assigning to it a form or style to which it has not yet attained and is not
really entitled.

Experience shows that any system, however baseless and ineffectual, in our
own or in any other age, may be accepted and continue to be studied, if it
seeks to satisfy some unanswered question or is based upon some ancient
tradition, especially if it takes the form and uses the language of
inductive philosophy. The fact therefore that such a science exists and is
popular, affords no evidence of its truth or value. Many who have pursued
it far into detail have never examined the foundations on which it rests.
The have been many imaginary subjects of knowledge of which enthusiastic
persons have made a lifelong study, without ever asking themselves what is
the evidence for them, what is the use of them, how long they will last?
They may pass away, like the authors of them, and 'leave not a wrack
behind;' or they may survive in fragments. Nor is it only in the Middle
Ages, or in the literary desert of China or of India, that such systems
have arisen; in our own enlightened age, growing up by the side of Physics,
Ethics, and other really progressive sciences, there is a weary waste of
knowledge, falsely so-called. There are sham sciences which no logic has
ever put to the test, in which the desire for knowledge invents the
materials of it.

And therefore it is expedient once more to review the bases of Psychology,
lest we should be imposed upon by its pretensions. The study of it may
have done good service by awakening us to the sense of inveterate errors
familiarized by language, yet it may have fallen into still greater ones;
under the pretence of new investigations it may be wasting the lives of
those who are engaged in it. It may also be found that the discussion of
it will throw light upon some points in the Theaetetus of Plato,--the
oldest work on Psychology which has come down to us. The imaginary science