Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

THE ANALOGY

OF

THE SCIENCES.

PROEM.

723. THE universal system, of which we have attempted the analysis in our First Part, having been therein resolved into Disciplines, in regard to principles; Sciences, in respect to relations; and Arts, in reference to Ends; and we having, in our Second Part, traced, in natural order, distinct outlines of the Disciplines which are instrumental to, and first in, the Series of Science, and involve with the Mathesis the two great branches of Logical and Philological, or subjective and representative science, we proceed, in this Third Part, to sketch, in like order, Outlines of the various Physiological or Objective Sciences successively, as physical, sensible, and moral, under the denominations of Physics, Esthetics, and Ethics; and first of Physics, which succeed in immediate relation to Mechanics, the last of the Mathematical Disciplines.

724. By having thus disposed of Logic and Philology, in the form of Disciplines, we have excluded their dependent branches from the series of the sciences, and limited the scope of the latter to the physiological sciences; but it is sufficient to have marked their positions; and all that is essential to our design is the developement and illustration of the universal form and connexion of infinite science, as a guide to a like unfolding of every particular science; when, having done which in its chief branches, our present intention will have been accomplished, and the way opened to a more extended, correct, and entire developement and making out of the whole.

725. Should the setting forth of the rudiments of the Sciences in these Outlines fail to afford satisfaction to proficients therein, or to those who seek more extended information in any of their branches, we may plead, in justification, that to have adapted the Sciences to especial purposes would have been a departure from our design, and a sacrifice of the more principal object, of rendering them generally comprehensible in their universal relations and connexion, for the advancement of the whole.

726. And if any inquiring mind, accomplished in many sciences, should experience disappointment that some sciences, which he has been accustomed to regard as principal in the established ranks of science, are neither to be found in our series as genera, nor as simple species of the great

« PreviousContinue »