18 INTRODUCTION. 



poraries and of posterity, added to his comparatively slight 

 acquaintance with the arts and aids of logical arrange- 

 ment, permitted him fully to unfold and arrange it in dis- 

 tinct, clear, and communicable conceptions. Assuredly, 

 however, I may, without incurring the charge of arro- 

 gance or detraction, venture to assert that, in his writings 

 the light which occasionally flashes upon us seems at 

 other times, and more frequently, to struggle through an 

 unfriendly medium, and even sometimes to suffer a tem- 

 porary occultation. At least, in order to dissipate the 

 undeniable obscurities, and to reconcile the apparent con- 

 tradictions found in his works, to distinguish, in short, 

 the numerous passages in which without, perhaps, losing 

 sight internally of his own peculiar belief, he yet falls into 

 the phraseology and mechanical solutions of his age, we 

 must distinguish such passages from those in which the 

 form corresponds to the substance, and in which, there- 

 fore, the nature and essential laws of vital action are ex- 

 pressed, as far as his researches had unveiled them to his 

 own mind, without disguise. To effect this, we must, as 

 it were., climb up on his shoulders, and look at the same 

 objects in a distinct er form, because seen from the more 

 commanding point of view furnished by himself. This 

 has, indeed, been more than once attempted already, and, 

 in one instance, with so evident a display of power and 

 insight as announces in the assertor and vindicator of the 

 Hunterian Theory a congenial intellect, and a disciple in 



