e done has
been balanced by no inconsiderable evil. One can scarcely examine it
with much attention, and not perceive that the writer had not ascended
to the sources of that science, which notwithstanding any thing he may
say to the contrary, it was evidently his aim to depreciate. Through
great part of it he has the appearance of one who is struggling with
some unknown power, which he would fain comprehend, and at which, in the
failure to comprehend it, his terror is changed into anger. The word
metaphysics, or, as he oftener terms it, metaphysic, crosses him like a
ghost. Call it pneumatology, the philosophy of the mind, the philosophy
of human nature, or what you will, and he can bear it.

Take any shape but that, and his firm nerves
Shall never tremble.

Once, indeed, (but it is not till he has reached the third and last
division of the essay) he screws up his courage so high as to question
it concerning its name; and the result of his inquiry is this: he finds
that to fourteen of the books attributed to Aristotle, which it seems
had no general title, Andronicus Rhodius, who edited them, prefixed the
words, ta meta ta physica, that is, the books placed posterior to the
physics; either because, in the order of the former arrangement they
happened to be so placed, or because the editor meant that they should
be studied, next after the physics. And this, he concludes, is said to
be the origin of the word metaphysic. This is not very satisfactory; and
if the reader thinks so, he will perhaps, be glad to hear those who,
having dealt longer in the black art, are more likely to be conjurors in
it. Harris, who had given so many years of his life to the study of
Aristotle, tells us, that "Metaphysics are properly conversant about
primary and internal causes."[1] "Those things which are first to
nature, are not first to man. Nature begins from causes, and thence
descends to effects. Human perceptions first open upon effects, and
thence by slow degrees ascend to causes."[2]

His own definition might have been enough to satisfy him that it was
something very harmless about which he had so much alarmed himself.
Still he proceeds to impute to it I know not what mischief; till at
last, in a paroxysm of indignation, he exclaims, "Exult, O metaphysic,
at the consummation of thy glories. More thou canst not hope, more thou
canst not desire. Fall down, ye mortals, and acknowledge the stupendous
blessing."

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