ESSAYS 



ON 



SCIENTIFIC AND OTHEK SUBJECTS. 



THE PROGKRESS AND SPIRIT OF PHYSICAL 

 SCIENCE.* 



[EDINBUEGH EEVIEW, JULY 1858.] 



ALMOST every age of human history has either given to 

 itself or received from posterity, some epithet marking, 

 whether truly or fancifully, its distinctive place in the records 

 of the world. It would be easy to find and to apply many 

 such epithets to the remarkable period in which our own lot 

 is cast ; abounding, as it does, in characteristics which dis- 

 tinguish it from any that have ever gone before. One, which 

 we cannot doubt that our own posterity will adopt, inasmuch 

 as it affirms a fact equally obvious and certain, is, that we are 

 living in an age of transition ; a period when changes, 

 deeply and permanently affecting the whole condition of 



* 1. Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of Worlds, 

 and the Philosophy of Creation. By the Eev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.E.S., &c., 

 Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford. London, 1855. 



2. The Co-relation of Physical Forces. By W. E. Grove, Q.C. M.A, 

 F.E.S., &c. Third Edition. London, 1855. 



3. On the Conservation of Force. By Professor Faraday, D.C.L., F.E.S., &c. &c. 



4. Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. By Sir John F. W. 

 Herschel, Bart. K.H. London, 1857. 



5. Nomos : an Attempt to demonstrate a Central Physical Law in Nature. 

 London, 1856. 



B 



