Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/47

Rh them, and thus obtaining an intelligent survey of their whole scope and operation. It was not enough that the elementary truths, the instigating motives of speculative inquiry, should have secretly influenced the formation of philosophy. It was necessary that the secret influence of these truths and motives should be no longer secret but manifest, before philosophy could go forth fully instructed in the causes of her own being—fully cognisant of the purpose for which she had come into the world, and completely armed with the weapons of universal intellectual conquest. But this consummation was not possible, until a comparatively late period in the career of speculation; for that which is first in time is last in science. Hence philosophy has continued to be a body of opinions not reasoned out from the beginning—of opinions which, even when they seem most obvious and most true, are not entitled to the name of intelligible; because, in strict science, nothing, properly speaking, is intelligible unless it is supported by rigorous demonstration, or is a necessary intuition of reason.

§ 26. It is further to be observed, in explanation of the deficiencies of philosophy, as shown in its unreasoned character, that from an early period there has been a powerful tendency at work, counteracting the proper efforts of speculative thought. This tendency displays itself in the determination, strongly