PREDICTION.
Prophecy, Divination, or foretelling future events, either by divine Revelation, by art and human invention, or by conjecture.—SeeDivination, page142.
Few great moral or political revolutions have occurred which have not had their accompanyingprognostic; and men of a philosophic cast of mind, in the midst of their retirement, freed from the delusions of parties and of sects, while they are withdrawn from their conflicting interests, have rarely been confounded by the astonishment which overwhelms those who, absorbed in active life, are the mere creatures of sensation, agitated by the shadows of truth, the unsubstantial appearances of things. Intellectual nations are advancing in an eternal circle of events and passions which succeed each other, and the last is necessarily connected with its antecedent: the solitary force of some fortuitous incident only can interrupt this concatinated progress of human affairs. That every great event has been accompanied by a presage or prognostic, has been observed by Lord Bacon. “The shepherds of the people should understand the prognostics ofstate tempests; hollow blasts of wind, seemingly at a distance, and secret swellings of the sea, often precede a storm.” Such were the prognostics discerned by the politic Bishop Williams, in Charles the First’s time, who clearly foresaw and predicted the final success of the puritanic party in our country: attentive tohis own security, he abandoned the government and sided with the rising opposition, at a moment when such a change in the public administration was by no means apparent. (See Rushworth, vol. i. p. 420.)
Dugdale, our contemplative antiquary, in the spirit of foresight, must have anticipated the scene which was approaching in 1641, in the destruction of our ancient monuments in cathedral churches. He hurried on his itinerant labours of taking draughts and transcribing inscriptions, as he says, “to preserve them for future and better times.” It is to the prescient spirit of Dugdale that posterity is indebted for the ancient monuments of England, which bear the marks of the haste, as well as the zeal, which have perpetuated them. Sir Thomas More was no less prescient in his views; for when his son Roper was observing to him that the Catholic religion, under the “Defender of the Faith,” was in a most flourishing state, the answer of More was an evidence of political foresight:—“True it is, son Roper! and yet I pray God that we may not live to see the day that we would gladly be at league and competition with heretics, to let them have their churches quietly to themselves, so that they would be contented to let us have ours quietly to ourselves.” The minds of men of great political sagacity were at that moment, unquestionably, full of obscure indications of the approaching change. Erasmus, when before the tomb of Becket, at Canterbury, observing it loaded with a vast profusion of jewels, wished that those had been distributed among the poor, andthat the shrine had only been adorned with boughs and flowers:—“For,” said he, “those who have heaped up all this mass of treasure, will one day be plundered, and fall a prey to those who are in power.” A prediction literally fulfilled about twenty years after it was made.The fall of the religious houseswas predicted by an unknown author, (see Visions of Pier’s Ploughman,) who wrote in the reign of Edward the Third. The event, in fact, with which we are all well acquainted, was realized two hundred years afterwards, by our Henry VIII. Sir Walter Raleigh foresaw the consequences of the separatists and the sectaries in the National Church, which occurred about the year 1530. His memorable words are, “Time will even bring it to pass, if it were not resisted, that God would beturned out of churches into barns, and from thence again into thefieldsandmountains, and underhedges. All order of discipline and church government, left tonewness of opinion, and men’s fancies, and asmany kinds of religionspring up as there are parish churches within England.” Tacitus also foresaw the calamities which so long desolated Europe on the fall of the Roman empire, in a work written five hundred years before the event! In that sublime anticipation of the future, he observed, “When the Romans shall be hunted out from those countries which they have conquered, what will then happen? The revolted people, freed from their master-oppressor, will not be able to subsist without destroying their neighbours, and the most cruel wars will exist among all these nations.” Solon, at Athens,contemplating on the port and citadel of Munychia, suddenly exclaimed, “how blind is man to futurity! could the Athenians foresee what mischief this will do, they would even eat it with their own teeth, to get rid of it.” A prediction verified more than two hundred years afterwards! Thales desired to be buried in an obscure quarter of Milesia, observing that that very spot would in time be the forum. Charlemagne, in his old age, observing from the window of a castle a Norman descent on his coast, tears started in the eyes of the aged monarch. He predicted, that since they dared to threaten his dominions while he was yet living, what would they do when he should be no more! A melancholy prediction of their subsequent incursions, and of the protracted calamities of the French nation during a whole century.
