It was not until the seventeenth century that a new epoch was determined, for us, by the genius of Bacon, who proclaimed that, for the attainment of scientific knowledge, it is necessary to observe with care— - that is, to analyze; to reject every element as hypothetical which this analysis does not spontaneously afford; to call in experiment in the aid of observation; and to attempt no synthesis or generalization until the relative analysis has been completely accomplished. At present, perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of the age is, that it draws, far more largely than heretofore, upon experiment as a means of arriving at truth, while the knowledge thus acquired is applied to art and investigation with a freedom and boldness hitherto unknown. The innovations thus made upon other modes of thought are without parallel. New direction has been given to inquiry and aspiration. Gifted intellects have been diverted from poetry—from the search for the ideal, to the search for the real. We have seen how profoundly historical method has been influenced by the conception of order. Metaphysicians study the nervous system, and speak of the 'dynamics' of mind. All departments have the scientific coloring,—the widened survey of man and of nature. Though we have used the word philosophical in its widest acceptation, as synonymous with scientific, the knowledge of mind in whatever aspect, is denominated philosophy by preeminence. The one is essentially external, the other essentially interior. But, as before remarked, the scientific method-the method first and specially applicable to the study of matter-powerfully affects every department of thought. Theories of mental processes which despise or ignore the disclosures of physiology and natural history, cannot hope to receive favor. The mistake—if regret may be expressed—is in making physiological investigation the sole or chief guide. All its achievements have only illuminated the old statement that soul and body are here intimately related. The problem of the connection of soul and body,' says Tyndall, 'is as insolvable in its modern form as it was in the pre-scientific ages.' No light has been shed upon the arcana of intellect and volition; nor can there be, by exclusive approaches from the outside. No sage of phys ical wisdom can bring word of solace or vision of peace to the troubled and weary who ask: 'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And by some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff To produce scientific works that shall be classed among literary productions, there must be added to a mastery of the subject a mastery of language that is equally rare. Few writers succeed in so far liberating science from the burden of technicality, and, by the various arts that can impress ideas, imparting to their material that quality which we call 'readableness,' as to merit and ensure, for the presentation, a high place in literature. In general, writings of this species are more valued for their content than for their literary character. The following passage from Darwin will serve as an illustration of the attempt (which, from the nature of the matter, can never be more than partially successful) to combine poetic interest with instruction in the expositions of science: It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, bring growth with reproduction; inheritance, which is almost implied by reproduction; variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a ratio of increase so high as to lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection, entailing divergence of character and the extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving — namely, the production of the higher animals — directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved. CHAPTER XX. DEPARTMENTS OF EXPRESSION — FICTION. Lessons of wisdom have never such power over us as when they are wrought into the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passions.— STERNE. I suppose as long as novels last and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero; a wicked monster, his opposite; and a pretty girl, who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own.-THACKERAY. YOU OU all have observed and experienced a child's eager love of story. The stronger the coloring, the keener the relish; for childhood is the period of wide-awake fancy, of wonder and enthusiasm. In a rude state of society, where men are but children with a greater variety of ideas, this temperament exists in its highest perfection. The barbarian is fascinated by the incomprehensible. Unable to assign, for a natural phenomenon, a cause within nature, he has recourse to a living personality enshrined in it. To every grotto he gives a genius; to every tree, river, spring, a divinity. Out of the darkness. he cannot tell what alarming spectre may emerge. Everywhere he is a believer in sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment. In a more advanced stage of development, he conceives a number of personal beings distinct from the material creation, which preside over the different provinces of nature the sea, the air, the winds, the streams, the heavens and assume the guardianship of individuals, tribes, and nations. Remembering this tendency for personification which marks the early life of man, his necessity of referring effects to their causes, and his interpretation of things according to outward appearances, we shall better understand how the Hours, the Dawn, and the Night, with her black mantle bespangled with stars, came to receive their forms; how the clouds were sacred cattle driven to their milking, or sheep of the golden fleece; how the fall of the dew was the shedding of divine tears, and the fatal sun-shafts the arrows of Apollo shot from his golden bow; how the west, where the sun and stars go down, was the portal of descent to hell, and the morning twilight a reflection from the Elysian fields. Then, too, a similarity of imagery will exist wherever there exists a resemblance in the objects calling it forth; and a multitude of the symbols thus brought into circulation will be found recurring, like the primitive roots of a language, in almost every country, as common property inherited by descent. Every one, of Aryan blood, knows that the moon is inhabited by a man with a bundle of sticks on his back, exiled thither many centuries, and so far away that he is beyond the reach of death. From the remotest period, the rod has been employed in divination; in Bohemia, in Scotland, in Switzerland, in Iceland, in North America, is the story of some Rip Van Winkle who slumbers while years or ages glide by like a watch in the night; and of that great mystery of human life which is an enigma never solved, and ever originating speculation, is born the myth of the Wandering Jew. Consider, again, how incidents change by distance, and we by age. How a thing grows in memory when love or hate is there to idealize it! Such is the foundation of fiction in general; originating as a whole from no single point as to country or to time, but in part springing from common causes, and in part travelling from region to region on airy wing, scattering the seeds of its wild flowers imperceptibly over the world; its radical types amplified and compounded to meet the |