VIII 



[1890] 



IN looking through a series of critical notices th 

 other day, my eye was caught by a remark upo 

 my essay "On the Natural Inequality <>f Men" 

 to the effect that it was well enough ; but why 

 should I have taken all that trouble to slay the 

 slain ? 



Evidently, the propounder of the question he- 

 lieves that the doctrines of that school of politic 

 philosophers of which Rousseau was the typi 

 representative, are not only killed but tie, 

 But, whatever may hold good of men, doctrines d 

 not necessarily die from being killed. Many 

 long year ago, I fondly imagined that Hume an< 

 Kant and Hamilton having slain the "Absolute, 

 the thing must, in decency, decease. Yet, at th 

 present time, the same hypostatised ncgatio 

 sometimes thinly disguised under a new name 



