Biographia Literaria
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