No More Learning

Yet neither my
retirement nor my utter abstraction from all the disputes of the day
could secure me in those jealous times from suspicion and obloquy, which
did not stop at me, but extended to my excellent friend, whose perfect
innocence was even adduced as a proof of his guilt. One of the many busy
sycophants of that day,--(I here use the word sycophant in its original
sense, as a wretch who flatters the prevailing party by informing
against his neighbours, under pretence that they are exporters of
prohibited figs or fancies,--for the moral application of the term it
matters not which)--one of these sycophantic law-mongrels, discoursing
on the politics of the neighbourhood, uttered the following deep
remark: "As to Coleridge, there is not so much harm in him, for he is a
whirl-brain that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that ------! he is
the dark traitor. You never hear HIM say a syllable on the subject. "

Now that the hand of Providence has disciplined all Europe into
sobriety, as men tame wild elephants, by alternate blows and caresses;
now that Englishmen of all classes are restored to their old English
notions and feelings; it will with difficulty be credited, how great an
influence was at that time possessed and exerted by the spirit of secret
defamation,--(the too constant attendant on party-zeal)--during
the restless interim from 1793 to the commencement of the Addington
administration, or the year before the truce of Amiens. For by the
latter period the minds of the partizans, exhausted by excess of
stimulation and humbled by mutual disappointment, had become languid.
The same causes, that inclined the nation to peace, disposed the
individuals to reconciliation. Both parties had found themselves in
the wrong. The one had confessedly mistaken the moral character of
the revolution, and the other had miscalculated both its moral and
its physical resources. The experiment was made at the price of great,
almost, we may say, of humiliating sacrifices; and wise men foresaw that
it would fail, at least in its direct and ostensible object. Yet it
was purchased cheaply, and realized an object of equal value, and,
if possible, of still more vital importance. For it brought about
a national unanimity unexampled in our history since the reign of
Elizabeth; and Providence, never wanting to a good work when men have
done their parts, soon provided a common focus in the cause of Spain,
which made us all once more Englishmen by at once gratifying and
correcting the predilections of both parties. The sincere reverers of
the throne felt the cause of loyalty ennobled by its alliance with that
of freedom; while the honest zealots of the people could not but admit,
that freedom itself assumed a more winning form, humanized by loyalty
and consecrated by religious principle. The youthful enthusiasts who,
flattered by the morning rainbow of the French revolution, had made a
boast of expatriating their hopes and fears, now, disciplined by the
succeeding storms and sobered by increase of years, had been taught
to prize and honour the spirit of nationality as the best safeguard of
national independence, and this again as the absolute pre-requisite and
necessary basis of popular rights.

If in Spain too disappointment has nipped our too forward expectations,
yet all is not destroyed that is checked. The crop was perhaps springing
up too rank in the stalk to kern well; and there were, doubtless,
symptoms of the Gallican blight on it. If superstition and despotism
have been suffered to let in their wolvish sheep to trample and eat it
down even to the surface, yet the roots remain alive, and the
second growth may prove the stronger and healthier for the temporary
interruption. At all events, to us heaven has been just and gracious.
The people of England did their best, and have received their rewards.
Long may we continue to deserve it! Causes, which it had been too
generally the habit of former statesmen to regard as belonging to
another world, are now admitted by all ranks to have been the main
agents of our success. "We fought from heaven; the stars in their
courses fought against Sisera. " If then unanimity grounded on moral
feelings has been among the least equivocal sources of our national
glory, that man deserves the esteem of his countrymen, even as patriots,
who devotes his life and the utmost efforts of his intellect to the
preservation and continuance of that unanimity by the disclosure
and establishment of principles. For by these all opinions must be
ultimately tried; and, (as the feelings of men are worthy of regard only
as far as they are the representatives of their fixed opinions,) on the
knowledge of these all unanimity, not accidental and fleeting, must be
grounded. Let the scholar, who doubts this assertion, refer only to
the speeches and writings of Edmund Burke at the commencement of the
American war and compare them with his speeches and writings at the
commencement of the French revolution. He will find the principles
exactly the same and the deductions the same; but the practical
inferences almost opposite in the one case from those drawn in the
other; yet in both equally legitimate and in both equally confirmed by
the results. Whence gained he the superiority of foresight? Whence arose
the striking difference, and in most instances even, the discrepancy
between the grounds assigned by him and by those who voted with him, on
the same questions? How are we to explain the notorious fact, that
the speeches and writings of Edmund Burke are more interesting at the
present day than they were found at the time of their first publication;
while those of his illustrious confederates are either forgotten, or
exist only to furnish proofs, that the same conclusion, which one man
had deduced scientifically, may be brought out by another in consequence
of errors that luckily chanced to neutralize each other. It would be
unhandsome as a conjecture, even were it not, as it actually is, false
in point of fact to attribute this difference to the deficiency
of talent on the part of Burke's friends, or of experience, or of
historical knowledge. The satisfactory solution is, that Edmund Burke
possessed and had sedulously sharpened that eye, which sees all things,
actions, and events, in relation to the laws that determine their
existence and circumscribe their possibility. He referred habitually
to principles. He was a scientific statesman; and therefore a seer. For
every principle contains in itself the germs of a prophecy; and, as the
prophetic power is the essential privilege of science, so the fulfilment
of its oracles supplies the outward and, (to men in general,) the
only test of its claim to the title. Wearisome as Burke's refinements
appeared to his parliamentary auditors, yet the cultivated classes
throughout Europe have reason to be thankful, that he

------went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining.

Our very sign-boards, (said an illustrious friend to me,) give evidence,
that there has been a Titian in the world. In like manner, not only the
debates in parliament, not only our proclamations and state papers,
but the essays and leading paragraphs of our journals are so many
remembrancers of Edmund Burke. Of this the reader may easily convince
himself, if either by recollection or reference he will compare the
opposition newspapers at the commencement and during the five or six
following years of the French revolution with the sentiments, and
grounds of argument assumed in the same class of journals at present,
and for some years past.

Whether the spirit of jacobinism, which the writings of Burke exorcised
from the higher and from the literary classes, may not, like the ghost
in Hamlet, be heard moving and mining in the underground chambers
with an activity the more dangerous because less noisy, may admit of
a question. I have given my opinions on this point, and the grounds of
them, in my letters to judge Fletcher occasioned by his charge to the
Wexford grand jury, and published in the Courier. Be this as it may, the
evil spirit of jealousy, and with it the Cerberean whelps of feud and
slander, no longer walk their rounds, in cultivated society.

