354 Olmstedi's Introduction to JVatural Philosophy. 



nature or art, we may avail ourselves of principles taken from every 

 part of the science, — a circumstance which is frequently of great im- 

 portance to the full and complete explanation of a natural phenomenon. 



On this point, a gentleman who has taught the work to a class, and 

 who is very competent to judge of its merits, has furnished us with 

 the following observations. " The arrangement adopted in Olmsted's 

 Introduction to Natural Philosophy; I have found to posses peculiar 

 advantages. By separating the " mathematical elements" from the 

 "practical part," and confining the student, at first, exclusively to the 

 former, his attention is not diverted from the fundamental principles 

 of the science; but these he studies with the same interest as he 

 does branches of the pure mathematics and understands them as 

 perfectly. Those who have either taught or studied Enfield's Phi- 

 losophy, know that quite the reverse is true in regard to that system, 

 in which the theoretical and practical parts are so blended that each 

 impairs the interest of the other. The pleasure derived from the 

 contemplation of abstract truths depends on qualities of the mind so 

 different from those which delight to follow out their application to 

 useful and economical purposes, that the two kinds of interest can 

 hardly exist together in the mind, but, by a kind of incompatibility, 

 tend to neutralize one another. In this Treatise also, the funda- 

 mental principles of Natural Philosophy, are impressed upon the 

 mind of the learner by a great variety of problems annexed to each 

 chapter, which, in addition to the intellectual advantages, usually at- 

 tendant on the solution of mathematical problems, serve to render the 

 student exceedingly familiar with those principles. Thus, the most 

 difficult parts of the work having been first mastered, the perusal of 

 what relates to the practical applications, is easy and delightful. In 

 this part of the work, moreover, there is embodied an amount of useful 

 information rarely to be met with in works of this size. In short, both 

 the plan and execution of the work are such as can hardly fail, it is 

 believed, to commend it to all experienced instructors." 



Part I., to which so much importance is justly ascribed, is abridged 

 with numerous additions and alterations, from a Treatise on Me- 

 chanics, published a few years since for the use of the students of the 

 East India College, by the Rev. B. Bridge, fellow of St. John's 

 College, Cambridge. We know not where a work could have been 

 found better adapted to the purpose. Bridge is an uncommonly lu- 

 minous writer; and his Mathematical Treatises bear the impress of 

 a mind well informed of its subject, and (which is quite as important) 



