PREFACE. xi 



importance of the several subjects, the extent of 

 his acquaintance with them, or the degree in which 

 they interested his own mind. That, from such a 

 multiphcity of objects, he often selected injudiciously, 

 and made an erroneous estimate of their compara- 

 tive value, is altogether probable. 



Although the very nature of the work required 

 that all the subjects brought into view should be 

 treated superficially, and that nothing more than 

 rapid outlines should be attempted, yet the intel- 

 ligent reader will, doubtless, discern, that the mode 

 of treating some of the subjects manifests a very 

 small and partial acquaintance with them. For the 

 want of more just and enlarged views, the author 

 fears he has often written in a crude and unsatis- 

 factory manner on topics which might, in the same 

 compass, have been better discussed. In some in- 

 stances, however, he has failed of giving a more 

 satisfactory account of the additions made to 

 science, by distinguished individuals, from another 

 cause: where it would have been impossible to 

 state the precise limits of what each has done to 

 advance our knowledge of a particular subject, 

 without going into a discussion of many pages, 

 little more is frequently attempted than to give a 

 list of the names of those individuals, on the pre- 

 sumption that the inquisitive reader will seek for a 

 more full account of their respective claims else- 

 where. 



In enumerating the. principal writers on the va- 

 rious subjects reviewed, it will be observed, that 

 those who have written in the English language 



