DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 337 



logical ; while, on the other hand, there are 

 many branches of our knowledge, in which we 

 possess a large share of original and derivative 

 convictions and truths, but where it is never- 

 theless at present quite impossible to erect our 

 knowledge into a complete system ; to state our 

 primary and independent truths, and to show 

 how on these all the rest depend by the rules of 

 art. If the mathematician is repelled from spe- 

 culations on morals or politics, on the beautiful 

 or the right, because the reasonings which they 

 involve have not mathematical precision and 

 conclusiveness, he will remain destitute of much 

 of the most valuable knowledge which man can 

 acquire. And if he attempts to mend the matter 

 by giving to treatises on morals, or politics, or 

 criticism, a form and a phraseology borrowed 

 from the very few tolerably complete physical 

 sciences which exist, it will be found that he is 

 compelled to distort and damage the most impor- 

 tant truths, so as to deprive them of their true 

 shape and import, in order to force them into 

 their places in his artificial system. 



If therefore, as we have said, the mathematical 

 philosopher dwells in his own bright and pleasant 

 land of deductive reasoning, till he turns with 

 disgust from all the speculations, necessarily less 

 clear and conclusive, in which his imagination, 

 his practical faculties, his moral sense, his ca- 

 pacity of religious hope and belief, are to be 



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