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