PREFACE 



The superiority of the moderns over the ancients consists not 

 so much in the extent of their knowledge (though that also is 

 considerable) as in the degree of its dilfusion. Among the 

 Greeks, by far the most civilized and philosophical people which 

 antiquity has to boast of, knowledge was confined to the schools, 

 or scarcely ventm'ed to show herself abroad. A few individuals 

 engrossed all the learning of the age, while the great mass of the 

 people were sunk in the most deplorable ignorance. In modera 

 Europe, on the contrary, science is scattered with a much more 

 liberal hand over the whole population. All the upper and mid- 

 dle ranks enjoy the blessing of a liberal education : and in Bri- 

 tain, and some other countries, these constitute a considerable 

 proportion of the people. Improvements in any art, or science, 

 are no sooner made in any country than they are sought for with 

 avidity in every other, and soon make their way over the whole 

 civilized world. 



This rapid diffusion of knowledge is no doubt owing to the art 

 of printing, which enables us to multiply copies of books with so 

 much ease : an art to which modern Europe is more indebted 

 for her superiority to former ages than any other. But the im- 

 mediate instruments employed for the diffusion of scientific and 

 useful knowledge are the periodical publications which exist in 

 such numbers in Britain, France, and Germany, and which make 

 it their professed object to scatter every discovery over the whole 

 extent of their circulation. During the 15th and i6th centuries, 

 when periodical journals did not exist, literary men had no better 

 means of conveying information to one another than epistolary 

 correspondence. And if we look into the voluminous epistles of 

 Erasmus, and of his contemporaries, we may form some idea of 

 the great portion of time which was taken up in this irksome and 

 unprofitable employment j which, after all, could answer the in- 

 tended purpose but imperfectly, and convey the requisite infor- 

 mation to a single individual only, and to the small circle of his 

 friends. An autlior could only appear before the public, when 



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