428 Remarks on Dr. Enfield’s Institutes 
those who have had the charge of editing subsequent edi- 
tions to give it a thorough revisal, and to correct its errors. 
Instead of this, they have been chiefly solicitous to add to 
its bulk ; and while they have given it a far more motley 
and heterogeneous aspect than it originally possessed, “a 
forcing asunder the parts of the —— to make room 
lesce, which. sometimes repeat, ii sometitnes a with 
those os aad original which are retained without alter- 
. - y have extended rather than diminished the 
tof i its inaccuracies. SE dae 
- From this last remark we must except va eatin which 
=a appeared the present year. It has been submitted to 
the revisal of a gentleman well known asa mathematician 
and an instructor ; and we are happy to notice that a large 
number of the most palpable and embarrassing of the erro- 
neous Kasemnenin of former editions are rectified. 
-. But although the’ present edition appears in a form con- 
siderably superior to either of its predecessors, we still re- 
= very far from possessing the character which is 
Jem d by the present state of learning in our country, 
and the mode of instruction adopted in our colleges. With 
the exception of the Electricity and Magnetism, and a few 
particulars in the Astronomy, it is borrowed from sources 
nearly a century old; and hence presents scarcely any idea 
of the progress made in the different branches of philosophy 
since the petiod of Newton. In mentioning this as an im- 
portant defect in the work, we would not be understood to 
imply that the theoretical principles of philosophy were 
studied with less success at that period than at present, or 
that almost every elementary proposition which would now 
find a place in a text-book for schools might not be found 
in the sources from which Enfield borrowed his — 
tion. So far as mere theoretical investigations are concern 
ed, the writers of the period to which we refer, afford an 
ample fund of valuable materials to a compiler. But it 
must be allowed that — pushed the application of mathe- 
matical reasoning to physical inquiries to a faulty extreme. 
They too seldom gave ainateiees the trouble to inquire 
how far their Resse! in forming deductions was leading 
them astray from plain matters of fact, and how far they 
were Unilding : systems of principles for a world of material 
