26 MEMOIR OP ALFRED SMEE. [Chap. IV. 



Science, nor should I have published it if I could have referred to any 

 sufficiently condensed work on these subjects. But having felt the want 

 of a work considering the subjects of the sciences, and showing their 

 relative position, I conceived that my own attempts to forward these 

 inquiries might not be unacceptable to many lovers of scientific knowledge. 

 If I shall hereafter find that my labours have been useful to society, or 

 have induced others to produce a more perfect treatise, I shall feel most 

 amply rewarded.* 



From these words we learn that Alfred Smee was the first 

 who published a condensed yet exhaustive view of the physical 

 sciences. 



Although since this work was written, now thirty-four years 

 ago, great strides, nay, colossal strides, have been made in physical 

 science, yet it must he borne in mind that ' Sources of Physics ' 

 was the forerunner of all the numerous treatises which have since 

 been issued in this branch of knowledge, and it was therefore at 

 the time of its publication a most original work. 



In this work he impresses the reader with the importance of 

 studying physics as a whole, not in divisions. 



For (says he) by the investigation of the phenomena of one science 

 we become more acquainted with its details ; but when we are desirous 

 of contemplating the real nature of the phenomena, and the cause of their 

 production, we must study the effects as a whole, to prevent erroneous 

 conclusions and vain creations of imponderables.t 



The tendency of the present day is to take up one branch of 

 knowledge only — nay, to divide one branch of knowledge into 

 various subdivisions, and to investigate only the details of one of 

 these subdivisions, thereby narrowing the mind ; for as the sight 

 of man is injured by viewing objects only through the microscope, 

 so in a similar manner is the mind narrowed by only using it for 

 the investigation of mere matters of detail. 



In another placet ^J father advocates for difijerent classes 

 more freely to interchange ideas. 



The tendency of the period (says he) is for society to group 

 together in classes; even the Royal Society for the Promotion of Natui-al 

 Knowledge is most exclusive to aU but actual followers of natural science. 

 The clergy separate themselves, the doctors congregate together, but a 

 continual intercourse in a right spirit has a tendency to perfect the mind 

 of all ; and whether they work in the upper, lower, or middle departments 

 of their minds, all should accord. 



See ' Sources of Physics,' Preface, p. vii. f Idem, p. 254. 



t See ' Mind of Man,' p. 106. 



