We are the more disposed to look a little into these _Guesses at Truth_, because they afford a fair specimen of the manner and lucubrations of a small class, or coterie, whom we have had amongst us, and who may be best described as the _Coleridgean_ school of philosophers. It is a class distinguished by the thorough contempt it manifests for all whom the world has been accustomed to consider as clear and painstaking thinkers--by an overweening, quiet arrogance--by a general indolence of mind interrupted by fitful efforts of thought, and much laborious trifling. They are not genuine conscientious thinkers after any order of philosophy; they are as little followers of Kant as they are of Locke; but they take advantage of the name and reputation of the one to speak with something approximating to disdain of the superficiality of the other. That they alone are right--would be fair enough. To one who strenuously labours to bring out and establish his principles, we readily permit a great confidence in his own opinion; if he did not think others wrong and himself alone right, why should he be labouring at our conviction? But these gentlemen do _not_ labour; they have earned nothing with the sweat of their brow; they hover over all things with a consummate self-complacency; they investigate nothing; they condescend to understand no one. Men of indolent ability, they would be supposed calmly to overlook the whole field of philosophic controversy, and by dint of some learning, by the perpetual proclamation of the shallowness of their contemporaries, and a mysterious intimation of profundities of thought of their own, which they are sufficiently cautious not to attempt too fully to reveal,--they certainly contrive to make a marvellous impression upon the good-natured reader.