I PREFACE. 



parison of the state of the science as he found it, with that 

 in which he left it, tends mightily to interest the reader, 

 to draw him towards the same inquiries, and to fix his views 

 more closely upon the details of the subject, if it has already 

 somewhat occupied his mind. In like manner, the recording 

 and the description of literary labours and merits, in con- 

 nexion with the historians, poets, and orators themselves, 

 has a powerful effect in making the reader familiar with 

 the subject, while it cultivates and refines his taste. 



Under the head of Philosophers, it is unnecessary to 

 observe upon any of the lives except those of Adam Smith, 

 D'Alembert, and Simson, except to note, that those of 

 Black and Lavoisier give a full statement of the relative 

 merits of these great men, and of the conduct of the latter, 

 both with regard to Black and Priestley. But as many 

 persons entertain a prejudice against the pretensions, or it 

 may be, against the practical conclusions of the Political 

 Economists, they may be apprised that the subjects on 

 which the great and well-established fame of Adam Smith 

 is founded, are here treated without any of the exaggerations 

 wherewith speculative economists have been charged, and 

 that the Life, and the Analysis of his great work were 

 written long before the question respecting Free Trade 

 and the repeal of the Corn Laws had assumed a practical 

 form. Whatever touches that question, was composed as 

 a treatise upon a subject of science only, with the desire to 

 discover and to expound the truth, and without any view 

 to the interests of any party, the author, though he en- 

 tirely approved the repeal, yet neither agreeing with those 

 who hoped, nor with those who feared, so much from 

 its consequences. 



The Lives of Simson and D'Alembert, are designed not 

 only to give the history of these eminent men the restora- 

 tion of the ancient geometry by the former, and the improve- 



