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intellect, by placing before it, in tangible form or visible 

 creation, tbe models of an excellence unapproachable : for 

 the sublime and the beautiful, it substituted the voluptuous 

 and the grotesque. 



" It is a remarkable fact in the progress of human intelli- 

 gence, and one on which an instructive essay might be written, 

 that the Eoman mind contributed absolutely nothing to the 

 advancement of abstract science. A page or two of the Ladies' 

 Diary would contain the whole of the accessions to this depart- 

 ment of human knowledge, from Eomulus to Augustulus — a 

 strong confirmation of a theory which, at some future time, I 

 hope to have the pleasure of laying before this Society. 



" I come now to the time of Descartes, who was cotemporary, 

 or nearly so, with our great English philosopher Bacon. To 

 him is due the application of algebra, then recently improved 

 by J. Cardan, Yieta, and Harris, who is also known to us as 

 one of the early settlers of Virginia. His method is called that 

 of co-ordinates, the power of which it was reserved for future 

 writers to develope, and which arrived at its utmost perfection 

 in the hands of Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace. It is by tins 

 method, in conjunction with that portion of mathematical 

 science known as the integral calculus, that the solar system 

 has been so thoroughly investigated; all the forces that per- 

 vade it so accurately measured, that a single vibration — so to 

 speak — could not be propagated through our system without 

 making itself felt in the recesses of every observatory in Eu- 

 rope. A striking and illustrious example of this truth has 

 signalized the year just passed, in the discovery of a remote 

 planet — who shall say the remotest planet — of our system. 

 It is not, however, the discovery of a planet that so exalts 

 astronomy to the highest rank in the mixed sciences ; for 

 other planets have been, by zealous and patient astronomers, 

 discovered — Herschell, by the philosopher whose name it 

 bears, the Asteroids by Harding, Olbers, and Piazzi. But 

 this planet of our time was felt while yet unseen ; and 



