resources of our good old native English, with its agreeable suggestions of common or less abstract objects, have been rendered so available as they might have been, with a view to the more general diffusion of the doctrines, and the increase of their influence as means for modifying the public mind. But on this question we cannot now enter. When it is considered that the abuse of words has hitherto been among the most productive of all the causes that have indirectly contributed to the formation of philosophical literature in general, and of abstract controversy and discussion in particular, it must be evident that the theory and use of the proper signs for the statement and most effective circulation of philosophical ideas, is the theme for a volume and not for a paragraph—an appropriate task for the labour of a life, and not one which can be disposed of in an episode in an occasional Essay.
It may readily be concluded that the qualities to which we have referred are on the whole unfavourable to the popularity, and (in many cases) to the intelligibility of these Notes and Dissertations, among general readers. Such condensed results of the highest generalization, and jets of thought cast forth without the amplification and ornament of popular eloquence, and with little reference to any of their various possible applications, are ill-fitted to coalesce with the prevailing mental habits. Most men are unwilling to consent to grope their way, in the lowest depths of intellectual abstraction, where the light of evidence is hardly sufficient for steady progress, and where they must ever be on their guard against the illusion
