66 STATE OF EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE. 



lead to a view, dishonouring to intellect, which would regard 

 the world of ideas as essentially a region of phantom-like 

 illusions, and philosophy as a hostile power, by which the 

 accumulated treasures of experimental knowledge are threat- 

 ened. It is unsuitable to the spirit of the age to reject 

 with distrust any attempted generalisation of views, or 

 investigation in the path of reasoning and induction. Nor 

 is it consonant with a due estimation of the dignity of the 

 human intellect, and the relative importance of the facul- 

 ties with which we are endowed, to condemn, at one time, 

 severe reason applied to the investigation of causes and their 

 connection, and at another, that exercise of the imagination 

 which is often precursive to discoveries, for the achievement 

 of which the imaginative power is indeed an essential 

 auxiliary. 



