The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Salter Bacon

THE CURE—PLAN OF INNOVATION—NEW CONSTRUCTIONS.

'Unless these end in matter, and constructions according to true definitions, they are speculative, and of little use.'—Novum Organum.

Difficult, then, as the problem of Civil Government appeared to the eye of the scientific philosopher, and threatening and appalling as were those immediate aspects of it which it presented at that moment, he does not despair of the State. Even on the verge of that momentous political and social crisis, 'though he does not need to go to heaven to predict great revolutions and imminent changes,' 'he thinks he sees ways to save us,' and he finds in his new science of Man the ultimate solution of that problem.

That particular and private nature which is in all men, let them re-name themselves by what names they will, that particular and private nature which intends always the individual and private good, has in itself 'an incident towards the good of society,' which it may use as means,—which it must use, if highly successful,—as means to its end. Even in this, when science has enlightened it, and it is impelled by blind and unsuccessful instinct no longer, the man of science finds a place where a pillar of the true state can be planted; even here the scientific light lays bare, in the actualities of the human constitution, a foundation-stone,—a stone that does not crumble—a stone that does not roll, which the state that shall stand must rest on.

Even that 'active good,' which impels 'the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla, and infinite others in smaller model,'—that principle which impels the particular nature to leave its signature on other things,—on the state, on the world, if it can,—though it is its own end, and though it is apt, when armed with those singular powers for 'effecting its good will,' which are represented in the hero of this action, to lead to results of the kind which this piece represents,—this is the principle in man which seeks an individual immortality, and works of immortal worth for man are its natural and selectest means.

But that is not all. The bettering of itself, the perfection of its own form, is, by the constitution of things, a force, a motive, an actual 'power in everything that moves.' This is one of the primal, universal, natural motions. It is in the universal creative stamp of things; and strong as that is, the rock on which here, too, the hope of science rests—strong as that is, the pillar of the state, which here, too, it will rear. For to man the highest 'passive good,' and this, too, is of the good which is 'private and particular,' is, constitutionally, that whereby 'the conscience of good intentions, however succeeding, is a more continual joy to his nature than all the provision—the most luxurious provision—which can be made for security and repose,—whereby the mere empirical experimenter in good will count it a higher felicity to fail in good and virtuous ends towards the public, than to attain the most envied success limited to his particular.

Thus, even in these decried 'private' motives, which actuate all men—these universal natural instincts, which impel men yet more intensely, by the concentration of the larger sensibility, and the faculty of the nobler nature of their species, to seek their own private good,—even in these forces, which, unenlightened and uncounterbalanced, tend in man to war and social dissolution, or 'monstrous' social combination,—even in these, the scientific eye perceives the basis of new structures, 'constructions according to true definitions,' in which all the ends that nature in man grasps and aspires to, shall be artistically comprehended and attained.

But this is only the beginning of the scientific politician's 'hope.' This is but a collateral aid, an incidental assistance. This is the place on his ground-plan for the buttresses of the pile he will rear. There is an unborrowed foundation, there is an internal support for the state in man. For along with that particular and private nature of good, there is another in all men;—there is another motive, which respects and beholds the good of society, not mediately, but directly as its end,—which embraces in its intention 'the form of human nature, whereof we are members and portions, and not—not—our own proper, individual form'; and this is the good 'which is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tends to the conservation and advancement of a more general form.' And this, also, is an actual force in man, proceeding from the universal nature of things and original in that, not in him. This, also, is in the primeval creative stamp of things; and here, also, the science of the interpretation of nature finds in the constitution of man, and in the nature of things, the foundations of the true state ready to its hand; and hewn, all hewn and cut, and joined with nature's own true and cunning hand ere man was, the everlasting pillars of the common-weal.

But in man this law, also,—this law chiefly,—has its special, essentially special, development. 'It is much more impressed on man, if he de-generate not.' Great buildings have been reared on this foundation already; great buildings, old and time-honoured, stand on it. The history of human nature is glorious, even in its degeneracy, with the exhibition of this larger, nobler form of humanity asserting itself, triumphing over the intensities of the narrower motivity. It is a species in which the organic law transcends the individual, and embraces the kind; it is a constitution of nature, in which those who seek the good of the kind, and subordinate the private nature to that, are noble, and chief. It is a species in which the law of the common-weal is for ever present to the private nature, as the law of its own being, requiring, under the pains and penalties of the universal laws of being, subjection.

Science cannot originate new forces in nature. 'Man, while operating, can only apply or withdraw natural forces. Nature, internally, performs the rest.' But here are the very forces that we want. If man were, indeed, naturally and constitutionally, that mere species of 'vermin' which, under certain modes of culture, with great facility he becomes, there would be no use in spending words upon this subject. Science could not undertake the common-weal in that case. If nature's word had been here dissolution, isolation, single intention in the parts and members of that body that science sought to frame, what word of creative art could she pronounce, what bonds of life could she find, what breath of God could she boast, that she should think to frame of such material the body politic, the organic whole, the living, free, harmonious, triumphant common-weal.