PREFACE. view than his own; nor will it greatly surprise him to discover, that he has fallen into errors and misconceptions as deep and as radical as any of those which he has found or fancied in the speculations of others. From the defects here imputed to the science, it is evident that in any work, which professes to examine and remove them, the points discussed must be questions as to the use of terms, the distinction of ideas, the lo- gical dependence of arguments, rather than questions of fact or evidence, and that its cha- racter will be essentially critical, and even polemic. In endeavouring to define the nature of ideas, to fix the meaning of terms, to in- vestigate first principles, and to determine the real objects and results of inquiry, it was im- possible, it would have been worse than use- less, not to advert to the works of preceding writers, although at the expense perhaps of