeur to our being ; and that if we omit to take this 
 view, miserably must we live below our duties, below our 
 capacities, below our destinies. For are, or are not, the 
 countless voices of the world gathered up into one voice, and 
 do they, or do they not, speak to this mighty purpose; that 
 the entire investigation is one, yet manifold; that the entire 
 work is one, yet manifold; that the investigation and the 
 work are in their conjunction one; that we must apply our¬ 
 selves, according to our whole nature, to the whole work as 
 it is; that we are solemnly called to it by the immense 
 necessities and the immense responsibilities of mankind; at 
 once by the wants, and the capabilities, and the developments 
 which are exhibited on every side; by the good which may 
 be done; by the errors which may be rectified; by the crimes 
 and sufferings which may at least be mitigated; by the objec¬ 
 tive phenomena around us, and by every glimpse which we 
 can obtain into the mysteries of our own being; by all the 
 facts and all the analogies of the universe; by all that God 
 Himself has indicated in his creation, or revealed in his holy 
 Word? 
 
 Moreover, is it, or is it not, so true, as to be a truism, 
 that, if men had an entire scheme of existence before them ; 
 a scheme of all the laws and conditions, which they should 
 take into account; a scheme of all the ends which they 
 should seek, and of all the duration of time for which these 
 ends must be 'gained or lost, they could not be quite what 
 they now are, nor fritter away their being as it is frittered 
 away ?—that they would not in private life sacrifice, to the 
 momentary gratification of some baser or lower part of their 
 nature, the permanent good of the whole; nor would they, 
 in their public arrangements, as in any measures of penal 
 transportation, for instance, snatch at a temporary relief of 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 93 
 
 some immediate exigency, by the surrender of great princi¬ 
 ples, and at the certain ultimate entailment of widely-spread 
 and long-enduring calamity ? 
 
 I, at least, would once more reiterate my persuasion, that 
 it is the want of system which makes this jungle of life; 
 that the systematization of existence is the grand object 
 which remains to us; the true “ instanratio magna" of huma¬ 
 nity ; the process by which the present welfare of the race, 
 and the immortal happiness of individuals, may be most 
 effectually promoted. I, at least, would do my part to in¬ 
 troduce the age of system ; and, therefore, I would endeavour, 
 as I have said, to raise the issue, whether the construction of 
 a general system be a sublime aim, which may eventually, 
 though at last incompletely, be reached by man:—or whether 
 it be in itself an impossibility and an absurdity. And I 
 would raise this issue now, because great crises are great 
 opportunities. A very celebrated person has just intimated 
 his opinion, that the late revolution on the continent of 
 Europe, so improvised, and off-hand, cannot have any lasting 
 effects. It may well, indeed, happen, that the spectacle of 
 national convulsions will be like the sight of the drunken 
 helot, and help to scare us from political intoxication. The 
 shock of these events has not been yet felt upon the insti¬ 
 tutions of England, save, perhaps, in strengthening them 
 through the abhorrence which has been caused for the ex¬ 
 cesses of a democratical fanaticism: yet the events them¬ 
 selves may tell indirectly hereafter, through the speculations 
 and the notions which they may serve to engender or mature. 
 And if it be true that the tendencies of the age are demo¬ 
 cratical, three things may be confidently stated with refer¬ 
 ence, not so much to England by itself, as to the common¬ 
 wealth of European nations. The first is, that democracy 
 without religion would be certainly the most perilous, and, 
 probably, the most disastrous, of all experiments; and that 
 
94 
 
 ONE, MANIFOLD; 
 
 no other religion can regulate the passions of a people, or lay 
 a real hold upon their understandings and affections, save the 
 religion of Christ: the second is, that the most awful of all 
 things, next to democracy without religion, would be demo¬ 
 cracy without system; for it would be mere ochlocracy, or 
 anarchy: and the third is, that religion and system, when 
 rightly understood, are in their essence inseparable. 
 
 4. There is yet another motive which impels me.—I know 
 not, my dear Sir, when this letter will come into your hands. 
 It has grown more than I expected under mine. I have 
 written it in the repose which has been afforded me from my 
 usual duties. That thought has, by some peculiar associa¬ 
 tion, constantly mixed itself up with the topics which have 
 occupied its pages, and now urges me to add one final 
 remark, not unconnected with the rest, on a matter to which 
 some incidental reference has already been made:—I mean, 
 the ills by which humanity is scourged, with the interfusion 
 and concatenation of those ills. 
 
