INDUCTIVE HABITS. 309 



of Astronomy. Hydrostatics shared in a great 

 measure the fortunes of the related science of 

 Mechanics ; Boyle and Pascal were the persons 

 mainly active in developing its more peculiar 

 principles. The other branches of knowledge 

 which belong to natural philosophy, as Chemistry 

 and Meteorology, are as yet imperfect, and per- 

 haps infant sciences ; and it would be rash to 

 presume to select in them, names of equal pre- 

 eminence with those above mentioned : but it 

 may not be difficult to show, with sufficient evi- 

 dence, that the effect of science upon the authors 

 of science is, in these subjects as in the former 

 ones, far other than to alienate their minds from 

 religious trains of thought, and a habit of consi- 

 dering the world as the work of God. 



We shall not dwell much on the first of the 

 above mentioned great names, Galileo ; for his 

 scientific merit consisted rather in adopting the 

 sound philosophy of others, as in the case of the 

 Copernican system, and in combating prevalent 

 errors, as in the case of the Aristotelian doctrines 

 concerning motion, than in any marked and 

 prominent discovery of new principles. More- 

 over the mechanical laws which he had a share 

 in bringing to light, depending as they did, rather 

 on detached experiments and transient facts, 

 than on observation of the general course of the 

 universe, could not so clearly suggest any reflexion 

 on the government of the world at that period, as 



