353 



VIII. 



RETROSPECT OF THE PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN. THI| 

 CONTEMPLATION OF THE TJN1VEESE. 



Retrospective View of the Epochs or Periods which have been 

 successively considered. Influence of External Events on the 

 Development of the Recognition of the Universe as a Whole. 

 Wide and varied Scope and close mutual Connexion of the 

 Scientific Endeavours of modern times. The History of the 

 Physical Sciences gradually becomes coincident with that of the 

 Cosmos. 



I APPROACH the termination of a comprehensive and hazardous 

 undertaking. More than two thousand years have been 

 passed in review, from the earliest state of intellectual culti- 

 vation among; the nations who dwelt round the basin of the 

 Mediterranean and in the fertile river districts of Western 

 Asia, to a period the views and feelings of which pass by 

 almost imperceptible shades into those of our own age. I 

 have sought to present the history of the gradually developed 

 knowledge and recognition of the Universe as a whole, in 

 seven distinctly marked sections, or as it were in a series of 

 as many distinct pictures. Whether any measure of success 

 has attended this attempt to maintain in their due subor- 

 dination the mass of accumulated materials, to seize the 

 character of the leading epochs, and to mark the paths in 

 which ideas and civilisation have been conducted onwards, 



