ESSAY V.

Scientiis idem quod plantis. Si plantá aliquá uti in animo habeas, de radice quid fiat, nil refert: si vero transferre cupias in aliud solum, tutius est radicibus uti quam surculis. Sic traditio. quæ nunc in usu est, exhibet plane tanquam truncos (pulchros illos quidem) scientiarum; sed tamen absque radicibus fabro lignario certe commodos, at plantatori inutiles. Quod si, disciplina ut crescant, tibi cordi sit, de truncis minus sis solicitus ad id curam adhibe, ut radices illæsæ, etiam cum aliquantulo terræ adhærentis, extrahantur : dummodo hoc pacto et scientiam propriam revisere, vestigia que cognitionis tuæ remetiri possis; et eam sic transplantare in animum alienum, sicut crevit in tuo. BACO de Augment. Scient. 1. vi. c. ii.

(Translation.)-It is with sciences as with trees. If it be your purpose to make some particular use of the tree, you need not concern yourself about the roots. But if you wish to transfer it into another soil, it is then safer to employ the roots, than the scyons. Thus the mode of teaching most common at present exhibits clearly enough the trunks, as it were, of the sciences, and those too of handsome growth; but nevertheless, without the roots, valuable and convenient as they undoubtedly are

to the carpenter, they are useless to the planter. But if you have at heart the advancement of education, as that which proposes to itself the general discipline of the mind for its end and aim, be less anxious concerning the trunks, and let it be your care, that the roots should be extracted entire, even though a small portion of the soil should adhere to them: so that at all events you may be able, by this means, both to review your own scientific acquirements, re-measuring as it were the steps of your knowledge for your own satisfaction, and at the same time to transplant it into the minds of others, just as it grew in your own.

IT has been observed, in a preceding page, that the RELATIONS of objects are prime materials of Method, and that the contemplation of relations is the indispensible condition of thinking methodically. It becomes necessary therefore to add, that there are two kinds of relation, in which objects of mind may be contemplated. The first is that of LAW, which, in its absolute perfection, is conceivable only of the Supreme Being, whose creative IDEA not only appoints to each thing its position, but in that position, and in consequence of that position, gives it its qualities, yea, it gives its very ex

istence, as that particular thing. Yet in whatever science the relation of the parts to each other and to the whole is predetermined by a truth originating in the mind, and not abstracted or generalized from observation of the parts, there we affirm the presence of a law, if we are speaking of the physical sciences, as of Astronomy for instance; or the presence of fundamental ideas, if our discourse be upon those sciences, the truths of which, as truths absolute, not merely have an independent origin in the mind, but continue to exist in and for the mind alone. Such, for instance, is Geometry, and such are the ideas of a perfect circle, of asymptots, &c.

We have thus assigned the first place in the science of Method to LAW; and first of the first, to Law, as the absolute kind which comprehending in itself the substance of every possible degree precludes from its conception all degree, not by generalization but by its own plenitude As such, therefore, and as the sufficient cause of the reality correspondent thereto, we contemplate it as exclusively an attribute of the Supreme Being, inseparable from the idea of God: adding, however, that from the

contemplation of law in this, its only perfect form, must be derived all true insight into all other grounds and principles necessary to Method, as the science common to all seiences, which in each τυγχάνει ἄν ἄλλο ἀυτῆς τῆς

shuns. Alienated from this (intuition shall we call it? or stedfast faith?) ingenious men may produce schemes, conducive to the peculiar purposes of particular sciences, but no scientific system.

But though we cannot enter on the proof of this assertion, we dare not remain exposed to the suspicion of having obtruded a mere private opinion, as a fundamental truth. Our au

thorities are such that our only difficulty is occasioned by their number. The following extract from Aristocles (preserved with other interesting fragments of the same writer by Eusebius) is as explicit as peremptory. 'Epiλοσόφησε μὲν Πλάτων, ἐι καὶ τὶς ἄλλος τῶν πώποτε, γνησίως καὶ τελειως· ὴξιῶ δὲ μὴ δύνασθαι τὰ ἀνθρώ πινα κατιδειν ἤμας, ἐι μὴ τά θεῖα πρότερον ὀφθείη. EUSEB. Præp. Evan. xi. 3.* And Plato

(Translation).—Plato, who philosophized legitimately and perfectively, if ever any man did in any age, held it for an axiom, that it is not possible for us to have an in

himself in his De republicâ, happily still extant, evidently alludes to the same doctrine. For personating Socrates in the discussion of a most important problem, namely, whether political justice is or is not the same as private honesty, after many inductions, and much analytic reasoning, he breaks off with these words εὖ γ ̓ ἴσθι, ὦ Γλαύκων, ὡς ἡ ἔμη δοξα, ΑΚΡΙΒΩΣ ΜΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΟ ΕΚ ΤΟΙΟΥΤΩΝ ΜΕΘΟΔΩΝ, ΟΙΑΙΣ ΝΥΝ ΕΝ ΤΟΙΣ ΛΟΓΟΙΣ ΧΡΩΜΕΘΑ, ΟΥ ΜΗΠΟΤΕ ΛΑΒΩΜΕΝ ΑΛΛΑ ΓΑΡ ΜΑΚΡΟΤΕΡΑ ΚΑΙ ΠΛΕΙΩΝ ΟΔΟΣ Η ΕΠΙ ΤΟΥΤΟ AгOYZA*— not however, he adds, precluding ΑΓΟΥΣΑ*the former (the analytic, and inductive, to wit) which have their place likewise, in which (but as subordinate to the other) they are both use

sight into things human (i. e. the nature and relations of man, and the objects presented by nature for his investigation), without a previous contemplation (or intellectual vision) of things divine: that is, of truths that are to be affirmed concerning the absolute, as far as they can be made known to us.

(Translation).—But know well, O Glaucon, as my firm persuasion, that by such methods, as we have hitherto nsed in this inquisition, we can never attain to a satisfactory insight; for it is a longer and ampler way that conducts to this.-PLATO De republicá, iv.