Of a piece with the discernment which enables a man to perceive,and with the courage which enables him to avow,the defects of a system of institutions,is that accuracy of conception which enables him to give a clear account of it.No wonder then,in a treatise partly of the expository class,and partly of the censorial,that if the latter department is filled with imbecillity,symptoms of kindred weakness should characterize the former.
The former department,however,of our Author's work,is what,on its own account merely,I should scarce have found myself disposed to intermeddle with.The business of simple exposition is a harvest in which there seemed no likelihood of there being any want of labourers:and into which therefore I had little ambition to thrust my sickle.
At any rate,had I sat down to make a report of it in this character alone,it would have been with feelings very different from those of which I now am conscious,and in a tone very different from that which I perceive myself to have assumed.In determining what conduct to observe respecting it,I should have considered whether the taint of error seemed to confine itself to parts,or to diffuse itself through the whole.In the latter case,the least invidious,and considering the bulk of the work,the most beneficial course would have been to have taken no notice of it at all,but to have sat down and tried to give a better.If not the whole in general,but scattered positions only had appeared exceptionable,I should have sat down to rectify those positions with the same apathy with which they were advanced.To fall in an adverse way upon a work simply expository,if that were all there were of it,would have been alike ungenerous and unnecessary.In the involuntary errors of the understanding there can be little to excite,or at least to justify,resentment.That which alone,in a manner,calls for rigid censure,is the sinister bias of the affections.