In a curious treatise on “Divination,” or the knowledge of future events, Cicero has preserved a complete account of the state contrivances practised by the Roman government, to instil among the people those hopes and fears by which they regulated public opinion. The Pagan creed, now become obsolete and ridiculous, has occasioned this treatise to be rarely consulted; it remains, however, as a chapter in the history of man!
There appears to be something in minds which take in extensive views of human nature, which serves them as a kind of Divination, and the consciousness of this faculty has been asserted by some. Cicero appeals to Atticus how he had always judged of the affairs of the republic as a good diviner; and that its overthrow had happened, ashe had foreseen, fourteen years before. (Ep. ad Att.lib. 10, ep. 4.)
Cicero had not only predicted what had happened in his own times, but also what occurred long after, according to Cornelius Nepos. The philosopher, indeed, affects no secret revelation, nor visionary second-sight;—he honestly tells us, that that art had been acquired merely by study, and the administration of public affairs, while he reminds his friend of several remarkable instances of his successful predictions. “I do not,” says Cicero, “divine human events by the arts practised by the augurs; but I use other signs.” Cicero then expresses himself with the guarded obscurity of a philosopher who could not openly ridicule the prevailing superstitions, although the nature of his “signs” are perfectly comprehensible, when in the great pending events of the rival conflicts of Pompey and Cæsar, he shewed the means he used for his purpose: “On one side I consider the humour and genius of Cæsar, and on the other, the condition and manner of civil wars.” (Ep. ad. Att.lib. 6, ep. 6.) In a word, the political diviner, by his experience of the personal character, anticipated the actions of the individual. Others, too, have asserted the possession of this faculty. Du Vard, an eminent chancellor of France, imagined the faculty to be intuitive with him; from observations made by his own experience. “Born,” says he, “with constitutional infirmity, a mind and body but ill adapted to be laborious, with a most treacherous memory, enjoying no gift of nature, yet able at all times to exercisea sagacity so great that I do not know, since I have reached manhood, that any thing of importance has happened to the state, to the public, or to myself in particular, which I had not foreseen[32].” The same faculty appears to be described by a remarkable expression employed by Thucidides, in his character of Themistocles, of which the following is a close translation. “By a species of sagacity peculiarly his own, for which he was in no degree indebted either to early education or after study, he was supereminently happy in forming a prompt judgment in matters that admitted but little time for deliberation; at the same time that he far surpassed all hisdeductions of the future from thePAST; or was the best guesser of the future from the past.”
Should this faculty of moral and political prediction be ever considered as a science, it may be furnished with a denomination, for the writer of the life of Thomas Brown, prefixed to his works, in claiming the honour for that philosopher, calls it the “Stochastic,” a term derived from the Greek and from Archery, meaning to “shoot at the mark.”
Aristotle, who collected all the curious knowledge of his times, has preserved some remarkable opinions on the art ofdivination. In detailing the various subterfuges practised by the pretended diviners of the present day, he reveals thesecret principleby which one of them regulated his predictions.He frankly declared that theFUTUREbeing always very obscure, while thePASTwas easy to know,his predictions had never the future view; for he decided from thePAST, as it appeared in human affairs, which, however, he concealed from the multitude. (Arist. Rhetoric, lib. vii. c. 5.)
With regard to moral predictions on individuals, many have discovered the future character. The revolutionary predisposition of Cardinal Retz, even in his youth, was detected by the sagacity of Cardinal Mazarine. He then wrote a history of the conspiracy of Fresco, with such vehement admiration of his hero, that the Italian politician, after its perusal, predicted that the young author would be one of the most turbulent spirits of the age! The father of Marshal Biron, even amid the glory of his son, discovered the cloud which, invisible to others, was to obscure it. The father, indeed, well knew the fiery passions of his son. “Biron,” said the domestic Seer, “I advise thee, when peace takes place, to go and plant cabbages in thy garden, otherwise I warn thee thou wilt lose thy head upon the scaffold!”
