Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/476

466 this science to have formed and to be able to exhibit a distinct conception of the business which it takes in hand, the work it has to do, the end or object at which it aims. For very much of the confusion which besets the science is attributable to indistinct notions on this most essential point. Before a man can hit any mark, he must at any rate see and keep steadily in view the point at which he aims. This, however, has been but rarely done in the science of which we have to treat. It is also necessary that the cultivator and expounder of this science should lay down a clear and distinct method, and should adhere to it consistently. And thus by exhibiting a definite conception of the end at which the science aims, and of the method by which that end is to be reached, the expositor of metaphysics will be at any rate intelligible, if not convincing; and if he cannot altogether avoid error, he will at least avoid what is worse, obscurity and confusion.

6. In the 'Institutes of Metaphysic,' which I shall use to some extent as a text-book in this class, I have endeavoured to contribute some small aid to the attainment of these important ends, clearness and precision in metaphysical thinking, and lucidity of order in the exhibition of metaphysical problems. I have endeavoured to arrange the problems in such a way that the science may have a beginning, middle, and conclusion; to arrange them, in short, in such an order that the successive demonstrations may be based on