Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/32

4 useless as a discipline of the mind, and valueless for purposes of tuition.

§ 8. On the other hand, a system which is reasoned, but not true, has always some value. It creates reason by exercising it. It is employing the proper means to reach truth, although it may fail to reach it. Even though its parts may not be true, yet if each of them be a step leading to the final catastrophe—a link in an unbroken chain on which the ultimate disclosure hinges—and if each of the parts be introduced merely because it is such a step or Link,—in that case it is conceived that the system is not without its use, as affording an invigorating employment to the reasoning powers, and that general satisfaction to the mind which the successful extrication of a plot, whether in science or in romance, never fails to communicate.

§ 9. Such a system, although it falls short of the definition of philosophy just given, comes nearer to it than the other; because to reach truth, but not by the way of reason, is to violate the definition in its very essence; whereas to miss truth, but by the way of reason, is to comply with the fundamental circumstance which it prescribes. If there are other ways of reaching truth than the road of reason, a system which enters on any of these other paths, whatever else it may be, is not a