Mr. Buckle s Fallacies. 165 



only, and not in &quot; internal power,&quot; our author 

 goes on to show the &quot; superiority of intellectual 

 acquisitions over moral feelings ; &quot; and first he 

 asserts that all our acquisitions are either &quot; moral 

 truths &quot; or &quot; intellectual truths,&quot; and that the 

 former are &quot; stationary,&quot; while the latter are con 

 tinually advancing. It is noticeable that he here 

 deplores the difficulties which arise &quot; from the 

 loose and careless manner in which ordinary lan 

 guage is employed on subjects that require the 

 greatest nicety and precision.&quot; l After giving us 

 this caution, one would naturally expect to find 

 our author very clear and accurate in the choice 

 of terms, and in the statement of propositions ; 

 but, on the contrary, the loose and careless man 

 ner in which he himself employs ordinary lan 

 guage throughout the discussion is quite amazing. 

 In the first place, he makes a verbally unintelligi 

 ble distinction between &quot; intellectual truths &quot; and 

 &quot; moral truths.&quot; Scientifically speaking, there 

 can be no such thing as a &quot;moral truth; &quot;for 

 every truth is a proposition, consisting of subject, 

 predicate, and copula ; and is uttered and recog 

 nized by the intellect, not by the &quot; moral in 

 stinct,&quot; which belongs to the emotional part of 

 our nature. It is the province of intellect to 



i Vol. i. p. 159. 



