INTRODUCTION. 61 



wralst even the grander forms in which she has revealed 

 herself share the fate of comets, bodies that do not rank in 

 popular opinion amongst the eternal and permanent works o^ 

 nature, but are regarded as mere fugitive apparitions oi 

 igneous vapour." We would here remark that the abuse oi 

 thought and the false track it too often pursues, ought not to 

 sanction an opinion derogatory to intellect, which would imply 

 that the domain of mind is essentially a world of vague fan- 

 tastic illusions, and that the treasures accumulated by laborious 

 observations in philosophy are po\vers hostile to its own empire. 

 It does not become the spirit which characterises the present 

 age. distrustfully to reject every generalization of views, and 

 every attempt to examine into the nature of things by the 

 process of reason and induction. It would \y. a denial of the 

 dignity of human nature and the relative importance of the 

 faculties with which we are endowed, were we to condemn 

 at one time austere reason engaged in investigating causes 

 and their mutual connections, and at another that exercise oi 

 the imagination whch prompts and excites discoveries by its 

 cteative powers. 



K*D 0? XNTfiODlTCTI-HC 



