42 HISTORY OF INDUCTIVE SCIENCES. 



of the present day may naturally feel respecting the events and 

 persons of his story. 



But such a survey may possess also an interest of another kind ; it 

 may be instructive as well as agreeable ; it may bring before the 

 reader the present form and extent, the future hopes and prospects of 

 science, as well as its past progress. The eminence on which we 

 stand may enable us to see the land of promise, as well as the wilder- 

 ness through which we have passed. The examination of the steps 

 by which our ancestors acquired our intellectual estate, may make us 

 acquainted with our expectations as well as our possessions ; — may not 

 only remind us of what we have, but may teach us how to improve 

 and increase our store. It will be universally expected that a History 

 of Inductive Science should point out to us a philosophical distribu- 

 tion of the existing body of knowledge, and afford us some indication 

 of the most promising mode of directing our future efforts to add to 

 its extent and completeness. 



To deduce such lessons from the past history of human knowledge, 

 was the intention which originally gave rise to the present work. Nor 

 is this portion of the design in any measure abandoned ; but its execu- 

 tion, if it take place, must be attempted in a separate and future 

 treatise, On the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. An essay of 

 this kind may, I trust, from the progress already made in it, be laid 

 before the public at no long interval after the present history. 1 



Though, therefore, many of the principles and maxims of such a 

 work will disclose themselves with more or less of distinctness in 

 the course of the history on which we are about to enter, the syste- 

 matic and complete exposition of such principles must be reserved for 

 this other treatise. My attempts and reflections have led me to the 

 opinion, that justice cannot be done to the subject without such a 

 division of it. 



To this future work, then, I must refer the reader who is disposed to 

 require, at the outset, a precise explanation of the terms which occur 

 in my title. It is not possible, without entering into this philosophy, 

 to explain adequately how science which is Inductive differs from 

 that which is not so ; or why some portions of knowledge may prop- 

 erly be selected from the general mass and termed Science. It will 

 be sufficient at present to say, that the sciences of which we have 



1 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences was published shortly after the present 

 work. 