Far different were the days to which these anecdotes have carried me
back. The dark guesses of some zealous Quidnunc met with so congenial a
soil in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neighbourhood, that
a spy was actually sent down from the government pour surveillance of
myself and friend. There must have been not only abundance, but variety
of these "honourable men" at the disposal of Ministers: for this proved
a very honest fellow. After three weeks' truly Indian perseverance in
tracking us, (for we were commonly together,) during all which
time seldom were we out of doors, but he contrived to be within
hearing,--(and all the while utterly unsuspected; how indeed could such
a suspicion enter our fancies? )--he not only rejected Sir Dogberry's
request that he would try yet a little longer, but declared to him his
belief, that both my friend and myself were as good subjects, for aught
he could discover to the contrary, as any in His Majesty's dominions. He
had repeatedly hid himself, he said, for hours together behind a bank at
the sea-side, (our favourite seat,) and overheard our conversation. At
first he fancied, that we were aware of our danger; for he often heard
me talk of one Spy Nozy, which he was inclined to interpret of himself,
and of a remarkable feature belonging to him; but he was speedily
convinced that it was the name of a man who had made a book and lived
long ago. Our talk ran most upon books, and we were perpetually desiring
each other to look at this, and to listen to that; but he could not
catch a word about politics. Once he had joined me on the road; (this
occurred, as I was returning home alone from my friend's house, which
was about three miles from my own cottage,) and, passing himself off
as a traveller, he had entered into conversation with me, and talked
of purpose in a democrat way in order to draw me out. The result, it
appears, not only convinced him that I was no friend of jacobinism; but,
(he added,) I had "plainly made it out to be such a silly as well as
wicked thing, that he felt ashamed though he had only put it on. " I
distinctly remembered the occurrence, and had mentioned it immediately
on my return, repeating what the traveller with his Bardolph nose had
said, with my own answer; and so little did I suspect the true object
of my "tempter ere accuser," that I expressed with no small pleasure my
hope and belief, that the conversation had been of some service to the
poor misled malcontent. This incident therefore prevented all doubt as
to the truth of the report, which through a friendly medium came to me
from the master of the village inn, who had been ordered to entertain
the Government gentleman in his best manner, but above all to be silent
concerning such a person being in his house. At length he received Sir
Dogberry's commands to accompany his guest at the final interview;
and, after the absolving suffrage of the gentleman honoured with the
confidence of Ministers, answered, as follows, to the following queries:
D. "Well, landlord! and what do you know of the person in question? L.
I see him often pass by with maister ----, my landlord, (that is, the
owner of the house,) and sometimes with the new-comers at Holford; but
I never said a word to him or he to me. D. But do you not know, that he
has distributed papers and hand-bills of a seditious nature among the
common people? L. No, your Honour! I never heard of such a thing. D.
Have you not seen this Mr. Coleridge, or heard of, his haranguing and
talking to knots and clusters of the inhabitants? --What are you grinning
at, Sir? L. Beg your Honour's pardon! but I was only thinking, how
they'd have stared at him. If what I have heard be true, your Honour!
they would not have understood a word he said. When our Vicar was here,
Dr. L. the master of the great school and Canon of Windsor, there was a
great dinner party at maister's; and one of the farmers, that was there,
told us that he and the Doctor talked real Hebrew Greek at each other
for an hour together after dinner. D. Answer the question, Sir! does he
ever harangue the people? L. I hope your Honour an't angry with me. I
can say no more than I know. I never saw him talking with any one, but
my landlord, and our curate, and the strange gentleman. D. Has he not
been seen wandering on the hills towards the Channel, and along the
shore, with books and papers in his hand, taking charts and maps of
the country? L. Why, as to that, your Honour! I own, I have heard; I am
sure, I would not wish to say ill of any body; but it is certain, that I
have heard--D. Speak out, man! don't be afraid, you are doing your duty
to your King and Government. What have you heard? L. Why, folks do
say, your Honour! as how that he is a Poet, and that he is going to put
Quantock and all about here in print; and as they be so much together,
I suppose that the strange gentleman has some consarn in the
business. "--So ended this formidable inquisition, the latter part of
which alone requires explanation, and at the same time entitles the
anecdote to a place in my literary life. I had considered it as a defect
in the admirable poem of THE TASK, that the subject, which gives the
title to the work, was not, and indeed could not be, carried on beyond
the three or four first pages, and that, throughout the poem, the
connections are frequently awkward, and the transitions abrupt and
arbitrary. I sought for a subject, that should give equal room and
freedom for description, incident, and impassioned reflections on men,
nature, and society, yet supply in itself a natural connection to the
parts, and unity to the whole. Such a subject I conceived myself to
have found in a stream, traced from its source in the hills among the
yellow-red moss and conical glass-shaped tufts of bent, to the first
break or fall, where its drops become audible, and it begins to form a
channel; thence to the peat and turf barn, itself built of the same dark
squares as it sheltered; to the sheepfold; to the first cultivated
plot of ground; to the lonely cottage and its bleak garden won from the
heath; to the hamlet, the villages, the market-town, the manufactories,
and the seaport. My walks therefore were almost daily on the top
of Quantock, and among its sloping coombes. With my pencil and
memorandum-book in my hand, I was making studies, as the artists call
them, and often moulding my thoughts into verse, with the objects and
imagery immediately before my senses. Many circumstances, evil and good,
intervened to prevent the completion of the poem, which was to have been
entitled THE BROOK. Had I finished the work, it was my purpose in the
heat of the moment to have dedicated it to our then committee of public
safety as containing the charts and maps, with which I was to have
supplied the French Government in aid of their plans of invasion. And
these too for a tract of coast that, from Clevedon to Minehead, scarcely
permits the approach of a fishing-boat!

All my experience from my first entrance into life to the present hour
is in favour of the warning maxim, that the man, who opposes in toto the
political or religious zealots of his age, is safer from their obloquy
than he who differs from them but in one or two points, or perhaps only
in degree. By that transfer of the feelings of private life into the
discussion of public questions, which is the queen bee in the hive of
party fanaticism, the partisan has more sympathy with an intemperate
opposite than with a moderate friend. We now enjoy an intermission,
and long may it continue! In addition to far higher and more important
merits, our present Bible societies and other numerous associations
for national or charitable objects, may serve perhaps to carry off
the superfluous activity and fervour of stirring minds in innocent
hyperboles and the bustle of management. But the poison-tree is not
dead, though the sap may for a season have subsided to its roots. At
least let us not be lulled into such a notion of our entire security, as
not to keep watch and ward, even on our best feelings. I have seen gross
intolerance shown in support of toleration; sectarian antipathy
most obtrusively displayed in the promotion of an undistinguishing
comprehension of sects: and acts of cruelty, (I had almost said,) of
treachery, committed in furtherance of an object vitally important
to the cause of humanity; and all this by men too of naturally kind
dispositions and exemplary conduct.

The magic rod of fanaticism is preserved in the very adyta of human
nature; and needs only the re-exciting warmth of a master hand to bud
forth afresh and produce the old fruits. The horror of the Peasants' war
in Germany, and the direful effects of the Anabaptists' tenets,
(which differed only from those of jacobinism by the substitution of
theological for philosophical jargon,) struck all Europe for a time with
affright. Yet little more than a century was sufficient to obliterate
all effective memory of these events. The same principles with
similar though less dreadful consequences were again at work from the
imprisonment of the first Charles to the restoration of his son. The
fanatic maxim of extirpating fanaticism by persecution produced a civil
war. The war ended in the victory of the insurgents; but the temper
survived, and Milton had abundant grounds for asserting, that "Presbyter
was but OLD PRIEST writ large! " One good result, thank heaven! of this
zealotry was the re-establishment of the church. And now it might have
been hoped, that the mischievous spirit would have been bound for a
season, "and a seal set upon him, that he should deceive the nation
no more. " [33] But no! The ball of persecution was taken up with
undiminished vigour by the persecuted. The same fanatic principle that,
under the solemn oath and covenant, had turned cathedrals into stables,
destroyed the rarest trophies of art and ancestral piety, and hunted the
brightest ornaments of learning and religion into holes and corners, now
marched under episcopal banners, and, having first crowded the prisons
of England, emptied its whole vial of wrath on the miserable Covenanters
of Scotland [34]. A merciful providence at length constrained both
parties to join against a common enemy. A wise government followed;
and the established church became, and now is, not only the brightest
example, but our best and only sure bulwark, of toleration! --the
true and indispensable bank against a new inundation of persecuting
zeal--Esto perpetua!