Lorenzo de Medici had studied the temper of his son Piero; for we are informed by Guicciardini that he had often complained to his most intimate friends that “he foresaw the imprudence and arrogance of his son would occasion the ruin of his family.”
There is a singular prediction of James the first, of the evils likely to ensue from Laud’s violence, in a conversation given by Hacket, which the King held with Archbishop Williams. When theKing was hard pressed to promote Laud, he gave his reasons why he intended to “keep Laud back from all place of rule and authority, because I find he hath a restless spirit, and cannot see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation floating in his own brain, which endangers the stedfastness of that which is in a good pass. I speak not at random; he hath made himself known to me to be such a one.” James then relates the circumstances to which he alludes; and at length, when still pursued by the Archbishop, then the organ of Buckingham, as usual, this King’s good nature too easily yielded; he did not, however, without closing with this prediction: “Then take him to you! but on my soul you will repent it!”
The future character of Cromwell was apparent to two of our great politicians. “This coarse, unpromising man,” observed Lord Falkland, pointing to Cromwell, “will be the first person in the kingdom if the nation comes to blows!” And Archbishop Williams told Charles the First confidentially, that “There wasthatin Cromwell which foreboded something dangerous, and wished his Majesty would either win him over to him, or get him taken off!”
The incomparable character of Buonaparte, given by the Marquis of Wellesley, predicted his fall when highest in his power. “His eagerness of power,” says this great Statesman, “is so inordinate; his jealousy of independence so fierce; his keenness of appetite so feverish, in all that touches his ambition, even in the most trifling things, thathe must plunge into dreadful difficulties. He is one of an order of minds that by nature make for themselves great reverses.”
After the commencement of the French Revolution, Lord Mansfield was once asked when it would end? His Lordship replied, “It is an eventwithout precedent, and thereforewithout prognostic.” The fact is, however, that it had both; as our own history, in the reign of Charles the First, had furnished us with a precedent; and the prognostics were so plentiful, that a volume of passages might be collected from various writers who had foretold it.
There is a production, which does honour to the political sagacity, as well as to his knowledge of human nature, thrown out by Bishop Butler in a Sermon before the House of Lords, in 1741; he calculated that the unreligious spirit would produce, some time or other, political disorders, similar to those which, in the 17th century, had arisen from religious fanaticism. “Is there no danger,” he observed, “that all this may raise somewhat likethat levelling spirit, upon Atheistical principles, which in the last age prevailed upon enthusiastic ones? Not to speak of the possibility thatdifferent sorts of peoplemayunitein it upon thesecontrary principles!” All this has literally been accomplished!
If a prediction be raised on facts which our own prejudice induce us to infer will exist, it must be chimerical. The Monk Carron announces in his Chronicle, printed in 1532, that the world was about ending, as well as his Chronicle of it; thatthe Turkish Empire would not last many years; that after the death of Charles V. the Empire of Germany would be torn to pieces by the Germans themselves. This Monk will no longer pass for a prophet; he belongs to that class of Chroniclers who write to humour their own prejudices, like a certain Lady-prophetess who, in 1811, predicted that grass was to grow in Cheapside about this time!
Even when the event does not always justify the prediction, the predictor may not have been the less correct in his principles of divination. The catastrophe of human life, and the turn of great events, often turn out accidental. Marshal Biron, whom we have noticed, might have ascended the throne instead of the scaffold; Cromwell and De Retz might have become only the favourite generals, or the ministers of their Sovereigns. Fortuitous events are not included within the reach of human prescience; such must be consigned to those vulgar superstitions which presume to discover the issue of human events, without pretending to any human knowledge. In the science of the Philosopher there is nothing supernatural.
Predictions have sometimes been condemned as false ones, which, when scrutinize may scarcely be deemed to have failed: they may have been accomplished, and they may again revolve on us. In 1749, Dr. Hartley published his “Observations on Man;” and predicted the fall of the existing governments and hierarchies, in two simple propositions; among others—
Prop. 81.It is probable that all the civil governments will be overturned.
