Inaugural Address. 5 



a mirage — the Desert without fruit, without flower, without 

 habitation, and without horizon ; arid, trackless, silent, but vast 

 awful, and fascinating :" * adding, that " if we understand by 

 Philosophy what all Philosophers consider it, Metaphysics, then to 

 attempt to construct a science of Metaphysics is an impossi- 

 bility." t 



There can be no question that since the time of Bacon, this 

 definition of Philosophy is the true one. 



Surely, then, the title, " Philosophical Society," has been very 

 suitably dispensed with : and there is a growing dislike to assume 

 such a title in the formation of Scientific societies at home. 



The former systems of what was called Philosophy have now 

 passed away. Intellectual inquiry is pursuing a different 

 direction. It is not now the employment of the Schools of 

 learning to ascertain by the processes of Logic those invisible 

 things which are beyond the attainment of reason, but rather to 

 make discoveries in things visible, hoping thus to obtain an 

 insight into that which mere Philosophy can never reach. 



"What risk may be run in even this method, may be in some 

 degree perceived by a careful perusal of the chapters " On the 

 objects of Physcial Science" in " Brown's Lectures on the 

 Philosophy of the Human Mind," in which, by the way, he quotes 

 a very witty illustration of the subject from De Pontenelle in his 

 work entitled Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes. (p. 12) . " All 

 Philosophy, I tell you, is founded only on two things, upon the 

 fact that we possess an inquisitive mind and bad eyes. For, if 

 you had better eyes than you have, you would distinctly see 

 whether the stars are suns, illuminating so many worlds, or 

 whether they are not ; and if, on the other hand, you were less 

 inquisitive you would not care to know, which would come to the 

 same thing : but people wish to know more than they see — there 

 is the difficulty. Even if that which they see, they saw correctly, 

 something would so far be known ; but they see quite the con- 

 trary of what really is. Thus the true Philosophers pass their 

 lives in not believing what they see and in trying to guess at what 

 they do not see, and this condition as it appears to me is not 

 very desirable." 



* Vol. II, Page 224. t Vol. Ill, Page 4-6, 



