Columbus was led to success by a guiding Idea

In the strength of this Idea he conquered at last, though his noble hope was long contemned, both by Princes and the common People

An Initiative, or previous mental act, is indispensable in physical, as well as in mathematical studies

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In Mathematics the perfect Idea makes the object; the definition precedes the reasoning in Physics the definition is representative not constitutive, and follows the reasoning

Discoveries of Experimental Philosophy, till they lead to some Law, are insecure and unproductive

The Idea of the Theory of Electricity is one and sure amid various and insecure hypotheses. On this depends the method of arranging the phænomena. The Law of Polarity operates in all Electrical phænomena Magnetism is contrasted with Electricity in furnishing no Idea, leading to no Law, and hence to no Method. There is an hypothesis which considers Magnetism, Electricity, and Galvanism, as results of one power essential to all material construction

The Fictions of the Electrician contain an idea; the Suppositions of the Magnetists do but repeat the same fact in a magnified form. This leads us to recognise the importance of the enlightening fact, which proclaims an Idea. One fact is often as good as a thousand

Zoology was without unity or system till Hunter, in the preparations for his Museum, announced, though imperfectly, an Idea, and thereby led to noble results

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An Idea is wanted indispensably for methodical arrangement in Botany
Botany is obliged to Linnæus for a serviceable scheme of arrangement. But for
lack of an Initiative Idea, the true Idea of Sex and of Vegetation itself, he
was unable to systematize the Vegetable with the Animal and Mineral
Kingdoms

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Want of insight into the Idea of Sex precludes a perfect methodical arrangement of vegetable productions. With all the multitude and variety of particular informations on the subject, brought together by numerous able investigators, Botany remains merely a vast nomenclature and catalogue, from default of a methodizing Idea

The Idea which has occurred to some, that the harmony between the Vegetable and Animal Worlds rests upon contrast, not likeness, if proved an objective truth, would produce scientific Method

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The charm of Chemistry consists in the anticipation of a Law, whereof the variety of substances, assumed to be indecomposable, are exponents. It is a pursuit after unity of principle through variety of forms There is a correspondence between Physical Science and Poetry, Nature being idealized by the Poet, Poetry substantiated by the Natural Philosopher

The position that Poetry is capable of Method is founded on the very Philosophy here set forth, and is evidenced in the Plays of Shakspeare Shakspeare's information has been shown to be extensive. But his knowledge was no rude mass, it was methodized by a perception of Relations. He studied Mankind in the Idea of the Race, and followed out that Idea into its varieties by a guiding Method

Compare Mrs. Quickly's account of Falstaff's debt, with Hamlet's narration to
Horatio of what took place in his voyage to England

Both discourses are immethodical in form; but that of the hostess wants order
resulting from power of thought, while that of Hamlet is governed by reflec-
tion. The former is a mere report of passive impressions; the latter is in-
terrupted by the propensity to generalize

Mrs. Quickly's want of method is common in real life; and, on the other hand, many intelligent men, from the disposition to generalize in excess, are apt to overlook the relation of objects to the apprehension and sympathies of hearers

The habit of Method brings the Remote into Contiguity; the absence of it produces distance and disconnection between the parts of a discourse treating of things near in Time and Space

Not only is there consistency in Shakspeare's Characters: his just display of Passion arose from the contemplation of Ideas. It was not in the former only that he followed an accurate philosophic Method Condemnatory criticism on Shakspeare may, for the most part, receive two answers; first that, working from an Idea, he better understood the fit mode of expressing Passion,-had a more methodical sense of Harmony, than his critics: secondly, that he pursued two Methods at once, the poetical and the psychological

Shakspeare's moral conceptions are guided by philosophic Method. He exhibits crime in union with intellectual vigour, never, like less methodic moralists, conjoined with magnanimity, or as part of a character upon the whole amiable and admirable

Shakspeare is methodical in his style. No other man ever so exquisitely adapted the discourse of poetic personages to wide varieties of rank and character. It was Method that led him to the choice of such happy words and idioms, still fresh as in their first bloom

Shakspeare has been called "not methodical in the structure of his Fable;" but the contrary may be proved. He has been said to have violated the unities of time, place, and action. But Unity is the subject of Ideal Law, and this is Shakspeare's own peculiar ground, the ground of Idea. Who could alter the plan of one of his great plays, or transpose its parts, without destroying the sublime and moving effect of scenes and passages ?

