Such--as I have no doubt--must be the case, wherever thinking men can be brought distinctly and impartially to examine their claims; and indeed to those who shall study and comprehend the general history of philosophy, it must always be matter of special wonder, that in a Christian community, anxiously striving to explain and defend the doctrines of Christianity in their spiritual sense, there should have been a long-continued and tenacious adherence to philosophical principles, so subversive of their faith in everything distinctively spiritual; while those of an opposite tendency, and claiming a near relationship and correspondence with the truly spiritual in the Christian system, and the mysteries of its sublime faith, were looked upon with suspicion and jealousy, as unintelligible or dangerous metaphysics.
And here I must be allowed to add a few remarks with regard to the popular objections against the system of philosophy, the claims of which I am urging, especially against the writings of the Author, under whose name it appears in the present Work. These are various and often contradictory, but usually have reference either to his peculiarities of language, or to the depth--whether apparent or real,--and the unintelligibleness, of his thoughts.
To the first of these it seems to me a sufficient answer, for a mind that would deal honestly and frankly by itself, to suggest that in the very nature of things it is impossible for a writer to express by a single word any truth, or to mark any distinction, not recognized in the language of his day, unless he adopts a word entirely new, or gives to one already in use a new and more peculiar sense. Now in communicating truths, which the writer deems of great and fundamental importance, shall he thus appropriate a single word old or new, or trust to the vagueness of perpetual circumlocution? Admitting for example, the existence of the important distinction, for which this writer contends, between the understanding and reason, and that this distinction when recognized at all, is confounded in the common use of language by employing the words indiscriminately, shall he still use these words indiscriminately, and either invent a new word, or mark the distinction by descriptive circumlocutions, or shall he assign a more distinctive and precise meaning to the words already used? It seems to me obviously more in accordance with the laws and genius of language to take the course which he has adopted. But in this case and in many others, where his language seems peculiar, it cannot be denied that the words had already been employed in the same sense, and the same distinctions recognized, by the older and many of the most distinguished writers in the language.