412 RecapitulatiolL 



moved various obstacles which long retarded the 

 progress of knowledge. Bat this spirit of inquiry, 

 like every thing else in the hands of man, has been 

 perverted and abused. It has been carried to the 

 extreme of licentiousness. In too many instances, 

 the love of novelty, and the impatience of all re- 

 straint founded on prescription or antiquity, have 

 triumphed over truth and wisdom ; and, in the 

 midst of zeal for demolishing old errors, the most 

 sacred principles of virtue and happiness have 

 teen rejected or forgotten. 



2. The last century may be emphatically called 

 the age of physical science. It was not till the 

 Seventeenth century that the physical sciences be- 

 gan to assume a conspicuous place among the ob- 

 jects of study. Before that period, the learned 

 languages, ancient history; and the metaphysical 

 jargon of the schoolmen, had chiefly engrossed the 

 attention of literary and scientific men. From the 

 time of Bacon and Kepler, a taste for natural phi- 

 losophy began to extend itself. This taste was 

 cherished and improved by the scientific associa- 

 tions which began to be formed in different parts 

 of Europe about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century. But in the eighteenth, it became far more 

 predominant than at any former period, and may 

 be said to form a prominent feature of the age. 



It has been seen, that several branches of Me- 

 chanical Philosophy \ wholly new, were introduced 

 into the popular systems in the course of this pe- 

 riod ; and that in almost all the branches formerly 

 studied, there were made immense discoveries 

 and improvements. Chemistry has been so much 

 improved and extended, both in its principles and 

 application, that it may be pronounced a new sci- 

 ence. In Natural History, the progress of philo- 

 sophers, within the last hundred years, has been no 

 Jess signal and honourable. The amount of what 



