ALL attempts at bringing knowledge into encyclopedic forms seem to include an essential fallacy. Knowledge is advanced by individual minds wholly devoting themselves to their own part of inquiry. But this is a process of separation, not of combination. The facts of every Science become thus incredibly multiplied. The books in each, in which well-examined facts of value are recorded, in which original and true reasonings are delivered, grow very numerous. The library of a Physician, a Lawyer, of a Naturalist, an Antiquary,-of the Scholar, the Metaphysician, of the Student (may we so speak?) of Poetry, is large. Each, excepting disability in himself, may in his own pursuit attain the proficiency of his time. But to do so, he will need to give to it something like the same devoted labour, something like the same exclusive zeal, by which in other hands it is making progress.As knowledge is advanced, from the mere amount of each science, the division of minds from one another becomes more and more the principle, or condition, of attainment to the individual mind, of farther advancement to the separate Sciences.

Meanwhile we say that the Human Mind is extending its empire: and we have a feeling as if every one in some manner partook of the triumphs and the dominion achieved, even when we do not suppose him to be in any way affected by the results, or even to have the knowledge, of what is discovered or done. All are confederated, who prosecute, or support, or love the labours of intellect, in the great warfare of knowledge: bent to overcome, by the power of thought, evil, physical or moral, in our condition: burning with more splendid desires, with the ambition of-if in intellect that is possible -even unfruitful glory, of conquests, in which no use is foreseen beyond the pleasure and exultation of success. It is the consciousness of our common cause, that gives us sympathy and participation with what is gained in fields of speculation on which we have never set foot: that may enable a moral philosopher in England to rejoice, that a chemist at Upsala, an anatomist at Florence, by detecting a principle, by

demonstrating a function, has cleared up a darkness he himself never felt:that now gives to every man, generally and indefinitely, whose thoughts ever travel out of the sphere of his personal interests to consider the fortunes of his kind, a buoyant sense of superiority and power subsisting in the intellectual spirit of his age, a sanguine, though aimless, anticipation of enterprizes yet to be carried through, of effects still to be accomplished, and every day accomplishing, by the industry and daring of human genius.

But it is evident that only while explained by the notion of such an ideal community is it even intelligible to speak of the acquisitions made by OUR MIND, of the provinces IT has subjected to itself, of the kingdom IT has

won.

The knowledge actually possessed by men, must needs transcend by almost infinite degrees-the capacity, and means, of knowing, of the most fortunate and gifted understanding. How much the capacity and means of those many who nevertheless please themselves with the imagination of sharing in the "sovereign sway and masterdom" of Intellect !The MIND is no where, the single mind is not, cannot be, in which that collected wisdom and power of all, contemplated by us, has its seat: but by the fancied inter-communion among all of rights, and interchange of powers, by the felt union of desires to the same great common ends, the innumerable associated multitude of minds appear to us as one.

Nor, in truth, if we consider more attentively the relation of the different works of the human understanding to one another, is this idea of a fellowship in labour among minds differently employed, of the acquisition of one in the attainment of another, a mere notional impression. The system of human thought is bound together not merely in its origin, by the identity of the powers from which it proceeds, and in its result by a unity of purpose in all the purposes it accomplishes, but intermediately and throughout its progress, by mutual dependence and reciprocal action of its several parts. No man-whatever his own parts, whether of speculative inquiry or of prac

