In his writings, he is to be considered as a philosopher, a critic, and a poet. His pretensions in philosophy are founded on his Essay on Truth. This book was of much use at its first appearance, as it contained a popular answer to some of the infidel writers, who were then in better odour among the more educated classes of society than happily they now are. If (as I suspect to have been the case) it has prevented men, whose rank and influence make it most desirable that their minds should be raised above the common pitch, from pursuing those studies by which they were most likely so to raise them, the good which it may have done has been balanced by no inconsiderable evil. One can scarcely examine it with much attention, and not perceive that the writer had not ascended to the sources of that science, which notwithstanding any thing he may say to the contrary, it was evidently his aim to depreciate. Through great part of it he has the appearance of one who is struggling with some unknown power, which he would fain comprehend, and at which, in the failure to comprehend it, his terror is changed into anger. The word metaphysics, or, as he oftener terms it, metaphysic, crosses him like a ghost. Call it pneumatology, the philosophy of the mind, the philosophy of human nature, or what you will, and he can bear it. Take any shape but that, and his firm nerves Shall never tremble. Once, indeed, (but it is not till he has reached the third and last division of the essay) he screws up his courage so high as to question it concerning its name; and the result of his inquiry is this: he finds that to fourteen of the books attributed to Aristotle, which it seems had no general title, Andronicus Rhodius, who edited them, prefixed the words, ta meta ta physica, that is, the books placed posterior to the physics; either because, in the order of the former arrangement they happened to be so placed, or because the editor meant that they should be studied, next after the physics. And this, he concludes, is said to be the origin of the word metaphysic. This is not very satisfactory; and if the reader thinks so, he will perhaps, be glad to hear those who, having dealt longer in the black art, are more likely to be conjurors in it. Harris, who had given so many years of his life to the study of Aristotle, tells us, that "Metaphysics are properly conversant about primary and internal causes."[1] "Those things which are first to nature, are not first to man. Nature begins from causes, and thence descends to effects. Human perceptions first open upon effects, and thence by slow degrees ascend to causes."[2]