Great news for man he brings; the powers which are working in the human life, and not those which are working without it only, are working in obedience to laws. Great things he promises, because the facts of human life are determined by forces which admit of scientific definition, and are capable of being reduced to axioms. Great things he promises, for these distinctive phenomena of human life, to their most artificial complication, are all out of the universal nature, and struggling already of themselves instinctively towards the scientific solution, already 'anticipating' science, and invoking her, and waiting and watching for her coming.
Good news the scientific reporter, in his turn, brings in also; good news for the state, good news for man; confirmations of reports indited beforehand; confirmations, from the universal scriptures, of the revelation of the divine in the human. Good news, because that law of the greater whole, which is the worthier—that law of the common-weal, which is the human law—that law which in man is reason and conscience, is in the nature of things, and not in man only—nay, not in man as yet, but prefigured only—his ideal; his true form—not in man, who 'IS' not, but 'becoming.'
But in tracking these universal laws of being, this constitution of things in general into the human constitution—in tracing these universal definitions into the specific terms of human life—the clearing up of the spontaneous notions and beliefs which the mind of man shut up to itself yields—the criticism on the terms which pre-occupy this ground is of course inevitable, whether expressed or not, and is indeed no unimportant part of the result. For this is a philosophy in which even 'the most vulgar and casual opinions are something more than nothing in nature.'
This Play of the Common-weal and its scientific cure, in which the question of the true NOBILITY is so deeply inwrought throughout, is indeed but the filling up of that sketch of the constitution of man which we find on another page—that constitution whereby man, as man, is part and member of a common-weal—that constitution whereby his relation to the common-weal is essential to the perfection of his individual nature, and that highest good of it which is conservation with advancement—that constitution whereby the highest good of the particular and private nature, that which bids defiance to the blows of fortune, comprehends necessarily the good of the whole in its intention. ('For neither can a man understand VIRTUE without relation to society, nor DUTY without an inward disposition.') And that is the reason that the question of 'the government of every man over himself,' and the predominance of powers, and the wrestling of them in 'the little state of man'—the question as to which is 'nobler'—comes to be connected with the question of civil government so closely. That is the reason that this doctrine of virtue and state comes to us conjoined; that is the reason that we find this question of the consulship, and the question of heroism and personal greatness, the question of the true nobility, forming so prominent a feature in the Play of the Common-weal, inwoven throughout with the question of its cure.
'Constructions according to true definitions' make the end here. The definition is, of course, the necessary preliminary to such constructions: it does not in itself suffice. Mere science does not avail here. Scientific ARTS, scientific INSTITUTIONS of regimen and culture and cure, make the essential conditions of success in this enterprise. But we want the light of 'the true definitions' to begin with. There is no use in revolutions till we have it; and as for empirical institutions, mankind has seen the best of them;—we are perishing in their decay, dying piecemeal, going off into a race of ostriches, or something of that nature—or threatened with becoming mere petrifactions, mineral specimens of what we have been, preserved, perhaps, to adorn the museums of some future species, gifted with better faculties for maintaining itself. It is time for a change of some sort, for the worse or the better, when we get habitually, and by a social rule, water for milk, brickdust for chocolate, silex for butter, and minerals of one kind and another for bread; when our drugs give the lie to science; when mustard refuses to 'counter-irritate,' and sugar has ceased to be sweet, and pepper, to say nothing of 'ginger' is no longer 'hot in the mouth.' The question in speculative philosophy at present is—
'Why all these things change from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,
To monstrous quality.'
—'There's something in this more than natural,
—if philosophy could find it out!
And what we want in practical philosophy when it comes to this, is a new kind of enchantments, with capacities large enough to swallow up these, as the rod of Moses swallowed up the rods of the Egyptians. That was a good test of authority; and nothing short of that will answer our present purpose; when not that which makes life desirable only, but life itself is assailed, and in so comprehensive a manner, the revolutionary point of sufferance and stolidity is reached. We cannot stay to reason it thus and thus with 'the garotte' about our throats: the scientific enchantments will have to be tried now, tried here also. Now that we have 'found out' oxygen and hydrogen, and do not expect to alter their ways of proceeding by any epithets that we may apply to them, or any kind of hocus-pocus that we may practise on them, it is time to see what gen, or genus it is, that proceeds in these departments in so successful a manner, and with so little regard to our exorcisms; and the mere calling of names, which indicate in a general way the unquestionable fact of a degeneracy, is of no use, for that has been thoroughly tried already.
The experiment in the 'common logic,' as Lord Bacon calls it, has been a very long and patient one; the historical result is, that it forces assent, and not things.
The question here is not of divinity, as some might suppose. There is no question about that. Nobody need be troubled about that. It does not depend on this, or that man's arguments, happily. The true divinity, the true inspiration, is of that which was and shall be. Its foundations are laid,—its perennial source is found, not in the soul of man, not in the constitution of the mind of man only, but in the nature of things, and in the universal laws of being. The true divinity strikes its foundations to the universal granite; it is built on 'that rock where philosophy and divinity join close;' and heaven and earth may pass, but not that.