Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/61

Rh ground and only justification of the existence of philosophy.

§ 40. If authority were of any avail in matters of pure speculation, abundant evidence, though not, indeed, of the clearest or most unfaltering character (for what is. clear or unfaltering in philosophy?) might be adduced in confirmation of what is here advanced as the proper and sole object of philosophy. But it will be time enough to call these witnesses into court when our statement is denied, or when it has been shown that philosophy has, or can have, any other end in view than the rectification of the inadvertencies of man's spontaneous and ordinary thinking.

§ 41. This circumstance—namely, that philosophy exists only to put right the oversights of common thinking—renders her polemical, not by choice, but by necessity. She would gladly avoid all faultfinding; but she cannot help herself. She is controversial as the very tenure and vindication of her existence; for how can she correct the slips of common opinion, the oversights of natural thinking, except by controverting them?

§ 42. To obviate the charge of disrespect which