In a work on Bacon, it seems to have become a necessity to discuss Bacon's last reviewer, and M. Fischer therefore breaks a lance with Mr. Macaulay. We give some extracts from this chapter (page 358 seq.), which will serve, at the same time, as a specimen of our author's style:—
“Mr. Macaulay pleads unconditionally in favor of practical philosophy, which he designates by the name of Bacon, against all theoretical philosophy. We have two questions to ask: 1. What does Mr. Macaulay mean by the contrast of practical and theoretical philosophy, on which he dwells so constantly? and 2. What has his own practical philosophy in common with that of Bacon?
“Mr. Macaulay decides on the fate of philosophy with a ready formula, which, like many of the same kind, dazzles by means of words which have nothing behind them,—words which become more obscure and empty the nearer we approach them. He says, Philosophy was made for Man, not Man for Philosophy. In the former case it is practical; in the latter, theoretical. Mr. Macaulay embraces the first, and rejects the second. He cannot speak with sufficient praise of the one, nor with sufficient contempt of the other. According to him, the Baconian philosophy is practical; the pre-Baconian, and particularly the ancient philosophy, theoretical. He carries the contrast between the two to the last extreme, and he places it before our eyes, not in its naked form, but veiled in metaphors, and in well-chosen figures of speech, where the imposing and charming image always represents the practical, the repulsive the theoretical, form of philosophy. By this play he carries away the great mass of people, who, like children, always run after images. Practical philosophy is not so much a conviction with him, but it serves him to make a point; whereas theoretical philosophy serves as an easy butt. Thus the contrast between the two acquires a certain dramatic charm. The reader feels moved and excited by the subject before him, and forgets the scientific question. His fancy is caught by a kind of metaphorical [pg 228] imagery, and his understanding surrenders what is due to it.... What is Mr. Macaulay's meaning in rejecting theoretical philosophy, because philosophy is here the object, and man the means; whereas he adopts practical philosophy, because man is here the object, and philosophy the means? What do we gain by such comparisons, as when he says that practical and theoretical philosophy are like works and words, fruits and thorns, a high-road and a treadmill? Such phrases always remind us of the remark of Socrates: They are said indeed, but are they well and truly said? According to the strict meaning of Mr. Macaulay's words, there never was a practical philosophy; for there never was a philosophy which owed its origin to practical considerations only. And there never was a theoretical philosophy, for there never was a philosophy which did not receive its impulse from a human want, that is to say, from a practical motive. This shows where playing with words must always lead. He defines theoretical and practical philosophy in such a manner that his definition is inapplicable to any kind of philosophy. His antithesis is entirely empty. But if we drop the antithesis, and only keep to what it means in sober and intelligible language, it would come to this,—that the value of a theory depends on its usefulness, on its practical influence on human life, on the advantage which we derive from it. Utility alone is to decide on the value of a theory. Be it so. But who is to decide on utility? If all things are useful which serve to satisfy human wants, who is to decide on our wants? We take Mr. Macaulay's own point of view. Philosophy should be practical; it should serve man, satisfy his wants, or help to satisfy them; and if it fails in this, let it be called useless and hollow. But if there are wants in human nature which demand to be satisfied, which make life a burden unless they are satisfied, is that not to be called practical which answers to these wants? And if some of them are of that peculiar nature that they can only be satisfied by knowledge, or by theoretical contemplation, is this knowledge, is this theoretical contemplation, not useful,—useful even in the eyes of the most decided Utilitarian? Might it not happen that what he calls theoretical philosophy seems useless and barren to the Utilitarian, because his ideas of men are too narrow? It is dangerous, and not quite becoming, to lay down the law, and say from the very first, ‘You must not have more than certain wants, and therefore you do not want more than a certain philosophy!’ If we may judge from Mr. [pg 229] Macaulay's illustrations, his ideas of human nature are not very liberal. ‘If we were forced,’ he says, ‘to make our choice between the first shoemaker and Seneca, the author of the books on Anger, we should pronounce for the shoemaker. It may be worse to be angry than to be wet. But shoes have kept millions from being wet; and we doubt whether Seneca ever kept anybody from being angry.’ I should not select Seneca as the representative of theoretical philosophy, still less take those for my allies whom Mr. Macaulay prefers to Seneca, in order to defeat theoretical philosophers. Brennus threw his sword into the scale in order to make it more weighty. Mr. Macaulay prefers the awl. But whatever he may think about Seneca, there is another philosopher more profound than Seneca, but in Mr. Macaulay's eyes likewise an unpractical thinker. And yet in him the power of theory was greater than the powers of nature and the most common wants of man. His meditations alone gave Socrates his serenity when he drank the fatal poison. Is there, among all evils, one greater than the dread of death? And the remedy against this, the worst of all physical evils, is it not practical in the best sense of the word? True, some people might here say, that it would have been more practical if Socrates had fled from his prison, as Criton suggested, and had died an old and decrepit man in Bœotia. But to Socrates it seemed more practical to remain in prison, and to die as the first witness and martyr of the liberty of conscience, and to rise from the sublime height of his theory to the seats of the immortals. Thus it is the want of the individual which decides on the practical value of an act or of a thought, and this want depends on the nature of the human soul. There is a difference between individuals in different ages, and there is a difference in their wants.... As long as the desire after knowledge lives in our hearts, we must, with the purely practical view of satisfying this want, strive after knowledge in all things, even in those which do not contribute towards external comfort, and have no use except that they purify and invigorate the mind.... What is theory in the eyes of Bacon? ‘A temple in the human mind, according to the model of the world.’ What is it in the eyes of Mr. Macaulay? A snug dwelling, according to the wants of practical life. The latter is satisfied if knowledge is carried far enough to enable us to keep ourselves dry. The magnificence of the structure, and its completeness according to the model of the world, is to him useless by-work, superfluous [pg 230] and even dangerous luxury. This is the view of a respectable rate-payer, not of a Bacon. Mr. Macaulay reduces Bacon to his own dimensions, while he endeavors at the same time to exalt him above all other people.... Bacon's own philosophy was, like all philosophy, a theory; it was the theory of the inventive mind. Bacon has not made any great discoveries himself. He was less inventive than Leibnitz, the German metaphysician. If to make discoveries be practical philosophy, Bacon was a mere theorist, and his philosophy nothing but the theory of practical philosophy.... How far the spirit of theory reached in Bacon may be seen in his own works. He did not want to fetter theory, but to renew and to extend it to the very ends of the universe. His practical standard was not the comfort of the individual, but human happiness, which involves theoretical knowledge.... That Bacon is not the Bacon of Mr. Macaulay. What Bacon wanted was new, and it will be eternal. What Mr. Macaulay and many people at the present day want, in the name of Bacon, is not new, but novel. New is what opposes the old, and serves as a model for the future. Novel is what flatters our times, gains sympathies, and dies away.... And history has pronounced her final verdict. It is the last negative instance which we oppose to Mr. Macaulay's assertion. Bacon's philosophy has not been the end of all theories, but the beginning of new theories,—theories which flowed necessarily from Bacon's philosophy, and not one of which was practical in Mr. Macaulay's sense. Hobbes was the pupil of Bacon. His ideal of a State is opposed to that of Plato on all points. But one point it shares in common,—it is as unpractical a theory as that of Plato. Mr. Macaulay, however, calls Hobbes the most acute and vigorous spirit. If, then, Hobbes was a practical philosopher, what becomes of Macaulay's politics? And if Hobbes was not a practical philosopher, what becomes of Mr. Macaulay's philosophy, which does homage to the theories of Hobbes?”
We have somewhat abridged M. Fischer's argument, for, though he writes well and intelligibly, he wants condensation; and we do not think that his argument has been weakened by being shortened. What he has extended into a volume of nearly five hundred pages, might have been reduced to a pithy essay of [pg 231] one or two hundred, without sacrificing one essential fact, or injuring the strength of any one of his arguments. The art of writing in our times is the art of condensing; and those who cannot condense write only for readers who have more time at their disposal than they know what to do with.
Let us ask one question in conclusion. Why do all German writers change the thoroughly Teutonic name of Bacon into Baco? It is bad enough that we should speak of Plato; but this cannot be helped. But unless we protest against Baco, gen. Baconis, we shall soon be treated to Newto, Newtonis, or even to Kans, Kantis.
1857.
XII. A GERMAN TRAVELLER IN ENGLAND.[36]
A. D. 1598.