But I have heard of no other instance. There are notwithstanding ideas in this work, neglected and ill-treated as it has been, that lead to more curious and subtle speculations on some of the most disputed and difficult points of the philosophy of the human mind (such as relation, abstraction, &c.) than have been thrown out in any work for the last sixty years, I mean since Hume; for since his time, there has been no metaphysician in this country, worth the name. Yet his Treatise on Human Nature, he tells us, “fell still-born from the press.” So it is that knowledge works its way, and reputation lingers far behind it. But truth is better than opinion, I maintain it; and as to the two stereotyped and unsold editions of the Essay on Consciousness, I say, Honi soit qui mal y pense[1]!—My Uncle Toby had one idea in his head, that of his bowling-green, and another, that of the Widow Wadman. Oh, spare them both! I will only add one more anecdote in illustration of this theory of the mind's being occupied with
- ↑ Quarto poetry, as well as quarto metaphysics, does not always sell. Going one day into a shop in Paternoster-row to see for some lines in Mr. Wordsworth's Excursion to interlard some prose with, I applied to the constituted authorities, and asked if I could look at a copy of the Excursion? The answer was—“Into which country, Sir?”