 For ourselves, we may have employed our holidays in the 
 pursuit of recreation. Some have sought diversion in foreign 
 travel, some in the sports and amusements of the country. 
 How many thousands are there to whom the drudgery of 
 existence allows no travel, no sports, or amusements; and, if 
 Sunday, with all its blessings, were blotted out of life, would 
 allow no holidays, no recreation of frame or spirit. Some 
 have retired, perhaps, to their parks or pleasant gardens, 
 where the summer-trees were waving; or have courted health 
 and strength in the fresh breezes of the mountain or the sea: 
 let them think of those who are pent up, from month to 
 month, in the still fetid alleys of our towns. Some have been 
 wandering amidst the beauties of the Rhine-land, or indulging 
 their architectural and antiquarian tastes amidst the marvels 
 of Italy or Greece: let them turn in thought to the multi- 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 95 
 
 tudes who are tied down to one spot by their harassing and 
 consuming toil; or, perhaps, who have no employment at 
 home, yet no money to emigrate, that they may look for it 
 in other places. 
 
 I make these suggestions, not for the sake of encouraging 
 a sickly sentimentality of complaint; as if human life could 
 dispense with labour; or as if labour were not—I do not mean 
 in its excess, but in its due degree—an improving and invigor¬ 
 ating thing. But there is a grave inference to be drawn:— 
 I have in fact, already drawn it. I cannot be blind to the 
 fact, or insensible to its importance, that evil too, like all else 
 around us, is one manifold. Not only is the earth overspread 
 with derangements and miseries of which the image may well 
 pursue us, wherever we go :—but these miseries, these de¬ 
 rangements, multiplied as they are, all conglomerate into a 
 hideous and terrible unity. I see men involved in a fatal web 
 and circle of wretchedness :—with want, ignorance, crime, 
 ever returning into each other; demoralization and destitu¬ 
 tion reciprocally cause and effect; physical debasement leading 
 to moral and spiritual; moral and spiritual confirming and 
 aggravating physical. I see millions in imminent jeopardy 
 of losing both worlds: dedicated to all evil; unhappy on 
 earth, unfit for heaven. And here, then, is introduced the 
 most awful and solemn consideration, belonging to this whole 
 inquiry. For what consideration can be conceived more 
 solemn or more awful than the thought, that the principle of 
 one manifold is of everlasting permanence; that to whatever 
 diversity in our being we must look forward, there will be no 
 entire disruption of its unity; that amidst the most sur¬ 
 prising changes some identity will remain; that system ap¬ 
 pertains to all successive as to all simultaneous existence; 
 that the law of continuity must still be in force as well as 
 the law of transition; that the immortal life must be a 
 sequel to the mortal; and that the habits and dispositions 
 
ONE, manifold; 
 
 which have been formed and cherished on earth will trans¬ 
 fer themselves and their consequences into the world of 
 eternity. 
 
 This is the constraining inducement which, most of all, 
 must move us to the attempt of arresting, or alleviating, the 
 evils, which we must on every side behold, and to the ques¬ 
 tion, What is the best way in which the attempt can be 
 made ?—After all, there is but one way. As the disease is 
 one manifold, so the remedy must be one manifold. The 
 applications, so to speak, must be both general and topical. 
 We must depend—so far as any dependence can be placed 
 upon any human efforts—not upon one measure, or one 
 specific, but upon a scheme of measures, combined and yet 
 distinguished, having that separate energy which belongs to 
 individualism, yet, not the less, adding force to each other by 
 their union. We must have a just system; and we can only 
 arrive at it by a well-apportioned concert of tasks and labour¬ 
 ers ; we must endeavour to provide for the mass of man¬ 
 kind, space, food, employment; to better their habitations 
 and their habits; to elevate and refine their tastes ; to raise 
 their standard of comfort ; to foster in them both self-deve¬ 
 lopment and self-denial; to inform, not only their senses and 
 their minds, but their immortal spirits; to teach them the 
 true ends and uses of this creation, where God exhibits at 
 once the most exact geometry and the most lavish beauty, 
 and combines that which is needful for physical subsistence, 
 with that which is conducive to moral discipline; to make 
 them feel, at last, that the world which they now behold, 
 with all its majesty, and harmony, and bounteous increase; 
 and, alas! with all its sins, and sorrows, and infatuations, 
 and disorders, is but the vestibule to a more magnificent 
 temple, or rather the veil which conceals from us another 
 world, infinitely wider, brighter, purer, and more perfect 
 than itself. 
 
