Excerpt from Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 6 Knowledge on any subject; nor is its main Object that of delight to the reader by dreams and pictures of the poetical kind; nor does it seek merely to rouse and stimulate the feelings for active exertion of some sort 3 but, without any of these aims, or while perhaps studying one or other of them to some extent, it has in View always the solution of some problem, the investigation of some question, so as to effect a modification or advance of the existing doctrine on the subject. How firmly De Quincey held by this notion of the distinctive characteristic Of the Essay, as compared with other kinds of writing, appears from the striking word in which, after referring to the three above-named essays as examples of his own efforts in this line, he claims the merit of fidelity to his principle, in intention at least, in all his other efforts of the same general character. These speci mens, he says, meaning Cicero, The Caesars, and The Essenes, are sufficient for the purpose of informing the reader that. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.