AND PHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE. 41 



in which they reciprocally call forth or limit each other. 

 The distribution of organic types in different regions and 

 climates (i. e. the geography of plants and animals,) differs 

 tus widely from descriptive botany and zoology, as does a 

 geological knowledge of the globe from mineralogy properly 

 so called. The physical description of the universe is not 

 therefore to be confounded with encyclopedias of the natu- 

 ral sciences. In the work before us it is proposed to 

 consider partial facts only in their relation to the whole. 

 The higher the point of view here indicated, the more the 

 study requires a peculiar mode of treatment, and to be pre- 

 sented in animated and picturesque language. 



But thought and language are of old intimately allied : if 

 the language employed lends to the presentation grace and 

 clearness, if by its organic structure, its richness, and happy 

 flexibility, it favours the attempt to delineate the phenomena 

 of nature, it at the same time reacts almost insensibly on 

 thought itself, and breathes over it an animating influence. 

 Words, therefore, are more than signs and forms ; and their 

 mysterious and beneficent influence is there most powerfully 

 manifested, where the language has sprung spontaneously from 

 the minds of the people, and is on its own native soil. Proud 

 of my country, whose intellectual unity is the firm foundation 

 of every manifestation of her power, I look with joy to these 

 privileges of my native land. Highly favoured indeed is he, 

 who, in attempting an animated representation of the phseno- 

 mena of the universe, is permitted to draw from the depths of 

 a language, 'which through the elevation and free exercise of 

 powerful thought, in the domain of creative fancy no less 

 than in that of searching reason, has for centuries exerted so 

 powerful an influence over the minds and the destinies of men. 



