'He hath no daughters, Sir.' '_Death, traitor_! Nothing could have subdued nature to such a lowness, but--his UNKIND _daughters_.' It is, of course, his own new and terrible experience which points the inquiry, and though the physical causes are not omitted in it, it is not strange that the moral should predominate, and that his mind should seem to be very curiously occupied in tracking the _ethical_ phenomena to their sources '_in nature_.' In the midst of the uproar of the Tempest, he does indeed begin with the physical investigation. He puts to his 'learned Theban' the question, which no learned Theban had then ever suspected of lying within the range of the scholar's investigations--that question which has been put to some purpose since--'What is the cause of _thunder_?' But his philosophic inquiry does not stop there,--where all the new philosophy has stopped ever since, and where some of our scholars declare it was meant to stop, notwithstanding the plainest declarations of its inventor to the contrary--with the investigation of physical causes. For, after all, it is 'the tempest in his _mind_' that most concerns him. _His_ philosopher, his _practical_ philosopher, must be able to explore the conditions of that, and find the conductors for its lightnings. 'For where the greater malady is fixed, the lesser is scarce felt.' 'Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are his daughters.' After all, it is _Regan's_ heart that appears to him to be the trouble--it is that which must first be laid on the table; and as soon as he decides to have a philosopher among 'his hundred,' he gives orders to that effect. 'Then let them anatomise Regan; see what breeds about her heart: Is there any CAUSE IN NATURE that makes _these hard hearts_?' A very fair subject for philosophical inquiry, one would say; and, on the whole, as profitable and interesting a one, perhaps, as some of those that engage the attention of our men of learning so profoundly at present. In these days of enlightened scientific procedure, one would hardly undertake the smallest practical affair with the aid of any such vague general notions or traditional accounts of the properties to be dealt with, as those which our learned Thebans appear to find all-sufficient for their practices, in that particular department which Lear seems inclined to open here as a field for scientific exploration. And it is perfectly clear that the author, whoever he may be, is very much of Lear's mind on this point, for he does not depend upon Lear alone to suggest his views upon it. There is never a person of this drama that does not do it. CHAPTER IV. THE USE OF EYES. 'All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but--_blind men_.'