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CHAPTER II.

THE SCIENCE OF POLICY.

'Policy is the most immersed.'-Advancement of Learning.

EVERSING the philosophic order, we glance first into that new department of science which the author is here boldly undertaking to constitute under the above name, because in this his own practical designs, and rules of proceeding, are more clearly laid open, and the place which is assigned in his system to that radical science, for which these arts of Delivery and Tradition are chiefly wanting, is distinctly pointed out.

And, moreover, in this department of Policy itself, in marking out one of the grand divisions of it, we find him particularly noticing, and openly insisting on, the form of delivery and inculcation which the new science must take here, that is, if it is going to be at all available as a science of practice.

In this so-called plan for the advancement of learning, the author proceeds, as we all know, by noticing the deficiencies in human learning as he finds it; and everywhere it is that radical deficiency, which leaves human life and human conduct in the dark, while the philosophers are busied with their controversies and wordy speculations. And in that part of his inventory where he puts down as wanting a science of practice in those every-day affairs and incidents, in which the life of man is most conversant, embodying axioms of practice that shall save men the wretched mistakes and blunders of which the individual life is so largely made up; blunders which are inevitable, so long as men are left here, to natural human ignorance, to uncollected individual experience, or to the shrewdest empiricism;-in this so original and interesting part of the work, he takes pains to tell us at length,

that that which he has before put down under the head of 'delivery' as a point of form and method, becomes here essential as a point of substance also. It is not merely that he will have his axioms and precepts of direction digested from the facts, instead of being made out of the teacher's own brains, but he will have THE FACTS themselves, in all their stubbornness and opposition to the teacher's preconceptions, for the body of the discourse, and the precepts accommodated thereto, instead of having the precepts for the body of the discourse, and the facts brought in to wait upon them. That is the form of the practical doctrine.

He regrets that this part of a true learning has not been collected hitherto into writing, to the great derogation of learning, and the professors of learning; for from this proceeds the popular opinion which has passed into an adage, that there is no great concurrence between wisdom and learning. The deficiency here is well nigh total he says: 'but for the wisdom of business, wherein man's life is most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of the subject. For if books were written of this, as of the other, I doubt not but learned men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without learning, and outshoot them with their own bow. Neither need it be thought that this knowledge is too variable to fall under precept,' he says; and he mentions the fact, that in old Rome, so renowned for practical ability, in its wisest and saddest times, there were professors of this learning, that were known for GENERAL WISE MEN, who used to walk at certain hours in the place, and give advice to private citizens, who came to consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, for instance, or the employing of a son, or of an accusation, or of a purchase or bargain, and every other occasion incident to man's life. There is a pretty scheme laid out truly. Have we any general wise man, or ghost of one, who walks up and down at certain hours and gives advice on such topics? However that may be, this philosopher does not despair of such a science. science. So,' he says, commenting on that Roman custom, there is a wisdom of council and advice, even in

private cases, arising out of a universal insight into the affairs of the world, which is used indeed upon particular cases propounded, but is gathered by general observation of cases of like nature.' And fortifying himself with the example of Solomon, after collecting a string of texts from the Sacred Proverbs, he adds, though they are capable, of course, of a more divine interpretation, taking them as instructions for life, they might have received large discourse, if he would have broken them and illustrated them, by deducements and examples. Nor was this in use with the Hebrews only, but it is generally to be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times, that as men found out any observation that they thought was good for life, they would gather it, and express it in parable, or aphorism, or fable.

