"It is ridiculous to attempt to prove the Truth of those Perceptions, whose Truth we can no otherwise prove, than by other Perceptions of exactly the same kind with them, and which there is just the same ground to suspect; or to attempt to prove the Truth of our Faculties, which can no otherwise be proved, than by the use or means of those very suspected Faculties themselves."-BISHOP BUTLER. ON THE ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS. BY CLAUDE BUFFIER. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH NOTES. BY THE REV. RICHARD PENNELL, M.A., Formerly of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. BATH: PRINTED BY J. AND J. KEENE. SOLD BY SAMUEL SIMMS, AND EDWIN COLLINGS, BATH; AND WHITTAKER, LONDON. 1838. ADVERTISEMENT. CLAUDE BUFFIER was born of French parents, in Poland, in 1661, and educated at Rouen. He entered among the Jesuits, at Paris, in 1679, and afterwards fixed his residence at the College of the Society in that City. Besides the present, he composed many other works on a variety of subjects. His most celebrated performance is his "Traité de premièrès Verités," published in 1724. He died in 1737. VOLTAIRE bestows on his Metaphysical Treatises the high commendation of containing passages of which LOCKE would not have been ashamed; and observes, that "he is the only Jesuit whose writings exhibit a rational Philosophy." 66 BUFFIER," says Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH, "the only Jesuit whose name has a place in the History of Abstract Philosophy, has no peculiar opinions which would have required any mention of him as a Moralist, were it not for the great reputation of his Treatise on First Truths, with which Dr. REID SO remarkably, though unaware of it, coincides, even in the application of so practical a term as Common Sense, to denote the faculty which recognizes the truth of first principles. His Philosophical Writings are remarkable for that perfect clearness of expression, which, since the |