12 Rcvoluticns and Impi'ovements 



men taught nothing hut the truth, and far le:ss that 

 they taught the zvhole truth. They were falhble 

 mortals. They were liable to err. They did err. 

 But their achievements in the respective regions of 

 knowledge which they explored and cultivated, 

 were so splendid, as to command the admh^ation 

 not only of their countrymen and contemporaries, 

 but of the civilised world, and of posterity. Be- 

 side all the light they individually threw on the 

 departments of science which they undertook 

 to investigate, each commencied, or rendered po- 

 pular, a mode of philosophising in his particular 

 sphere, equally new, grand, and interesting; and 

 they may be said to have laid the foundation of 

 all the ma2:nificent structures that have been 

 since erected. 



To Newton no successor has hitherto appeared. 

 The chair which he left has never since been filled. 

 It is probable no effort of the human mind, to rear 

 a rational and permanent system of philosophy, was 

 ever attended with such a degree oi success as that 

 which he made. Certainly no other system ever at- 

 tained such extensive and undisputed empire in 

 science. It is founded on principles so precise, 

 connected, and hrm ; it explains, with such lumi- 

 nous clearness, most of the phenomena of the hea- 

 vens whicii had been observed before his time, as 

 well as of those which the persevering industry, and 

 the more perfect instruments, of later astronomers 

 have made known ; and instead of being under- 

 mined or discredited, has been so remarkably 

 illustrated and conhrmedj by the labours of subset 

 (juent inquirers ; that every thing like efficient oppo- 

 i^ition seems to have been long since given up ; and 