A long interval of quiet succeeded; or rather, the exhaustion had
produced a cold fit of the ague which was symptomatized by indifference
among the many, and a tendency to infidelity or scepticism in the
educated classes. At length those feelings of disgust and hatred,
which for a brief while the multitude had attached to the crimes and
absurdities of sectarian and democratic fanaticism, were transferred to
the oppressive privileges of the noblesse, and the luxury; intrigues and
favouritism of the continental courts. The same principles, dressed
in the ostentatious garb of a fashionable philosophy, once more rose
triumphant and effected the French revolution. And have we not
within the last three or four years had reason to apprehend, that
the detestable maxims and correspondent measures of the late French
despotism had already bedimmed the public recollections of democratic
phrensy; had drawn off to other objects the electric force of the
feelings which had massed and upheld those recollections; and that a
favourable concurrence of occasions was alone wanting to awaken the
thunder and precipitate the lightning from the opposite quarter of the
political heaven?

In part from constitutional indolence, which in the very hey-day of
hope had kept my enthusiasm in check, but still more from the habits and
influences of a classical education and academic pursuits, scarcely
had a year elapsed from the commencement of my literary and political
adventures before my mind sank into a state of thorough disgust and
despondency, both with regard to the disputes and the parties disputant.
With more than poetic feeling I exclaimed:

The sensual and the dark rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game
They break their manacles, to wear the name
Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain.
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee many a weary hour;
But thou nor swell'st the victor's pomp, nor ever
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power!
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee)
From Superstition's harpy minions
And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves,
Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions,
The guide of homeless winds and playmate of the waves!

I retired to a cottage in Somersetshire at the foot of Quantock, and
devoted my thoughts and studies to the foundations of religion and
morals. Here I found myself all afloat. Doubts rushed in; broke upon me
"from the fountains of the great deep," and fell "from the windows
of heaven. " The fontal truths of natural religion and the books of
Revelation alike contributed to the flood; and it was long ere my ark
touched on an Ararat, and rested. The idea of the Supreme Being appeared
to me to be as necessarily implied in all particular modes of being as
the idea of infinite space in all the geometrical figures by which space
is limited. I was pleased with the Cartesian opinion, that the idea of
God is distinguished from all other ideas by involving its reality; but
I was not wholly satisfied. I began then to ask myself, what proof I
had of the outward existence of anything? Of this sheet of paper for
instance, as a thing in itself, separate from the phaenomenon or image
in my perception. I saw, that in the nature of things such proof is
impossible; and that of all modes of being, that are not objects of the
senses, the existence is assumed by a logical necessity arising from the
constitution of the mind itself,--by the absence of all motive to
doubt it, not from any absolute contradiction in the supposition of the
contrary. Still the existence of a Being, the ground of all existence,
was not yet the existence of a moral creator, and governour. "In the
position, that all reality is either contained in the necessary being as
an attribute, or exists through him, as its ground, it remains undecided
whether the properties of intelligence and will are to be referred to
the Supreme Being in the former or only in the latter sense; as inherent
attributes, or only as consequences that have existence in other things
through him [35]. Were the latter the truth, then notwithstanding all
the pre-eminence which must be assigned to the Eternal First from the
sufficiency, unity, and independence of his being, as the dread ground
of the universe, his nature would yet fall far short of that, which we
are bound to comprehend in the idea of GOD. For, without any knowledge
or determining resolve of its own, it would only be a blind
necessary ground of other things and other spirits; and thus would
be distinguished from the FATE of certain ancient philosophers in no
respect, but that of being more definitely and intelligibly described. "

For a very long time, indeed, I could not reconcile personality with
infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained
with Paul and John. Yet there had dawned upon me, even before I had met
with the CRITIQUE OF THE PURE REASON, a certain guiding light. If the
mere intellect could make no certain discovery of a holy and intelligent
first cause, it might yet supply a demonstration, that no legitimate
argument could be drawn from the intellect against its truth. And what
is this more than St. Paul's assertion, that by wisdom,--(more properly
translated by the powers of reasoning)--no man ever arrived at the
knowledge of God? What more than the sublimest, and probably the oldest,
book on earth has taught us,

Silver and gold man searcheth out:
Bringeth the ore out of the earth, and darkness into light.

But where findeth he wisdom?
Where is the place of understanding?

The abyss crieth; it is not in me!
Ocean echoeth back; not in me!

Whence then cometh wisdom?
Where dwelleth understanding?

Hidden from the eyes of the living
Kept secret from the fowls of heaven!

Hell and death answer;
We have heard the rumour thereof from afar!

GOD marketh out the road to it;
GOD knoweth its abiding place!

He beholdeth the ends of the earth;
He surveyeth what is beneath the heavens!

And as he weighed out the winds, and measured the sea,
And appointed laws to the rain,
And a path to the thunder,
A path to the flashes of the lightning!

Then did he see it,
And he counted it;
He searched into the depth thereof,
And with a line did he compass it round!

But to man he said,
The fear of the Lord is wisdom for thee!
And to avoid evil,
That is thy understanding. [36]

I become convinced, that religion, as both the cornerstone and the
key-stone of morality, must have a moral origin; so far at least, that
the evidence of its doctrines could not, like the truths of abstract
science, be wholly independent of the will. It were therefore to be
expected, that its fundamental truth would be such as might be denied;
though only, by the fool, and even by the fool from the madness of the
heart alone!

The question then concerning our faith in the existence of a God, not
only as the ground of the universe by his essence, but as its maker and
judge by his wisdom and holy will, appeared to stand thus. The sciential
reason, the objects of which are purely theoretical, remains neutral, as
long as its name and semblance are not usurped by the opponents of the
doctrine. But it then becomes an effective ally by exposing the false
show of demonstration, or by evincing the equal demonstrability of the
contrary from premises equally logical [37]. The understanding meantime
suggests, the analogy of experience facilitates, the belief. Nature
excites and recalls it, as by a perpetual revelation. Our feelings
almost necessitate it; and the law of conscience peremptorily commands
it. The arguments, that at all apply to it, are in its favour; and
there is nothing against it, but its own sublimity. It could not be
intellectually more evident without becoming morally less effective;
without counteracting its own end by sacrificing the life of faith to
the cold mechanism of a worth less because compulsory assent. The belief
of a God and a future state, (if a passive acquiescence may be flattered
with the name of belief,) does not indeed always beget a good heart;
but a good heart so naturally begets the belief, that the very few
exceptions must be regarded as strange anomalies from strange and
unfortunate circumstances.