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If the wondrous excellence of Shakspeare, in all provinces of the poetic drama, was thus attributable to Method, let it never be said that Poetry is independent of philosophical principles of Method

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Philosophy, to which belongs the education of Mind, is herself wholly conversant with Method

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The Ancients had their spurious intellectual Methods. But their Philosophers pursued a different course from the Sophists. The species, Philosophy, is sufficiently exemplified by two varieties, Plato and Bacon

This is

The object of the better works of Plato to teach the art of Method.
the clue to guide us through his labyrinth. His aim was not so much to
teach any particular truth, as to clear the way for the reception of Truth at
large; to excite in the soul those faculties, by the operation whereof it be-
comes self-enriched, rather than to fill it with knowledge from without.
Plato and Shakspeare dealt with ideas, but were only so much the more
awake to actual existences. Plato's philosophy was most wrongfully accused
of neglecting fact and experience; he pursued the false intellectualism of the
Sophists, even oftener and more vehemently than the usurpation of the
Senses

Lord Bacon, though he is strangely cited as authority against Plato, followed the
Platonic method in his own scheme

Cicero, the great Philosopher of Rome, venerated Plato. Bacon's detraction
from him is easier to explain than to justify. He was influenced by the Fathers
of the Reformation and by misinterpreters

Bacon was invidious also to his contemporaries. But we are here concerned with his philosophical principles only

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The superficial talkers about Bacon's Philosophy form a wrong and inadequate estimate of it, from considering only those parts the soundness of which may be fairly disputed

Bacon collected Particulars in order to concentrate them into Universals; but
by these means it would have been impossible to have arrived at Law, the
sole object of bringing them together
Bacon performed a worthier task by constructing a methodical system de-
veloped in his Novum Organum. If we extract from Plato and from Bacon
what constitutes the true philosophy of each writer, we shall find it identical
in regard to the Science of Method; although in both authors, from imper-
!fect acquaintance with the laws of nature, the inductions are often erroneous
and the proposed applications impracticable

Bacon, as much as we, demands the mental initiative,—namely, as the motive
and guide of philosophical experiment, some well-grounded purpose, some
distinct impression of the probable results. With him, as with us, an Idea
is an experiment proposed; an experiment is an Idea realized
What forms the purpose and adapts thereto the experiment? The under-
standing of the experimenter-lux Intellectus. This light, he argues, ob-
scured by idols or false opinions. He distinguishes the various kinds of idols,
and, like Plato, prescribes remedies for the blindness they produce: he shows
that Idols are empty notions, whilst Ideas are the very impresses of Nature,
corresponding perfectly to the outward things to which they belong. Bacon's
style betrays in some respects a faulty Method

Bacon teaches that there are innate idols or mental fallacies; that as the mind in every individual is more or less enfeebled and impaired, it misrepresents, like an imperfect mirror, what is presented to it; that consequently man is led to take the mechanism of his own reflective faculty for the measure of Nature and of Deity. According to Plato, as well as to Bacon, so long as forms merely subjective are taken for the moulds of objective truth, no fruitful and secure method can be expected

