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LETTERS

ON THE LAWS OF

MAN'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT.

I.

H. M. TO H. G. A.

My dear Friend,

I rather think the reason why we have so much pleasure in talking over, and writing about, the powers and action of men, and the characters of individuals, is, that your observations proceed upon some basis of real science, and that I know that they do ; and that thus we are talking to some purpose on those most interesting subjects, instead of theorizing without taking stock of our facts on the one hand, or merely amusing ourselves with desultory observations on the other. I want, however, to look closer into the matter. I want to know precisely what your scientific basis is, instead of merely profiting by your having one, and having a general notion how you came by it. I want you to tell me, with great particularity, (if you will,) how you would have one set about the study of the powers of Man, in order to

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understand his nature, and his place, business and pleasure in the universe.

For thirty years past I have been disposed to this kind of study; and it is strange to think how many books I have read, and how often over, and what an amount of hours I have spent in thinking, and how many hundreds of human beings I have watched and speculated upon, without being ever, for one moment, satisfied that I knew what I was about,-for want, I suppose, of some scientific basis for the inquiry, and of some laws manifesting themselves in its course;-laws on which one might rest, and to which one might recur, when in perplexity how to proceed. I am sure I do not wonder at scientific men sneering at metaphysics, if the case be at all as I suppose it :-that Natural Philosophy and Mental Philosophy are arbitrarily separated;—that the one is in a regenerate state (thanks to Bacon), and the other in an unregenerate state ;—and that we can no more get on in Mental Philosophy without an ascertainment of the true method of inquiry, than the men of the middle ages could get on with Natural Philosophy (except in departments of detail), till a man rose up to give us a Novum Organon Scientiarum. And why Mental Philosophy is not yet included among the sciences which are benefiting by the Novum Organon of Bacon is a thing that I am quite unsatisfied about. I do not mean that I at all wonder that the greater number of students have recourse to unsound methods; because we see that the fact is so with the greater number of physical inquirers,—

the true followers of Bacon being few indeed among Natural philosophers, as they are called. My wonder is, not that there are few so-called Mental philosophers who use or even advocate any experimental method of inquiry into the science of mind; but that there seem to me to be none. If I am wrong as to the fact, tell me; and pray point out where I may find such, if you know them to exist.

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I am well aware what the answer of metaphysicians to this difficulty of mine would be. They would plead the totally different and incompatible nature of the two regions of inquiry, and therefore of the method of penetrating those regions. But this is exactly what I am not satisfied about. When I look at the course of metaphysical inquiry from the beginning to this day, I see something very much like the course of physical inquiry from the beginning to Bacon's day and I am not sure that Bacon may not yet throw down the barrier between the two regions, and make them one. When I look back upon the two paths, it seems to me that I see the same Idols set up for worship on the way-side; and I hear the same excuses for wild theorizing in both departments,—that spiritual agencies are at work, which can be recognized only by each man for himself, by means of a special spiritual sense of which no one can give an account. Now, Science has disabused us of our blinding and perplexing notions of spiritual anti-types of material things, and of spiritual interference in material operations; and we have arrived at the notion of chance-excluding

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