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The discovery of a great metaphysical conception seems to ravish

the mind with a prophetic consciousness which takes away the

power of estimating its value. No metaphysical enquirer has ever

fairly criticised his own speculations; in his own judgment they

have been above criticism; nor has he understood that what to him

seemed to be absolute truth may reappear in the next generation

as a form of logic or an instrument of thought. And posterity

have also sometimes equally misapprehended the real value of his

speculations. They appear to them to have contributed nothing to

the stock of human knowledge. The IDEA of good is apt to be

regarded by the modern thinker as an unmeaning abstraction; but

he forgets that this abstraction is waiting ready for use, and

will hereafter be filled up by the divisions of knowledge.