Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of reflection, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or strait determined and bounded? Neither are those only similitudes, as men of narrow observation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon several subjects or matters. This science, therefore, as I understand it, I may justly report as deficient; for I see sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling some particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water out of this well for their present use; but the spring head thereof seemeth to me not to have been visited; being of so excellent use, both for the disclosing of nature, and the abridgement of art." 1

Emerson's by-laws of the mind are not so quaint, to use his own expression, as Bacon's, but they are open imitations of Bacon's manner. They show how fruitful Coleridge's correlation of the Platonic and Baconian philosophy was in suggesting to Emerson the practice of seeking the ethical meaning of the laws of nature. Emerson had no love of science in and for itself, but in the results of

1 The Works of Francis Bacon, II., 126-128.

science he found much to satisfy his spiritual needs when those results could be seen to have significance for morals.

This means that Emerson held consistently to the sovereignty of ethics, by which he meant the supremacy of the moral or intellectual world over the world of outward nature. Speaking of the laws of the natural world as perpetual forces, he says: "These forces are in an ascending series, but seem to leave no room for the individual; man or atom, he only shares them; he sails the way these irresistible winds blow. But behind all these finer elements, the sources of them, and much more rapid and strong; a new style and series, the spiritual. Intellect and morals appear only the material forces on a higher plane. The laws of material nature run up into the invisible world of the mind, and hereby we acquire a key to those sublimities which skulk and hide in the caverns of human consciousness. And in the impenetrable mystery which hides-and hides through absolute transparency—the mental nature, I await the insight which our advancing knowledge of material laws shall furnish." 1

By reason of Coleridge's correlation Em1 Complete Works, X., 72.

erson was able to speak of laws in the same manner as Plato treats ideas. These ideas of Plato's are the sole realities and they are known only by the intellect. They are grouped together in the intelligible world and, though they seem independent, there is one idea supreme among them. This is the idea of the Good. It is the chief end of all man's endeavors; the final satisfaction for which he strives. It is also the cause of existence to all things and of all knowledge that man can know. It is also the principle of unity both in the world of objective things and in the conscious life of intellect in man. Using the analogy of the sun in the visible world, Plato thus explains his conception: "That therefore which imparts truth to what is known, and dispenses the faculty of knowledge to him who knows, you may call the idea of the good and the principle of science and truth, as being known through intellect. And as both these-knowledge and truth-are so beautiful, you will be right in thinking that the good is something different, and still more beautiful than these. Science and truth here are as light and sight there, which we rightly judged to be sun-like, but yet did not think them to be the sun: so here it is right

to hold that both of them partake of the form of the good, but yet not right to suppose that either of them is the good-inasmuch as the good itself is worthy of still greater honour. You will say, I think, that the sun imparts to things which are seen, not only their visibility, but likewise their generation, growth and nourishment, though not itself generation? Of course. We may say, therefore, as to things cognizable by the intellect, that they became cognizable not only from the good, by which they are known, but likewise that their being and essence are thence derived, while the good itself is not essence, but beyond essence, and superior to it both in dignity and power.

Parallel to this conception is Emerson's idea of the universe. He believes in the reality of an intelligible world, but it is a world of laws. And just as Plato had found the idea of the good giving unity to the ideas in the intelligible world, so Emerson finds universal good saturating all the laws of the universe and binding them into unity. "I find the survey of the cosmical powers a doctrine of consolation in the dark hours of private or public fortune. It shows us the

1 The Republic, Bohn translation, II., 198-199.

world alive, guided, incorruptible; that its cannon cannot be stolen nor its virtues misapplied. It shows us the long Providence, the safeguards of rectitude. It animates exertion. This world belongs to the energetical. It is a fagot of laws, and a true analysis of these laws, showing how immortal and how self-protecting they are, would be a wholesome lesson for every time and for this time. That band which ties them together is unity, is universal good, saturating all with one being and aim, so that each translates the other, is only the same spirit applied to new departments. Things are saturated with the moral law." 1

"It is essential to a true theory of nature and of man," says Emerson, "that it should contain somewhat progressive." 2 Holding to such a conception he was not at rest in stating the problem of nature until he had examined her method. Symbolism and correlation are theories that account for the meaning of nature: they tell what she is; but they do not let one into the secret of the life which gives nature her method. Therefore Emerson passes on to consider what this method of nature is; and

1 Complete Works, X., 85-86.

2 Ibid., I., 61.