From these premises I proceeded to draw the following conclusions.
First, that having once fully admitted the existence of an infinite yet
self-conscious Creator, we are not allowed to ground the irrationality
of any other article of faith on arguments which would equally prove
that to be irrational, which we had allowed to be real. Secondly, that
whatever is deducible from the admission of a self-comprehending and
creative spirit may be legitimately used in proof of the possibility
of any further mystery concerning the divine nature. Possibilitatem
mysteriorum, (Trinitatis, etc. ) contra insultus Infidelium et
Haereticorum a contradictionibus vindico; haud quidem veritatem, quae
revelatione sola stabiliri possit; says Leibnitz in a letter to his
Duke. He then adds the following just and important remark. "In
vain will tradition or texts of scripture be adduced in support of a
doctrine, donec clava impossibilitatis et contradictionis e manibus
horum Herculum extorta fuerit. For the heretic will still reply, that
texts, the literal sense of which is not so much above as directly
against all reason, must be understood figuratively, as Herod is a fox,
and so forth. "

These principles I held, philosophically, while in respect of revealed
religion I remained a zealous Unitarian. I considered the idea of the
Trinity a fair scholastic inference from the being of God, as a creative
intelligence; and that it was therefore entitled to the rank of an
esoteric doctrine of natural religion. But seeing in the same no
practical or moral bearing, I confined it to the schools of philosophy.
The admission of the Logos, as hypostasized (that is, neither a mere
attribute, nor a personification) in no respect removed my doubts
concerning the Incarnation and the Redemption by the cross; which I
could neither reconcile in reason with the impassiveness of the Divine
Being, nor in my moral feelings with the sacred distinction between
things and persons, the vicarious payment of a debt and the vicarious
expiation of guilt. A more thorough revolution in my philosophic
principles, and a deeper insight into my own heart, were yet wanting.
Nevertheless, I cannot doubt, that the difference of my metaphysical
notions from those of Unitarians in general contributed to my final
re-conversion to the whole truth in Christ; even as according to his own
confession the books of certain Platonic philosophers (libri quorundam
Platonicorum) commenced the rescue of St. Augustine's faith from the
same error aggravated by the far darker accompaniment of the Manichaean
heresy.

While my mind was thus perplexed, by a gracious providence for which
I can never be sufficiently grateful, the generous and munificent
patronage of Mr. Josiah, and Mr. Thomas Wedgwood enabled me to finish
my education in Germany. Instead of troubling others with my own crude
notions and juvenile compositions, I was thenceforward better employed
in attempting to store my own head with the wisdom of others. I made the
best use of my time and means; and there is therefore no period of my
life on which I can look back with such unmingled satisfaction. After
acquiring a tolerable sufficiency in the German language [38] at
Ratzeburg, which with my voyage and journey thither I have described in
The Friend, I proceeded through Hanover to Goettingen.

Here I regularly attended the lectures on physiology in the morning, and
on natural history in the evening, under Blumenbach, a name as dear to
every Englishman who has studied at that university, as it is venerable
to men of science throughout Europe!
Eichhorn's lectures on the New
Testament were repeated to me from notes by a student from Ratzeburg,
a young man of sound learning and indefatigable industry, who is now,
I believe, a professor of the oriental languages at Heidelberg. But my
chief efforts were directed towards a grounded knowledge of the German
language and literature. From professor Tychsen I received as many
lessons in the Gothic of Ulphilas as sufficed to make me acquainted with
its grammar, and the radical words of most frequent occurrence; and with
the occasional assistance of the same philosophical linguist, I read
through [39] Ottfried's metrical paraphrase of the gospel, and the most
important remains of the Theotiscan, or the transitional state of the
Teutonic language from the Gothic to the old German of the Swabian
period. Of this period--(the polished dialect of which is analogous to
that of our Chaucer, and which leaves the philosophic student in doubt,
whether the language has not since then lost more in sweetness and
flexibility, than it has gained in condensation and copiousness)--I
read with sedulous accuracy the Minnesinger (or singers of love, the
Provencal poets of the Swabian court) and the metrical romances; and
then laboured through sufficient specimens of the master singers, their
degenerate successors; not however without occasional pleasure from the
rude, yet interesting strains of Hans Sachs, the cobbler of Nuremberg.
Of this man's genius five folio volumes with double columns are
extant in print, and nearly an equal number in manuscript; yet the
indefatigable bard takes care to inform his readers, that he never made
a shoe the less, but had virtuously reared a large family by the labour
of his hands.

In Pindar, Chaucer, Dante, Milton, and many more, we have instances of
the close connection of poetic genius with the love of liberty and of
genuine reformation. The moral sense at least will not be outraged, if
I add to the list the name of this honest shoemaker, (a trade by the by
remarkable for the production of philosophers and poets).

His poem entitled THE MORNING STAR, was the very first publication that
appeared in praise and support of Luther; and an excellent hymn of Hans
Sachs, which has been deservedly translated into almost all the European
languages, was commonly sung in the Protestant churches, whenever the
heroic reformer visited them.

In Luther's own German writings, and eminently in his translation of the
Bible, the German language commenced. I mean the language as it is
at present written; that which is called the High-German, as contra-
distinguished from the Platt-Teutsch, the dialect on the flat or
northern countries, and from the Ober-Teutsch, the language of the
middle and Southern Germany. The High German is indeed a lingua
communis, not actually the native language of any province, but the
choice and fragrancy of all the dialects. From this cause it is at once
the most copious and the most grammatical of all the European tongues.

Within less than a century after Luther's death the German was inundated
with pedantic barbarisms. A few volumes of this period I read through
from motives of curiosity; for it is not easy to imagine any thing more
fantastic, than the very appearance of their pages. Almost every third
word is a Latin word with a Germanized ending, the Latin portion being
always printed in Roman letters, while in the last syllable the German
character is retained.

At length, about the year 1620, Opitz arose, whose genius more nearly
resembled that of Dryden than any other poet, who at present occurs to
my recollection. In the opinion of Lessing, the most acute of critics,
and of Adelung, the first of Lexicographers, Opitz, and the Silesian
poets, his followers, not only restored the language, but still remain
the models of pure diction. A stranger has no vote on such a question;
but after repeated perusal of the works of Opitz my feelings justified
the verdict, and I seemed to have acquired from them a sort of tact for
what is genuine in the style of later writers.

Of the splendid aera, which commenced with Gellert, Klopstock, Ramler,
Lessing, and their compeers, I need not speak. With the opportunities
which I enjoyed, it would have been disgraceful not to have been
familiar with their writings; and I have already said as much as the
present biographical sketch requires concerning the German philosophers,
whose works, for the greater part, I became acquainted with at a far
later period.

Soon after my return from Germany I was solicited to undertake the
literary and political department in the Morning Post; and I acceded to
the proposal on the condition that the paper should thenceforwards be
conducted on certain fixed and announced principles, and that I should
neither be obliged nor requested to deviate from them in favour of any
party or any event. In consequence, that journal became and for many
years continued anti-ministerial indeed, yet with a very qualified
approbation of the opposition, and with far greater earnestness and zeal
both anti-Jacobin and anti-Gallican. To this hour I cannot find reason
to approve of the first war either in its commencement or its conduct.
Nor can I understand, with what reason either Mr. Perceval, (whom I
am singular enough to regard as the best and wisest minister of this
reign,) nor the present Administration, can be said to have pursued the
plans of Mr. Pitt. The love of their country, and perseverant hostility
to French principles and French ambition are indeed honourable qualities
common to them and to their predecessor. But it appears to me as clear
as the evidence of the facts can render any question of history, that
the successes of the Perceval and of the existing ministry have been
owing to their having pursued measures the direct contrary to Mr.
Pitt's. Such for instance are the concentration of the national force to
one object; the abandonment of the subsidizing policy, so far at least
as neither to goad nor bribe the continental courts into war, till
the convictions of their subjects had rendered it a war of their own
seeking; and above all, in their manly and generous reliance on the good
sense of the English people, and on that loyalty which is linked to
the very [40] heart of the nation by the system of credit and the
interdependence of property.

