LIMITATION AND SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF A PHYSICAL 

 HISTORY OF CREATION. 



In the general views with which I have open- 

 ed my prolegomena to a survey of universal na- 

 ture, I have sought to explain, and, by exam- 

 ples, to illustrate, how the enjoyment of nature, 

 diverse in its intimate sources, may be enhan- 

 ced through clear ideas of the connection of 

 her phenomena, and of the harmony that reigns 

 among her actuating forces. It will now be 

 my endeavour to enunciate more particularly 

 the spirit and leading idea of the following sci- 

 entific inquiry ; carefully to separate from it all 

 that is foreign ; and with comprehensive brev- 

 ity to convey the scope and contents of the doc- 

 trine of the Cosmos as I have apprehended and 

 worked it out, after long years of study in vari- 

 ous climates of the globe. Let me flatter my- 

 self with the hope that such an exposition will 

 bear me out in the bold title I have given my 

 work, and free me from the charge of presump- 

 tion. My prolegomena comprise, under four 

 divisions, and in consonance with my introduc- 

 tory remarks on the foundation of the laws of 

 the universe, 1st. The conception and limita- 

 tion of physical cosmography, as a separate and 

 distinct science. 



2d. The objective contents, the comprehen- 

 sive empirical survey, of nature at large, in the 

 scientific form of a general picture. 



3d. The reflex action of nature upon the im- 

 agination and feelings, as stimulating to its 

 study, through animated descriptions of remote 

 countries, landscape poetry (a branch of mod- 

 ern literature), beautiful landscape painting, 

 the cultivation and contrasted grouping of ex- 

 otic plants, &c. 



4th. The history of creation — in other words, 

 an account of the gradual development and ex- 

 tension of the idea of the Cosmos as a natural 

 whole. 



The higher the point of view from which the 

 phenomena of nature are contemplated, the 

 more distinctly must the science, the founda- 

 tions of which are now to be laid, be bounded, 

 and marked off from all allied departments of 

 natural knowledge. Physical Cosmography em- 

 braces the description of all that is created, of 

 all that exists in space, both natural things and 

 natural forces, as a simultaneously existing co- 

 ordinate whole. It divides itself for man, the 

 inhabitant of the earth, into two principal di- 

 visions ; one telluric, another sidereal or uran- 

 ological. To confirm the scientific independ- 

 ence of physical cosmography, and show its 

 relations to other departments — to physics or 

 natural philosophy, to natural history or the 

 special description of natural objects, to geog- 

 nosy and comparative geography, or the de- 

 scription of the earth — we shall first pause 

 over the telluric portion of our subject. Even 

 as little as the history of philosophy consists in a 

 crude arrangement side by side, or in sequence, 

 of the various philosophical opinions that have 

 been entertained, so little is the telluric portion 

 C 



of cosmography any encyclopaedic aggregate of 

 the natural sciences enumerated above. The 

 lines of demarcation between branches so inti- 

 mately allied as these, are the more confused 

 in consequence of the custom which has pre- 

 vailed for centuries, of designating by specific 

 titles certain groups of experimental knowl- 

 edge, which are now too narrow, now too com- 

 prehensive for the matters comprised, and 

 which, in times of classical antiquity, and in 

 the languages from which they were borrowed, 

 had a totally different signification from that 

 now attached to them. The titles of particu- 

 lar natural sciences, such as anthropology, 

 physiology, natural philosophy, natural history, 

 geognosy, and geography, arose and became 

 universally current before mankind had attain- 

 ed to any clear conception of the diversity of 

 objects embraced by these several sciences, 

 and the precise line of demarcation between 

 each — that is to say, of the grounds of separa- 

 tion themselves. In the language of one of the 

 most polished nations of Europe, natural phi- 

 losophy {physics) is scarcely distinguished from 

 medicine (physic) ; whilst technical chemistry, 

 geology, and astronomy, treated in an entirely 

 empirical manner, are jumbled together, and 

 papers on all are published under the joint title 

 of Philosophical Transactions, by a Society 

 whose fame is justly as wide as the world. 



Alterations of old, often ill chosen, but gen- 

 erally well understood names, for newer titles, 

 have been repeatedly attempted, but always, 

 as yet, with indifferent success, by those who 

 have turned their attention to the classification i 

 of the several departments of human knowl- 

 edge, from the Margarita Philosophica (a great 

 Encyclopaedia) of the Carthusian monk Grego- 

 ry Reisch(^), to Bacon ; from Bacon to d'Alera- 

 bert, and, not to forget the very latest times, 

 to the acute geometrician and natural philoso- 

 pher, Ampere(^). The unfelicitous choice of 

 a fantastical nomenclature has perhaps been 

 more prejudicial to every attempt of the kind, 

 than the excessive number of divisions and 

 subdivisions that have been introduced. 



Physical cosmography, whilst it embraces 

 the world " as an object of the external sen- 

 ses," requires, it is true, the association of gen- 

 eral physics and natural history as auxiliary 

 sciences ; but the consideration of corporeal 

 things, under the guise of a natural whole, 

 moved and actuated by inherent forces, has an 

 entirely special character as a distinct science. 

 Physics occupies itself with the general prop- 

 erties of matter : it is an abstraction from the 

 manifestations of force by matter ; and in the 

 very place where its first foundations, as a sci- 

 ence, are laid, viz., in the eight books of the 

 Physics of Aristotle(3), all the phenomena of 

 nature are represented as vital manifestations 

 of a general cosmic force. The telluric por- 

 tion of physical cosmography, to which I will- 



