Works on Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, by the same Author. ESSAYS ON THE FORMATION AND PUBLICATION OF ESSAYS ON THE PURSUIT OF Third edition, 8vo. TRUTH AND ON THE 8vo. A REVIEW OF BERKELEY'S THEORY OF VISION, designed to show the Unsoundness of that celebrated Speculation. A LETTER TO A PHILOSOPHER, in reply to some recent Attempts to vindicate Berkeley's Theory of Vision. (Pamphlet.) LONDON: SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW, PREFACE. THE following Treatise aims at giving a connected and consistent view of the subject which it undertakes to explain, and of the relation in which the several parts of it stand to each other. Perhaps it will not be considered as departing from the proper self-restraint which leaves the question of originality to be decided by others, if the Author ventures to say that this connected view differs as a whole, and of course in some of its details, from any theory hitherto promulgated. Saying this is, indeed, putting forth no claim except to the attention of the reader, inasmuch as there can be no merit in any difference from former writers, unless that difference is founded in truth. The Author designed at first to make the Treatise almost wholly expository; but the number of unsettled questions on which he had to touch, forced him more extensively into criticism and controversy than he had originally contemplated entering. In such a work it was especially impossible not to advert to the scholastic logic; and as his theory is at variance with some of its fundamental principles, he has had occasion to comment upon it at considerable length. If, in doing this, he has, on the one hand, been obliged to differ very widely on certain points from several of the ablest logical writers of the day, he has, on the other, found himself in accordance on many of the same points with some of the most eminent philosophers of the past and present ages. February 22. 1851. |