196 PUBLISHER'S CIRCULAR. 



there was a work upon the subject in type, which 

 would comprise some 900 pages, explanatory of the 

 science ; he should therefore simply rely for first im- 

 pressions upon statements contributed to this book 

 by those who have had opportunity to know of the 

 nature of the science, in preference to his own affir- 

 mation of its value. The immensity of the field, the 

 necessity for lucidity, and the novel character of the 

 scope of investigation, together with many other 

 things, made the problem of presentation one of ex- 

 treme difficulty. The speaker then remarked that it 

 is obvious, on reflection, that there must be a science 

 of the universe as such, distinguished from the spe- 

 cial sciences of the parts, or of the spheres, or do- 

 mains of the universe ; and yet the very idea is one 

 which is hardly entertained with any clearness of 

 conception in the scientific world. 



246. "All Pldlosopluj has, indeed, aimed, in a sense, 

 at this result, but the methods of Speculative Philos- 

 ophy are too vague to satisfy the demands of the 

 Scientific World, and in the sense of a Science ^prop- 

 erly so called the idea of anything Universal has been 

 almost entirely wanting. The Scientific men are 

 Specialists. Their labors are as if a colony of learned 

 ants were to have undertaken the investigation of 

 the Human Body. One section of the little Com- 

 munity devotes itself to the exhaustive examination 

 of a finger nail, another to that of a lobe of the ear, 

 another to that of the hair of the beard, and others 

 to the investigation of all the various parts and or- 

 gans and systems segregated and mjardcd sinyly ; but 



