And how (the rule all things obey)
They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!"
Remains of A. H. Hallam, privately printed.
[aq] The difference between brute and Man appeared so vast to Bacon that, following Telesius in this as in some other respects, he adopted as a doctrine the duality of the human soul. He maintains it at length in the De Augmentis iv. 3, a chapter which begins thus:—"Let us now proceed to the doctrine which concerns the Human Soul, from the treasures whereof all other doctrines are derived. The parts thereof are two; the one treats of the rational soul, which is divine; the other of the irrational, which is common with brutes.... Now this soul (as it exists in man) is only the instrument of the rational soul, and has its origin like that of the brutes in the dust of the earth.... For there are many and great excellencies of the human soul above the souls of brutes, manifest even to those who philosophise according to the sense. Now wherever the mark of so many and great excellencies is found, there also a specific difference ought to be constituted; and therefore I do not much like the confused and promiscuous manner in which philosophers have handled the functions of the soul; as if the human soul differed from the spirit of brutes in degree rather than in kind; as the sun differs from the stars, or gold from metals."
[190] We have it on Coleridge's authority that "Lord Erskine, speaking of animals, hesitating to call them brutes, hit upon that happy phrase—'the mute creation.'" Would this were true! exclaims some invalid, nervously agonized by cats and dogs, cocks and hens, and listening with horror to their various cries and noises. But strictly speaking Lord Erskine was right,—for the animal world is mute as far as real language is concerned. Compare Max Müller on the "Bow-wow Theory." Lectures on Language, Series I. Lecture ix.
[191] The Poet's thought, not more imaginative than true, should be kept in mind when estimating the difference between gregariousness and society. If the latter be held a development of the former, it must have been transformed in the progress of its descent. Where affinities are really traceable between the human and the unreasoning world, they may perhaps be referred with greater probability to a common ancestry than to a lineal pedigree. And the more remote the alleged origin, the less unlikely it may appear.
[192] "Sir Humphrey Davy, when a boy, was placed under a schoolmaster who neglected his duties, and adverting to this subject in a letter addressed to his mother after he was settled in London, he says, 'I consider it as fortunate that I was left much to myself as a child, and put on no particular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness at Mr. Coryton's school. I, perhaps, owe to these circumstances the little talents I have, and their peculiar application. What I am I made myself. I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.'" Brodie's Psychological Inquiries, I. 29.
"The regular course of studies, the years of academical and professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School. What we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so. We form no guess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative value. And education often wastes its efforts in attempts to thwart and balk this natural magnetism, which is sure to select what belongs to it." Emerson. Spiritual Laws.
[ar] "We can command Nature only by obeying her; nor can Art avail anything except as Nature's handmaiden. We can affect the conditions under which Nature works; but things artificial as well as things natural are in reality produced Not by Art but Nature. Our power is merely based upon our knowledge of the procedure which Nature follows. She is never really thwarted or controlled by our operations, though she may be induced to depart from her usual course, and under new and artificial conditions to produce new phenomena and new substances.
"Natural philosophy, considered from this point of view, is therefore only an answer to the question, How does Nature work in the production of phenomena?" R. L. Ellis. Preface to Bacon's Philosophical Works, Vol. I. p. 59.