This leads us to inquire why it is that, in metaphysics, the sure
path of science has not hitherto been found. Shall we suppose that
it is impossible to discover it? Why then should nature have visited
our reason with restless aspirations after it, as if it were one of
our weightiest concerns? Nay, more, how little cause should we have to
place confidence in our reason, if it abandons us in a matter about
which, most of all, we desire to know the truth- and not only so,
but even allures us to the pursuit of vain phantoms, only to betray us
in the end? Or, if the path has only hitherto been missed, what
indications do we possess to guide us in a renewed investigation,
and to enable us to hope for greater success than has fallen to the
lot of our predecessors?
It appears to me that the examples of mathematics and natural
philosophy, which, as we have seen, were brought into their present
condition by a sudden revolution, are sufficiently remarkable to fix
our attention on the essential circumstances of the change which has
proved so advantageous to them, and to induce us to make the
experiment of imitating them, so far as the analogy which, as rational
sciences, they bear to metaphysics may permit.
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