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HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL 



principles, bear to each other the same relations as do the 

 subjects of study from which they are taken. The history 

 of the intellectual cultivation of mankind includes the history 

 of the elementary powers of the human mind, and therefore, 

 also, of the works in which these powers have manifested 

 themselves in the domains of literature and art. In a 

 similar manner we recognise in the depth and vividness of 

 the feeling for nature, which has been described as differently 

 manifested at different epochs and among different nations, 

 influential incitements to a more sedulous regard to phse- 

 nomena, and to a grave and earnest investigation of their 

 cosmical connection. 



The very variety of the streams by which the elements of 

 the enlarged knowledge of nature have been conveyed, and 

 spread unequally in the course of time over the earth's 

 surface, renders it advisable, as I have already remarked, to 

 begin the history of cosmical contemplation witfh. a single 

 group of nations, viz. with that from which our present 

 western scientific culture, is derived. The mental cultivation 

 of the Greeks and Romans is, indeed, of very recent 

 origin compared with that of the Egyptians, the Chinese, 

 and the Indians : but that which the Greeks and Romans 

 received from without, from the east and from the south, 

 associated with that which they themselves originated 01 

 carried onwards towards perfection, has been handed down 

 on European ground without interruption, notwithstanding 

 the constant changes of events, and the admixture of foreign 

 elements by the arrival of fresh immigrating races. 



The countries*, on the other hand, in which many depart- 

 ments of knowledge were cultivated at a much earlier period, 

 have either lapsed into a state of barbarism, whereby this know- 