Be this as it may, I am persuaded that the Morning Post proved a far
more useful ally to the Government in its most important objects,
in consequence of its being generally considered as moderately anti-
ministerial, than if it had been the avowed eulogist of Mr. Pitt. The
few, whose curiosity or fancy should lead them to turn over the journals
of that date, may find a small proof of this in the frequent charges
made by the Morning Chronicle, that such and such essays or leading
paragraphs had been sent from the Treasury. The rapid and unusual
increase in the sale of the Morning Post is a sufficient pledge, that
genuine impartiality with a respectable portion of literary talent
will secure the success of a newspaper without the aid of party
or ministerial patronage. But by impartiality I mean an honest and
enlightened adherence to a code of intelligible principles previously
announced, and faithfully referred to in support of every judgment
on men and events; not indiscriminate abuse, not the indulgence of an
editor's own malignant passions, and still less, if that be possible,
a determination to make money by flattering the envy and cupidity, the
vindictive restlessness and self-conceit of the half-witted vulgar; a
determination almost fiendish, but which, I have been informed, has
been boastfully avowed by one man, the most notorious of these
mob-sycophants! From the commencement of the Addington administration to
the present day, whatever I have written in THE MORNING POST, or (after
that paper was transferred to other proprietors) in THE COURIER, has
been in defence or furtherance of the measures of Government.

Things of this nature scarce survive that night
That gives them birth; they perish in the sight;
Cast by so far from after-life, that there
Can scarcely aught be said, but that they were!

Yet in these labours I employed, and, in the belief of partial friends
wasted, the prime and manhood of my intellect. Most assuredly, they
added nothing to my fortune or my reputation. The industry of the week
supplied the necessities of the week. From government or the friends of
government I not only never received remuneration, nor ever expected it;
but I was never honoured with a single acknowledgment, or expression
of satisfaction. Yet the retrospect is far from painful or matter of
regret. I am not indeed silly enough to take as any thing more than a
violent hyperbole of party debate, Mr. Fox's assertion that the late war
(I trust that the epithet is not prematurely applied) was a war produced
by the Morning Post; or I should be proud to have the words inscribed on
my tomb. As little do I regard the circumstance, that I was a specified
object of Buonaparte's resentment during my residence in Italy in
consequence of those essays in the Morning Post during the peace of
Amiens. Of this I was warned, directly, by Baron Von Humboldt, the
Prussian Plenipotentiary, who at that time was the minister of the
Prussian court at Rome; and indirectly, through his secretary,
by Cardinal Fesch himself. Nor do I lay any greater weight on the
confirming fact, that an order for my arrest was sent from Paris, from
which danger I was rescued by the kindness of a noble Benedictine, and
the gracious connivance of that good old man, the present Pope. For the
late tyrant's vindictive appetite was omnivorous, and preyed equally on
a Duc d'Enghien [41], and the writer of a newspaper paragraph. Like a
true vulture [42], Napoleon with an eye not less telescopic, and with a
taste equally coarse in his ravin, could descend from the most dazzling
heights to pounce on the leveret in the brake, or even on the field
mouse amid the grass. But I do derive a gratification from the
knowledge, that my essays contributed to introduce the practice of
placing the questions and events of the day in a moral point of view;
in giving a dignity to particular measures by tracing their policy or
impolicy to permanent principles, and an interest to principles by the
application of them to individual measures. In Mr. Burke's writings
indeed the germs of almost all political truths may be found. But I
dare assume to myself the merit of having first explicitly defined
and analyzed the nature of Jacobinism; and that in distinguishing the
Jacobin from the republican, the democrat, and the mere demagogue, I
both rescued the word from remaining a mere term of abuse, and put on
their guard many honest minds, who even in their heat of zeal against
Jacobinism, admitted or supported principles from which the worst parts
of that system may be legitimately deduced. That these are not
necessary practical results of such principles, we owe to that fortunate
inconsequence of our nature, which permits the heart to rectify the
errors of the understanding. The detailed examination of the consular
Government and its pretended constitution, and the proof given by me,
that it was a consummate despotism in masquerade, extorted a recantation
even from the Morning Chronicle, which had previously extolled this
constitution as the perfection of a wise and regulated liberty. On every
great occurrence I endeavoured to discover in past history the event,
that most nearly resembled it. I procured, wherever it was possible,
the contemporary historians, memorialists, and pamphleteers. Then fairly
subtracting the points of difference from those of likeness, as the
balance favoured the former or the latter, I conjectured that the result
would be the same or different. In the series of essays entitled "A
comparison of France under Napoleon with Rome under the first Caesars,"
and in those which followed "On the probable final restoration of the
Bourbons," I feel myself authorized to affirm, by the effect produced on
many intelligent men, that, were the dates wanting, it might have
been suspected that the essays had been written within the last twelve
months. The same plan I pursued at the commencement of the Spanish
revolution, and with the same success, taking the war of the United
Provinces with Philip II as the ground work of the comparison. I have
mentioned this from no motives of vanity, nor even from motives of self
defence, which would justify a certain degree of egotism, especially
if it be considered, how often and grossly I have been attacked for
sentiments, which I have exerted my best powers to confute and expose,
and how grievously these charges acted to my disadvantage while I was
in Malta. Or rather they would have done so, if my own feelings had not
precluded the wish of a settled establishment in that island. But I
have mentioned it from the full persuasion that, armed with the two-fold
knowledge of history and the human mind, a man will scarcely err in his
judgment concerning the sum total of any future national event, if he
have been able to procure the original documents of the past, together
with authentic accounts of the present, and if he have a philosophic
tact for what is truly important in facts, and in most instances
therefore for such facts as the dignity of history has excluded from
the volumes of our modern compilers, by the courtesy of the age entitled
historians.

To have lived in vain must be a painful thought to any man, and
especially so to him who has made literature his profession. I should
therefore rather condole than be angry with the mind, which could
attribute to no worthier feelings than those of vanity or self-love,
the satisfaction which I acknowledged myself to have enjoyed from the
republication of my political essays (either whole or as extracts) not
only in many of our own provincial papers, but in the federal journals
throughout America. I regarded it as some proof of my not having
laboured altogether in vain, that from the articles written by me
shortly before and at the commencement of the late unhappy war with
America, not only the sentiments were adopted, but in some instances the
very language, in several of the Massachusetts state papers.

