'Nature craves All dues to be rendered to their owners.'
But this great innovator is busying himself here with drawing up a report of THE DEFICIENCIES IN LEARNING; and though he is the first to propose a plan and method by which men shall build up, systematically and scientifically, a knowledge of _Nature in general_, instead of throwing themselves altogether upon their own preconceptions and abstract controversial theories, after all, the principal deficiency which he has to mark--that to which, even in this dry report, he finds himself constrained to affix some notes of admiration--this principal deficiency is THE SCIENCE OF MAN--THE SCIENCE of _human nature_ itself. And the reason of this deficiency is, that very deficiency before named; it is that very act of shutting himself up to his own theories which leaves the thinker without a _science_ of himself. 'For it is the greatest proof of want of skill, to investigate _the nature_ of any object in itself alone; and, in general, those very things which are considered as secret, are manifested and common in other objects, but will never be clearly seen if the contemplations and experiments of men be directed _to themselves alone_.' It is this science of NATURE IN GENERAL which makes the SCIENCE of _Human Nature_ for the first time possible; and that is the end and term of the new philosophy,--so the inventor of it tells us. And the moment that he comes in with that new torch, which he has been out into 'the continent of nature' to light,--the moment that he comes back with it, into this old debateable ground of the schools, and begins to apply it to that element in the human life in which the scientific innovation appears to be chiefly demanded, 'most of the controversies,' as he tells us very simply--'most of the controversies, wherein moral philosophy is conversant, are judged and determined by it.'
But here is the bold and startling criticism with which he commences his approach to this subject; here is the ground which he makes at the first step; this is the ground of his scientific innovation; not less important than this, is the field which he finds unoccupied. In the handling of this science he says, (the science of 'the Appetite and Will of Man'), 'those which have written seem to me to have done as if a man that _professed to teach to write_ did only exhibit _fair copies_ of alphabets _and_ letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand, or the framing of the letters; so have they made good and fair _exemplars_ and _copies_, carrying the _draughts_ and _portraitures_ of _good, virtue, duty, felicity_; propounding them, well described, as the true _objects_ and _scopes_ of man's will and designs; _but how to attain these excellent marks_, and _how_ to _frame_ and _subdue_ the _will_ of _man_ to become _true_ and _conformable_ to _these pursuits_, they _pass it over altogether_, or slightly and _unprofitably_; for it is not,' he says, 'certain scattered glances and touches that can excuse the _absence_ of this _part_ of--SCIENCE.