PREFACE. xi 



copiousness, so as to satisfy the reader's intuitive desire 

 of knowledge. Yet, we repeat, this work is chiefly his- 

 torical, and is not meant to teach any of the sciences, 

 although it sets forth their beauty, their grandeur, and their 

 resources. 



But as a review of scientific achievements embraces the 

 mode without which they could not have been effected, the 

 method of scientific research has necessarily been described ; 

 and as a great deal of misconception generally exists with 

 regard to its discoverer, the writer of this book has not 

 shrunk from facing the great difficulty which arises from 

 the mistaken view on the subject. Accuracy imposed on 

 him a double duty : that of ascribing the discovery of the 

 method to the philosopher to whom it is due, and that of 

 dethroning from his usurped reputation the man to whom 

 it is wrongly assigned. This was the more imperative as 

 the progress of modern science is said by many to be 

 almost entirely owing, not to the men who actually brought 

 it about, but to the influence of one who was in every way, 

 not only a stranger to science and its method of research, 

 but who would have arrested scientific advancement if he 

 had swayed the influence popularly attributed to him. The 

 rectification of the facts has partly been made before this by 

 famed and competent men, but the repetition of the fallacy 

 has nevertheless recurred over and over again, in season 

 and out of season, as if nothing had happened writers 

 taking no trouble to verify the substance of their state- 

 ments, and endorsing, often without the least suspicion of 

 inaccuracy, what an author of repute has without due 

 scrutiny once advanced as a fact. So much and so fre- 



