PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH,
AND ARTHUR ROBINSON AND COMPANY,
LONDON
1894
SOME apology, I am afraid, is necessary for the length to which this Dissertation has already extended. My original design (as is well known to my friends) was to comprise in ten or twelve sheets all the preliminary matter which I was to contribute to this SUPPLEMENT. But my work grew insensibly under my hands, till it assumed a form which obliged me either to destroy all that I had written, or to continue my Historical Sketches on the same enlarged scale. In selecting the subjects on which I have chiefly dwelt, I have been guided by my own idea of their pre-eminent importance, when considered in connection with the present state of Philosophy in Europe. On some, which I have passed over unnoticed, it was impossible for me to touch, without a readier access to public libraries than I can command in this retirement. The same circumstance will, I trust, account, in the opinion of candid readers, for various other omissions in my performance.
The time unavoidably spent in consulting, with critical care, the numerous Authors referred to in this and in the former part of my Discourse, has encroached so deeply, and to myself so painfully, on the leisure which I had destined for a different purpose, that, at my advanced years, I can entertain but a very faint expectation (though I do not altogether abandon the hope) of finishing my intended Sketch of the Progress of Ethical and Political Philosophy during the Eighteenth Century. An undertaking of a much earlier date has a prior and stronger claim on my attention. At all events, whatever may be wanting to complete my plan, it cannot be difficult for another hand to supply. An Outline is all that should be attempted on such a subject; and the field which it has to embrace will be found incomparably more interesting to most readers than that which has fallen under my review.
Kinneil House, August 7, 1821.
Page 27, line eleventh from the bottom, for reflection read reflexion.
— 27, line eighth from the bottom, for reflection read reflexion.
— 45, line fifteenth from the bottom, for Tarquinus read Tarquinius.
— 79, fourteenth line from the top, for hand read hands.
— 90, last line but one, for insueti read insuetum.
— 134, second line from the top, after the full stop insert the reference to the foot note.
— 145, line twenty-fifth from the bottom, for Gottlob read Gottlob.
By DUGALD STEWART, Esq. F. R. SS. LOND. & EDIN.
HONORARY MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT ST PETERSBURG; MEMBER OF THE
ROYAL ACADEMIES OF BERLIN AND OF NAPLES; OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETIES OF PHILADELPHIA
AND OF BOSTON; AND HONORARY MEMBER OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF CAMBRIDGE:
FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF EDINBURGH.
PRESENTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE
SINCE THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS IN EUROPE
BY DUGALD STEWART, Esq. F.R.S. Lond. & Edinb. &c.