INTRODUCTION. 77 



early ages of mankind, there manifests itself in the simple in- 

 tuition of natural facts, and in the efforts made to compre- 

 hend them, the germ of the philosophy of nature. These 

 ideal tendencies vary, and are more or less powerful, accord- 

 ing to the individual characteristics and moral dispositions of 

 nations, and to the degrees of their mental culture, whether 

 attained amid scenes of nature that excite or chill the imag 

 ination. 



History has preserved the record of the numerous attempts 

 that have been made to form a rational conception of the 

 whole world of phenomena, and to recognize in the universe 

 the action of one sole active force by which matter is pene- 

 trated, transformed, and animated. These attempts are traced 

 in classical antiquity in those treatises on the principles of 

 things which emanated from the Ionian school, and in which 

 all the phenomena of nature were subjected to hazardous 

 speculations, based upon a small number of observations. By 

 degrees, as the influence of great historical events has favored 

 the development of every branch of science supported by ob- 

 servation, that ardor has cooled which formerly led men to 

 seek the essential nature and connection of things by ideal 

 construction and in purely rational principles. In recent 

 times, the mathematical portion of natural philosophy has 

 been most remarkably and admirably enlarged. The method 

 diid. the instrument (analysis) have been simultaneously per- 

 fected. That which has been acquired by means so different 

 — by the ingenious application of atomic suppositions, by the 

 more general and intimate study of phenomena, and by the 

 improved construction of new apparatus — is the common prop- 

 erty of mankind, and should not, in our opinion, now, more 

 than in ancient times, be withdrawn from the free exercise of 

 speculative thought. 



It can not be denied that in this process of thought the 

 results of experience have had to contend with many disad- 

 vantages ; we must not, therefore, be surprised if, in the per- 

 petual vicissitude of theoretical views, as is ingeniously ex- 

 pressed by the author of Giordmio Bnino,^ " most men see 

 nothing in philosophy but a succession of passing meteors, 

 while even the grander forms in which she has revealed her- 

 self share the fate of comets, bodies that do not rank in pop- 

 ular opinion among the eternal and permanent works of na 



* Sclielliag's Bruno, Ueber das Gdtlliche und Naturalicke Princip. 

 der Dingc, $ 181 (Bruno, on the Divine and Natural Principle o/ 

 Things) 



