human mind. For if the inequalities, produced by what has been
termed the operations of the external universe, were levelled by the
perception of our being, uniting and filling up their interstices,
motion and mensuration, and time, and space; the elements of the
human mind being thus abstracted, sensation and imagination cease.
Mind cannot be considered pure.

II--WHAT METAPHYSICS ARE. ERRORS IN THE USUAL METHODS OF CONSIDERING
THEM

We do not attend sufficiently to what passes within ourselves. We
combine words, combined a thousand times before. In our minds we
assume entire opinions; and in the expression of those opinions,
entire phrases, when we would philosophize. Our whole style of
expression 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. We
are 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 those
facts which cannot be disputed. Metaphysics will thus possess this
conspicuous advantage over every other science, that each student,
by attentively referring to his own mind, may ascertain the
authorities upon which any assertions regarding it are supported.
There can thus be no deception, we ourselves being the depositaries
of the evidence of the subject which we consider.

Metaphysics may be defined as an inquiry concerning those things