rests on the veracity of testimony, becomes certain, when this veracity cannot be called in question. The abstract sciences, it is true, which pretend to elevate our meditations beyond the compass of the senses, have not seldom partaken of that distraction which too commonly infests the minds of those who cultivate them. By fixing the memory of words, and by marking the boundary where enquiry should stop and ignorance be acknowledged, Philosophy however has been able to evince, that the various opinions which prevail among mankind, arise from terms rather than from things. If certainty has not hence been attained, a limit at least has been placed to conjecture, subtilty, and confusion. Placed in a rank too elevated to be subjected to the investigation of an ignorant and unreflecting multitude, the sciences are in general not exposed to their rash and injudicious decisions. The success of these superior branches of study has depended upon enlightened minds, whose contests, though disgraceful to literature, yet, as they are conducted by a systematic chain of reasoning, and rest on fixed principles, may possibly admit of being reconciled.
Of all these advantages Polite Literature appears on the first view to be destitute. Though calculated to excite the best feelings of the human heart, the imagination is subject not only to the criticism of mankind, but to what is still more vague and changeable, their humours. By these standards decisions are given. Sensibility ought to be a sure guide: yet how variable are the feelings of men! On different persons how different their effects! How many schemes have been put in practice to stifle their voice, and to mislead their dictates? Do they not
themselves
