earth, or indeed, even the perfectibility of man and society, is
a waste of time and words, and that such unfounded conjectures
are best answered by neglect. I profess, however, to be of a
different opinion. When paradoxes of this kind are advanced by
ingenious and able men, neglect has no tendency to convince them
of their mistakes. Priding themselves on what they conceive to be
a mark of the reach and size of their own understandings, of the
extent and comprehensiveness of their views, they will look upon
this neglect merely as an indication of poverty, and narrowness,
in the mental exertions of their contemporaries, and only think
that the world is not yet prepared to receive their sublime
truths.

On the contrary, a candid investigation of these subjects,
accompanied with a perfect readiness to adopt any theory
warranted by sound philosophy, may have a tendency to convince
them that in forming improbable and unfounded hypotheses, so far
from enlarging the bounds of human science, they are contracting
it, so far from promoting the improvement of the human mind, they
are obstructing it; they are throwing us back again almost into
the infancy of knowledge and weakening the foundations of that
mode of philosophising, under the auspices of which science has
of late made such rapid advances. The present rage for wide and
unrestrained speculation seems to be a kind of mental
intoxication, arising, perhaps, from the great and unexpected
discoveries which have been made of late years, in various
branches of science. To men elate and giddy with such successes,
every thing appeared to be within the grasp of human powers; and,
under this illusion, they confounded subjects where no real
progress could be proved with those where the progress had been