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Page 9
II--WHAT METAPHYSICS ARE. ERRORS IN THE USUAL METHODS OF CONSIDERING
THEM
We do not attend sufficiently to what passes within ourselves. We
combine words, combined a thousand times before. In our minds we
assume entire opinions; and in the expression of those opinions,
entire phrases, when we would philosophize. Our whole style of
expression and sentiment is infected with the tritest plagiarisms.
Our words are dead, our thoughts are cold and borrowed.
Let us contemplate facts; let us, in the great study of ourselves,
resolutely compel the mind to a rigid consideration of itself. We
are not content with conjecture, and inductions, and syllogisms,
in sciences regarding external objects. As in these, let us also,
in considering the phenomena of mind, severely collect those
facts which cannot be disputed. Metaphysics will thus possess this
conspicuous advantage over every other science, that each student,
by attentively referring to his own mind, may ascertain the
authorities upon which any assertions regarding it are supported.
There can thus be no deception, we ourselves being the depositaries
of the evidence of the subject which we consider.
Metaphysics may be defined as an inquiry concerning those things
belonging to, or connected with, the internal nature of man.
It is said that mind produces motion; and it might as well have
been said, that motion produces mind.
III--DIFFICULTY OF ANALYSING THE HUMAN MIND
If it were possible that a person should give a faithful history of
his being, from the earliest epochs of his recollection, a picture
would be presented such as the world has never contemplated before.
A mirror would be held up to all men in which they might behold
their own recollections, and, in dim perspective, their shadowy hopes
and fears,--all that they dare not, or that, daring and desiring,
they could not expose to the open eyes of day. But thought can
with difficulty visit the intricate and winding chambers which it
inhabits. It is like a river whose rapid and perpetual stream flows
outwards;--like one in dread who speeds through the recesses of
some haunted pile, and dares not look behind. The caverns of the
mind are obscure, and shadowy; or pervaded with a lustre, beautifully
bright indeed, but shining not beyond their portals. If it were
possible to be where we have been, vitally and indeed--if, at the
moment of our presence there, we could define the results of our
experience,--if the passage from sensation to reflection--from a
state of passive perception to voluntary contemplation, were not
so dizzying and so tumultuous, this attempt would be less difficult.
IV--HOW THE ANALYSIS SHOULD BE CARRIED ON
Most of the errors of philosophers have arisen from considering
the human being in a point of view too detailed and circumscribed
He is not a moral, and an intellectual,--but also, and pre-eminently,
an imaginative being. His own mind is his law; his own mind is all
things to him. If we would arrive at any knowledge which should be
serviceable from the practical conclusions to which it leads, we
ought to consider the mind of man and the universe as the great
whole on which to exercise our speculations. Here, above all,
verbal disputes ought to be laid aside, though this has long been
their chosen field of battle. It imports little to inquire whether
thought be distinct from the objects of thought. The use of the
words EXTERNAL and INTERNAL, as applied to the establishment of this
distinction, has been the symbol and the source of much dispute.
This is merely an affair of words, and as the dispute deserves, to
say, that when speaking of the objects of thought, we indeed only
describe one of the forms of thought--or that, speaking of thought,
we only apprehend one of the operations of the universal system of
beings.
V--CATALOGUE OF THE PHENOMENA OF DREAMS, AS CONNECTING SLEEPING
AND WAKING
1. Let us reflect on our infancy, and give as faithfully as possible
a relation of the events of sleep.
And first I am bound to present a faithful picture of my own peculiar
nature relatively to sleep. I do not doubt that were every individual
to imitate me, it would be found that among many circumstances
peculiar to their individual nature, a sufficiently general
resemblance would be found to prove the connexion existing between
those peculiarities and the most universal phenomena. I shall employ
caution, indeed, as to the facts which I state, that they contain
nothing false or exaggerated. But they contain no more than certain
elucidations of my own nature; concerning the degree in which
it resembles, or differs from, that of others, I am by no means
accurately aware. It is sufficient, however, to caution the reader
against drawing general inferences from particular instances.
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