Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/475

Rh a thinking mind. As long as man thinks, this light must burn. The deep river of speculative thought, with all its devious windings, with all its perilous shoals, whirlpools, and cataracts, will flow on for ever; and he must be a rustic, a barbarian indeed, who would loiter on its banks in the vain expectation of beholding the mighty flood at length run dry.

4. The indestructible vitality of metaphysical science I hold to be a settled point, in spite of the discouraging appearance which both its past and its present condition may present. It is a spirit which cannot be put down, because it has its origin in an intellectual craving which cannot be repressed. And let people decry the science as they may, of this we may be assured, that they know it in their secret hearts to be the most essential and the most ethereal manifestation of mental power which the human intellect can exhibit.

5. Nevertheless, the picture which I have just drawn of the unsatisfactory state of this science is not overcharged, and therefore much must be done in the way of reducing its chaotic elements to order and precision, if metaphysics are to take the lead—nay, if they are ever to hold their place—among the themes of academical instruction. Above all things, it is incumbent on the cultivator and expounder of