but, on the contrary, even in and by their opposition, conserve and maintain each other.

And so it precisely is with Socrates here. The bones and tendons that keep him in prison would in themselves be no better than null were it not for the volition that animates them; and neither would this volition itself be anything were it not for the bones and tendons that realize it. Reaction depends on action, centrifugal force on centripetal force, repulsion on attraction, and even energy must have its support in corporeity. It is Newton himself who says, Virtus sine substantia subsistere non potest.

Authorities, however, are largely neglected now-a-days, and it is widely the fashion at present to have changed all that it is widely the fashion, indeed, not only to separate final and efficient (or mechanical) causes as irreconcilable the one with the other, but even to destroy those before these. And this even by reference to such philosophers as Descartes and Bacon. Mr. Buckle, for one, is very apt to rise authoritatively on triumphant toes in this matter as regards both. And, indeed, both philosophers can be quoted, as though they were minded, each, to dispute the truth of final causes. But, for all that, suppose we do not simply accept the allegationsuppose, on the contrary, that, as in the case of Charles II. and the dead fish, we examine, rather, into its truth, perhaps we shall find that the accompaniment of a grain of salt may not prove altogether superfluous. As regards Descartes, for example, it will not be found that he at all denied the existence of final causes; and if he discouraged, which he undoubtedly did, the inquisition of them, his reason, his motive was not that he respected them less, but that he respected the place and perfection of the Deity more. Any prohibition in the case of the former arose wholly and solely from devotion in the case

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of the latter. In fact, there can be no doubt that what wholly and solely determined him here, was the peculiarity of his conception in regard to the Divine Being. That conception was so high that it appeared presumptuous to Descartes to make one, as it were, in the counsels of the Eternal as regards the creation of the world, at the same time that our limited faculties ran the risk, in such a daring, of seeing imperfection where there was perfection alone. Gassendi, I may observe, has a remarkable answer to Descartes here, the foundation of which is entirely the reference to design (see in Descartes at Med. IV.).

As regards Bacon, it is on him that the greatest stress is laid for the rejection of final causes; but perhaps, even in his case, as I have suggested, it may not be necessary to take the allegation au pied de la lettre. Formal causes, final causes, metaphysic itself, and it is in place here to name metaphysic, for such causes, with the whole logos of God, constitute the very contents of metaphysic, formal causes, final causes, metaphysic itself, Lord Bacon would seem to have thought of and respected as much as anything whatever in physic itself. I hold The Advancement of Learning alone to be sufficient to prove this. That work, in numberless editions, is quite possibly in the hands of everybody, and it constitutes the original English form of what is known as the De Augmentis Scientiarum. Really, one has only to look at it to be immediately impressed with an utter surprise that any one should ever have considered its author an enemy of what is known as the metaphysical region of inquiry. By the easy trick of isolating words and clauses, we may make any writer argue on any side we please; and so it has been done with Bacon. The seventh section of the seventh chapter of the second book of The Advancement of Learning, for example, he begins in this way: "The

...

second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes, which I am moved to report, not as omitted, but as misplaced. And yet if it were but a fault in order, I would not speak of it but the handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes." The correspondent Latin is to the same effect: "Tractatio enim causarum finalium in physicis, inquisitionem causarum physicarum expulit et dejecit." There can be no doubt from such words, then, but that it was a decided opinion of Bacon's that the "handling," the tractatio of final causes, "mixed with the rest in physical inquiries," has expelled and ejected the inquisition of physical causes. And I do not suppose there is any one who will deny this. It is matter of the commonest information that the earliest physical explanations were largely rendered impure and untrustworthy by the reference of phenomena, not to literal antecedents, but to figured agencies. Perhaps we have not lost the same habit even in these days of enlightenment. Falling bodies do not any longer seek the earth by appetite, perhaps; but we have still many other such like tropes in abundance.

It is matter, then, of the commonest information that the earliest physical explanations were apt to be disfigured, or sublimed, by all manner of metaphors, tropes, and personifications. So it was, as Bacon righteously complains, that real physical causes were apt to be pushed out or overlaid. We will all readily grant that; but we must also say with Bacon, despite any such abuse, and Bacon points to no more, that the general problem of final causes is sufficiently to be respected. Final causes constitute to Bacon the second part of metaphysic, as the subject of forms constitutes to him the first. And Bacon does not at all speak ill of metaphysic. "Natural

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science or theory," he says in The Advancement of Learning (ii. 7. 2), is divided into physic and metaphysic." The latter word, metaphysic, he adds, is used by him "in a differing sense from that that is received." For us here, then, it becomes necessary to know what that differing sense" is; and Bacon, on that head, leaves us in no difficulty. In the first place, we have (3) this: "I intend philosophia prima, summary philosophy and metaphysic, which heretofore have been confounded as one, to be two distinct things;" and, in the second place, these words: "Natural theology, which heretofore hath been handled confusedly with metaphysic, I have inclosed and bounded by itself." It appears thus, that, in the eyes of Bacon, metaphysic must lose two main sciences or disciplines that formerly belonged to it. Nevertheless, it must be said that even to Bacon metaphysic must still remain a very sovereign region of human intelligence. In "what is left remaining for metaphysic (his own words) he directly rules that "physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed; and again, that physic should handle that which supposeth in nature only a being and moving and natural necessity; and metaphysic should handle that which supposeth further in nature a reason, understanding, and platform or idea. Physic inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes: metaphysic handleth the formal and final causes." This, then, is to give to metaphysic a serious and principal role. While physic contemplates in nature only what is external, metaphysic contemplates in the same nature, the reason, the understanding, the idea. It is important to observe that reference to nature: the reason, the understanding, the idea of metaphysic, according to Bacon, is a reason, an understanding, an idea that is actually in nature, and no

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mere figure of speech, no mere figment of phantasy. But what under metaphysic are called reason, understanding, and idea, are also called, and precisely in the same pages, formal and final causes. Formal and final causes are to Bacon, therefore, each a reason, an understanding, an idea that is in nature; and I can hardly think that any metaphysician, even in these days, would wish for them a deeper place or a more essential function. Bacon insists very much on formal causes: he is even inclined to place them in a region by themselves, a region that is to be a sort of reformed, and improved, and renovated "natural magic," as he calls it. Bacon laments (5) that formal causes may seem to be nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion that the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential forms and true differences." He, for his part, holds that "the invention of forms is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be found. And, as for the possibility, they are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea." Of these forms, "the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures do consist." In short, Bacon would seem to have in mind both Plato and Aristotle when they will have us pass beyond all externality to the internality itself which reason alone touches (οὗ αὐτὸς ὁ λόγος ἅπτεται), the ὄντως ὄντα which are, as Schelling interprets, the very "subjects of what is predicted of the ὄντα." Such, then, are the forms of Bacon, the very subjects of things which reason itself touches. And no less decided is Bacon as regards metaphysic in its reference to final causes. "Both causes," he says (7), "physical and metaphysical, are true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence only," for men are extremely deceived if they think there is an enmity between them." Physic carrieth men in narrow and