(5 LECTURE I. 



eager to rank in the same class with the few that have been enumerated. 

 But it is not our present business to enter into the history of science ; 

 respecting what is supposed to be wholly unknown we can have little 

 curiosity : a short sketch of the progress of each branch of natural philoso- 

 phy will be more properly introduced after we have finished our investiga- 

 tion of the principal doctrines belonging to it. 



With regard to the mode of delivering these lectures, I shall in general 

 intreat my audience to pardon the formality of a written discourse, in 

 favour of the advantage of a superior degree of order and perspicuity. It 

 would unquestionably be desirable that every syllable advanced should be 

 rendered perfectly easy and comprehensible even to the most uninformed ; 

 that the most inattentive might find sufficient variety and entertainment 

 in what is submitted to them to excite their curiosity, and that in all cases 

 the pleasing, and sometimes even the surprising-, should be united with the 

 instructive and the important. But whenever there appears to be a real 

 impossibility of reconciling these various objects, I shall esteem it better to 

 seek for substantial utility than temporary amusement ; for if we fail of 

 being useful for want of being sufficiently popular, we remain at least 

 respectable ; but if we are unsuccessful in our attempts to amuse, we 

 immediately appear trifling and contemptible. It shall, however, at all times 

 be my endeavour to avoid each extreme ; and I trust that I shall then only 

 be condemned when I am found abstruse from ostentation, or uninteresting 

 from supineness. The most difficult thing for a teacher is, to recollect how 

 much it cost himself to learn, and to accommodate his instruction to the 

 apprehension of the uninformed : by bearing in mind this observation, I 

 hope to be able to render my lectures more and more intelligible and 

 familiar ; not by passing over difficulties, but by endeavouring to facilitate 

 the task of overcoming them ; and if at any time I appear to have failed in 

 this attempt, I shall think myself honoured by any subsequent inquiries 

 that my audience may be disposed to make. 



We have to extend our views over the whole circle of natural and arti- 

 ficial knowledge, to consider in detail the principles and application of the 

 philosophy of nature and of art. We are to discuss a great number of 

 subjects, to each of which a separate title and rank among the sciences has 

 sometimes been assigned ; and it is necessary, in order to obtain a distinct 

 conception of the foundation and relation of each subdivision, to pay par- 

 ticular attention to the order in which the sciences are to be treated, and to 

 the connexion which subsists between them, as well as to the degree of 

 importance which each of them claims, with regard either to theory or to 

 practice. To insist on the propriety of a distinct and logical order is unne- 

 cessary ; for however superfluous we may deem the scholastic forms of 

 rhetoric, it is confessedly advantageous to the judgment as well as to the 

 meniQry, to unite those things which are naturally connected, and to sepa- 

 rate those which are essentially distinct. When a traveller is desirous of 

 becoming acquainted with a city or country before unknown to him, he 

 naturally begins by taking, from some elevated situation, a distant view of 

 the distribution of its parts ; and in the same manner, before we enter on 

 the particular consideration of the subjects of our researches, it may be of 



