224] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



visionary theories to rational in- 

 quiries, may be said to have been 

 an improvement, in kind, rather 

 than in degree. Subsequent im- 

 provement has been improvement 

 in degree ; and this degree has 

 been so great as to render the con- 

 clusion of the eighteenth almost 

 as remarkable an sera, in the history 

 of society and progression of im- 

 provement, as the commencement 

 of the seventeenth century. — This 

 accelerated progression of know- 

 ledge was not a little aided by an 

 unusual boldness of investigation 

 and freedom, from the restraints 

 of theory. This freedom of re- 

 straint from theory, was indeed, in 

 not a few instances, carried to the 

 length of mere empiricism on the 

 one hand, and to a contempt, of 

 the just and legitimate laws of phi- 

 losophy and investigation, on the 

 other. Some philosophers, botanists, 

 cliymists, and mineralogists, con- 

 fined all inquiry to experiments, 

 observations, and descriptions of 

 individual substances or subjects — 

 Other philosophers, of the meta- 

 physical class, impatient of the 

 tediousness prescribed by the expe- 

 rimental philosophy, overleaped na- 

 tural, and pushed forward to effici- 

 ent causes. They talked much of 

 spiritual energy, attempted, to 

 speak in the military phraseology of 

 France, to march in the road of in- 

 vestigation au pas de charge, and 

 to storm the citadel of science with 

 fixed bayonets. 



That the rapid progress of science 

 may be more clearly perceived, 

 and certainly recognised, it would 

 be proper, did our limits admit, to 

 glance at all the arts and sciences ; 

 all the different objects of human 

 inowledge. 



The first who conceived and who 



dared to mark out a plan of all the 

 branches of learning, of which man 

 is capable, was the immortal Bacon. 

 This plan has been adopted with very 

 little alteration, almost by every au- 

 thor since his time, and of late, 

 among other writers, by the French 

 Encyclopcedists. These learned 

 gentlemen, declared, however, that, 

 in forming their genealogical tree 

 of the arts and sciences, their em- 

 barrassment was great in proportion 

 to the latitude that was presented 

 for arbitrary distribution ; in the 

 option they had of referring the 

 different branches of knowledge, 

 either to the beings which they had 

 for their objects, or to the different 

 faculties of the soul. They leaned 

 to this last side probably out of re- 

 spect to those philosophers, who 

 treat of the origin of human know- 

 ledge, and particularly their own 

 countryman Descartes, and who 

 argue, that, as we acquire our 

 knowledge by thinking, we ought, 

 in the first place, to inquire, how 

 it is we think. But to others, 

 who judge with proper freedom 

 even of the French Encyclopcedists, 

 and our Locke, and other great 

 names, it appears, that the mind 

 does not ordinarily, in the acqui- 

 sition of knowledge, follow that 

 route. Our first observations, they 

 notice, are more naturally made on 

 those sensations which we receive 

 from the objects that surround us, 

 than upon the manner itself, in 

 which we receive those sensations. 

 In making that our first study, 

 which affects the senses, we pro- 

 ceed, with certainty, from that 

 which we know, to that which we 

 know not ; whereas, if we begin 

 with researches into the manner of 

 our receiving our ideas, and the 

 faculty of acquiring knowledge, wq^ 



