CO COSMOS. 



v > 



rushed to it by the perceptions of the senses. Thus in the 

 early ages of mankind there manifests itself in the simple, 

 intuition of natural facts, and in the efforts made to compre- 

 hend them, the germ of the philosophy of nature. These 

 ideal tendencies vary, and are more or less powerful, accord- 

 ing to the individual characteristics and moral dispositions of 

 nations, and to the degrees of their mental culture, whether 

 attained amid scenes of nature that excite or chill the imagi- 

 nation. 



History has preserved the record of the numerous attempts 

 that have been made to form a rational conception of the 

 whole world of phenomena, and to recognise in the universe 

 the action of one sole active force by which matter is pene- 

 trated, transformed and animated. These attempts are 

 traced in classical antiquity in those treatises on the principles 

 of things which emanated from the Ionian school, and in 

 which all the phenomena of nature were subjected to hazard- 

 ous speculations, based upon a small number of observations. 

 By degrees, as the influence of great historical events has 

 favoured the development of every branch of science sup- 

 ported by observation, that ardour has cooled, which formerly 

 led men to seek the essential nature and connection of things 

 by ideal construction and in purely rational principles, In 

 recent times, the mathematical portion of natural philosophy 

 has been most remarkably and admirably enlarged. The 

 method and the instrument (analysis) have been simulta- 

 neously perfected. That which has been acquired by means 

 so different by the ingenious application of atomic supposi- 

 tions, by the more general and intimate study of phenomena, 

 and by the improved construction of new apparatus is the 

 common property of mankind, and should not in our opinion 

 now, more than in ancient times, be withdrawn from the 

 free exercise of speculative thought. 



It cannot be denied, that in this process of thought the 

 results of experience have had to contend with many disad- 

 vantages; we must not therefore be surprised if in the per- 

 petual vicissitude of theoretical views, as is ingeniously 

 expressed by the author of Giardano Bruno,* " most men see 

 nothing in philosophy but a succession of passing meteors, 



* Schelling's Bruno, uler das gottlicJie und naturaliche Princip. der 

 Dinge, 181 (Bruno, on the Divine and Natural Principle of Things}. { 



