theory of knowledge, arising from the real limitation of its sphere; the great objects of knowledge—God, self, and the world;—together with the riddles of creation, and of independent moral action, which these involve, have attracted, with a scientific interest, a succession of minds of different schools. Of this fact, the fragments of thought that are expressed in the accumulation of philosophical paragraphs, sentences, and references which enrich the learning of this volume, as well as its original matter, form a remarkable confirmation and illustration. Though ever and anon the calls of the circumstances through which men are passing may divert the attention of generations to the arrangement of affairs that are more pressing, if they are less sublime and imposing, the like aspirations will continue to ascend, and not the less passionately as the world approaches its catastrophe. They are worthy of reverence as the emanations of the human spirit in the direction of the permanent, the infinite, and the eternal, the nourishment at once of nobleness and humility of mind, even although often the baflled efforts of a desire to break the barrier by which its own structure confines the thought of man, who finds instincts instead of explanations when he endeavours to form such science. This perpetual, yet broken struggle, after what must in the end elude his grasp, when become habitual and too exclusive in any individual, tends to weaken his judgment in common affairs, by abstracting it from clear and distinct sciences, and palpable individual realities, and
