LECTURE I. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE. THE subject which I have undertaken to consider in these lectures, not without a painful sense of my own incompetency for the task, is the oldest, the most comprehensive, and the most important, that has ever tasked the human faculties. Upon the answers to the great questions that are involved in it depend all our knowledge, all our duties, and all our hopes. In no age of the world, of which we have any clear and trustworthy record, in no condition of the human race, save that of the lowest forms of barbarism, have these questions ceased to occupy, in a greater or less degree, the attention of man, and to influence his conduct. In one point of view, they may be said to require the most profound learning and the largest scope of intellectual ability in him who would consider and discuss them to advantage; in another aspect, they seem to come within the sphere of the narrowest intellect, and to offer the plainest and most practical considerations to every member of the human family. And herein lies a sufficient apology for what might otherwise appear an act of presumption, the attempt on the part of an individual, however humble and unfitted for the task by the lack of professional training, not merely to form clear ideas for himself upon these subjects, but also to endeavour to impress them upon others. For they are matters of immediate and universal concern; the duty of examining our opinions respecting them is incumbent |