Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 2).djvu/302

288 remembrance of external objects distinct from the conceptions which the mind exerts relatively to them. They are about these conceptions. They perpetually awaken the attention of their reader to the consideration of their intellectual nature. They make him feel that his mind is not merely impelled or organized by the adhibition of events proceeding from what has been termed the mechanism of the material universe.

That which the most consummate intelligences that have adorned this mortal scene inherit as their birthright, let us acquire (for it is within our grasp) by caution, by strict scepticism concerning all assertions, all expressions; by scrupulous and strong attention to the mysteries of our own nature.

Let us contemplate facts. Let me repeat that in the great study of ourselves we ought resolutely to compel the mind to a rigid examination of itself. Let us in the science which regards those laws by which the mind acts, as well as in those which regard the laws by which it is acted upon, severely collect those facts.

Metaphysics is a word which has been so long applied to denote an inqidry into the phenomena of mind, that it would justly be considered presumptuous to employ another. But etymologically considered it is very ill adapted to express the science of mind. It asserts a distinction between the moral and the material universe which it is presumptuous to assume. Metaphysics may