The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Salter Bacon

And the new teacher will have a mountain too; but it will be one that 'overlooks the vale,' and he will have a rock-cut-stair to its utmost summit. He is one who will undertake this despised unlustrous matter of which our ordinary human life consists, and make a science of it, building up its generalizations from its particulars, and observing the actual reality,—the thing as it is, freshly, for that purpose; and not omitting any detail,—the poorest. The poets who had undertaken this theme before had been so absorbed with the idea of what man should be, that they could only glance at him as he is: the idea of a science of him, was not of course, to be thought of. There was but one name for the creature, indeed, in their vocabulary and doctrine, and that was one which simply seized and embodied the general fact, the unquestionable historic fact, that he has not been able hitherto to attain to his ideal type in nature, or indeed to make any satisfactory approximation to it.

But when the Committee of Inquiry sits at last, and the business begins to assume a systematic form, even the science of that ideal good, that exemplar and pattern of good, which men have been busy on so long,—the science of it,—is put down as 'wanting,' and the science of the husbandry thereunto, 'wholly deficient.'

And the report is, that this new argument, notwithstanding its every-day theme, is one that admits of being sung also; and that the Virgil who is able to compose 'these Georgies of the Mind,' may promise himself fame, though his end is one that will enable him to forego it. Let us see if we can find any further track of him and his great argument, whether in prose or verse;—this poet who cares not whether he has his 'singing robes' about him or not, so he can express and put upon record his new 'observations of this husbandry.'

THE EXEMPLAR OF GOOD.—'And surely,' he continues, 'if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure that which men may read at leisure'—note it—that which men may read at leisure—'but really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these GEORGICS of the MIND, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity; therefore the main and primitive division of MORAL KNOWLEDGE, seemeth to be into the EXEMPLAR or PLATFORM of GOOD, and THE REGIMEN or CULTURE OF THE MIND, the one describing the NATURE of GOOD, the other prescribing RULES how to SUBDUE, APPLY, and ACCOMMODATE THE WILL OF MAN THEREUNTO.'

As to 'the nature of good, positive or simple,' the writers on this subject have, he says, 'set it down excellently, in describing the forms of virtue and duty, with their situations, and postures, in distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like: nay, farther, they have commended them to man's nature and spirit, with great quickness of argument, and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them, as much as discourse can do, against corrupt and popular opinions. And for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have excellently handled it also.'—That part deserveth to be reported for 'excellently laboured.'

What is it that is wanting then? What radical, fatal defect is it that he finds even in the doctrine of the NATURE OF GOOD? What is the difficulty with this platform and exemplar of good as he finds it, notwithstanding the praise he has bestowed on it? The difficulty is, that it is not scientific. It is not broad enough. It is special, it is limited to the species, but it is not properly, it is not effectively, specific, because it is not connected with the doctrine of nature in general. It does not strike to those universal original principles, those simple powers which determine the actual historic laws and make the nature of things itself. This is the criticism, therefore, with which this critic of the learning of the world as he finds it, is constrained to qualify that commendation.

Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received notions of 'vice' and 'virtue,' 'pleasure' and 'pain,' and the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning THE ROOTS of GOOD and EVIL, and the strings to those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that which followed, and especially if they had consulted with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound, which being by them in part omitted, and in part handled with much confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner. Here then, is the preparation of the Platform or Exemplar of Good, the scientific platform of virtue and felicity; going behind the popular notion of vice and virtue, pain and pleasure, and the like, he strikes at once to the nature of good, as it is 'formed in everything,' for the foundation of this specific science. He lays the beams of it, in the axioms and definitions of his 'prima philosophia' 'which do not fall within the compass of the special parts of science, but are more common and of a higher stage, for the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree that meet in a stem which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance before it comes to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs,' and it is not the narrow and specific observation on which the popular notions are framed, but the scientific, which is needed for the New Ethics,—the new knowledge, which here too, is POWER. He must detect and recognise here also, he must track even into the nature of man, those universal 'footsteps' which are but 'the same footsteps of nature treading or printing in different substances.' 'There is formed in everything a double nature of good, the one as everything is a total or substantive in itself, and the other, as it is a part or member of a greater body whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general form…. This double nature of good, and the comparison thereof, is much more engraven upon MAN, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and being;' and, by way of illustration, he mentions first the case of Pompey the Great, 'who being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency by his friends, that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, "Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam."' But, he adds, 'it may be truly affirmed, that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as the holy faith, well declaring that it was the same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves anathematised, and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity, and infinite feeling of communion.'

And having first made good his assertion, that this being set down, and strongly planted, determines most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant, he proceeds to develop still further these scientific notions of good and evil, which he has gone below the popular notions and into the nature of things to find, these scientific notions, which, because they are scientific, he has still to go out of the specific nature to define; and when he comes to nail down his scientific platform of the human good with them, when he comes to strike their clear and simple lines, deep as the universal constitution of things, through the popular terms, and clear up the old confused theories with them, we find that what he said of them beforehand was true; they do indeed throw great light upon that which follows.

To that exclusive, incommunicative good which inheres in the private and particular nature,—and he does not call it any hard names at all from his scientific platform; indeed in the vocabulary of the Naturalist we are told, that these names are omitted, 'for we call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools their folly,'—that exclusive good he finds both passive and active, and this also is one of those primary distinctions which 'is formed in all things,' and so too is the subdivision of passive good which follows. 'For there is impressed upon all things a triple desire, or appetite, proceeding from love to themselves; one, of preserving and continuing their form; another, of advancing and perfecting their form; and a third, of multiplying and extending their form upon other things; whereof the multiplying or signature of it upon other things, is that which we handled by the name of active good.' But passive good includes both conservation and perfection, or advancement, which latter is the highest degree of passive good. For to preserve in state is the less; to preserve with advancement is the greater. As to man, his approach or assumption to DIVINE or ANGELICAL NATURE is the perfection of his form, the error or false imitation of which good is that which is the tempest of human life. So we have heard before; but in the doctrine which we had before, it was the dogma,—the dogma whose inspiration and divinity each soul recognized; to whose utterance each soul responded, as deep calleth unto deep,—it was the Law, the Divine Law, and not the science of it, that was given.

And having deduced 'that good of man which is private and particular, as far as seemeth fit,' he returns 'to that good of man which respects and beholds society,' which he terms DUTY, because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed towards others, as the term of VIRTUE is applied to a mind well formed and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue, without some relation to society, nor duty, without an inward disposition.