'Let us begin from God,' he says, when he begins to open his ground of hope, after he has exposed the wretched condition of men as he finds them, without any scientific knowledge of the laws and institutes of the universe they inhabit, engaged in a perpetual and mad collision with them; 'Let us begin from God, and show that our pursuit, from its exceeding goodness, clearly proceeds from Him, the Author of GOOD and Father of LIGHT. Now, in all divine works, the smallest beginnings lead assuredly to some results; and the rule in spiritual matters, that the Kingdom of God cometh without observation, is also found to be true in every great work of PROVIDENCE, so that everything glides in quietly, without confusion or noise; and the matter is achieved before men even think of perceiving that it is commenced.' 'Men,' he tells us, 'men should imitate Nature, who innovateth greatly but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived,' who will not dispense with the old form till the new one is finished and in its place.
What is that we want to find? We want to find the new method of scientific inquiry applied to the questions in which men are most deeply interested—questions which were then imperiously and instantly urged on the thoughtful mind. We want to see it applied to POLITICS in the reign of James the First. We want to see it applied to the open questions of another department of inquiry,—certainly not any less important,—in that reign, and in the reign which preceded it. We want to see the facts sifted through those scientific tables of review, from which the true form of SOVEREIGNTY, the legitimate sovereignty, is to be inducted, and the scientific axioms of government with it. We want to see the science of observation and experiment, the science of nature in general, applied to the cure of the common-weal in the reign of James the First, and to that particular crisis in its disease, in which it appeared to the observers to be at its last gasp; and that, too, by the principal doctors in that profession,—men of the very largest experience in it, who felt obliged to pursue their work conscientiously, whether the patient objected or not. But are there any such books as these? Certainly. You have the author's own word for it. 'Some may raise this question,' he says, 'this question rather than objection'—[it is better that it should come in the form of a question, than in the form of an objection, as it would have come, if there had been no room to 'raise the question']—'whether we talk of perfecting natural philosophy' [using the term here in its usual limited sense], 'whether we talk of perfecting natural philosophy alone, according to our method, or, the other sciences—such as, ETHICS, LOGIC, POLITICS.' That is the question 'raised.' 'We certainly intend to comprehend them ALL.' That is the author's answer to it. 'And as common logic which regulates matters by syllogism, is applied, not only to natural, but to every other science, so our inductive method likewise comprehends them ALL.' With such iteration will he think fit to give us this point. It is put in here for those 'who raise the question'—the question 'rather than objection.' The other sort are taken care of in other places. 'For,' he continues, 'we form a history and tables of invention, for anger, fear, shame, and the like; and also for examples in civil life' [that was to be the principal part of the science when he laid out the plan of it in the advancement of learning] 'and the mental operations of memory, composition, division, judgment, and the rest; as well as for heat and cold, light and vegetation, and the like.' That is the plan of the new science, as the author sketches it for the benefit of those who raise questions rather than objections. That is its comprehension precisely, whenever he undertakes to mark out its limits for the satisfaction of this class of readers. But this is that same FOURTH PART to which he refers us in the other places for the application of his method to those nobler subjects, those more chosen subjects; and that is just the part of his science which appears to be wanting. How happens it? Did he get so occupied with the question of heat and cold, light and vegetation, and the like, that after all he forgot this part with its nobler applications? How could that be, when he tells us expressly, that they are the more chosen subjects of his inquiry. This part which he speaks of here, is the missing part of his philosophy, unquestionably. These are the books of it which have been missing hitherto; but in that Providential order of events to which he refers himself, the time has come for them to be inquired for; and this inquiry is itself a part of that movement, in which the smallest beginnings lead assuredly to some result. For, 'let us begin from God,' he says, 'and show that our pursuit, from its exceeding goodness, clearly proceeds from Him, the Author of GOOD, and not of misery; the Father of LIGHT, and not of darkness.'