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tical art, may be knows from what quarter, from what region of inquiry or of art, he shall see it receive its next aid. As little does he know to what necessity of human nature, to what difficulty of human reason, he himself, if the faculty of discovery have fallen to him, or even the chance, without the faculty, shall next bring relief. -The curious artist who learnt to bend the lines of sight on their way into the eye, and the Philosopher who traced with his rod, and he who unravelled the mazes of the sky, were guiding could they foreknow it-on the paths of every sea, the Ships of Commerce and of War. The Philologist has given Hippocrates to the Physician, to the Mathematician, Euclid and Archimedes, to the Theologian he has delivered the volume of his highest Science, to the lowly believer, of his morals and his faith.-One man in his laboratory holds a gauze of wire over a burning lamp, and observes that the flame will not pass through. His observation, cast into another mind, turns into a talisman for the safeguard of human lives.-Some arts, some sciences, have in themselves a necessary universality:-as he who fused an ore, ministered the strength and skill of every hand-as he who wrote the articulations of the voice, prepared glory, durability, self-diffusing, self-augmenting might, to all the modes of action, to all the deeds in all the undertakings, of the restless, undeterred, unsatisfied, all-aspiring, all enterprising spirit of men.-The investigator of the problems of NUMBER and EXTENSION, and of the yet more abstruse relations which these embody, can he labour and not for a thousand inquirers, of whose specific researches he has no understanding?-He treats universal elements, and what he finds of them, must be of scarce narrower application. Thought is the germ of thoughts. The act is the father of acts to be. We may comprehend in some degree the past which we traversed, not the future of which we left the seeds beneath our feet.

There are then links of connexion strict and solid, among the several

parts of knowledge: there is a real strong bond of co-operation between its variously-employed followers.— And this, in truth, to an extent not easily limited. The living strive for one another, and for the ages to come. The dead have striven for those that now are. The imaginary community of which we spoke binds together, no less, successive generations, and divided ages. We call OURS all that is yet unperished of the past genius of mankind:-And the canvass and the gorgeous wall, starting into life in colours of the Italian sun, the eloquence "since mute" that thundered in "free Rome," and the "builder's skill" that " was known" " to Greece," and "the light chisel" that "brush'd" her "Parian stone," bring to us the consciousness of THE RACE WHICH WE ARE, kindle our thoughts with the recollection of what WE HAVE DONE, of what we HAVE BEEN, raise instead of depressing us, and seem to require of us now, for our right in them, no more than that we should understand, not that we should imitate them,-while we pursue with strenuous endeavour and elated hearts, the different toils of the same mind, of which our destiny opens the way before us. They warn us indeed of the spirit which we bear. They remind us what faculties we have to unfold: in what liberty of power we should walk: with what fires we are made to burn. If we decline,-if we vail the eyes of intellect,-if we stoop the majesty of our nature,-if we grovel in desire,-they reproach our sordid degeneracy. But the proud monuments of old time challenging our admiration, impose no domineering restriction on our march of mind. They give no law. They point us to seek impulse, regulation, direction within ourselves. They call upon us not to revive arts, but to maintain power. What we have to do we must learn from our own time, and the voices that speak within us. Only let us take care that the soul which has descended to us do not in our bosoms expire.

There is great philosophical wisdom in that high and eloquent passage of the Roman poet,-who, putting into

the mouth of the imagined ancestor of his countrymen the prophecy of their greatness, by him apostrophizes, and exhorts them, abandoning to other nations other modes of glory, to attach themselves to that which was allotted peculiarly to be their own. There is a division of genius to nations, as to individuals: and each will most excel, will do more for itself, for its own renown, and for mankind, by following the light of this inward determi

nation.

If Italy painted, if France brightened the manners of civilized men, if Germany thinks, if Britain acts, if Spain could have cherished the soul of romance, if India could have preserved to the world's late day the mysterious sublimity of its early dreams, -are not these all distinct gains, are they not separate forms of power, enjoyed, possessed by Man,-and would he not, might he but know them together continued to him,-feel himself rich and strong in these diversities of his talents, of his cultivation, in this various developement of his natural welfare?

In nations, and in individual minds, one principle appears to hold. We owe much to one another, undoubtedly guidance and urgency, as well as restraint. But to every one his chief source of impulsion, motive in conduct, direction and incitation in genius, is given in himself. He will effect most by relying upon this: by withholding himself from courses of moral, of intellectual exertion, which belong to others, and applying his force of desire, his full effort, to those which are properly his own, opening of themselves, and yielding way to his natural aspirations. The energy of power will be greatest, when it is the eflux from an original nature. The sum of power, of advancement then, to the world must be greatest, when every one disregarding the avocation of others, or looking to it for incitement only not for example, well distinguishing generous rivalry from de❤ pressing imitation, pursues with his entire strength of means, of ability and of will,-no higher, no nearer, no imperious consideration interposing and prohibiting,—that path of labour, for utility, for honour, for conscious achievement, and for mere indulgence in delight, to which his means, his ability, and his will call him.

