II--WHAT METAPHYSICS ARE. ERRORS IN THE USUAL METHODS OF CONSIDERING
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e do not attend sufficiently to what passes within ourselves. Wecombine words, combined a thousand times before. In our minds weassume entire opinions; and in the expression of those opinions,entire phrases, when we would philosophize. Our whole style ofexpression 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. Weare 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 thosefacts which cannot be disputed. Metaphysics will thus possess thisconspicuous advantage over every other science, that each student,by attentively referring to his own mind, may ascertain theauthorities upon which any assertions regarding it are supported.There can thus be no deception, we ourselves being the depositariesof the evidence of the subject which we consider. Metaphysics may be defined as an inquiry concerning those thingsbelonging to, or connected with, the internal nature of man. It is said that mind produces motion; and it might as well havebeen said, that motion produces mind.
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