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 CHAPTER I. ,> $ / 



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ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. 



IT is not my present intention to give an his- 

 torical detail of the rise and progress of scientific 

 knowledge, from the more remote periods of 

 antiquity, to its decline and fall during the 

 space of more than one thousand years, appro- 

 priately denominated the dark ages. Know- 

 ledge (if knowledge it may be called) was then 

 confined to the schoolmen ; the erroneous 

 practice, general at that period, of reasoning 

 without facts, and of drawing conclusions from 

 false principles, became at length apparent to that 

 great luminary of our country, LORD BACON. 



The accumulation of error was, at that time, 

 too extensive to be corrected by any individual, 

 however mighty in intellect. Instead of unra- 

 velling the gordian knot, he cut it. He did 

 not amuse himself with solving the most absurd 

 and ridiculous propositions that can be con- 

 ceived ; with calculating, for example, how 



