PREFACE. [TO THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE ELEMENTS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THIRTY-FOUR years have now elapsed since the First Volume of this Work was published. At that time, I imagined that a few additional chapters would be sufficient for completing my Review of the Intellectual Powers; but the subject, upon a more narrow examination, has gradually grown so much on my hands, that it has at length swelled to its present magnitude. To this I may add my Volume of Philosophical Essays;* the first Part of which may be regarded as a comment on some elementary and fundamental questions which have divided the opinions of philosophers in the eighteenth century. If any of my younger readers should do me the honour to follow me through these researches, I should wish them to peruse my Philosophical Works in the order in which they have been published; that is, after reading the First Volume, to proceed, before entering on the study of the Second and Third, to a perusal of the Philosophical Essays. This, indeed, I flatter myself, is not essentially necessary to enable them to compre *See Works, vol. v.-Ed. VOL. IV. A |
