A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies Part 23

43.

"Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion, that the secrets of nature were the secrets of G.o.d, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly."

G.o.d has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us on this side of the grave. But not the less will he keep his own secrets from us. Has he not proved it? who has opened that door to the knowledge of a future being which it has pleased him to keep shut fast, though watched by hope and by faith?

44.

The Christian philosophy of these latter times appears to be foreshadowed in the following sentence, where he speaks of such as have ventured to deduce and confirm the truth of the Christian religion from the principles and authorities of philosophers: "Thus with great pomp and solemnity celebrating the intermarriage of faith and sense as a lawful conjunction, and soothing the minds of men with a pleasing variety of matter, though, at the same time, rashly and unequally intermixing things divine and things human."

This last common-place distinction seems to me, however, unworthy of Bacon. It should be banished-utterly set aside. Things which are divine should be human, and things which are human, divine; not as a mixture, "a medley," in the sense of Bacon's words, but an interfusion; for nothing that we esteem divine can be anything to us but as we make it _ours_, _i. e._ humanise it; and our humanity were a poor thing but for "the divinity that stirs within us." We do injury to our own nature-we misconceive our relations to the Creator, to his universe, and to each other, so long as we separate and studiously keep wide apart the _divine_ and the _human_.

45.

"Let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied either in the book of G.o.d's word or the book of G.o.d's works." Well advised! But then he goes on to warn men that they do not "unwisely mingle or confound their learnings together:" mischievous this contradistinction between G.o.d's word and G.o.d's works; since both, if emanating from him, must be equally true. And if there be one truth, then, to borrow his own words in another place, "the voice of nature will consent, whether the voice of man do so or not."

46.

Apropos to education-here is a good ill.u.s.tration: "Were it not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great light or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a rushlight into every dark corner?"

And here is another: "It is one thing to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and another to correct ill husbandry in that which _is_ manured."

47.

"It is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle and generous, amiable, and pliant to government, whereas ignorance maketh them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous."

48.

"An impatience of doubt and an unadvised haste to a.s.sertion without due and mature suspension of the judgment, is an error in the conduct of the understanding."

"In contemplation, if a man begin with certainties he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties." Well said and profoundly true.

This is a celebrated and often-cited pa.s.sage; an admitted principle in theory. I wish it were oftener applied in practice,-more especially in education. For it seems to me that in teaching children we ought not to be perpetually dogmatising. We ought not to be ever placing before them only the known and the definite; but to allow the unknown, the uncertain, the indefinite, to be suggested to their minds: it would do more for the growth of a truly religious feeling than all the catechisms of scientific facts and creeds of theological definitions that ever were taught in cut and dried question and answer. Why should not the young candid mind be allowed to reflect on the unknown, as such? on the doubtful, as such-open to inquiry and liable to discussion? Why will teachers suppose that in confessing their own ignorance or admitting uncertainties they must diminish the respect of their pupils, or their faith in truth? I should say from my own experience that the effect is just the reverse. I remember, when a child, hearing a very celebrated man profess his ignorance on some particular subject, and I felt awe-struck-it gave me a perception of the infinite,-as when looking up at the starry sky. What we unadvisedly cram into a child's mind in the same form it has taken in our own, does not always healthily or immediately a.s.similate; it dissolves away in doubts, or it hardens into prejudice, instead of mingling with the life as truth ought to do. It is the early and habitual surrendering of the mind to authority, which makes it afterwards so ready for deception of all kinds.

49.

He speaks of "legends and narrations of miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, monks, which, though they have had pa.s.sage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the superst.i.tious simplicity of some, and the politic toleration of others, holding them but as divine poesies; yet after a time they grew up to be esteemed but as old wives' fables, to the great scandal and detriment of religion."

Very ambiguous, surely. Does he mean that it was to the great scandal and detriment of religion that they existed at all? or that they came to be regarded as old wives' fables?

50.

He says, farther on, "though truth and error are carefully to be separated, yet rarities and reports that seem incredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the memory of men."

"For it is not yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to superst.i.tion do partic.i.p.ate of natural causes."

51.

"To be speculative with another man to the end to know how to work him or wind him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous; which, as in friendship, it is a want of _integrity_, so towards princes or superiors it is a want of _duty_."

(No occasion, surely, for the distinction here drawn; inasmuch as the want of integrity involves the want of _every_ duty.)

Then he speaks of "the stooping to points of necessity and convenience and outward basenesses," as to be accounted "submission to the occasion, not to the person." Vile distinction! an excuse to himself for his dedication to the King, and his flattery of Carr and Villiers.

52.

Our English Universities are only now beginning to show some sign (reluctant sign) of submitting to that re-examination which the great philosopher recommended two hundred and fifty years ago, when he says: "Inasmuch as most of the usages and orders of the universities were derived from more obscure times, it is the more requisite they be reexamined"-and more to the same purpose.

53.

"If that great Workmaster (G.o.d) had been of a human disposition, he would have cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and orders like the frets in the roofs of houses; whereas, one can scarce find a posture in square or triangle or straight line amongst such an infinite number, so differing an harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit of nature."

Perhaps if our human vision could be removed to a sufficient distance to contemplate the whole of what we now see in part, what appears disorder might appear beautiful order. The stars which now appear as if flung about at random, would perhaps be resolved into some exquisitely beautiful and regular edifice. The fly on the cornice, "whose feeble ray scarce spreads an inch around," might as well discuss the proportions of the Parthenon as we the true figure and frame of G.o.d's universe.

I remember seeing, through Lord Rosse's telescope, one of those nebulae which have hitherto appeared like small ma.s.ses of vapour floating about in s.p.a.ce. I saw it composed of thousands upon thousands of brilliant stars, and the effect to the eye-to mine at least-was as if I had had my hand full of diamonds, and suddenly unclosing it, and flinging them forth, they were dispersed as from a centre, in a kind of partly irregular, partly fan-like form; and I had a strange feeling of suspense and amazement while I looked, because they did not change their relative position, did not fall-though in act to fall-but seemed fixed in the very att.i.tude of being flung forth into s.p.a.ce;-it was most wondrous and beautiful to see!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

54.

It is pleasant to me to think that Bacon's stupendous intellect believed in the moral progress of human societies, because it is my own belief, and one that I would not for worlds resign. I indeed believe that each human being must here (or hereafter?) work out his own peculiar moral life: but also that the whole race has a progressive moral life: just as in our solar system every individual planet moves in its own orbit, while the whole system moves on together; we know not whither, we know not round what centre-"_ma pur si muove!_"

55.

Yet he says in another place, with equal wit and sublimity, "Every obtaining of a desire hath a _show_ of advancement, as motion in a circle hath a _show_ of progression." Perhaps our movement may be _spiral_? and every revolution may bring us nearer and nearer to some divine centre in which we may be absorbed at last?

56.

He refers in this following pa.s.sage to that theory of the angelic existences which we see expressed in ancient symbolic Art, first by variation of colour only, and later, by variety of expression and form.

He says,-"We find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, that the first place or degree is given to the Angels of Love, which are called Seraphim; the second to the Angels of Light, which are termed Cherubim; and the third, and so following, to Thrones, Princ.i.p.alities, and the rest (which are all angels of power and ministry); so as the angels of knowledge and illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination."

-But the Angels of LOVE are first and over all. In other words, we have here in due order of precedence, 1. LOVE, 2. KNOWLEDGE, 3. POWER,-the angelic Trinity, which, in unity, is our idea of G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHATEAUBRIAND.