may be necessary to the arrangement of a Methodical Encyclopædia. classify and There may there may be and Relations. All things, in us, and about us, are a Chaos, without Method: Its Objects and so long as the mind is entirely passive, so long as there is an habitual submission of the Understanding to mere events and images, as such, without any attempt to arrange them, so long the Chaos must continue. be transition, but there can never be progress; sensation, but there cannot be thought: for the total absence of Method renders thinking impracticable; as we find that partial defects of Method proportionably render thinking a trouble and a fatigue. But as soon as the mind becomes accustomed to contemplate, not things only, but likewise relations of things, there is immediate need of some path or way of transit from one to the other of the things related;-there must be some law of agreement or of contrast between them; there must be some mode of comparison; in short, there must be Method. We may, therefore, assert that the relations of things form the prime objects, or, so to speak, the materials of Method; and that the contemplation of those relations is the indispensable condition of thinking Methodically. Of these relations of things, we distinguish two principal kinds. One of them is the relation by which we understand that a thing must be: the other, that by which we merely perceive that it is. The one, we call the relation of LAW, using that word in its highest and original sense, namely, that of laying down a rule to which the subjects of the LAW must necessarily conform. The other, we call the relation of THEORY. Law. The relation of LAW is in its absolute perfection conceivable Relation of only of GOD, that Supreme Light, and Living Law, "in whom we live and move, and have our being;" who is év Távtɩ, and πρò Twν Távτwv. But yet the Human Mind is capable of viewing Relation of Middle or compound Method of the Fine Arts. some relations of things as necessarily existent; that is to say, predetermined by a truth in the Mind itself, pregnant with the consequence of other truths in an indefinite progression. Of such truths, some continue always to exist in and for the Mind alone, forming the Pure Sciences, moral or intellectual; whilst others, though originating in the Mind, constitute what are commonly called the great Laws of Nature, and form the groundwork of the Mixed Sciences, such as those of Mechanics and Astronomy. The second relation is that of THEORY, in which the existing forms and qualities of objects, discovered by observation, suggest a given arrangement of them to the Mind, not merely for the purposes of more easy remembrance and communication; but for those of understanding, and sometimes of controlling them. The studies to which this class of relations is subservient, are more properly called Scientific Arts than Sciences. Medicine, Chemistry, and Physiology are examples of a Method founded on this second sort of relation, which, as well as the former, always supposes the necessary connection of cause and effect. The relations of Law and Theory have each their Methods. Between these two, lies the Method of the FINE ARTS, a Method in which certain great truths, composing what are usually called the Laws of Taste, necessarily predominate; but in which there are also other Laws, dependent on the external objects of sight and sound, which these Arts embrace. To prove the comparative value and dignity of the first relation, it will be sufficient to observe that what is called "tinkling verse is disagreeable to the accomplished Critic in Poetry, and that a fine Musical taste is soon dissatisfied with the Harmonica, or any similar instrument of glass or steel, because the body of the sound, (as the Italians phrase it,) or that effect which is derived from the materials, encroaches too far on the effect derived from the proportions of the notes, which proportions are, in fact, Laws of the Mind, analogous to the Laws of Arithmetic and Geometry. We have stated, that Method implies both an uniting and a Principle progressive power. Now the relations of things are not united of Union. in Human conception at random-humano capiti―cervicem equinam; but there is some rule, some mode of union, more or less, strictly necessary. Where it is absolutely necessary, we have called it a relation of Law; and as by Law we mean the laying down the rule, so the rule laid down we call, in the ancient and proper sense of the word, an Idea; and conse- Ideas, quently the words Idea and Law are correlative terms, differing only as object and subject, as Being and Truth. It is extremely necessary to advert to this use of the word Idea; since, in Modern Philosophy, almost any and every exercise of any and every mental faculty has been abusively called by this name, to the utter confusion and unmethodizing of the whole Science of the Human Mind, and indeed of all other Knowledge what soever. Instinctive. The Idea may exist in a clear, distinct, definite form, as that Definite or of a circle in the Mind of an accurate Geometrician; or it may be a mere instinct, a vague appetency towards something which the Mind incessantly hunts for, but cannot find, like a name which has escaped our recollection, or the impulse which fills the young Poet's eye with tears, he knows not why. In the infancy of the Human Mind all our ideas are instincts; and Language is happily contrived to lead us from the vague to the distinct, from the imperfect to the full and finished form: the boy knows that his hoop is round, and this, in after years, helps to teach him, that in a circle, all the lines drawn from the centre to the circumference are equal. It will be seen, in the sequel, that this distinction between the instinctive approach toward an Idea, and the Idea itself, is of high importance in Methodizing Art and Science. C There is a principle of progression in Ideas. State of From the first, or initiative Idea, as from a seed, successive Ideas germinate. Thus, from the Idea of a triangle, necessarily follows that of equality between the sum of its three angles and two right angles. This is the Principle of an indefinite, not to say infinite, Progression; but this progression, which is truly Method, requires not only the proper choice of an initiative, but also the following it out through all its ramifications. It requires, in short, a constant wakefulness of Mind; so that if we wander but in a single instance from our path, we cannot reach the goal, but by retracing our steps to the point of divergency, and thence beginning our progress anew. Thus, a ship beating off and on an unknown coast, often takes, in nautical phrase, "a new departure;" and thus it is necessary often to recur to that regulating process, which the French Language so happily expresses by the word s'orienter, i. e. to find out the East for ourselves, and so to put to rights our faulty reckoning. The habit of Method should always be present and effective; but in order to render it so, a certain training, or education of the Mind, is indispensably necessary. Events and images, the lively and spirit-stirring machinery of the external world, are like light, and air, and moisture, to the seed of the Mind, which would else rot and perish. In all processes of mental evolution the objects of the senses must stimulate the Mind; and the Mind must in turn assimilate and digest the food which it thus receives from without. Method, therefore, must result from the due mean, or balance, between our passive impressions and the Mind's reaction on them. So in the healthful state of the Human body, waking and sleeping, rest and labour, reciprocally succeed each other, and mutually contribute to liveliness, and activity, and strength. There are certain stores proper, and, as it were, indigenous to the Mind, such as the Ideas of number and figure, and the logical forms and com methodiz mulation material of binations of conception or thought. The Mind that is rich Excess in and exuberant in this intellectual wealth, is apt, like a miser, ing opposed to dwell upon the vain contemplation of its riches, is disposed to the accuto generalize and methodize to excess, ever philosophizing, and of fresh never descending to action;-spreading its wings high in the thought. air above some beloved spot, but never flying far and wide over earth and sea, to seek food, or to enjoy the endless beauties of Nature; the fresh morning and the warm noon, and the dewy eve. On the other hand, still less is to be expected, toward the Methodizing of Science, from the man who flutters about in blindness, like the bat; or is carried hither and thither, like the turtle sleeping on the wave, and fancying, because he moves, that he is in progress. direction of The paths in which we may pursue a Methodical course are Proper manifold at the head of each stands its peculiar and guiding Method. Idea; and those Ideas are as regularly subordinate in dignity, as the paths to which they point are various and eccentric in direction. The world has suffered much, in modern times, from a subversion of the natural and necessary order of Science : from elevating the terrestrial, as it has been called, above the celestial; and from summoning Reason and Faith to the bar of that limited Physical experience, to which, by the true laws of Method, they owe no obedience. The subordination, of which we here speak, is not that which depends on immediate practical utility: for the utility of Human powers, in their practical application, depends on the circumstances of the moment; and at one time strength is essential to our very existence, at another time skill:` and even Cæsar in a fever could cry, Give me some drink, Titinius, As a sick girl. In truth there is scarcely any one of the powers or faculties with which the Divine Goodness has endowed his creatures, which may not in its turn be a source of paramount benefit and |