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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
tfcaigjhit is very certain that thousands would listen with , utter irtrniidulity to anymetapbyswal destonstratian , however siroplt-4 mfc who would yet listen with considerable faith to any absurd ghost-story or incoherent legend . Dramatic interest seises upon uu imagination ^ and entraps the sympathy to the compromise , in the above case * of the understanding . Metaphysics requires the entire voluntary devotion of all the faculties , through the medium of the understanding .
It is far from improbable that many individuals of superior attainments in physical science have been led to commence such studies from being disappointed as metaphysicians . Perplexed and confounded with the abstruse intricacies of mental analysis ; vexed and chagrined at the comparative impossibility of producing any effect in general conversation by such knowledge as they may already have gained , while the student of history carried off all the appreciation and applause ; arrived only at that early stage where no satisfaction seemed ever likely to reward has inquiries , and disgusted at not seeing , even in the event of
success , any means ( nor are they shown in the works of the most stpplaiidad writers on these subjects ) of reducing such knowledge to practical application ; it is no wonder that men of energetic minds and active temperament should give up the study , periapts
at the very point from whence they might progress jeritb advantage- It is no wonder that with impatient activity they should laavawhat appeared the dissection of dreams and the hunting of shadows to their evanescent bourne ; in order to seek a tangible ittifeard in the study of corporeal anatomy > in the skeleton
demonstrations of geometry , the sublime mechanism of planetary systems , the factual wonders of geology , the interesting experiments of chemistry , or the discovery of new applications of known mechanical powers . While all these studies admit of the most -curious speculations and hypotheses , you can always recoil upon the tangible , and seek a refuge and justification in material
proofe of some kind . Such sciences are also , for the most part , in ¦¦ nasmVmis requisition , and may conduce to worldly profit . Even the pick-thank peering botanist hath his pecuniary as well as se&oomp iaceiit reward . The eminence of men in the superior physical sciences is easily reduced to proof , and generally < arinultori vsary speedily when bo startling originality lays olaiito to farffatra c * mankind for their pood . The only reward of the me-Itfjljuliian is internal conviction . He neither gets praise * nor thi other thing * His writings may be appreciated by a few after Us daatk , but it requires sundry fortunate eoincicteoces , apart tnmoL lh » -value * or snrcn the influence , of his theories to gain him 4 tfft 4 u » OM * d of fine in tb * opinion of posterity . Retwtiaff , jkMrover * to the stadjr of phyweal sciences being adopted in Jkrjttto < rf QUjpUthmtiemL il k questi « abk whathar , tte a * mmgKuhi ifbffiMih wAmmd ^ h y ^ m ^ jriam to ^^ di m + iity
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1835, page 746, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2651/page/54/
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