ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



& 



CHAPTER I 

 THE STAKTING-POINT 



A LITTLE before the middle of the eighteenth century 

 Buftbn published the first volume of his Natural History. 

 It was a wonderful book, and one yet more remarkable 

 for the sagacious or ingenious theories it enunciated with 

 respect to human and animal existence, the past history 

 of this planet, and phenomena of inorganic matter, than 

 for the many descriptions and figures of animals which it 

 contained. Its scope was so great that while it dealt 

 with such matters as the origin of the world and solar 

 system, it also furnished tables representing the pro- 

 babilities of human life and death tables which have 

 helped forwards that vast system of life-assurance, to 

 which such a multitude of men and women now owe 

 protection from calamity. 



Ever since Buffon's time science has advanced, and a 

 knowledge of it been diffused with greater and greater 

 rapidity; a similar and consequent increase in tne 

 comforts and amenities of life being the general result. 



As such resultiog advantages have become more and 

 more apparent, an increasing appreciation of science 

 itself has naturally followed, while even in the earliest 



A 



