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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Books and their
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Title: Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

A study of the conditions of the production and
distribution of literature from the fall of the Roman
empire to the close of the seventeenth century, Vol. II

Author: George Haven Putnam

Release date: December 2, 2023 [eBook #72282]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1896

Credits: Charlene Taylor, Eleni Christofaki and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKS AND

THEIR MAKERS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES ***
 Transcriber’s note

Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation

inconsistencies have been silently repaired. A list of the changes made can be
found at the end of the book.

BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS

DURING THE MIDDLE AGES,
Vol. II

By Geo. Haven Putnam

Some Memories of the Civil War.—Together with an
appreciation of the career and character of Major-General
Israel Putnam, Leader in the Colonial Wars and in the War of
the Revolution.
Books and Their Makers during the Middle Ages.—A study
of the conditions of the production and distribution of
literature, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the close of the
Seventeenth Century. Two vols., sold separately. 8º, gilt top.
Volume I., 476-1600. Volume II., 1500-1709.
The Question of Copyright.—Comprising the text of the
Copyright Law of the United States, and a Summary of the
 Copyright Laws at present in force in the Chief Countries of
the World. Third edition, revised, with Additions, and with the
Record of Legislation brought down to March, 1896. 8º, gilt top.
The Censorship of the Church of Rome and Its Influence
upon the Production and Distribution of Literature.—A
Study of the History of the Prohibitory and Expurgatory
Indexes, Together with Some Consideration of the Effects of
Protestant Censorship and of Censorship by the State. Two
volumes, 8º. Uniform with “Books and Their Makers.”
Abraham Lincoln, the People’s Leader in the Struggle for
National Existence. Cr. 8º. With Portrait.
A Prisoner of War in Virginia, 1864-5. Cr. 8º. Illustrated.
Authors and Their Public.
Artificial Mother. Illustrated.
Little Gingerbread Man.
Memories of My Youth, 1844-1865. Portraits.
Memories of a Publisher. Portrait.
 BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS
DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

A STUDY OF THE CONDITIONS OF THE PRODUCTION AND

DISTRIBUTION OF LITERATURE FROM THE FALL OF
THE ROMAN EMPIRE TO THE CLOSE OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

BY
Geo. Haven Putnam, A.M.
AUTHOR OF “AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES”
“THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT,” ETC.

VOLUME II.
1500-1709

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
 Copyright, 1896
by
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London

