book I

contemplate, as a statement of what is said of Behmen far less liable to suspicion of exaggeration than anything I could write. I shall add a few extracts from Behmen himself, in support of his right to be in my list.]

"_Jacob Behmen._--That Prof. De Morgan classes Jacob Behmen among paradoxers can only be attributed to the fact of his being avowedly unacquainted with the writings {319} of that author. Perhaps you may think a few words from one who knows them well of sufficient interest to the learned Professor, and your readers in general, to be worthy of space in your columns. The metaphysical system of Behmen--the most perfect and only true one--still awaits a qualified commentator. Behmen's countryman, Dionysius Andreas Freher,[596] who spent the greater part of his life in this country, and whose exposition of Behmen exists only in MS., filling many volumes, written in English, with the exception of two, written in German, with numerous beautiful, highly ingenious, and elaborate illustrations,--copies of some of which are in the British Museum, but all the originals of which are in the possession of the gentleman who is the editor of the two works alluded to by Professor De Morgan,--this Freher was the first to philosophically expound Behmen's system, which was afterwards, with the help of these MSS., as it were, popularized by William Law; but both Freher and Law confined themselves chiefly to its theological aspect. In Behmen, however, is to be found, not only the true ground of all theology, but also that of all physical science. He demonstrated with a fullness, accuracy, completeness and certainty that leave nothing to be desired, the innermost ground of Deity and Nature; and, confining myself to the latter, I can from my own knowledge assert, that in Behmen's writings is to be found the true and clear demonstration of every physical fact that has been discovered since his day. Thus, the science of electricity, which was not yet in existence when he wrote, is there anticipated; and not only does Behmen describe all the now known phenomena of that force, but he even gives us the origin, generation and birth of electricity itself. Again, positive evidence can be adduced that Newton derived all his knowledge of gravitation and its {320} laws from Behmen, with whom gravitation or attraction is, and very properly so, as he shows us, the first of the seven properties of Nature. The theory defended by Mr. Grove,[597] at the Nottingham meeting of last year, that all the apparently distinct causes of moral and physical phenomena are but so many manifestations of one central force, and that Continuity is the law of nature, is clearly laid down, and its truth demonstrated, by Behmen, as well as the distinction between spirit and matter, and that the moral and material world is pervaded by a sublime unity. And though all this was not admitted in Behmen's days, because science was not then sufficiently advanced to understand the deep sense of our author, many of his passages, then unintelligible, or apparently absurd, read by the light of the present age, are found to contain the positive enunciation of principles at whose discovery and establishment science has only just arrived by wearisome and painful investigations. Every new scientific discovery goes to prove his profound and intuitive insight into the most secret workings of nature; and if scientific men, instead of sharing the prejudice arising from ignorance of Behmen's system, would place themselves on the vantage ground it affords, they would at once find themselves on an eminence whence they could behold all the arcana of nature. Behmen's system, in fact, shows us the _inside_ of things, while modern physical science is content with looking at the _outside_. Behmen traces back every outward manifestation or development to its one central root,--to that one central energy which, as yet, is only suspected; every link in the chain of his demonstration is perfect, and there is not one link wanting. He carries us from the out-births of the circumference, along the radius to the center, {321} or point, and beyond that even to the zero, demonstrating the constitution of the zero, or nothing, with mathematical precision. C. W. H."

And so Behmen is no subject for the Budget! I waited until I should chance to light on one of his volumes, knowing that any volume would do, and almost any page. My first hap was on the second volume of the edition of 1664 (4to, published by M. Richardson) and opening near the beginning, a turn or two brought me to page 13, where I saw about _sulphur_ and _mercurius_ as follows:

"Thus SUL is the soul, in an herb it is the oil, and in man also, according to the spirit of _this_ world in the third principle, which is continually generated out of the anguish of the will in the mind, and the Brimstone-worm is the Spirit, which hath the fire and _burneth_: PHUR is the sour wheel in itself which causeth that.

