III. origin of the wonderful, if we take into account the compara- CHAPTER tively recent origin of our sciences. It is little more than two hundred years since there was The recent only one man of scientific note in England-sciences, William Harvey; when Sydenham was but beginning to practise; when Barrow was studying the Greek fathers at Constantinople; when Ray was yet unknown; when Halley was yet unborn; when Flamsteed was still teething; when Newton was a farmer-boy, munching apples as he drove to market on Saturdays; when Hooke was a poor student at Oxford, assisting Boyle in his manipulations; when Boyle lived in seclusion at the apothecary's, and was chiefly remarkable for associating with men whose names begin with WWallis, Willis, Wilkins, Ward, and Wren. None of the founders of the Royal Society had then emerged from obscurity, and the Royal Society was a small club that met in secret and called itself the Invisible College. Two centuries have brought a marvellous change. Science came into And their England with tea, with tea-drinking it spread, velopment. and it is now imbibed as universally. It has so commended itself by great achievements that at length every one of the sciences has a society for itself, all the great cities of the United Kingdom have scientific societies, and there is such a rage for science throughout the country and in every class, that, not unlike the tailors of Laputa, who, abjuring tape, took altitudes and longitudes with a quadrant, the London tailors profess to cut present de CHAPTER their shirts scientifically, and in the ardour of science baptize their masterpiece Eureka. III. Different fate of the mental sciences. Meanwhile, amid this rush of the intellectual current all in one direction, it fares ill with mental science; it fares ill with all the sciences that may more strictly be called human, including that of criticism. As a scientific object, the shard-borne beetle is of more account than man: the cells of the bee and the cocoons of the silkworm, than all the efforts of human genius, all the wonders of human handiwork. Philosophy, I have said, has filled us with despair, and despair of philosophical methods has spread to despair of all that philosophy touched, and rethe despair garded as peculiarly its own. Nor is this the Various points of view from which is produced of any science of human nature. only form in which despair of a human science in general, and a critical science in particular, shows itself. These are days in which the forms of literature are opposed to the elaboration of system; and as the essence of science is system, here is another foundation for despair to build upon. Then, again, there are moralists who are eager to keep clear the great doctrine of the freedom of the will; who are afraid to regard human actionas in such wise governed by law, that it is capable of scientific calculation; and here is another ground of despair. Lastly, there are persons who, unable to see the practical use to which a science of criticism (but I ought to speak more generally, and say a science of human nature) may be turned, are apt to pass upon it a III. sentence of condemnation, which on the other CHAPTER hand they do not pronounce on the merely physical sciences, when they are unable to perceive immediately the practical value of any material discoveries; and thus again is engendered another form of despair. Let me say a few words upon each of these passages of despair. cal despair science. And first, of the philosophical despair that Philosophinow attaches to the scientific treatment of all of mental those subjects which philosophy used to handle. Mr. G. H. Lewes has written a very clever and learned book on the history of philosophy, in which he always insists that the chief problems of metaphysics are insoluble. This work is so brilliant that it has been much read and pilfered from; and for practical purposes it is the best history of philosophy that the English reader can consult; but it is burdened with the fallacy that because what is called metaphysics is impossible, therefore any attempt at a science of the mind must be vain. Does it follow that because metaphysical methods have failed, therefore scientific methods must fail also? Now the despair of a mental science which Mr. Lewes entertains he also entertains, as it would seem, for all the What Mr. branches of that science, criticism included. He of philososays that "philosophy has distorted poetry, and phical critibeen the curse of criticism." Most of us will agree with him, if by philosophy he means metaphysics. We all find the greatest difficulty Lewes says cism. III. CHAPTER in understanding what are called the philosophical critics, and when we get at their meaning it looks very small. They are afraid to be clear, lest they be deemed shallow; or they love to think themselves profound, because they are unable to plumb their own ideas. A philosophical critic A fair specimen of the philosophical critic is Wagner Richard Wagner, who has invented the music of the future. Whatever may be thought of his music, he has a considerable reputation as a musical critic. Discoursing on art, in the most approved philosophical method, he defines poetry in terms which it is beyond me to translate, and so I make use of Mr. Bridgeman's translation. "If we now consider," he says, "the activity of the poet more closely, we perceive that the realisation of his intention consists solely in rendering possible the representation of the strengthened The jargon actions of his poetised forms through an exposition of their motives to the feelings, as well as the motives themselves, also by an expression that in so far engrosses his activity as the invention and production of this expression in truth first render the introduction of such motives and actions possible." This is the jargon of philosophy, and it is the curse of criticism. If this is what Mr. Lewes condemns, who in this country will contradict him? But sometimes it is not Distinction clear whether, when this author speaks of philophilosophy sophy, he means simply philosophy as it used to and science be understood, or also includes under that name of philo sophy. between III. want of cri genuine science, because it is the science of mind CHAPTER as distinct from body. The name of philosophy has been especially allotted in this country to mental science-to psychology; and it seems a hard thing to say that in this sense philosophy has been the curse of criticism. In point of fact, the great fault of criticism is its ignorance The great -at least its disregard of psychology. It is ticism true that mental science has not yet done much psychology. for us in any department of study; but it must not be forgotten that the application of scientific methods to the mind and action of man has been even more recent and more tardy than their application to the processes of nature, Science as and that the time has not yet come to look for mind too ripe fruit, and to curse the tree on which it is recent to be not found. Any science of a true sort, mathe- fruitlessmatics apart -any science that is more than guessing, or more than a confused pudding-stone of facts-is now but two centuries old. The most advanced of the sciences that relate specially to human conduct is the science of wealth, and political economy is but a century old. The other sciences that take account of human action are still in their infancy; and to despair of them is but to despair of childhood. applied to accused of ness. of system. Sir Edward Lytton expresses despair of a The despair different kind. He sees the futility of system; he knows that from time to time the most perfect systems have to be remodelled, and give way to new schemes. Hence, in one of his most lively |