74 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



The second and much-enlarged edition of this book having 

 been for some tune completely out of print, and a new one 

 having been wished for in various quarters, I have, after some 

 delay, made up my mind to bring out the present reprint of it, 

 with numerous additions, in larger type, and otherwise unproved. 



This was suggested to me in a very favourable review of the 

 work in the leading Roman Catholic organ, " The Month" (printed 

 at the end herewith) in which the one and only fault found with it 

 was that it had not been made enough of in. its then form, and 

 I thought it as well to adopt the recommendation, and carry it 

 out in the way I have done. 



It was said by a witty Frenchman of some one who had sense 

 enough to keep the working of his brain to himself, " He keeps so 

 long silent that one actually supposes he has something to say ; a 

 mistake we could never fall into if he would but speak." 



It is a pity that our wiseacre philosophers have not followed 

 BO good an example. 



Their whole baseless fabric has been one huge imposture from 

 the beginning to the end, from the monad to the man. To 

 treat the ridiculous lucubrations, wild assumptions, transparent 

 fallacies, senseless sophisms, and most egregious follies of the 

 miserable Infidelity of their wretched system, seriously, is to 

 dignify it with an honour of which it is utterly unworthy. 



That this is not speaking too strongly, let the opinions of the 

 men of eminence which I have placed on the first pages of this 

 edition suffice. 



Here are a few specimens of the way they " darken counsel 

 by words without knowledge " 



" Evolution is a change from indefinite incoherent homo- 

 geneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, through continuous 

 differentrations and integrations. Life is a continuous adjustment 

 of internal relations to external relations." HERBERT SPENCER, 

 (" The Apostle of the understanding !") TYNDALL. 



" Mental phenomena are the subjective aspect of the functions 

 of sensory and motor substrata, and in the last analysis, mental 



