ON THE PROMOTION OP SCIENCE. 



37 



gra&amp;gt;JuJly improving his mental powers, and 

 must, from this very circumstance, be better 

 qualified than others for exercising them in his 

 particular trade or profession. For the habit of 

 exerting the intellectual faculties in any one 

 department, must necessarily fit them for vigor 

 ous exertion on any other object, whether me 

 chanical, agricultural, social, or domestic, to 

 which the attention may be directed. The 

 evils which at present derange the harmony of 

 society, so far from arising from a vigorous ex 

 ertion of intellect, are to be ascribed, for the 

 most part, to an opposite cause. The intellec 

 tual powers, in the case of the great bulk of 

 mankind, lie in a great measure dormant, their 

 energies are not sufficiently exerted in any de 

 partment of active life ; and when occasionallv 

 roused from their inactivity, they are too fre 

 quently exercised in the arts of deception, of 

 mischief, and of human destruction. To direct 

 the current of human thought, therefore, into a 

 different channel, besides its influence on the 

 progress of science, would be productive of 

 many happy effects on the social and moral 

 condition of mankind ; and, as far as my expe 

 rience goes, with a very few exceptions, I have 

 found, that those who are addicted to rational 

 pursuits are the most industrious and respect 

 able members of civil and Christian society. 



The above hints have been thrown out with 

 the intention of showing, that, as all science is 

 Bounded on facts, and as every person possessed 

 of the common organization of human nature is 

 capable of observing facts, and of comparing 

 them with one another, as the discovery of 

 new truths is owing more to the concentration 

 of the mental faculties on particular objects, and 

 to several accidental circumstances, than to the 

 exertion of extraordinary powers of intellect, 

 and as the sciences have generally improved in 

 proportion to the number of those who have de 

 voted themselves to their cultivation, so there 

 is every reason to conclude, that the diffusion 

 of general knowledge and of scientific taste, 

 and consequently, the increase of scientific ob 

 servers, would ensure the rapid advancement of 

 the ditferent sciences, by an increase of the 

 facts in relation to them which would thus be 

 discovered. 



_ I shall now endeavour to illustrate the posi 

 tions stated above, by a few examples in relation 

 to two or three of the physical sciences. 



Geology. This science is yet in its infancy ; 

 and some of its first principles require to be con 

 firmed and illustrated by an induction of an im 

 mense number of facts of various descriptions. 

 It is a branch of knowledge altogether founded 

 upon facts palpable to the eye of every common 

 observer. Its object is, to investigate the inter 

 nal structure of the earth, the arrangement of 

 Us component parts, the chances which its 



materials have undergone since its original for 

 mation, and the causes which have operated 

 in the production of these changes. To deter 

 mine such objects, it is requisite that an im 

 mense variety of observations be made on the 

 form, position, and arrangement of mountains, 

 on the beds of rivers, the interior of ca 

 verns, the recesses of ravines, the subterra 

 neous apartments of mines, the fissures and 

 chasms which abound in Alpine districts, and 

 even on the bottom of the ocean, in so far as it 

 can be explored ; and that a multitude of facts 

 be collected in relation to the materials and po 

 sition, the elevation and inflexion, the fraction 

 and dislocation of the earth s strata calcareous 

 petrifactions metallic veins decomposed rocks 

 mosses rivers lakes sand-banks sea- 

 coasts the products of volcanoes the com 

 position of stone, sand, and gravel the organic 

 remains of animal and vegetable matter, in 

 short, that the whole surface of the terraqueous 

 globe, and its interior recesses, be contemplated 

 in every variety of aspect presented to the view 

 of man. The observations hitherto made in 

 reference to such multifarious objects have been 

 chiefly confined to a few regions of the earth, 

 and the facts which have been ascertained with 

 any degree of precision, have been collected, 

 chiefly by a few individuals, within the last fifty 

 or sixty years. From such partial and limited 

 researches, general principles have been de 

 duced, and theories of the earth have been 

 framed, which could only be warranted by a 

 thorough examination of every region of tho 

 globe. Hence one theory of the earth has suc 

 cessively supplanted another for more than a 

 century past. The theories of Burnet, Whis- 

 ton, Woodward, Buffbn, and Whitehurst, have 

 each had its day and its admirers, but all of 

 them are now fast sinking into oblivion, and in 

 the next age will be viewed only as so many 

 philosophical rhapsodies, and ingenious fcrrions 

 of the imagination, which have no solid founda 

 tion in the actual structure of the earth. Even 

 the foundations of the Huttonian and Wernerian 

 systems, which have chiefly occupied the atten 

 tion of geologists during the last thirty years, 

 are now beginning to be shaken, and new sys 

 tems are constructing composed of the frag 

 ments of both. One principal reason of thin 

 diversity of opinion respecting the true theory 

 of the earth, undoubtedly is, that all the facts 

 in relation to the external and internal structure 

 of our globe have never yet been thoroughly ex 

 plored. Instead of retiring to the closet, and 

 attempting to patch up a theory with scattered 

 and disjointed fragments, our province, in the 

 mean time, is, to stand in the attitude of sur- 

 vpvors and observers, to contemplate every as 

 pect which terrestrial nature presents, to collect 

 the minutest facts which relate to the object in 

 view, and then leave to succeeding generation* 