There seems reason to believe, that, for utmost intellectual advancement, nations and single minds should pur sue their own cultivation, accomplish their own power, the extent of every species of knowledge in one case, the nature of the human mind in both, so requiring. Contrary opinions, of later time, appear to be in some degree, and as we must think, injuriously prevalent. They have shewn themselves variously: a little in Literature. Of one such manifestation of them we would say a few words.

When in the middle of the last century the chief men of letters and science in France applied themselves to unite in one work, all parts, however apparently divided from each other, of human knowledge, they believed, we must naturally think, that they were at once advancing Science itself, and conferring important individual benefit on all those, to whom they should bring, thus in one gift as it were, the collected and digested re sult of the manifold and long labours of Intellect.

Yet in one respect their plan should seem scarcely to have been well devised for advancing Science, since the close limits to which it unavoidably confined the numerous subjects it included, must in no slight degree have both restrained and embarrassed original inquiry. And in what other way they might hope to attain such an end, excepting in as much as todiffuseScience is to advance it, is not easy to see :excepting, in other words, as such an end might be attained by the benefit tendered by their design to the individual mind.

NOW THIS could not consist in anything that was to be gained to the ex position of Science, itself labouring under-what alone necessarily distinguished it-the very disadvantage we have just adverted to, of a forced compression. The benefit intended could consist only in the UNIVERSALITY of the Science offered, in placing the whole mass of what was KNOWN, within the survey and under the power, before the sight and in the very grasp, if it might be so thought, of the single Mind.

We will draw no reasoning from the uncertainties, which in many places cloud our knowledge, making the name of Science with us, in some instances, more suitable to the intention than to

the success of inquiry, but will admit that our understanding has obtained the truths it has perseveringly sought. The question will then remain whether the opinion just now urged, in respect to the acquisition of knowledge, that it is best, and only effectually, made, by limiting, almost by singling to the mind, the objects of attainment, by confining the direction -not the reach of its progress,-(we have gone farther, but this is not here necessary to be insisted on, in alleging the principle that should guide this restraint) is or is not grounded.

If it is just, the very conceived ground of intellectual utility disappears. And this mis-judgment, as we must suppose it to be, of utility, this endeavour to effect an important improvement to the mind against the very principles on which its improvement depends, is what indeed strikes us as the prominent character and unconquerable fault of the undertaking. -We will make yet another remark. It will seem an extraordinary suggestion to hazard, in respect to a work of so great attempt and labourTANTE MOLIS-imagined, moved, and executed by men of distinguished ability, highest in their day, and yet high in literary and scientific reputation, but we cannot resist a persuasion, that there was implied in the very ground and first conception of it, not only a negligence of reflexion, but -what we almost hesitate to say-an illusion of thought. A want of understanding-we cannot suppose, but a want of regarding and of duly appreciating the effective, practical connexions of the Sciences, appears to us to have prepared the way for a misconception, a singular one indeed under the circumstances,-of THEIR IMAGINARY CONJUNCTION, before spoken of by us, in the idealized and general mind of the species, as if this must needs be found somewhere, embodied and real. We shall seem, we fear, to press fancy too far, and to hunt, ourselves, after illusion: yet know not how to avoid the belief which forces itself upon us, that, in the original IDEA of this work, we distinguish the traces, or shall we rather say discover the reflexion, of a not very philosophical, not very metaphysical, impression, as if that CIRCLE of the Sciences, which has been much spoken of, and which perhaps the human in

tellect may, in different minds, explore, were left still in some way imperfect, or did not yet truly exist, until it were materially constructed.

