undertaken the office of his editor under the condition-that Mr. Stewart's writings should, in this collective edition, be published without note or comment. The only annotations, therefore, which I have deemed it necessary or even proper to append, are such as were required in the execution of my editorial functions. By exception, however, one or two bibliographical facts of some importance, but generally unknown, have been simply supplied. Where also Mr. Stewart had neglected a useful reference, such has been silently filled up; while verbal inaccuracies and imperfections have, in like manner, been emended. Beside, therefore, the principal value bestowed on this edition of the Dissertation by the extent and importance of its new matter; it is hoped, that the book has thus been rendered more convenient for study, to say nothing of the useful subsidiaries of a well digested Index, and of an appropriate disposition of minuter running titles. EDINBURGH, April 1854. perception of visible figure." Compare also his doctrine on p. 552. It may here be added, that the whole speculation concerning the realizing, not only to imagination but to sight, of breadthless lines, (a speculation, in fact, hardly contemplated by Mr. Stewart,) can be traced to Aristotle, but more W. H. explicitly to Proclus and his scholar, Ammonius Hermia; while in modern times, I find the phænomenon signalized, among others, by Clavius, by D'Alembert, and by Dr. Thomas Young. Nor should it now remain a paradox; nor even an unemployed truth. CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. Progress of Philosophy from the publication of Bacon's Montaigne.-Charron.-La Rochefoucauld, Descartes.-Gassendi.-Malebranche, SECT. 3. Progress of Philosophy during the Seventeenth Century in SECT. 3. Of the Metaphysical Speculations of Newton and Clarke.- Digression with respect to the System of Spinoza, Collins, and Jonathan Edwards.-Anxiety of both to reconcile the scheme of Necessity with Man's Moral Agency. Departure of some later Necessitarians from SECT. 4. Of some Authors who have contributed, by their Critical or Historical Writings, to diffuse a taste for Metaphysical SECT. 6. Condillac, and other French Metaphysicians of a later date, SECT. 7. Kant, and other Metaphysicians of the New German School, CHAPTER. (Fragment in conclusion.)-Progress, Tendencies, Results, 487 PREFACE. CONTAINING SOME CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE DISCOURSE PREFIXED TO THE FRENCH ENCYCLOPÉDIE. WHEN I ventured to undertake the task of contributing a Preliminary Dissertation to these Supplemental Volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica, my original intention was, after the example of D'Alembert, to have begun with a general survey of the various departments of human knowledge. The outline of such a survey, sketched by the comprehensive genius of Bacon, together with the corrections and improvements suggested by his illustrious disciple, would, I thought, have rendered it comparatively easy to adapt their intellectual map to the present advanced state of the sciences; while the unrivalled authority which their united work has long maintained in the republic of letters, would, I flattered myself, have softened those criticisms which might be expected to be incurred by any similar attempt of a more modern hand. On a closer examination, however, of their labours, I found myself under the necessity of abandoning this design. Doubts immediately occurred to me with respect to the justness of their logical views, and soon terminated in a conviction, that these views are radically and essentially erroneous. Instead, therefore, of endeavouring to give additional currency to speculations which I conceived to be fundamentally unsound, I resolved to avail myself of the present opportunity VOL. I. A |