But no one of these motives nor all conjointly would have impelled me
to a statement so uncomfortable to my own feelings, had not my character
been repeatedly attacked, by an unjustifiable intrusion on private life,
as of a man incorrigibly idle, and who intrusted not only with ample
talents, but favoured with unusual opportunities of improving them, had
nevertheless suffered them to rust away without any efficient exertion,
either for his own good or that of his fellow creatures. Even if the
compositions, which I have made public, and that too in a form the most
certain of an extensive circulation, though the least flattering to an
author's self-love, had been published in books, they would have
filled a respectable number of volumes, though every passage of merely
temporary interest were omitted. My prose writings have been charged
with a disproportionate demand on the attention; with an excess of
refinement in the mode of arriving at truths; with beating the ground
for that which might have been run down by the eye; with the length and
laborious construction of my periods; in short with obscurity and the
love of paradox. But my severest critics have not pretended to have
found in my compositions triviality, or traces of a mind that shrunk
from the toil of thinking. No one has charged me with tricking out in
other words the thoughts of others, or with hashing up anew the cramben
jam decies coctam of English literature or philosophy. Seldom have I
written that in a day, the acquisition or investigation of which had not
cost me the previous labour of a month.

But are books the only channel through which the stream of intellectual
usefulness can flow? Is the diffusion of truth to be estimated by
publications; or publications by the truth, which they diffuse or at
least contain? I speak it in the excusable warmth of a mind stung by an
accusation, which has not only been advanced in reviews of the widest
circulation, not only registered in the bulkiest works of periodical
literature, but by frequency of repetition has become an admitted fact
in private literary circles, and thoughtlessly repeated by too many who
call themselves my friends, and whose own recollections ought to have
suggested a contrary testimony. Would that the criterion of a scholar's
utility were the number and moral value of the truths, which he has been
the means of throwing into the general circulation; or the number and
value of the minds, whom by his conversation or letters, he has excited
into activity, and supplied with the germs of their after-growth!
A distinguished rank might not indeed, even then, be awarded to
my exertions; but I should dare look forward with confidence to
an honourable acquittal. I should dare appeal to the numerous and
respectable audiences, which at different times and in different places
honoured my lecture rooms with their attendance, whether the points
of view from which the subjects treated of were surveyed,--whether the
grounds of my reasoning were such, as they had heard or read elsewhere,
or have since found in previous publications. I can conscientiously
declare, that the complete success of the REMORSE on the first night of
its representation did not give me as great or as heart-felt a pleasure,
as the observation that the pit and boxes were crowded with faces
familiar to me, though of individuals whose names I did not know, and
of whom I knew nothing, but that they had attended one or other of my
courses of lectures. It is an excellent though perhaps somewhat vulgar
proverb, that there are cases where a man may be as well "in for a pound
as for a penny. " To those, who from ignorance of the serious injury
I have received from this rumour of having dreamed away my life to no
purpose, injuries which I unwillingly remember at all, much less am
disposed to record in a sketch of my literary life; or to those, who
from their own feelings, or the gratification they derive from thinking
contemptuously of others, would like job's comforters attribute these
complaints, extorted from me by the sense of wrong, to self conceit or
presumptuous vanity, I have already furnished such ample materials, that
I shall gain nothing by withholding the remainder. I will not
therefore hesitate to ask the consciences of those, who from their long
acquaintance with me and with the circumstances are best qualified to
decide or be my judges, whether the restitution of the suum cuique would
increase or detract from my literary reputation. In this exculpation
I hope to be understood as speaking of myself comparatively, and in
proportion to the claims, which others are entitled to make on my time
or my talents. By what I have effected, am I to be judged by my fellow
men; what I could have done, is a question for my own conscience. On
my own account I may perhaps have had sufficient reason to lament my
deficiency in self-control, and the neglect of concentering my powers
to the realization of some permanent work. But to verse rather than to
prose, if to either, belongs the voice of mourning for

Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
And fears self-willed that shunned the eye of hope;
And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;
Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
And genius given and knowledge won in vain;
And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out--but flowers
Strewed on my corpse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

These will exist, for the future, I trust, only in the poetic strains,
which the feelings at the time called forth. In those only, gentle
reader,

Affectus animi varios, bellumque sequacis
Perlegis invidiae, curasque revolvis inanes,
Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in aevo.
Perlegis et lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta
Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.
Omnia paulatim consumit longior aetas,
Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.
Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor;
Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,
Vox aliudque sonat--Jamque observatio vitae
Multa dedit--lugere nihil, ferre omnia; jamque
Paulatim lacrymas rerum experientia tersit.




CHAPTER XI

An affectionate exhortation to those who in early life feel themselves
disposed to become authors.


It was a favourite remark of the late Mr. Whitbread's, that no man does
any thing from a single motive. The separate motives, or rather moods of
mind, which produced the preceding reflections and anecdotes have been
laid open to the reader in each separate instance. But an interest in
the welfare of those, who at the present time may be in circumstances
not dissimilar to my own at my first entrance into life, has been
the constant accompaniment, and (as it were) the under-song of all
my feelings. Whitehead exerting the prerogative of his laureateship
addressed to youthful poets a poetic Charge, which is perhaps the
best, and certainly the most interesting, of his works. With no other
privilege than that of sympathy and sincere good wishes, I would address
an affectionate exhortation to the youthful literati, grounded on my
own experience. It will be but short; for the beginning, middle, and
end converge to one charge: never pursue literature as a trade. With the
exception of one extraordinary man, I have never known an individual,
least of all an individual of genius, healthy or happy without a
profession, that is, some regular employment, which does not depend on
the will of the moment, and which can be carried on so far mechanically
that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual
exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge. Three hours of
leisure, unannoyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to
with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realize in
literature a larger product of what is truly genial, than weeks of
compulsion. Money, and immediate reputation form only an arbitrary and
accidental end of literary labour. The hope of increasing them by
any given exertion will often prove a stimulant to industry; but the
necessity of acquiring them will in all works of genius convert the
stimulant into a narcotic. Motives by excess reverse their very nature,
and instead of exciting, stun and stupify the mind. For it is one
contradistinction of genius from talent, that its predominant end is
always comprised in the means; and this is one of the many points, which
establish an analogy between genius and virtue. Now though talents may
exist without genius, yet as genius cannot exist, certainly not manifest
itself, without talents, I would advise every scholar, who feels the
genial power working within him, so far to make a division between
the two, as that he should devote his talents to the acquirement of
competence in some known trade or profession, and his genius to objects
of his tranquil and unbiassed choice; while the consciousness of being
actuated in both alike by the sincere desire to perform his duty, will
alike ennoble both. "My dear young friend," (I would say) "suppose
yourself established in any honourable occupation. From the manufactory
or counting house, from the law-court, or from having visited your last
patient, you return at evening,

Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest------

to your family, prepared for its social enjoyments, with the very
countenances of your wife and children brightened, and their voice of
welcome made doubly welcome, by the knowledge that, as far as they are
concerned, you have satisfied the demands of the day by the labour of
the day. Then, when you retire into your study, in the books on
your shelves you revisit so many venerable friends with whom you can
converse. Your own spirit scarcely less free from personal anxieties
than the great minds, that in those books are still living for you! Even
your writing desk with its blank paper and all its other implements will
appear as a chain of flowers, capable of linking your feelings as well
as thoughts to events and characters past or to come; not a chain of
iron, which binds you down to think of the future and the remote by
recalling the claims and feelings of the peremptory present. But why
should I say retire? The habits of active life and daily intercourse
with the stir of the world will tend to give you such self-command, that
the presence of your family will be no interruption. Nay, the social
silence, or undisturbing voices of a wife or sister will be like a
restorative atmosphere, or soft music which moulds a dream without
becoming its object. If facts are required to prove the possibility of
combining weighty performances in literature with full and independent
employment, the works of Cicero and Xenophon among the ancients; of
Sir Thomas More, Bacon, Baxter, or to refer at once to later and
contemporary instances, Darwin and Roscoe, are at once decisive of the
question. "

But all men may not dare promise themselves a sufficiency of self-
control for the imitation of those examples: though strict scrutiny
should always be made, whether indolence, restlessness, or a vanity
impatient for immediate gratification, have not tampered with the
judgment and assumed the vizard of humility for the purposes of self-
delusion. Still the Church presents to every man of learning and genius
a profession, in which he may cherish a rational hope of being able
to unite the widest schemes of literary utility with the strictest
performance of professional duties. Among the numerous blessings
of Christianity, the introduction of an established Church makes
an especial claim on the gratitude of scholars and philosophers; in
England, at least, where the principles of Protestantism have conspired
with the freedom of the government to double all its salutary powers by
the removal of its abuses.

