But this great innovator is busying himself here with drawing up a report of THE DEFICIENCIES IN LEARNING; and though he is the first to propose a plan and method by which men shall build up, systematically and scientifically, a knowledge of Nature in general, instead of throwing themselves altogether upon their own preconceptions and abstract controversial theories, after all, the principal deficiency which he has to mark—that to which, even in this dry report, he finds himself constrained to affix some notes of admiration—this principal deficiency is THE SCIENCE OF MAN—THE SCIENCE of human nature itself. And the reason of this deficiency is, that very deficiency before named; it is that very act of shutting himself up to his own theories which leaves the thinker without a science of himself. 'For it is the greatest proof of want of skill, to investigate the nature of any object in itself alone; and, in general, those very things which are considered as secret, are manifested and common in other objects, but will never be clearly seen if the contemplations and experiments of men be directed to themselves alone.' It is this science of NATURE IN GENERAL which makes the SCIENCE of Human Nature for the first time possible; and that is the end and term of the new philosophy,—so the inventor of it tells us. And the moment that he comes in with that new torch, which he has been out into 'the continent of nature' to light,—the moment that he comes back with it, into this old debateable ground of the schools, and begins to apply it to that element in the human life in which the scientific innovation appears to be chiefly demanded, 'most of the controversies,' as he tells us very simply—'most of the controversies, wherein moral philosophy is conversant, are judged and determined by it.'
But here is the bold and startling criticism with which he commences his approach to this subject; here is the ground which he makes at the first step; this is the ground of his scientific innovation; not less important than this, is the field which he finds unoccupied. In the handling of this science he says, (the science of 'the Appetite and Will of Man'), 'those which have written seem to me to have done as if a man that professed to teach to write did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand, or the framing of the letters; so have they made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them, well described, as the true objects and scopes of man's will and designs; but how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably; for it is not,' he says, 'certain scattered glances and touches that can excuse the absence of this part of—SCIENCE.
'The reason of this omission,' he supposes, 'to be that hidden rock, whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast away, which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof, nevertheless, is the wisest doctrine; for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties, but, contrariwise, they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses.' But his theory of teaching is, that 'Doctrine should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher; being directed to the auditor's benefit, and not to the author's commendation.' Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune which the poet Virgil promised himself, and, indeed, obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations of husbandry as of the heroical acts of Æneas.
'Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorum.' Georg. iii. 289.
So, then, there is room for a new Virgil, but his theme is here;—one who need not despair, if he be able to bring to his subject those excellent parts this author speaks of, of getting as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations of this husbandry, as those have had who have sketched the ideal forms of the human life, the dream of what should be. The copies and exemplars of good,—that vision of heaven,—that idea of felicity, and beauty, and goodness that the human soul brings with it, like a memory,—those celestial shapes that the thought and heart of man, by a law in nature, project,—that garden of delights that all men remember, and yearn for, and aspire to, and will have, in one form or another, in delicate air patterns, or gross deceiving images,—that large, intense, ideal good which men desire—that perfection and felicity, so far above the rude mocking realities which experience brings them,—that, that has had its poets. No lack of these exemplars the historian finds, when he comes to make out his report of the condition of his kind—where he comes to bring in his inventory of the human estate: when so much is wanting, that good he reports 'not deficient.' Edens in plenty,—gods, and demi-gods, and heroes, not wanting; the purest abstract notions of virtue and felicity, the most poetic embodiments of them, are put down among the goods which the human estate, as it is, comprehends. This part of the subject appears, to the critical reviewer, to have been exhausted by the poets and artists that mankind has always employed to supply its wants in this field. No room for a poet here! The draught of the ideal Eden is finished;—the divine exemplar is finished; that which is wanting is,—the husbandry thereunto.
Till now, the philosophers and poetic teachers had always taken their stand at once, on the topmost peak of Olympus, pouring down volleys of scorn, and amazement, and reprehension, upon the vulgar nature they saw beneath, made out of the dust of the ground, and qualified with the essential attributes of that material,—kindled, indeed, with a breath of heaven, but made out of clay,—different kinds of clay,—with more or less of the Promethean spark in it; but always clay, of one kind or another, and always compelled to listen to the laws that are common to the kinds of that substance. And it was to this creature, thus bound by nature, thus doubly bound,—'crawling between earth and heaven,' as the poet has it,—that these winged philosophers on the ideal cliffs, thought it enough to issue their mandates, commanding it to renounce its conditions, to ignore its laws, and come up thither at a word,—at a leap,—making no ado about it.
'I can call spirits from the vasty deep.'
'And so can I, and so can any man;'
Says the new philosopher—
'But will they come? Will they come—when you do call for them?'
It was simply a command, that this dirty earth should convert itself straight into Elysian lilies, and bloom out, at a word, with roses of Paradise. Excellent patterns, celestial exemplars, of the things required were held up to it; and endless declamation and argument why it should be that, and not the other, were not wanting:—but as to any scientific inquiry into the nature of the thing on which this form was to be superinduced, as to any scientific exhibition of the form itself which was to be superinduced, these so essential conditions of the proposed result, were in this case alike wanting. The position which these reformers occupy, is one so high, that the question of different kinds of soils, and chemical analyses and experiments, would not come within their range at all; and 'the resplendent or lustrous mass of matter,' of which their sciences are compounded, chosen to give glory either to the subtilty of disputations or to the eloquence of discourses, would not bear any such vulgar admixture. It would make a terrible jar in the rhythm, which those large generalizations naturally flow in, to undertake to introduce into them any such points of detail.