CONTEMPLATION OOP THE TJNIVEB3B. 103 



whole, is assuredly far from embracing the entire history of 

 human cultivation. Even were we to regard the insight 

 into the connection of the animating forces of the material 

 universe as the noblest fruit of that cultivation, as tending 

 towards the loftiest pinnacle which the intelligence of man 

 can attain, yet that which we here propose to indicate would 

 still be but one portion of a history, of which the scope 

 should comprehend all that marks the progress of different 

 nations in all directions in which moral, social, or mental 

 improvement can be attained. Restricted to physical asso- 

 ciations, we necessarily study but one part of the history of 

 human knowledge ; we fix our eyes especially on the relation 

 which progressive attainment has borne to the whole which 

 nature presents to us ; we dwell less on the extension of the 

 separate branches of knowledge, than on what different ages 

 have furnished either of results capable of general applica- 

 tion, or of powerful material aids contributing to the more 

 exact observation of nature. 



We must first of all distinguish carefully and accurately 

 between early presage and actual knowledge. "With in- 

 creasing cultivation much passes from the former into the 

 latter by a transition which obscures the history of dis- 

 coveries. Presage or conjecture is often unconsciously 

 guided by a meditative combination of what previous investi- 

 gation has made known, and is raised by it as by an inspir- 

 ing power. Among the Indians, the Greeks, and in the 

 middle ages, much was enunciated concerning the connec- 

 tion of natural phaenomena, which, at first unproved, and 

 mingled with the most unfounded speculations, has at a 

 later period been confirmed by sure experience, and has 

 since become matter of scientific knowledge. The presen- 