That not only the maxims, but the grounds of a pure morality, the mere
fragments of which

------the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received
In brief sententious precepts; [43]

and that the sublime truths of the divine unity and attributes, which
a Plato found most hard to learn and deemed it still more difficult to
reveal; that these should have become the almost hereditary property of
childhood and poverty, of the hovel and the workshop; that even to the
unlettered they sound as common place, is a phaenomenon, which must
withhold all but minds of the most vulgar cast from undervaluing the
services even of the pulpit and the reading desk. Yet those, who confine
the efficiency of an established Church to its public offices, can
hardly be placed in a much higher rank of intellect. That to every
parish throughout the kingdom there is transplanted a germ of
civilization; that in the remotest villages there is a nucleus, round
which the capabilities of the place may crystallize and brighten;
a model sufficiently superior to excite, yet sufficiently near to
encourage and facilitate, imitation; this, the unobtrusive, continuous
agency of a protestant church establishment, this it is, which the
patriot, and the philanthropist, who would fain unite the love of
peace with the faith in the progressive melioration of mankind, cannot
estimate at too high a price. It cannot be valued with the gold of
Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. No mention shall be made
of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The
clergyman is with his parishioners and among them; he is neither in
the cloistered cell, nor in the wilderness, but a neighbour and a
family-man, whose education and rank admit him to the mansion of the
rich landholder, while his duties make him the frequent visitor of the
farmhouse and the cottage. He is, or he may become, connected, with
the families of his parish or its vicinity by marriage. And among the
instances of the blindness, or at best of the short-sightedness, which
it is the nature of cupidity to inflict, I know few more striking than
the clamours of the farmers against Church property. Whatever was not
paid to the clergyman would inevitably at the next lease be paid to the
landholder, while, as the case at present stands, the revenues of the
Church are in some sort the reversionary property of every family, that
may have a member educated for the Church, or a daughter that may marry
a clergyman. Instead of being foreclosed and immovable, it is in fact
the only species of landed property, that is essentially moving and
circulative. That there exist no inconveniences, who will pretend to
assert? But I have yet to expect the proof, that the inconveniences are
greater in this than in any other species; or that either the farmers
or the clergy would be benefited by forcing the latter to become either
Trullibers or salaried placemen. Nay, I do not hesitate to declare my
firm persuasion, that whatever reason of discontent the farmers may
assign, the true cause is this; that they may cheat the parson, but
cannot cheat the steward; and that they are disappointed, if they should
have been able to withhold only two pounds less than the legal claim,
having expected to withhold five. At all events, considered relatively
to the encouragement of learning and genius, the establishment presents
a patronage at once so effective and unburdensome, that it would be
impossible to afford the like or equal in any but a Christian and
Protestant country. There is scarce a department of human knowledge
without some bearing on the various critical, historical, philosophical
and moral truths, in which the scholar must be interested as a
clergyman; no one pursuit worthy of a man of genius, which may not be
followed without incongruity. To give the history of the Bible as a
book, would be little less than to relate the origin or first excitement
of all the literature and science, that we now possess. The very
decorum, which the profession imposes, is favourable to the best
purposes of genius, and tends to counteract its most frequent defects.
Finally, that man must be deficient in sensibility, who would not find
an incentive to emulation in the great and burning lights, which in a
long series have illustrated the church of England; who would not hear
from within an echo to the voice from their sacred shrines,

Et Pater Aeneas et avunculus excitat Hector.

But, whatever be the profession or trade chosen, the advantages are many
and important, compared with the state of a mere literary man, who in
any degree depends on the sale of his works for the necessaries and
comforts of life. In the former a man lives in sympathy with the world,
in which he lives. At least he acquires a better and quicker tact for
the knowledge of that, with which men in general can sympathize. He
learns to manage his genius more prudently and efficaciously. His
powers and acquirements gain him likewise more real admiration; for they
surpass the legitimate expectations of others. He is something besides
an author, and is not therefore considered merely as an author. The
hearts of men are open to him, as to one of their own class; and
whether he exerts himself or not in the conversational circles of
his acquaintance, his silence is not attributed to pride, nor his
communicativeness to vanity. To these advantages I will venture to add
a superior chance of happiness in domestic life, were it only that it is
as natural for the man to be out of the circle of his household during
the day, as it is meritorious for the woman to remain for the most part
within it. But this subject involves points of consideration so numerous
and so delicate, and would not only permit, but require such ample
documents from the biography of literary men, that I now merely allude
to it in transitu. When the same circumstance has occurred at very
different times to very different persons, all of whom have some one
thing in common; there is reason to suppose that such circumstance is
not merely attributable to the persons concerned, but is in some measure
occasioned by the one point in common to them all. Instead of the
vehement and almost slanderous dehortation from marriage, which the
Misogyne, Boccaccio [44] addresses to literary men, I would substitute
the simple advice: be not merely a man of letters! Let literature be an
honourable augmentation to your arms; but not constitute the coat, or
fill the escutcheon!

