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INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC.
when philosophy, who has hitherto been going about like an operative out of employment, seeking work and finding none, is put in a fair way of obtaining a livelihood by having discovered her proper vocation, and got something definite to do.
Why philosophy undertakes this object.§ 46. The reason why philosophy takes in hand the work specified in the definition above, scarcely requires to be insisted on, or even pointed out. No reason need be given why truth should be made to take the place of error in the mind of man, except the reason that the comer-in is truth, and the goer-out is error.
How philosophy goes to work. Adherence to canon—proposition and counter-proposition.§ 47. What the object of philosophy is having been explained, and why this is her object having been stated, it now remains to be shown how philosophy, or, at least, how this philosophy, goes to work in compassing her end. Adhering rigorously to the canon laid down in § 34, philosophy convicts the natural opinions of man of being contradictory. It would, indeed, be in the highest degree presumptuous in philosophy to challenge the ordinary opinion of mankind if they were not contradictory, because, in that case, they would probably, or at all events they might possibly, be correct, and philosophy, at the best, would be merely supplanting one set of probabilities by another set. Not only, there-
