INTRODUCTION. 17 



sprung the first impulses towards the worship and deification 

 of the destroying and preserving forces of the universe. But 

 by degrees as man, after having passed through the different 

 gradations of intellectual development, arrives at the free 

 enjoyment of the regulating power of reflection, and learns 

 by gradual progress, as it were, to separate the world of 

 ideas from that of sensations, he no longer rests satisfied 

 merely with a vague presentiment of the harmonious unity of 

 natural forces ; thought b'e^ins to fulfil its noble mission ; and 

 observation, aided by reason, endeavours to trace phenomena 

 to the causes from which they spring. 



The history of science teaches us the difficulties that have 

 opposed the progress of this active spirit of inquiry. Inaccu- 

 rate and imperfect observations have led by false inductions 

 to the great number of physical views that have been per- 

 petuated as popular prejudices among all classes of society, 

 Thus by the side of a solid and scientific knowledge of natural 

 phenomena there has been preserved a system of the pre- 

 tended results cf observation, which is so much the more 

 difficult to shake, as it denies the validity of the facts by which 

 it may be refuted. This empiricism, the melancholy heritage 

 transmitted to us from former times, invariably contends for 

 the truth of its axioms with the arrogance of a narrow- 

 minded spirit. Physical philosophy, on the other hand, when 

 based upon science, doubts because it seeks to investigate, 

 distinguishes between that which is certain and that which is 

 merely probable, and strives incessantly to perfect theory by 

 extending the circle of observation. 



This assemblage of imperfect dogmas bequeathed by one 

 age to another this physical philosophy, which is composed 

 of popular prejudices, is not only injurious because it per- 

 petuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence 

 of ill observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind 

 from attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking 

 to discover the mean or medium point, around which oscillate, 

 in apparent independence of forces, all the phenomena of the 

 external world, this system delights in multiplying exceptions 

 to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and in organic forms, 

 for something beyond the marvel of a regular succession, and 

 an internal and progressive development. Ever inclined to 

 believe that the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses w 



o 



