General Objects and Principles. 



apply to the explanation of a long series 

 nomena, that is, appearances, from the Greek 

 word phainomai, to appear. 



It is principally by experiment that all the 

 great discoveries of the moderns have^ been ac- 

 complished. This, indeed, forms the grand line 

 of distinction between the antient and the mo- 

 dern philosophy, and this constitutes the sole 

 merit and superiority of the latter. The antients 

 reasoned and conjectured about the nature of 

 things ; the moderns have submitted every thing 

 to the direct and positive test of experience : this 

 philosophy has therefore been termed experi- 

 mental philosophy, because all its doctrines and 

 principles are founded upon actual experiment, 

 in opposition to that philosophy which is founded 

 on fancy and conjecture. 



It is, I believe, to the old alchemists, or those 

 who were engaged in the whimsical and visionary 

 attempt to discover the philosopher's stone, or a 

 method of converting other substances into gold, 

 that we are ultimately indebted for this excellent 

 philosophy. They engaged in various chemical 

 processes, or experiments, in order to effect this 

 grand discovery ; and from their patient and la- 

 borious endeavours many useful inventions pro- 

 ceeded, though often foreign from the particular 

 discovery they were in quest of. Our country- 

 man, Roger Bacon, a famous monk, who resided 

 at Oxford in the twelfth century, was one of 

 these; but one of the most rational and sagacious 



