Page:Essays in Philosophy (1856).djvu/15

 have become popular, must be indeed gratifying to every lover of his race. And in the more sublime departments of Physical Science the same progress is visible. Geology is contributing the details of the past history of the-planet on which we live. The telescope is making magnificent disclosures of the distant regions of the material creation. Nor is public interest confined to what is merely physical. Society itself is undergoing fundamental changes; and the "science of society," under its twofold form of civil and ecclesiastical, is the theme of discussion and controversy.

An age in which controversy turns on first principles needs, and will soon demand, a Metaphysical Literature. That state of knowledge and of general opinion is not a hopeful one, in which the thoughts and energies of men are directed exclusively towards physical or economical science. And when the intellect is in a state of fermentation, bare facts, separated from principles, excite only a feeble interest. Men then feel that beneath the stir occasioned by incessant activity among the outward events of this passing world, there lie hid the invisible elements and springs of those external changes of which this strange and dangerous life is the scene. Within and immediately around that inner circle, is the domain peculiar to Philosophy. The more deeply thought is exerted on any subject, the further is it compelled to go within the dominions of this "science of sciences." The soul there casts about for its anchorage in the ocean of thought.

The need for a First Philosophy, of the kind we have indicated in the foregoing paragraph, is not indistinctly