viii PREFACE. 



of this remarkable era ; while even in the pure mathe- 

 matics a progress was made which almost changed 

 its aspect since the days of Leibnitz and Newton. The 

 names of Black, Watt, Cavendish, Priestley, Lavoisier, 

 Davy, may justly be placed far above the Boyles, the 

 Stahls, the Hales, the Hookes of former times ; while 

 Euler, Clairault, Lagrange, La Place, must be ranked 

 as analysts close after Newton himself, and above Des- 

 cartes, Leibnitz, or the Bernouillis ; and in economical 

 science, Hume, Smith, and Quesnai really had no pa- 

 rallel, hardly any forerunner. It would also be vain to 

 deny great poetical and dramatic genius to Goldsmith, 

 Voltaire, Alfieri, Monti, and the German school, how 

 inferior soever to the older masters of song. 



But, above all, it must not be forgotten, that in our 

 times the mighty revolution which has been effected in 

 public affairs, and has placed the rights of the people 

 throughout the civilized world upon a new and a 

 firm foundation, was brought about, immediately in- 

 deed by the efforts of statesmen, but prepared, and 

 remotely caused, by the labours of philosophers and 

 men of letters. The diffusion of knowledge among the 

 community at large is the work of our own age, and 

 it has made all the conquests of science both in recent 

 and in older times of incalculably greater value, of in- 

 comparably higher importance to the interests of man- 

 kind, than they were while scientific study was con- 

 fined within the narrow circles of the wealthy and 

 the learned. 