"_Mercurius_ comprehendeth all the four forms, even as the life springeth up, and yet hath not its dark beginning in the Center as the PHUR hath, but after the flash of fire, when the sour dark form is terrified, where the hardness is turned into pliant sharpness, and where the second will (_viz._ the will of nature, which is called the Anguish) ariseth, there Mercurius hath its original. For MER is the shivering wheel, very horrible, sharp, venomous, and hostile; which assimulateth it thus in the sourness in the flash of fire, where the sour wrathful life _ariseth_. The syllable CU is the pressing out, of the _Anxious_ will of the mind, from Nature: which is climbing up, and _willeth_ to be out aloft. RI is the comprehension of the flash of fire, which in MER giveth a clear sound and tune. For the flash maketh the tune, and it is the Salt-Spirit which _soundeth_, and its form (or quality) is gritty like sand, and herein arise noises, sounds and voices, and thus CU comprehendeth the flash, and so the pressure is as a _wind_ which thrusteth, and giveth a spirit to the flash, so that it liveth and burneth. Thus the {322} syllable US is called the burning fire, which with the spirit continually driveth itself forth: and the syllable CU presseth continually upon the flash."

Shades of Tauler[598] and Paracelsus,[599] how strangely you do mix! Well may Hallam call Germany the native soil of Mysticism. Had Behmen been the least of a scholar, he would not have divided _sulph-ur_ and _merc-ur-i-us_ as he has done: and the inflexion _us_, that boy of all work, would have been rejected. I think it will be held that a writer from whom hundreds of pages like the above could be brought together, is fit for the Budget. If Sampson Arnold Mackay[600] had tied his etymologies to a mystical Christology, instead of a mystical infidelity, he might have had a school of followers. The nonsense about Newton borrowing gravitation from Behmen passes only with those who know neither what Newton did, nor what was done before him.

The above reminds me of a class of paradoxers whom I wonder that I forgot; they are without exception the greatest bores of all, because they can put the small end of their paradox into any literary conversation whatever. I mean the people who have heard the local pronunciation of celebrated names, and attempt not only to imitate it, but to impose on others their broken German or Arabic, or what not. They also learn the vernacular names of those who are generally spoken of in their Latin forms; at least, they learn a few cases, and hawk them as evidences of erudition. They are miserably mistaken: scholarship, as a rule, {323} always accepts the vernacular form of a name which has vernacular celebrity. Hallam writes Behmen: his index-maker, rather superfluously, gives "_Behmen_ or Boehm." And he retains Melanchthon,[601] the name given by Reuchlin[602] to his little kinsman Schwartzerd, because the world has adopted it: but he will none of Capnio, the name which Reuchlin fitted on to himself, because the world has not adopted it. He calls the old forms pedantry: but he sees that the rejection of well-established results of pedantry would be greater pedantry still. The paradoxers assume the question that it is more _correct_ to sound a man by lame imitation of his own countrymen than as usual in the country in which the sound is to be made. Against them are, first, the world at large; next, an overpowering majority of those who know something about surnames and their history. Some thirty years ago--a fact--there appeared at the police-office a complainant who found his own law. In the course of his argument, he asked, "What does Kitty say?"--"Who's Kitty?" said the magistrate, "your wife, or your nurse?"--"Sir! I mean Kitty, the celebrated lawyer."--"Oh!" said the magistrate, "I suspect you mean Mr. Chitty,[603] the author of the great work on pleading."--"I do sir! But Chitty is an Italian name, and ought to be pronounced _Kitty_." This man was a full-blown flower: but there is many a modest bud; and all ought either to blush when seen or to waste their pronunciation on the desert air.

{324}

A PLEA FOR KING CUSTOM.

I stand up for King Custom, or _Usus_, as Horace called him, with whom is _arbitrium_ the decision, and _jus_ the right, and _norma_ the way of deciding, simply because he has _potestas_ the power. He may admit one and another principle to advise: but Custom is not a constitutional king; he may listen to his cabinet, but he decides for himself: and if the ministry should resign, he blesses his stars and does without them. We have a glorious liberty in England of owning neither dictionary, grammar, nor spelling-book: as many as choose write by either of the three, and decide all disputed points their own way, those following them who please.

Throughout this