pose for which this abridgment of the whole work has been prepared. The book, he says, "is more particu larly intended for the use of academical students; and is offered to them as a guide or assistant, at that impor tant stage of their progress when, the usual course of discipline being completed, an inquisitive mind is naturally led to review its past attainments, and to form plans for its future improvement. In the prosecution of this design, I have not aimed at the establishment of new theories; far less have I aspired to the invention 川 of and new organ for the discovery of truth. My principal object is to aid my readers in unlearning the scholastic errors which, in a greater or less degree, still maintain their ground in our most celebrated seats of learning; and by subjecting to free, but I trust, not skeptical discussion, the more enlightened though discordant systems of modern logicians, to accustom the understanding to the unfettered exercise of its native. capacities. That several of the views opened in the following pages appear to myself original, and of some importance, I will not deny; but the reception these may meet with, I shall regard as a matter of comparative indifference, if my labors be found useful in training the mind to those habits of reflection on its own operations, which may enable it to superadd to the instructions of the schools, that higher education which no schools can bestow." While these sheets were passing through the press, the second volume of Sir William Hamilton's very handsome edition of "The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart" was received in this country. It contains the first volume of "Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind," corresponding to the first seven chapters of the present work. I have examined it with care, in the hope of finding some new matter which might be added to this volume. But this hope was disappointed. The additions are insignificant in extent and importance; they wouid not fill a page, and consist merely of some additional references and brief citations from other authors. Indeed, Sir William Hamilton says in the Preface, "there has been nothing added by me, in the view of vindicating, of supplementing or confirming, of qualifying or criticising, Mr. Stewart's doctrines." He also remarks, that though the volume was often reprinted during the author's lifetime, after the second edition in 1802, "no alteration or amplification, none certainly of any consequence, has been hitherto incorporated" with it. Some "intended additions were indeed supplied," when the third volume was published, in 1827; and he observes that "these have only now been entered in their proper places." Of course, he here refers only to editions published in Great Britain; as these additions were "entered in their proper places in an American edition published several years ago, from which the present volume was printed. As the Preface states that Mr. Stewart was not satisfied with the translations of quotations not in English, which were made for the Boston edition of 1821, it is proper to add, that these quotations have been translated anew for this volume. They are not translated at all in Sir William Hamilton's edition. CAMBRIDGE, September 25, 1854. CONTENTS. PAGE SECT. I. General Observations on this Faculty of the Mind the subject of the foregoing Section IV. Inferences with respect to the Use of Language as an In- SECT. V. Of the Purposes to which the Powers of Abstraction and Generalization are subservient VI. Of the Errors to which we are liable in consequence of a rash Application of general Principles. VII. Differences in the Characters of Individuals arising from 4. Of Invention in the Arts and Sciences V. Application of the Principles stated in the foregoing Sec- |