5. It is impossible to elude the discussion of topics, which in their
direct tendencies, or remoter inferences, may, to the author at least,
prove dangerous or disputable ground. If a "great door and effectual" is
opened to him, doubtless he will raise or meet with many adversaries.
Besides mere haters of his creed, despisers of his arguments, and
protestors, loud and fierce against his errors; he may possibly fall
foul of divers unintended heresies; he may stumble unwittingly on the
relics of exploded schisms; he may exhume controversies in metaphysical
or scholastical polemics, long and worthily extinct. If this be so, he
can only plead, _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_. But it is
open to him also to protest against the common critical folly of making
an offender for a word: of driving analogies on all four feet, and
straining thoughts beyond their due proportions. Above all, never let a
reader stir one inch beyond, far less against, his own judgment: if
there seem to be sufficient reasons, well: if otherwise, let me walk
uncompanied. The first step especially is felt to be a very difficult
one; perhaps very debatable: for aught I know, it may be merely a vain
insect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, and
easily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, it
seemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth,
though somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and
language. Moreover, it would have been, in such _à priori_ argument,
ridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: for
this cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and however
supererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers,
those keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish to
serve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will be
ready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great
Cause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit),
it was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, with