INTRODUCTION. 7 



tulate my audience, on the decided superiority of our own country, in the first 

 establishment, and in the subsequent cultivation, of the true philosophy of the 

 operations of nature. I grant that we have at times been culpably negligent 

 of the labours of others ; tliat we have of late suffered our neighbours to ex- 

 cel us in abstract mathematics, and perhaps, in some instances, in patient 

 and persevering observation of naked phenomena. We have not at this mo- 

 ment a Lagrange or a Laplace : what we have, I do not think it necessary 

 to enumerate: but there is a certain combination of theoretical reasonins: with 

 experimental inquiry, in which Great Britain, from the time of the reforma- 

 tion of philosophy, has never been inferior to any nation existing. I need 

 only refer to the Transactions of the Royal Society, for abundant instances- of 

 the mode of investigation to which I allude; and I will venture to affirm, 

 that their late publications are equal in importance to any that have preceded; 

 It was in England that a Bacon first^taught the world the true method of the- 

 study of nature, and rescued science from that barbarism in which the fol- 

 lowers of Aristotle, by a too servile imitation of their master, had involved 

 it ; and with which, even of late, a mad spirit of innovation, under the name 

 of the critical philosophy, has, in a considerable part of Europe, again been 

 threatening it. It was in this country that Newton advanced, with one gi- 

 gantic stride, from the regions of twilight into the noon day of science. A 

 Boyle and a Hooke, w^ho would otherwise have been deservedly the boast of 

 their century, served but as obscure forerunners of Newton's glories. After 

 these, a crowd of eminent men succeeded, each of great individual merit; but, 

 absorbed in the prosecution of the Newtonian discoveries, they chose rather 

 to be useful by their humble industry, than to wander in search of the brilli- 

 ancy of novelty. It is difficult to judge of our cotemporaries ; but we appear 

 at present to be in possession of more than one philosopher, whose names- 

 posterity will be eager to rank in the same class with the few that have been 

 enumerated. But it is not our present business to enter into the history of 

 science; respecting what is supposed to bd wholly unknown, we can have 

 little curiosity : a short sketch of the progress of each branch of natural 

 philosophy will be more properly introduced, after we have finished our inves- 

 tigation of the principal doctrines belonging to it. 



With regard to the mode of delivering these lectures, I shall in general in- 

 treat my audience to pardon the formality of a written discourse, in favour of 



