Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/54

26 § 32. Secondly, How is the present unsatisfactory condition of philosophy to be remedied? The short answer is, that it can be remedied only by a diligent attempt to digest a body of philosophical institutes which shall be both true and reasoned, in the strictest and most thorough-going sense of the word reasoned. No indulgence on the score of well-meant intentions; no excuse on the ground of the incompetency of human reason (for this incompetency is always mere laziness aping the virtue of humility); no allowance on the plea of the difficulty of the undertaking, should be either asked or given. The thing must either be done thoroughly or not at all. Such a work must