PHYSICS:

OR, THE

ANALOGY OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES.

INTRODUCTION.

744. THE zeal with which natural and experimental philosophy have been cultivated ever since the time of Bacon, has enriched the funds of experience with so many important discoveries and particulars, that the great object of this branch of science, as a whole, is no longer impeded by want of means for its establishment upon a universal basis, à posteriori, according to the design and anticipation of that great man.

745. It is true, indeed, that the survey for a perfect universal induction in this department of science is absolutely illimitable, and only to be accomplished by the accumulated labours of all

men in all ages: there is, therefore, no danger of inquiry being exhausted; every day adds new and important facts and discoveries to the stores of physical experience, and the more reasonable apprehension arises that Physics should now obstruct their own progress by the multiplication of particulars, on the one hand, as they have heretofore, by too narrow and hasty generalizations or inductions, on the other.

746. It is true, also, that knowledge, à posteriori, thus eminently and successfully investigated in our own times, and with so much honour to the ingenious researches and persevering industry of modern philosophers, whose achievements in this department of science surpass all praise, must supply the particulars for the generalogical, or inductive process, without which the Physical Sciences can never be established in harmony with experience upon ground universally satisfactory to

the mind.

747. Natural Philosophers have, accordingly, accumulated an immense and growing aggregate of materials, which demand of the mind some principle of selection and rejection, whereby they may be reduced to order and science, their redundances secerned, and their wants disclosed.

748. It is not sufficient that we establish isolated sciences, nor that one science should administer to many; the principle of union upon which such administration depends must be un

folded ere the whole body of science can move in concert.

749. All science, purely such, not excepting that of the external, has its foundation in the mind, by whatever means it may be attained, and to become perfectly valid, and universally satisfactory, must be conformable to the mind's constitution; that is, to reason.

750. Every attempt, however, to place the Physical Sciences upon such foundation has hitherto failed, and consequently little true universal progress has been made in the science of the external; for the stores of particular knowledge which we possess in this department are empirical and practical the accumulations of Natural History and experience under the false appellation of Science.

751. The total failure of the antients upon this ground, owing to the want of proper and sufficient materials, has brought discredit upon their more authentic philosophy; nor have the attempts of the moderns to generalize our physical experience, and bring it within the prescription of reason and a universal theory, notwithstanding our incomparably more extended knowledge of facts and phenomena, been by any means successful.

752. An attempt, in which both antients and moderns have failed, if not presumptuous in the present advanced state of natural knowledge, is at least difficult, hazardous, and discouraging; indeed,

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from its nature and compass, it admits not of entire accomplishment upon posterior ground: hence, all we can fairly hope or require is some progress towards the perfect reconcilement of reason with experience therein, while every attempt that supplies a new light may be hailed as the harbinger of improvement, and the greatest obstacle will be overcome when we shall have attained the right road; for such is the admirable nature of truth, and truth of nature, that no sooner do we get into their track than new lights arise, and the way widens before us.

753. In such attempts, however, the distinctions of antient and modern, and the prejudices of fashion and authority, are to be discarded,-that while we adopt as discoveries, or reject as mistakes and errors, the labours of our predecessors and contemporaries, we may neither consecrate their delusions nor extinguish the lights they have set up; but, recognising truth by its grand characteristics of unity and consistency, adopt it wherever it appears.

754. The present outline aims at no more than to analogize those particulars of posterior experience which coincide with the prior requisitions of that universal theory which appears to us, upon the whole, to embrace facts more widely than any other, to indicate where experience is wanting, and to reconcile the discrepancies of the sciences in a manner altogether the most simple. We have

herein claimed for the mind such of the stores of natural philosophy as agree in systematic unity, independently of any assumptions which may accompany them, founded upon the illusive forms of partial and defective inductions. This essay might, however, have been extended to a much greater variety of the particulars of physical nature, had it consisted with our design to have framed any thing more than a brief outline of this department of natural science.