2 IMPERFECTION OF ELE3IENTARY BOOKS. 



who may not have the means of procm-ing, or time 

 for studying, works of greater magnitude and more 

 lofty pretensions. 



In many cases, this simple announcement might 

 be sufficient introduction; but this work will be 

 found so very different, both in plan and execution, 

 from any which has hitherto appeared on the subject, 

 that some explanation appears to me to be necessary, 

 both of the appearance of the volume, and of the style 

 in which it appears. As long as there is only the old 

 beaten track, there is no need of showing cause why 

 it should be open, or of a finger-post to point out to 

 where it leads : but it behoves the opener of a new 

 path (if intended for a public one) to justify his act 

 by the necessity of the case, to '• prove the preamble," 

 as the technical expression runs, and then to set up 

 the finger-post, so that the people may, if so inclined, 

 use the new path, and using it not be misled by it. 



The chief reason, both for the appearance of the 

 book and the novelty of the plan, is a firm conviction 

 on my part, (founded, I think, upon observation suf- 

 ficiently close, accurate, and long continued,) that very 

 many, if not all, of our introductory works, not on 

 this particular branch of knowledge only, but on 

 every branch, go the wrong way to work, and by this 

 means, instead of removing the difficulties which be- 

 long to the subject, encumber it with many others, 

 which arise entirely from the mode of treating it. 



This seems rather a sweeping assertion, and there- 

 fore, before I point out in what, to me at least, the 

 mistake seems to consist, I must give some short 

 account of the steps by which I arrived at this con- 

 clusion. But while I state what I feel to be the fact, 

 and try to show how this feeling originated, I must 

 not be understood as bringing censure against any 



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