Bacon suggests that the imperfection of the human Intellect may and must be
remedied by a higher power. He assumes that the evidence of the Judgment,
beset with Idols, may be corrected by the Judgment, enlightened by Ideas.
This corrector and purifier is one and the same light of truth, the condition
of all pure science. Hence Plato calls Ideas living Laws: Bacon names the
Laws of Nature Ideas. What Plato extolled under the title of Dialectic, is
the discipline whereby the human mind is cleansed from Idols, and raised to
the contemplation of Ideas, or distinguishable powers self-affirmed
Plato treated principally of Truth as manifested in the world of Intellect; Bacon
of the same Truth in the world of Sense. The one cultivated Metaphysics
most; the other Natural Philosophy. Botn proceeded on the same prin-
ciples of Unity and Progression, and alike followed Method as here de-
scribed

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That the Method treated of is founded in the laws and necessary conditions of human existence, may be inferred from the History of the Human Race, which has its Infancy, Youth, Manhood, and Middle Age

In the first period the Obedience of the Will was taught to Man. Some in that Early Age cultivated the Moral Sense, gained spiritual knowledge and spiritual hopes, and therefore cared little to acquire Arts and Sciences and improve earthly possessions. The latter exclusively observed outward things as the sole realities. The vicious of Mankind receded from cultivation, while they hurried toward civilization. They worshipped the material elements, and finally bowed down before material Idols. Here were two opposite Methods; that of looking for the good and the true within the mind, and that of finding it only in the material

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In the second period Providence awakened Man to the pursuit of an idealized
Method in the development of his faculties. Bards began to spiritualize
Polytheism. Hence the Mysteries shaped themselves into Epic Poetry and
History on one hand, on the other into Tragedy and Philosophy. The Fine
Arts shot up at once to perfection by a Method founded on a Mental Initia-
tive. The progress of the Ancients in all things that originate in Mind was
contrasted with their slow advance in Natural History and Philosophy
The Romans were mere imitators of the Greeks in Science and Art. The Dark
Ages, which brought the sensual Barbarians from the North to meet the
influences of Christianity in the South, require no long consideration. But
one effect of that influence must be noticed, namely, the gradual abolition of
domestic slavery. The Idea of a Human Being, as a Person, in opposition
to a Thing, excludes the Idea of property in that Being

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The Leaders of the Reformation were advocates of the Ideal and Internal against the External or Imaginative. The Revolution of Thought and its effects on the Science of Method became visible beyond the pale of the Church or the Cloister. Bacon's attempt to introduce a new method into Learning was completely successful

A complete and genuine Philosophy can only exist when one and the same Ideal Method is applied to external nature and to intellectual existence. The work of Bacon, in its general scope, contemplates physical Ideas. This fact, together with some of his expressions, misled many of his followers into the belief that he held the things of sense to be the only worthy objects of Man's attention. Hence the modern French school of Philosophy and the monstrous puerilities of Condillac and Condorcet, whose pupils are important only by their number

SECTION III.

APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF METHOD TO THE GENERAL CONCATENATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF STUDIES.

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A savage Indian, unacquainted with letters, attempting to make use of the Bible, in the sense that his fate is in some way connected with its contents, may represent Arrangement guided by no Idea, Orderliness without Method - 59 When the Missionary, arriving, explains to him the nature of written words, he communes with the spirit of the volume. Thenceforth his vain Arrangement is discarded; the results of Method are to him light and truth The attempt to bind together the whole body of the Sciences has been, in some instances, worse than immethodical. The insinuation of sceptical principles into works of Science is full of danger to posterity The Encyclopædia Metropolitana has been projected to keep up an interest in the principles of Method

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An Universal Dictionary of Knowledge is not undertaken in this work, but to build, by a philosophical Method, the Useful on the Essential in Science,-the Elegant and Agreeable on both

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This Method consists in subordinating particular things to a preconceived Idea, or to some lower form of the latter

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The Moral Origin and Tendency of true Science is the master thought of the plan

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The Pure Sciences are built on the Relations of Ideas to each other; the Mixed or Applied on the Relations of Ideas to the External World

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In them we distinguish between Formal and Real. The former teach the Forms of Thinking; the latter treat of Being itself, the true nature and existence of the External Universe, of the Guiding Principles within us, and of the Great Cause of all

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