The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Salter Bacon

It is not the material of this regimen of growth and advancement, it is not the Materia Medica that is wanting,—it is the science of it. It is the natural history of these forces, with the precepts scientifically concluded on them, that is wanting. The appliances are here; the scientific application of them remains to be made, and until these have been tried, it is too early to pronounce on the case; until these have been tried, just as other precepts of the new science have been, it is too soon to say that that science of nature,—that knowledge of laws—that foreknowledge of effects, which operates so remedially in all other departments of the human life, is without application, is of no efficiency here; until these have been tried it is too soon to say that the science of nature is not what the man who brought it in on this Globe theatre declared it to be, the handmaid of Divinity, the intelligent handmaid and minister of religion, to whose discretion in the economy of Providence, much, much has evidently been left.

And it was no assumption in this man to claim, as he did claim, a divine and providential authority for this procedure. And those who intelligently fulfil their parts in this great enterprise for man's relief, and the Creator's glory, have just as clear a right to say, as those of old who fulfilled with such means and lights, and inspirations as their time gave them, their part in the plan of the human advancement, 'it is God who worketh in us.'

'Now come we to those points which are within our command, and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite, and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled CUSTOM, EXERCISE, HABIT, EDUCATION, EXAMPLE, IMITATION, EMULATION, COMPANY, FRIENDS, PRAISE, REPROOF, EXHORTATION, FAME, LAWS, BOOKS, STUDIES: these, as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind SUFFERETH; and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine; of which number we will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it were too long to prosecute all.' But the careful reader perceives in that which follows, that the treatment of this so vital subject, though all that the author has to say upon it here, is condensed into these brief paragraphs, is not by any means so miscellaneous, as this introduction and 'the first cogitation' on it, might, perhaps, have prepared him to find it.

To be permitted to handle these forces openly, in the form of literary report, and recommendation, would, no doubt, have seemed to this inventor of sciences, in his day no small privilege. But there was another kind of experiment in them which he aspired to. He wished to take these forces in hand more directly, and compound recipes, with them, and other 'regiments' and cures. For by nature and carefullest study he was a Doctor in this degree and kind—and a man thus fitted, inevitably seeks his sphere. Very unlearned in this science of human nature which he has left us,—much wanting in analysis must he be, who can find in the persistent determination of such a man to possess himself of places of trust and authority, only the vulgar desire for courtly distinction, and eagerness for the paraphernalia of office. This man was not wanting in any of the common natural sentiments; the private and particular nature was large in him, and that good to which he gives the preference in his comparison of those exclusive aims and enjoyments, is 'the good which is active, and not that which is passive'; both as it tends to secure that individual perpetuity which is the especial craving of men thus specially endowed, and on account of 'that affection for variety and proceeding' which is also common to men, and specially developed in such men,—an affection which the goods of the passive nature are not able to satisfy. 'But in enterprises, pursuits and purposes of life, there is much variety whereof men are sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils, re-integration, approaches and attainings to their ends.' And he gives us a long insight into his own particular nature and history in that sentence. He is careful to distinguish this kind of good from the good of society, 'though in some cases it hath an incident to it. For that gigantine state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla, and infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy, as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world according to their own humours, which is the true theomachy, pretendeth and aspireth to active good though it recedeth farthest from that good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.'

In no troubler or benefactor of the world, on the largest scale, in no theomachist of any age, whether intelligent and benevolent, or demoniacal and evil, had this nature which he here defines so clearly, ever been more largely incorporated, or more effectively armed. But in him this tendency to personal aggrandisement was overlooked, and subordinated by the larger nature,—by the intelligence which includes the whole, and is able to weigh the part with it, and by the sentiments which enforce or anticipate intelligent decision.

Both these facts must be taken into the account, if we would read his history fairly. For he composed for himself a plan of living, in which this naturally intense desire for an individual perpetuity and renown, and this love of action and enterprise for its own sake, was sternly subordinated to the noblest ends of living, to the largest good of his kind, to the divine and eternal law of duty, to the relief of man's estate and the Creator's glory. And without making any claim on his behalf, which it would be unworthy to make for one to whom the truth was dearer than the opinions of men; it may be asserted, that whatever errors of judgment or passion, we may find, or think we find in him, these ends were with him predominant, and shaped his course.

He was not naturally a man of letters, but a man of action, intensely impelled to action, and it was because he was forbidden to fulfil his enterprise in person, because he had to write letters of direction to those to whom he was compelled to entrust it, because he had to write letters to the future, and leave himself and his will in letters, that letters became, in his hands, practical. He, too, knew what it was to be compelled 'to unpack his heart in words' when deeds should have expressed it.

But even words are forbidden him here. After all the pains he has taken to show us what the deficiency is which he is reporting here, and what the art and science which he is proposing, he can only put down a few paragraphs on the subject, casually, as it were, in passing. Of all these forces which have operation on the mind, and with which scientific appliances for the human mind should be compounded, he can only 'insist upon some one or two as an example of the rest.'

That was all that a writer, who was at the same time a public man, could venture on,—a writer who had once been under violent political suspicion, and was still eagerly watched, and especially by one class of public functionaries, who seemed to feel, that with all his deference to their claims, there was something there not quite friendly to them, this was all that he could undertake to insist upon 'in that place.' But a writer who had the advantage of being already defunct—a writer whose estate on the earth was then already done, and who was in no kind of danger of losing either his head or his place, could of course manage this part of the subject differently. He would not find it too long to prosecute all, perhaps. And if he had at the same time the advantage of a foreign name and seignorie, he could come out in England at this very crisis with the freest exhibitions of the points which are here only indicated. He could even put them down openly in his table of contents, every one of them, and make them the titles of his chapters.

There was a work published in England, in that age, in which these forces, of which only the catalogue is inserted here, these forces which are in our power, which we can alter, forces from which the mind suffereth, which have operation upon the mind to affect the will and appetite, are directly dealt with in the most subtle and artistic manner, in the form of literary essay; and in the bolder chapters, the author's observations and criticisms are clearly put down; his scientific suggestions of alterations and new compounds, his scientific doctrine of careful alterations, his scientific doctrine of surgery, and adaptation of regimen, and cure to different ages, and differing social conditions, are all promiscuously filed in, and the English public swallows it without any difficulty at all, and perceives nothing disagreeable or dangerous in it.