text:  Are we uncharitable in supposing that the prospect of demolishing at one fell swoop the brilliant reputations of a whole class of Parisian _savans_ added something to the piquancy of the style? "Such has gradually become since the time of Bacon the preponderance of the positive philosophy; it has at present assumed indirectly so great an ascendant over those minds even which have been most estranged from it that metaphysicians devoted to the study of our intelligence can no longer hope to delay the fall of their pretended science but by presenting their doctrines as founded also upon the observation of facts