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PART FIRST, 



bN THE REVOLUTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS m 

 SCIENCE, ARTS, AND LETTERS, DURING THE 

 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



It is justly remarked by an acute modern writer/ 

 that the history of learning and science is much 

 less uniform than that of civil affairs, that the wars, 

 hegociations, and poHtics of one age more resemble 

 those of another, than the literary and scientific 

 taste. He explains this obvious fact by observing, 

 that, in public and political transactions, ambition, 

 honour, malice, revenge, and the various turbulent 

 passions of man, are the prime movers; and that 

 these passions are not only the same in every age, 

 but are also stubborn, intractable, and by no means 

 susceptible of the same variety of modification 

 which frequently takes place in the literary taste 

 and habits of different times. The former we can 

 scarcely expect any thing human to controul; but 

 the latter may be and are every day affected by 

 education, by example, and by a thousand circum- 

 stances which it would be difficult to enumerate. 



It has often been made a .question whether 

 mankind have effected any real progress in know- 

 ledge, during the eighteenth century. There 

 are not a few who maintain the negative; who 

 contend, that although this period has been abun- 

 dantly productive of new theories, specious plans, 



d Home's Essays, vol. i. p. no, 

 C 



