The precise nature and objects of Metaphysical Science have been much misapprehended, and the science itself in conse quence has suffered even in the estimation of those whose favour it is most important to propitiate. Metaphysics with some is another name for whatever is shadowy, impalpable, obscure. It has been thought that nothing satisfactory can be determined, and no valuable results arrived at. Some have regarded the metaphysics of one age as chie?y useful in cor recting those of another. They ought to be studied, according to this view, that we may guard against the mistakes that philosophers have fallen into, or that we may be able to refute their errors. With others it is only as an exercise of intellect, and for the quickening of our faculties, that the science is useful. It is in this latter View that Lord Jeffrey regards the science as chie?y valuable. He would recommend it for no other purpose, and he sees no other good that can result from it. Carlyle has the following quarrel with all philosophy The mere existence and necessity of a philosophy, says he.