y arrived before the gates, who will rush in.

It is futile, therefore, to think of discarding metaphysics; if a good
system is not adopted, its contrary will speedily prevail. "A good
physician," says Paul Richter, "saves us--from a bad one--if from
nothing else." And a rational method of philosophising has, at all
events, the same negative merit. Good sense, cries one, is sufficient
for all the purposes of life, and even for all the useful walks of
literature. The remark might be pertinent enough if you could secure a
man in the quiet, uninterrupted possession of his plain good sense. But
he who has not studied philosophy in his youth, will probably plunge
into it, without study, in his old age. There is no guarantee against
the infection of speculative thought. Some question suddenly interests
the man of hitherto quiescent temper--invades his tranquillity--prompts
him to penetrate below the surface of the matter--to analyse its
intricacies--to sound its depths. Meanwhile, untutored, undisciplined
for such labours, he speedily involves himself in inextricable
difficulties--grasps at some plausibility that had been a thousand times
before seized on and relinquished--tilts valiantly at his men of
straw--thrice slays the dead--and in short, strong-limbed as he is, and
with all his full-grown thews and sinews, plays upon this new arena all
the vagaries of a child. It may be said of philosophy, as it has been
said of love,--it is, or it has been, or it will one day be, your
master.

We have seen reverend doctors of divinity present no very dignified
spectacle when they have suddenly bethought them of paying their
somewhat late devotions to philosophy. Accustomed to receive, as their
due, a profound respect from others, they assume with easy confidence
the cloak of the philosopher; and while they are thinking only how to
arrange its folds with classic grace, they are unconsciously winding
round their sturdy limbs what will sadly entangle their feet, and bring
them, with shame and sore contusions, to the ground. Some will parade an
ancient theory of morals, and introduce to us with all the pride of
fresh discovery what now looks "as pale and hollow as a ghost." Others
explain the beautiful; and with a charming audacity, a courage that is
quite exhilarating, propound some theoretic fancy which has the same
relation to philosophy that Quarle's Emblems bear to that pictorial art
they especially delight to descant upon. But the