To objections from conscience I can of course answer in no other way,
than by requesting the youthful objector (as I have already done on
a former occasion) to ascertain with strict self-examination, whether
other influences may not be at work; whether spirits, "not of health,"
and with whispers "not from heaven," may not be walking in the twilight
of his consciousness. Let him catalogue his scruples, and reduce them to
a distinct intelligible form; let him be certain, that he has read with
a docile mind and favourable dispositions the best and most fundamental
works on the subject; that he has had both mind and heart opened to the
great and illustrious qualities of the many renowned characters, who
had doubted like himself, and whose researches had ended in the clear
conviction, that their doubts had been groundless, or at least in no
proportion to the counter-weight. Happy will it be for such a man, if
among his contemporaries elder than himself he should meet with
one, who, with similar powers and feelings as acute as his own,
had entertained the same scruples; had acted upon them; and who by
after-research (when the step was, alas! irretrievable, but for that
very reason his research undeniably disinterested) had discovered
himself to have quarrelled with received opinions only to embrace
errors, to have left the direction tracked out for him on the high road
of honourable exertion, only to deviate into a labyrinth, where when he
had wandered till his head was giddy, his best good fortune was finally
to have found his way out again, too late for prudence though not too
late for conscience or for truth! Time spent in such delay is time
won: for manhood in the meantime is advancing, and with it increase of
knowledge, strength of judgment, and above all, temperance of feelings.
And even if these should effect no change, yet the delay will at least
prevent the final approval of the decision from being alloyed by
the inward censure of the rashness and vanity, by which it had been
precipitated. It would be a sort of irreligion, and scarcely less than
a libel on human nature to believe, that there is any established and
reputable profession or employment, in which a man may not continue to
act with honesty and honour; and doubtless there is likewise none, which
may not at times present temptations to the contrary. But wofully will
that man find himself mistaken, who imagines that the profession of
literature, or (to speak more plainly) the trade of authorship, besets
its members with fewer or with less insidious temptations, than the
Church, the law, or the different branches of commerce. But I have
treated sufficiently on this unpleasant subject in an early chapter of
this volume. I will conclude the present therefore with a short extract
from Herder, whose name I might have added to the illustrious list of
those, who have combined the successful pursuit of the Muses, not only
with the faithful discharge, but with the highest honours and honourable
emoluments of an established profession. The translation the reader
will find in a note below [45]. "Am sorgfaeltigsten, meiden sie die
Autorschaft. Zu frueh oder unmaessig gebraucht, macht sie den Kopf
wueste and das Herz leer; wenn sie auch sonst keine ueble Folgen gaebe.
Ein Mensch, der nur lieset um zu druecken, lieset wahrscheinlich uebel;
und wer jeden Gedanken, der ihm aufstosst, durch Feder and Presse
versendet, hat sie in kurzer Zeit alle versandt, und wird bald ein
blosser Diener der Druckerey, ein Buchstabensetzer werden. "




CHAPTER XII

A chapter of requests and premonitions concerning the perusal or
omission of the chapter that follows.


In the perusal of philosophical works I have been greatly benefited by
a resolve, which, in the antithetic form and with the allowed quaintness
of an adage or maxim, I have been accustomed to word thus: until you
understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his
understanding. This golden rule of mine does, I own, resemble those of
Pythagoras in its obscurity rather than in its depth. If however the
reader will permit me to be my own Hierocles, I trust, that he will
find its meaning fully explained by the following instances. I have
now before me a treatise of a religious fanatic, full of dreams and
supernatural experiences. I see clearly the writer's grounds, and their
hollowness. I have a complete insight into the causes, which through the
medium of his body has acted on his mind; and by application of received
and ascertained laws I can satisfactorily explain to my own reason all
the strange incidents, which the writer records of himself. And this I
can do without suspecting him of any intentional falsehood. As when in
broad day-light a man tracks the steps of a traveller, who had lost his
way in a fog or by a treacherous moonshine, even so, and with the same
tranquil sense of certainty, can I follow the traces of this bewildered
visionary. I understand his ignorance.

On the other hand, I have been re-perusing with the best energies of my
mind the TIMAEUS of Plato. Whatever I comprehend, impresses me with a
reverential sense of the author's genius; but there is a considerable
portion of the work, to which I can attach no consistent meaning.
In other treatises of the same philosopher, intended for the average
comprehensions of men, I have been delighted with the masterly good
sense, with the perspicuity of the language, and the aptness of the
inductions. I recollect likewise, that numerous passages in this author,
which I thoroughly comprehend, were formerly no less unintelligible to
me, than the passages now in question. It would, I am aware, be quite
fashionable to dismiss them at once as Platonic jargon. But this I
cannot do with satisfaction to my own mind, because I have sought in
vain for causes adequate to the solution of the assumed inconsistency.
I have no insight into the possibility of a man so eminently wise, using
words with such half-meanings to himself, as must perforce pass into no
meaning to his readers. When in addition to the motives thus suggested
by my own reason, I bring into distinct remembrance the number and the
series of great men, who, after long and zealous study of these works
had joined in honouring the name of Plato with epithets, that almost
transcend humanity, I feel, that a contemptuous verdict on my part might
argue want of modesty, but would hardly be received by the judicious, as
evidence of superior penetration. Therefore, utterly baffled in all
my attempts to understand the ignorance of Plato, I conclude myself
ignorant of his understanding.

In lieu of the various requests which the anxiety of authorship
addresses to the unknown reader, I advance but this one; that he will
either pass over the following chapter altogether, or read the whole
connectedly. The fairest part of the most beautiful body will appear
deformed and monstrous, if dissevered from its place in the organic
whole. Nay, on delicate subjects, where a seemingly trifling difference
of more or less may constitute a difference in kind, even a faithful
display of the main and supporting ideas, if yet they are separated from
the forms by which they are at once clothed and modified, may perchance
present a skeleton indeed; but a skeleton to alarm and deter. Though I
might find numerous precedents, I shall not desire the reader to strip
his mind of all prejudices, nor to keep all prior systems out of view
during his examination of the present. For in truth, such requests
appear to me not much unlike the advice given to hypochondriacal
patients in Dr. Buchan's domestic medicine; videlicet, to preserve
themselves uniformly tranquil and in good spirits. Till I had discovered
the art of destroying the memory a parte post, without injury to its
future operations, and without detriment to the judgment, I should
suppress the request as premature; and therefore, however much I may
wish to be read with an unprejudiced mind, I do not presume to state it
as a necessary condition.

The extent of my daring is to suggest one criterion, by which it may be
rationally conjectured beforehand, whether or no a reader would lose
his time, and perhaps his temper, in the perusal of this, or any other
treatise constructed on similar principles. But it would be cruelly
misinterpreted, as implying the least disrespect either for the moral
or intellectual qualities of the individuals thereby precluded. The
criterion is this: if a man receives as fundamental facts, and therefore
of course indemonstrable and incapable of further analysis, the general
notions of matter, spirit, soul, body, action, passiveness, time, space,
cause and effect, consciousness, perception, memory and habit; if
he feels his mind completely at rest concerning all these, and is
satisfied, if only he can analyse all other notions into some one or
more of these supposed elements with plausible subordination and apt
arrangement: to such a mind I would as courteously as possible convey
the hint, that for him the chapter was not written.

Vir bonus es, doctus, prudens; ast haud tibi spiro.

For these terms do in truth include all the difficulties, which the
human mind can propose for solution. Taking them therefore in mass, and
unexamined, it required only a decent apprenticeship in logic, to draw
forth their contents in all forms and colours, as the professors of
legerdemain at our village fairs pull out ribbon after ribbon from their
mouths. And not more difficult is it to reduce them back again to their
different genera. But though this analysis is highly useful in rendering
our knowledge more distinct, it does not really add to it. It does not
increase, though it gives us a greater mastery over, the wealth which
we before possessed. For forensic purposes, for all the established
professions of society, this is sufficient. But for philosophy in its
highest sense as the science of ultimate truths, and therefore scientia
scientiarum, this mere analysis of terms is preparative only, though as
a preparative discipline indispensable.

Still less dare a favourable perusal be anticipated from the proselytes
of that compendious philosophy, which talking of mind but thinking
of brick and mortar, or other images equally abstracted from body,
contrives a theory of spirit by nicknaming matter, and in a few hours
can qualify its dullest disciples to explain the omne scibile by
reducing all things to impressions, ideas, and sensations.

But it is time to tell the truth; though it requires some courage to
avow it in an age and country, in which disquisitions on all subjects,
not privileged to adopt technical terms or scientific symbols, must be
addressed to the Public.