They
are producing the effect just now in a multitude of our juveniles,
who are beclouding themselves in the vain attempt to comprehend
ill-translated fragments of ill-understood philosophies, (executed in a
sort of Anglicised-German, or Germanised-English, we know not which to
call it, but certainly neither German nor English,) from the perusal of
which they carry away nothing but some very obscure terms, on which they
themselves have superinduced a very vague meaning. These terms you in
vain implore them to define; or, if they define them, they define
them in terms which as much need definition. Heartily do we wish that
Socrates would reappear amongst us, to exercise his accoucheur's art on
these hapless Theaetetuses and Menos of our day! Many such youths might
no doubt reply at first to the sarcastic Querist, (who might gently
complain of a slight cloudiness in their speculations.) that the truths
they uttered were too profound for ordinary reasoners. We may easily
imagine how Socrates would have dealt with such assumptions. His reply
would be rather more severe than that of Mackintosh to Coleridge in a
somewhat similar case; namely, that if a notion cannot be made clear to
persons who have spent the better part of their days in resolving the
difficulties of metaphysics and philosophy, and who are conscious
that they are not destitute of patience for the effort requisite to
understand them, it may suggest a doubt whether the truth be not in the
medium of communication rather than elsewhere; and, indeed, whether the
philosopher be not aiming to communicate thoughts on subjects on which
man can have no thoughts to communicate.
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