Prop. 82.It is probable that the present forms of Church government will be dissolved.
Many indeed were terribly alarmed at these predicted falls of Church and State. Lady Charlotte Wentworth asked Hartley when these terrible things would happen? The answer of the predictor was not less awful: “I am an old man, and shall not live to see them.” In the subsequent revolutions of America and France, and perhaps latterly that of Spain, it can hardly be denied that these predictions have failed.
The philosophical predictor, in foretelling some important crisis, from the appearances of things, will not rashly assign the period of time; for the crisis he anticipates is calculated on by that inevitable march of events which generate each other in human affairs; but the period is always dubious, being either retarded or accelerated by circumstances of a nature incapable of entering into his moral arithmetic. There is, however, a spirit of political vaccination which presumes to pass beyond the boundaries of human prescience, which, by enthusiasts, has often been ascribed to the highest source of inspiration; but since “the language of prophecy” has ceased, such pretensions are not less impious than they are unphilosophical. No one possessed a more extraordinary portion of this awful prophetic confidence than Knox the reformer: he appears to have predicted several remarkable events, and the fates of some persons. We are informed that when condemned to a galley inRochelle, he predicted that “within two or three years, he should preach the Gospel at St. Giles’s, in Edinburgh,” an improbable event, which nevertheless happened as he had foretold. Of Mary and Darnley, he pronounced that, “as the King, for the Queen’s pleasure, had gone to mass, the Lord, in his justice, would make her the instrument of his overthrow.” Other striking predictions of the deaths of Thomas Maitland, and of Kirkaldly of Grange, and the warning he solemnly gave to the Regent Murray, not to go to Linlithgow, where he was assassinated, occasioned a barbarous people to imagine that the prophet Knox had received an immediate communication from heaven.
An Almanack-maker, a Spanish friar, predicted, in clear and precise words, the death of Henry the Fourth of France; and Pierese, though he had no faith in the vain science of Astrology, yet, alarmed at whatever menaced the life of a beloved Sovereign, consulted with some of the King’s friends, and had the Spanish almanack before his Majesty, who courteously thanked them for their solicitude, but utterly slighted the prediction: the event occurred, and in the following year the Spanish friar spread his own fame in a new almanack. This prediction of the Spanish friar was the result either of his being acquainted with the plot, or from his being made an instrument for the purposes of those who were. It appears that Henry’s assassination was rife in Spain and Italy before the event occurred.
Separating human prediction from inspired prophecy, we can only ascribe to the faculties ofman that acquired prescience which we have demonstrated, that some great minds have unquestionably exercised. Its principles have been discovered in the necessary dependance of effects on general causes, and we have shewn that, impelled by the same motives, and circumscribed by the same passions, all human affairs revolve in a circle; and we have opened the true source of this yet imperfect science of moral and political prediction, in an intimate, but a discriminative, knowledge of the past. Authority is sacred when experience affords parallels and analogies. If much which may overwhelm, when it shall happen, can be foreseen, the prescient Statesman and Moralist may provide defensive measures to break the waters, whose streams they cannot always direct; and the venerable Hooker has profoundly observed, that “the best things have been overthrown, not so much by puissance and might of adversaries, as through defect of council in those that should have upheld and defended the same[33].”
“The philosophy of history,” observes a late writer and excellent observer, “blends the past with the present, and combines the present with the future; each is but a portion of the other. The actual state of a thing is necessarily determined by its antecedent, and thus progressively through the chain of human existence, while, as Leibnitz has happily expressed the idea, the present is always full of the future. A new and beautifullight is thus thrown over the annals of mankind, by the analogies and the parallels of different ages in succession. How the seventeenth century has influenced the eighteenth, and the results of the nineteenth, as they shall appear in the twentieth, might open a source ofPREDICTIONS, to which, however difficult it might be to affix their dates, there would be none in exploring into causes, and tracing their inevitable effects. The multitude live only among the shadows of things in the appearance of thePRESENT; the learned, busied with thePAST, can only trace whence, and how, all comes; but he who is one of the people and one of the learned, the true philosopher, views the natural tendency and terminations which are preparing for theFUTURE.”