OR, SYSTEM. 
 
 97 
 
 You will easily conceive that I have been tempted to 
 say much more than has now been said, upon a subject 
 which so manifestly suggests the unity in variety of history, 
 the unity in variety of language, the unity in variety of the 
 human race; which, in its immense route, not only traverses 
 the realms of matter and mind, but goes from the rude pri¬ 
 mordial forms in which matter originally presents itself, to 
 the combinations in which it is made ready for our use, or to 
 the shapes into which it is moulded by the manufacturer and 
 the mechanician, or even by the sculptor and the painter; 
 which connects the palpable body with the algebraic symbol; 
 the experiments of the chemist in his laboratory with the 
 toils of the peasant in the field; the intellectual process of 
 the philosophical observer with the ingenious workmanship 
 which makes the instrument to aid his observations ; which 
 proceeds from the widest compass of the sidereal economy to 
 the minutest arrangement by which any person combines 
 any two things together:—or, again, from the progressive 
 organization of social order to the thorny problem of Liberty 
 and Necessity;—since even these mighty opposites, which 
 seem to stand in tremendous contrast, may, in some measure, 
 be elucidated and reconciled by the idea of the system of one 
 manifold.—But I stop: for to enter further into such dis¬ 
 cussions would exceed the scope of this preparatory state¬ 
 ment, as well as its due limits. 
 
 It is, indeed, high time to close this protracted argu¬ 
 ment, which has been framed according to my abilities, 
 rather than according to my wishes. Yet, whatever be the 
 result, “ liberavi animam meam nor will it matter much, 
 if this attempt should meet with neglect, or something of 
 ridicule; or if a brief vacation from professional pursuits 
 shall have been spent in an unprofitable labour. 
 
 Yet, if there be truth in this idea, it will not perish. In 
 B. M. S. 7 
 
ONE, manifold; 
 
 some shape or other, at some time or other, it will strike 
 root and grow. Its seed is indestructible; and it will bear 
 fruit in due season. 
 
 Perhaps, if I had waited longer, this production might 
 have been freed from some, at least, of the faults and imper¬ 
 fections with which, as I am conscious, it may now be fairly 
 charged. But it is dangerous, if I may borrow the words 
 from the author of Eothen, “ to linger too much upon the 
 difficult pass which leads from thought to action.” Too often, 
 while we are thinking how to act, the time has slipped away 
 for acting at all. We have been desiring, intending, resolving, 
 to do something. Meanwhile years pass:—their rapid cur¬ 
 rent hurries on, and carries the best of our life along with it. 
 Death thin3 the ranks of our friends. Our contemporaries, 
 our juniors, fall around us. Our day declines to its evening: 
 the night cometh, when none can work. “ Orimur; morimur .” 
 And our intentions are unexecuted: we look back with use¬ 
 less regret on what we had hoped to do, on what our oppor¬ 
 tunities and our capacities might have allowed us to do. 
 
 Ah ! these departed years can teach men nothing, unless 
 they have taught them, not merely the uncertainty of this 
 mortal existence, but the fugitiveness and precariousness of 
 those occasions and means of action on which they had most 
 securely counted. These things, which so much depend upon 
 health and peace, and a hundred contingencies of circum¬ 
 stance, may not last even so long as life lasts. Body and 
 mind may fail us, while we are laying out projects so vast, 
 that we cannot even begin to accomplish them. We must 
 do, then, what we can, even while we can: satisfied, if we 
 can add but a single stone to the edifice of human good ; 
 happy, if, in what remains to us of a life-time, we shall be at all 
 able to realize the fervent aspirations of youth, the earnest 
 thoughts and wishes of manhood. 
 
OK, SYSTEM. 
 
 99 
 
 I trust that you, my dear Sir, have a long period of 
 existence before you, to be devoted, like the past, to the ser¬ 
 vice of your family and your country; and I remain 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 J. S. BOONE. 
 
 Olteshum Cottage, Hem. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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