But for fables, they were vicegerents and supplies, where examples failed. Now that the times abound with history, THE AIM IS BETTER WHEN THE MARK IS ALIVE. And, therefore, he recommends as the form of writing, 'which is of all others fittest for this variable argument, discourses upon histories and examples: for knowledge drawn freshly, and in our view, out of particulars, knoweth the way best to particulars again; and it hath much greater life for practice, when the discourse attendeth upon the example, than when the example attendeth upon the discourse. For this is no point of order as it seemeth at first' (indeed it is not, it is a point as substantial as the difference between the old learning of the world and the new)—'this is no point of order, but of substance. For when the example is the ground being set down in a history at large, it is set down with all circumstances, which may sometimes control the discourse thereupon made, and sometimes supply it as a very pattern for action; whereas the examples which are alleged for the discourse's sake, are cited succinctly and without particularity, and carry a servile aspect towards the discourse which they are brought in to make good.'

The question of method is here, as we see, incidentally introduced; but it is to be noted, and it makes one of the rules for the interpretation of that particular kind of style which is under consideration, that in this casual and secondary intro

duction of a subject, we often get shrewder hints of the author's real intention than we do in those parts of the work where it is openly and distinctly treated; at least, these scattered and apparently accidental hints, these dispersed directions, often contain the key for the 'second' reading, which he openly bespeaks for the more open and elaborate discussion.

And thus we are able to collect, from every part of this proposal for a practical and progressive human learning, based on the defects of the unpractical and stationary learning which the world has hitherto been contented with, the author's opinion as to the form of delivery and inculcation best adapted to effect the proposed object under the given conditions. This question of form runs naturally through the whole work, and comes out in specifications of a very particular and significant kind under some of its divisions, as we shall see. But everywhere we find the point insisted on, which we have just seen so clearly brought out, in the department which was to contain the axioms of success in private life. Whatever the particular form may be, everywhere we come upon this general rule. Whatever the particular form may be, everywhere it is to be one in which the facts shall have the precedence, and the conclusions shall follow; and not one in which the conclusions stand first, and the facts are brought in to make them good. And this very circumstance is enough of itself to show that the form of this new doctrine will be thus far new, as new as the doctrine itself; that the new learning will be found in some form very different, at least, from that which the philosophers and professed teachers were then making use of in their didactic discourses, in some form so much more lively than that, and so much less oracular, that it would, perhaps, appear at first, to those accustomed only to the other, not to be any kind of learning at all, but something very different from that.

But this is not the only point in the general doctrine of delivery which we find produced again in its specific applications. Through all the divisions of this discourse on Learning, and not in that part of it only in which the Art of its Tradition is openly treated, we find that the prescribed form of it is one which will adapt it to the popular preconceptions;

and that it must be a form which will make it not only universally acceptable, but universally attractive; that it is not only a form which will throw open the gates of the new school to all comers, but one that will bring in mankind to its benches. Not under the head of Method only, or under the head of Delivery and Tradition, but in those parts of the work in which the substance of the new learning is treated, we find dispersed intimations and positive assertions, that the form of it is, at the same time, popular and enigmatical,- not openly philosophical, and not 'magisterial,' — but insensibly didactic; and that it is, in its principal and higher departments—in those departments on which this plan for the human relief concentrates its forces-essentially POETICAL. That is what we find in the body of the work; and the author repeats in detail what he has before made a point of telling us, in general, under this head of Delivery and Tradition of knowledge, that he sees no reason why that same instrument, which is so powerful for delusion and error, should not be restored to its true uses as an instrument of the human advancement, and a vehicle, though a veiled one-a beautiful and universallywelcome vehicle for bringing in on this Globe Theatre the knowledges that men are most in need of.

The doctrine which is to be conveyed in this so subtle and artistic manner is none other than the Doctrine of Human Nature and Human Life, or, as this author describes it here, the Scientific Doctrine of MORALITY and POLICY. It is that new doctrine of human nature and human life which the science of nature in general creates. It is the light which universal science, collected from the continent of nature, gives to that insular portion of it which is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man.' Under these heads of Morality and Policy, the whole subject is treated here. But to return to the latter.

The question of Civil Government is, in the light of this science, a very difficult one; and this philosopher, like the one we have already quoted on this subject, is disposed to look with much suspicion on propositions for violent and sudden renovations in the state, and immediate abolitions and cures of social