A WORD FOR PHILOSOPHY. 



UNFORTUNATE Philosophy ! not only to have retained the enmity of 

 all her old foes, the tyrants and deceivers of mankind ; but to have in- 

 curred the reproaches of many who in better days were well pleased to 

 be regarded as her friends and coadjutors ! Perhaps, however, the pre- 

 judice conceived against her is beginning to subside ; at least, an en- 

 quiry how far the imputations under which she has laboured have been 

 merited may at this time hope for a patient hearing. 



Philosophy has been " accused" of contributing to the subversion of 

 every thing sacred and venerable among men, of vilifying authority, 

 insulting dignities, unsettling established customs and opinions, and 

 substituting her own crudities and fallacies to the results of long ex- 

 perience. I have no doubt that her real influence has been greatly 

 exaggerated, and that the bad passions of mankind have been the true 

 causes of the deplorable evils which the world has lately witnessed : 

 but admitting that Philosophy has had her share in the work of de- 

 struction, let us calmly consider what were the things against which 

 her batteries were erected. 



Politics and religion, the two " master- springs " of human affairs, 

 have both been touched by Philosophy, and, it must be acknowledged, 

 with a free hand. She has been guilty, too, of what many seem to 

 regard as an unpardonable offence resorting to first principles in 

 order to justify her attacks upon existing systems, and lay a founda- 

 tion for proposed improvements. Thus, in the science of politics (to 

 begin with that department) she has boldly assumed that men come 

 into the world with rights that the maintenance of these rights ought 

 to be the great object of social institutions that government was in- 

 tended for the good of the whole, not the emolument of the few 

 that legitimate authority can have no other basis than general consent, 

 for that force can never constitute right that civil distinctions, origi- 

 nating from the agreement of society, always remain within the de- 

 termination of society and that laws, in order to be just, must bear 

 equally upon ALL. 



M.M. No. 8. N 



