OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 351 



human intellect ? In proportion as the number of 

 those who are engaged on each department of phy- 

 sical enquiry increases, and the geographical extent 

 over which they are spread is enlarged, a propor- 

 tionately increased facility of communication and 

 interchange of knowledge becomes essential to the 

 prosecution of their researches with full advantage. 

 Not only is this desirable, to prevent a number of 

 individuals from making the same discoveries at the 

 same moment, which (besides the waste of valuable 

 time) has always been a fertile source of jealousies 

 and misunderstandings, by which great evils have 

 been entailed on science ; but because methods of 

 observation are continually undergoing new im- 

 provements, or acquiring new facilities, a knowledge 

 of which, it is for the general interest of science, 

 should be diffused as widely and as rapidly as possible. 

 By this means, too, a sense of common interest, of 

 mutual assistance, and a feeling of sympathy in a 

 common pursuit, are generated, which proves a 

 powerful stimulus to exertion ; and, on the other 

 hand, means are thereby afforded of detecting and 

 pointing out mistakes before it is too late for their 

 rectification. 



(385.) Perhaps it may be truly remarked, that, next 

 to the establishment of institutions having either the 

 promotion of science in general, or, what is still more 

 practically efficacious in its present advanced state, 

 that of particular departments of physical enquiry, 

 for their express objects, nothing has exercised so 

 powerful an influence on the progress of modern 

 science as the publication of monthly and quarterly 

 scientific journals, of which there is now scarcely a 



