Page:(1856) Scottish Philosophy—The Old and the New.pdf/6

6 my rule. I feel that I have a duty to discharge, binding on me as a cultivator of philosophy, and as one of the public instructors of the land. In a word, I consider myself summoned by circumstances to advocate the cause of the absolute independence of speculative thinking, in opposition to the restrictive dogma laid down, and acted on, by the Town Council of Edinburgh.

This is the only point (and it is not a personal point) on which I have any fault to find with their proceedings. This is the sole motive which has prompted me to write. The head and front of the municipal offending consists in their general proscription of progress, and improvement, and originality, and independence in the treatment of philosophy. This is the act for which I presume to arraign that body before the public. Not in my own name, but in the names of all free-minded men in Scotland, in the name of science itself, do I impeach them. "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further," is their idea of philosophy. This motto applied to metaphysical pursuits, is the principle by which they profess to have been guided. I venture to challenge the rationality of this principle. I call in question their competency to lay down any such maxim as their guiding rule in dealing with the solemn trust which has been deposited by the nation in their hands. When I have disposed of this point, it is possible that I may pass on to the consideration of certain subordinate topics which will arise, not unnaturally, in the course of the discussion—the vindication, for example, of my own system, from the mistakes and falsehoods which have been so industriously circulated in regard to it. I certainly would not have taken up this latter theme, but for the other primary and more imperative inducement. Having, however, put my hand to the plough, I may just as well follow out the line to the very end of the furrow. A clean sweep made once for all, will obviate the necessity of any future trouble. To begin, then, once more.

Grave as the responsibilities of the Edinburgh Town Council were, they have made them ten times graver by their recent measure. I must be permitted humbly to suggest that they