Of other views which might enter into the composition of that memorable work, of the elements of thought in the minds of its Authors, of opinions held and diffused by them, we have not now to speak. We are considering it merely in the light,-in which, as a new project in literature it offered itself to the world,-of a SCIENTIFIC METHOD. As such, it appeared to us an illustration not a little striking and important of error, as we must conceive it to be, prevailing more or less in these latter days, in respect to the real nature of knowledge, and its relation to the mind which entertains it.

This error, we should more properly say these errors include a conception of knowledge which may perhaps be expressed by saying, that it is view ed, or reasoned of, as if it consisted solely in the perception of relations: Secondly, a conception of it, as being a species of definite possession to the mind, not a power of thought, necessarily indefinite:-as something, thirdly, in itself limited, and already completed:-In the fourth place, a fallacious idea of the participation of any one in the light and progress of his age as requiring, and consisting in, the knowledge by him of what is known to his age:-Fifthly, to go no further, misconceptions, to which we have more than once adverted, of the unity of knowledge.

Our Knowledge-it is manifest to every one who has ever in the least degree reflected upon his own,-however it may become at last condensed and summed up to our mind, is gathered by an almost infinite number of its acts, and drawn from, or compounded of, elements innumerable and endless.-From what impressions has a poet gathered his knowledge? They have flowed in upon him from the first opening of his senses on the world. What day has he lived that has not from earth and sky, from the face of men, from books, from the joy and sorrow of his own heart, brought some contribution to that inexhaustible memory of all things of soul and sense, in which he finds the materials of verse?-that has not added some strength, some tenderness, some depth,

to those faculties of thought and feeling, which are made to him the ever new subjects of fresh knowledge, of unexhausted discovery-and which are more than the sacred well of Memory, the living fountains of his song? That process of the accumulation and perfecting of knowledge which, if we could behold it as it advances in the mind of imagination and feeling, would appear to us, as some beautiful growth takes place, though in forms less interesting, in every mind which collects and frames its own-that is, in every mind which ever possesses real-knowledge. The original, elementary impressions of numberless allied and corresponding objects are endlessly multiplied and diversified, the same impressions from the same objects are stamped deep and indelible by an endless repetition. Nor is only remembrance richly stored, which is ever but one part, and perhaps not the most important, certainly not the most difficult, of the mind's work in its composition of knowledge; but, whatever the matter may be on which it is employed, it trains to observation the faculties of observation, to thought the faculties of thought, which it industriously and incessantly exercises. The eye is quickened to see. Reflection becomes more prompt, more just, more acute, more extended. The last discovery suggests the next. What was understood yesterday, explains the new difficulty of to-day. The difference between the mind of genius, and that powerful in knowledge, is not altogether so great perhaps, as we are sometimes inclined to imagine. BоTH are necessarily endowed with

much self-reflexion, much self-reliance.-BOTH seem to require an aptitude of ability, BOTH also an aptitude of desire, or attachment, for the particular subject of their application. BOTH advance and improve, in part by their own effort and purpose: in BOTH in part their progress is spontaneous and unconscious. Nature carrying on her original work, unfolding the powers she gave, and converting into the nourishment of their strength and growth, the materials their own activity has provided.

We observed a little while since that it was one inclination of error in the age, to conceive and reason of knowledge as if it consisted solely in the intelligence of relations. If it did, it might be more quickly learnt. For that intelligence is a swift act of the understanding and needs to be but little repeated to be confirmed. Besides, it would be more easily imparted. For relations, for the most part, are definite, and admit of being distinctly exposed by one mind to another. But one object of our last observations has been to represent that one part, the slowest perhaps, if not the most difficult, and often difficult, of our intellectual progress is the acquisition of the original impressions, among which the relations* subsist, the familiar intimate acquainting of the mind with the matter in which they are discerned. We come slowly to know the multiplicity of objects, interminably varied in themselves, which our intelligence would infold. We come slowly to understand, to fix, and to acquire the power of recalling, as distinct subjects of conception, the affection of our