the Old and the New,' published in 1856. When he composed this essay he believed that his views had been by many misunderstood, by some unfairly represented; and to this circumstance he partly attributed his failure to obtain the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in Edinburgh. In some passages a warmth of feeling and expression was perceptible, not perhaps surprising in one who felt convinced that injurious and unwarranted misconceptions of his meaning had prevailed against him, but not altogether in harmony with the calmness best fitted to the treatment of philosophical questions, a quality which few thinkers could value more highly than Mr Ferrier himself.[1] It has been accordingly judged unnecessary to reproduce the whole of this pamphlet; anything that could needlessly give pain the Editors have thought it right to omit, while they hope that nothing essential or possessing significance for the vindication of the Author's system has disappeared from the remodelled form in which it is now presented to the reader, as 'Appendix to the Institutes of Metaphysic.'
- ↑ A characteristic extract from a letter to a friend may illustrate his deliberate judgment on this head. He wrote in 1851:—"One thing I would recommend, not to be too sharp in your criticism of others. No one has committed this fault oftener, or is more disposed to commit it, than myself; but I am certain that it is not pleasing to the reader, and after an interval it is displeasing to oneself. In the heat and hurry of writing a lecture I often hit a brother philosopher, as I think, cleverly enough, but on coming to it coolly next year I very seldom repeat the passage. I am not, however, charging you with this fault, but merely putting you on your guard against it."