Of course, it was impossible to get out any scientific doctrine of the human society, without coming at once in collision with that doctrine of the divinity of arbitrary power which the monarchs of England were then openly sustaining. Who needs to be told, that he who would handle that argument scientifically, then, without military weapons, as this inquirer would, must indeed 'pray in aid of similes.' And yet a very searching and critical inquiry into the claims of that institution, which the new philosophy found in possession of the human welfare, and asserting a divine right to it as a thing of private property and legitimate family inheritance,—such a criticism was, in fact, inevitably involved in that inquiry into the principles of a human subjection which appeared to this philosopher to belong properly to the more chosen subjects of a scientific investigation.
And notwithstanding the delicacy of the subjects, and the extremely critical nature of the investigation, when it came to touch those particulars, with which the personal observations and experiments of the founders of this new school in philosophy had tended to enrich their collections in this department,—'and the aim is better,' says the principal spokesman of this school, who quietly proposes to introduce this method into politics, 'the aim is better when the mark is alive;' notwithstanding the difficulties which appeared to lie then in the way of such an investigation, the means of conducting it to the entire satisfaction, and, indeed, to the large entertainment of the persons chiefly concerned, were not wanting. For this was one of those 'secrets of policy,' which have always required the aid of fable, and the idea of dramatising the fable for the sake of reaching in some sort those who are incapable of receiving any thing 'which does not directly fall under, and strike the senses,' as the philosopher has it; those who are capable of nothing but 'dumb shows and noise,' as Hamlet has it; this idea, though certainly a very happy, was not with these men an original one. Men, whose relations to the state were not so different as the difference in the forms of government would perhaps lead us to suppose,—men of the gravest learning and enriched with the choicest accomplishments of their time, had adopted that same method of influencing public opinion, some two thousand years earlier, and even as long before as that, there were 'secrets of morality and policy,' to which this form of writing appeared to offer the most fitting veil.
Whether 'the new' philosopher,—whether 'the new magician' of this time, was, in fact, in possession of any art which enabled him to handle without diffidence or scruple the great political question which was then already the question of the time; whether 'THE CROWN'—that double crown of military conquest and priestly usurpation, which was the one estate of the realm at that crisis in English history, did, among other things in some way, come under the edges of that new analysis which was severing all here then, and get divided clearly with 'the mind, that divine fire,'—whether any such thing as that occurred here then, the reader of the following pages will be able to judge. The careful reader of the extracts they contain, taken from a work of practical philosophy which made its appearance about those days, will certainly have no difficulty at all in deciding that question. For, first of all, it is necessary to find that political key to the Elizabethan art of delivery, which unlocks the great works of the Elizabethan philosophy, and that is the necessity which determines the selection of the Plays that are produced in this volume. They are brought in to illustrate the fact already stated, and already demonstrated, the fact which is the subject of this volume, the fact that the new practical philosophy of the modern ages, which has its beginning here, was not limited, in the plan of its founders, to 'natural philosophy' and 'the part operative' of that,—the fact that it comprehended, as its principal department, the department in which its 'noblest subjects' lay, and in which its most vital innovations were included, a field of enquiry which could not then be entered without the aid of fable and parable, and one which required not then only, 'but now, and at all times,' the aid of a vivid poetic illustration; they are brought in to illustrate the fact already demonstrated from other sources, the fact that the new philosophy was the work of men able to fulfil their work under such conditions, able to work, if not for the times that were nearer, for the times that were further off; men who thought it little so they could fulfil and perfect their work and make their account of it to the Work-master, to robe another with their glory; men who could relinquish the noblest works of the human genius, that they might save them from the mortal stabs of an age of darkness, that they might make them over unharmed in their boundless freedom, in their unstained perfection, to the farthest ages of the advancement of learning,—that they might 'teach them how to live and look fresh' still,
'When tyrants' crests, and tombs of brass are spent.'
That is the one fact, the indestructible fact, which this book is to demonstrate.
PART I.
LEAR'S PHILOSOPHER
'Thou'dst shun a bear;
But if thy way lay towards the raging sea,
Thou'dst meet the bear i' the mouth.'