“It is difficult to say,” replied Vincent, “since with so many parties we have many idols; but I think I might venture to name Bolingbroke as among the most popular. Perhaps, indeed, it would be difficult to select a name more frequently quoted and discussed than his; and yet his political works are the least valuable part of his remains; and though they contain many lofty sentiments, and many beautiful yet scattered truths, they were written when legislation, most debated, was least understood, and ought to be admired rather as excellent for the day than estimable in themselves. The life of Bolingbroke would convey a juster moral than all his writings: and the author who gives us a full and impartial memoir of that extraordinary man, will have afforded both to the philosophical and political literature of England one of its greatest desideratums.”
“It seems to me,” said Monsieur D’E—, “that your national literature is peculiarly deficient in biography—am I right in my opinion?”
“Indubitably!” said Vincent; “we have not a single work that can be considered a model in biography, (excepting, perhaps, Middleton’s Life of Cicero.) This brings on a remark I have often made in distinguishing your philosophy from ours. It seems to me that you who excel so admirably in biography, memoirs, comedy, satirical observation on peculiar classes, and pointed aphorisms, are fonder of considering man in his relation to society and the active commerce of the world, than in the more abstracted and metaphysical operations of the mind. Our writers, on the contrary, love to indulge rather in abstruse speculations on their species—to regard man in an abstract and isolated point of view, and to see him think alone in his chamber, while you prefer beholding him act with the multitude in the world.”
“It must be allowed,” said Monsieur D’E——t, “that if this be true, our philosophy is the most useful, though yours may be the most profound.”
Vincent did not reply.
“Yet,” said Sir George Lynton, “there will be a disadvantage attending your writings of this description, which, by diminishing their general applicability, diminish their general utility. Works which treat upon man in his relation to society, can only be strictly applicable so long as that relation to society treated upon continues. For instance, the play which satirizes a particular class, however deep its reflections and accurate its knowledge upon the subject satirized, must necessarily be obsolete when the class itself has become so. The political pamphlet, admirable for one state, may be absurd in another; the novel which exactly delineates the present age may seem strange and unfamiliar to the next; and thus works which treat of men relatively, and not man in se, must often confine their popularity to the age and even the country in which they were written. While on the other hand, the work which treats of man himself, which seizes, discovers, analyzes the human mind, as it is, whether in the ancient or the modern, the savage or the European, must evidently be applicable, and consequently useful, to all times and all nations. He who discovers the circulation of the blood, or the origin of ideas, must be a philosopher to every people who have veins or ideas; but he who even most successfully delineates the manners of one country, or the actions of one individual, is only the philosopher of a single country, or a single age. If, Monsieur D’E—t, you will condescend to consider this, you will see perhaps that the philosophy which treats of man in his relations is not so useful, because neither so permanent nor so invariable, as that which treats of man in himself.” [Note: Yet Hume holds the contrary opinion to this, and considers a good comedy more durable than a system of philosophy. Hume is right, if by a system of philosophy is understood—a pile of guesses, false but plausible, set up by one age to be destroyed by the next. Ingenuity cannot rescue error from oblivion; but the moment Wisdom has discovered Truth, she has obtained immortality.]
I was now somewhat weary of this conversation, and though it was not yet twelve, I seized upon my appointment as an excuse to depart—accordingly I rose for that purpose. “I suppose,” said I to Vincent, “that you will not leave your discussion.”
“Pardon me,” said he, “amusement is quite as profitable to a man of sense as metaphysics. Allons.”