XXV111. INTRODUCTION. 



worthy of this grand century of thought and discovery, to have 

 so little confidence in ourselves as to place implicit belief in 

 theories which these men, great though they were, in their 

 imperfect knowledge laid down, while facts are every day 

 being brought to our notice antagonistic to them ? We be- 

 lieve that such men were above a paltry adulation. While 

 some philosophers blind themselves to consequences which 

 the recognition of facts entail, and would rather believe 

 that the phenomena never occurred than that Newton should 

 be wrong ; we believe that Newton's, or any other sensible 

 man's last wish would be, that anything he had said should 

 stay the progress of truth. Besides, in such false humility we 

 do injustice to ourselves and are ungrateful to the age we live in. 



The sun of knowledge is ever brightening as the years roll 

 on, making the hidden places clearer and the difficult paths 

 easy of travel. But this light has been unrecognised, and this 

 sun overlooked in preference to those twinkling stars, which in 

 their own day and in their own system shone as suns with 

 brightest effulgence, but which to us as the years glide by, 

 are now no more than brilliant and beautiful gems in the spark- 

 ling galaxy of the past. 



The present work we believe to be the first attempt that has 

 yet been made to arrange the sciences under one common head, 

 and to show how they are all governed by one and the same 

 law. How far we have been successful, our readers will 

 decide. We suspect that there may be something observed in 

 every chapter to startle the ordinary scientific student, but we 

 offer no opinion which cannot be proved correct by a 

 reference to the operations of nature,, since we have been guided 

 entirely by her teachings. 



