eptions; but the names of classes or collections, or
of various hypotheses included or designated by a single name. The
difficulties which environ this latter mode of reasoning become
immediately evident, and satisfactorily account for the hostility and
confusion it has engendered, and for the tardy advancement of real
knowledge by this medium. The individual objects in nature can be
investigated by observation and experiment, and may be sufficiently
estimated; but multitudes of objects arbitrarily classed, or imaginary
qualities comprehended by a single name, do not admit of the same
analysis by the senses, and we are only enabled to ascertain their real
meaning in the two ways that have been pointed out,--by authority,
which, to be strictly such, ought to be invariable,--or by etymology,
which will demonstrate their original signification, and the reasons
which imposed them. Thus when we reason concerning charity, benevolence,
humanity, and liberty, terms certainly of the highest importance, but
each of which involves a variety of circumstances, and the real
signification of which, is to this moment differently interpreted, we
are impeded in the process, and fail in our estimate, because the
dimensions are uncertain. That which one man considers a charitable
donation, another views as the means which encourage idleness, and vice,
and a third person is perhaps induced to question the motive, by
attributing the gift to pride and ostentation. These general terms
seldom admit the precision of numbers, but are characterised as to their
proportions by expressions equally general and indefinite: as, much,
more, and most, to denote their augmentation; and, little, less, least,
to define their diminution. These general but indefinite degrees of
comparison, as they are termed, once defined the temperature of our
atmosphere, until a scale was discovered to mark its increment and
diminution by the accuracy of numbers. Great as may be the convenience
of general terms, both for abbreviation and dispatch, they are
notwithstanding liable to considerable suspicion, and are the frequent
sources of error and misapprehension. It has been principally for this
reason, that in proportion to the advancement of the physical sciences,
the study of scholastic metaphysic has been deservedly neglected.

FOOTNOTE:

[17] Time, or the admeasurement of the successive order of our
perceptions, embraces a wide area of definition; and it is perhaps
im