ntinuity of prejudices and the arbitrary laws of custom. He
therefore entertains very serious doubts whether his work will be
acceptable to those #learned Professors# in Universities, who teach no
doctrines or opinions but those of their predecessors; or whether it
will suit #Students#, whose advancement depends on their submission to
the dogmata of such superiors. He questions whether it will ever be
quoted as an authority by #Statesmen# who consider the will of princes
as standards of wisdom;--by #Legislators# who barter away their votes,
and decide on the presumed integrity of ministers and leaders;--by
#Politicians# who banish the moral feelings from their practices;--or
by #Economists# who do not consider individual happiness as the
primary object of their calculations. Nor is he more sanguine that his
work will prove agreeable to those #Natural Philosophers# who account
for phenomena by the operation of virtues or influences which have no
mechanical contact;--or to those #Metaphysicians# who conceive that
truth can be exhibited only in the sophistical subtleties of the
schools displayed in the mazy labyrinths of folios and quartos;--or to
those #Theologians# who maintain that the obligations of reason and
morality are superseded by those of Faith. While, in regard to those
#Topographers# and #Antiquaries# whose studies are bounded by dates of
erection, catalogues of occupants, and copies of tomb-stones;--to
those #Naturalists# who receive delight from enumerations of Linnaean
names of herbs, shrubs, and trees, and from Wernerian descriptions of
rocks;--to those #Bibliomaniacs# who value a book in the inverse ratio
of the information it contains;--and to those #learned Philologists#
who see no beauties in modern tongues, and affect to find (_but
without anticipating any of them_,) all modern discoveries of Natural
Philosophy in Homer, and all improvements of mental Philosophy in the
mysteries of Plato--the author deeply laments his utter inability to
accommodate either his taste, his feelings, or his conclusions.

In regard to the spirit, tone, and character of the author's opinions,
they have necessarily emanated from the state of knowledge, in an era
when, at the termination of four centuries after the adoption of
Printing, mankind have achieved _four_ great objects; (1,) in the
#REVIVAL# of Literature, and #REGENERATION# of Philosophy; (2,) in the
#EMANCIPATION# of Christendom from the systematic thraldom of Pope