Sect. I] Electricity. S3 



But, beside these new theories and ingenious 

 .discussions, respecting the general principles and 

 properties of matter, ahnost all the particular de- 

 partments of mechanical philosophy have been 

 investigated with great diligence and success, 

 Ihroughout the whole of the period under consi- 

 deration. 



SECTION I. 



ELECTRICITY. 



Concerning Electricity, that powerful and still 

 n^vsterious agent, philosophers of the last age have 

 made splendid discoveries. At the beginning of 

 the eighteenth century, this branch of science 

 could hardly be said to have a place in systems of 

 philosophy. Its phenomena had been so little the 

 subject of experiment, and its laws had been so 

 little comprehended or methodised, that scarcely 

 any thing which deserves the name of theory on 

 the subject, was then presented to the workl. It 

 is true, a number of facts were then known, and 

 some experiments had been made, in order to elu- 

 cidate this dark recess of science. But they were 

 known, for the most part, only as insulated facts, 

 without any correct idea of the relation siii)sistin.2: 

 between them, or of the general principles upon 

 which they depended. The principal of these facts 

 had been brought to light by Dr. Gilbert, Mr. Boyle, 



^^itll having an atheistical foundation and tendency. Of t]\o 

 ground of this charge too Uttlc is know n hy the writer to attempt, 

 a dibcussion of it. 



