SHAKESPEARE AND PSYCHOGNOSIS 233 



nation ''even of the Elizabethans ? Prosper© makes his will his act 

 immediately — that is, through no recognizable means or processes, 

 the spirits come and go like thought itself, untrammeled by material 

 spatial or temporal obstacles ; yet how near to aU this has the control of 

 electrical energy brought us in fact! This motif, like most of them, 

 recurs frequently throughout the play. 



It is the type of all those situations in which learning is addressed 

 as the truest thread through the labyrinth of Hfe. Above all, it is the 

 education-philosophy, the science solution, the trust in right reason and 

 the reign of law, the amor intellectualis Dei, the faith that laborare est 

 orare, that the gods will never do what they have enabled us to do. 



It appeals to the workers in universities and all schools, and to those 

 soHtary but benevolent recluses who pursue their own lonely and labori- 

 ous researches, and who neither fear nor love an)rthing in the universe 

 but the very truth, and the justice and well-being it confers. Its heroes 

 include Thales and Pythagoras and Empedocles, Democritus, Aristotle, 

 and Lucretius ; bute qually Parmenides, Anaxagoras and Plato, Phidias, 

 Pericles, Sophocles, and Cicero; Augustine, Thomas, Duns Scotus, 

 Dante, the martyred Bruno and Campanella; and every great man in 

 philosophy, science, art, reHgion, education, statesmanship, Hterature — 

 all who know the meaning of the Grammarian's Funeral; all who ^have 

 led toward law, reason, justice and enhghtened hberty. 



All who love and strive for power are dear to Shakespeare. Even 

 the tyrant and murderer come within the range of his godlike breadth 

 and sympathy, provided that they sacrifice all and die with their harness 

 on their backs in the quest for any element of the ideal commonwealth. 

 Is not this the explanation of his tenderness for the blood-stained Mac- 

 beth, and of our unconquerable affection for the "vulgar adventurer" 

 (as Green calls him) Napoleon ? The worship of weakness does not 

 appeal (except as a means) to the race nor to Shakespeare. 



In this fascinating portrayal of power, learning, control, natural 

 moraHty, justice, reason, and prosperity, Shakespeare has indicated the 

 very axis of his maturest Weltanschauung; all else, even altruistic ideal- 

 ism, is subordinate, temporary, pedagogical, a necessary means, to this 

 great end. 