Made in the United States of America

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 PREFACE.
In the general Preface to this work, printed in the first volume, I
pointed out that an account of the production and distribution of
books for the two centuries immediately succeeding the invention of
printing, must, of necessity, be chiefly devoted to the operations of
the printer-publishers of the period. During these centuries were
produced a number of the great books of the world’s literature, but it
was not possible, under the existing conditions, for the authors of
these books to influence materially the relations of literature to the
State or to the Church. Freedom of speech and even freedom of
thought depended very largely upon an untrammelled printing-press,
but the authors were able to give but little aid in the arduous task of
securing from the political and ecclesiastical authorities the right to
multiply books. It is true that the writers of the Reformation period
were in a position to render very important coöperation in the work of
developing a reading public and in the further work of creating
machinery by means of which such public could be reached. But
notwithstanding the noteworthy exception presented by the writings
from Wittenberg and Geneva, it remains the fact that for the centuries
in question, the works of contemporary authors constituted but an
inconsiderable proportion of the books published.
The lists of these earlier publishers were devoted to editions of the
complete Bible, and of the different groups of the Biblical books,
editions of the Greek and Roman classics and of the works of the
Church Fathers, and issues of certain philosophical treatises which
also were largely the work of writers of an earlier generation. To these
were added certain treatises on jurisprudence which came to be
accepted as authorities in the universities, together with the various
series of text-books adopted for college and for school work. With the
above were occasionally associated books by contemporary writers,
many of which became of continued importance. These formed,
however, as said, but a very small group as compared with the long
series of reissues of accepted classics, and it was by the latter that
what might be called the literary conditions of the time were in the
main determined. With the Reformation came an enormous increase
in the production of works by living writers. The controversies of the
period kept the printing-offices busy with the preparation of books
and pamphlets devoted to present issues, and the great output of
current controversial literature affected in several ways the conditions
and the methods of publishing. Up to this time the books that had
been published were nearly exclusively in the form of folios, quartos,
or large octavos. With an occasional exception, such as that of the
Aldine classics, the publishers and their scholarly customers appear
to have taken the ground that if a work was entitled to the honour of
being put into print, it was worthy of the most dignified form that the
presses were capable of producing; and, as was shown, later, in the
criticisms of correspondents of the Elzevirs and in other expressions,
there was a strong feeling among scholarly readers that the printing
of a work of literature in a sixteenmo or twelvemo volume, showed a
lack of respect for the author, for his public, and for literature itself.
This prejudice in favour of portly volumes was very largely modified,
although by no means entirely overcome, by the publications of the
Reformation. The intense interest in the theological issues and the
revival of religious fervour, brought into existence a new reading
public. The buying of books was no longer confined to princes and
scholars;—the masses of the people wanted to have in their hands
the writings of the Reformers or the replies of the defenders of the
Roman Church, and to an extent which is still cause for wonderment,
a very large proportion of the common people were able to read and
were eager to read the long series of argumentative essays many of
which were devoted to themes and discussions that could be
described as scholastic, and that the average citizen of to-day would
certainly consider hard reading. To meet the requirements of this new
reading public, requirements which called for material of small cost
and in a form convenient for distribution, the pamphlet came into
existence, and this was followed by the Flugschriften, or fly-leaf
literature, comprising papers or tracts of such brief compass that they
could be printed in four or even in two pages. These Flugschriften
were carried in the packs of pedlars into the market-places of towns
and villages and from farmhouse to farmhouse, and they secured a
wide distribution even in territories in which their circulation was
strictly prohibited under the severest of penalties. Some description
of this feature of the literary work of the Reformation is given in the
chapter on Luther.
While one result of the literary activity of the Reformation was to
popularise the work of the printing-press, another was an immediate
development of the censorship of the Press, both heretical and
ecclesiastical. The contention that the productions of the printers
must be subjected to the approval of the authorities of the State was
made promptly after the printing-press began its work. It was,
however, only when the Press came to be utilised as the most
effective ally of the heretical reformers, that the Church found it
necessary to put into force its ecclesiastical censorship, and that the
never-ending task began of advertising through the various Indices
Expurgatorii the titles of the long series of wicked or dangerous books
which the faithful believers were warned not to read, and which
brought very serious perils indeed upon the faithless heretics who
persisted in writing, printing, selling, or possessing them.
The responsibility for the selection of the books to be printed, with
the exception of the controversial writings of the Reformation period,
rested with the publishers of the time, and the direction of the literary
interests of the book-reading public (still, of course, a very small
fraction of the community) must have been not a little influenced by
the decisions arrived at by these publishers. I conclude, therefore,
that the publishers of this period must have exerted a larger measure
of influence over the direction of scholarly investigation and in the
shaping of the literary opinions of their age, than has been possible
for publishers in the subsequent centuries after the production of
books had been enormously increased, and when all classes of the
community had become readers.
In these later times the direction of the literary interests of the
diverse circles of the reading public came naturally into the hands of
the contemporary writers. While the reissue of the accepted classics
of previous generations remained (and must always remain) an
important division of the business of publishing, an ever increasing
proportion of the work of the publishers came to be given to the
comparatively routine work of distributing among readers the
literature of the day, in the production of which literature the authors
have, in part, led and directed, and, in part, simply followed and
supplied the tastes and the demands of their readers.
The fact that the position and the personal influence of the earlier
publishers were so exceptional in their character and importance is
my excuse for presenting with some detail the record of the work of a
few individuals and families selected as fairly representative of the
class. It seemed to me necessary in so doing, even at the risk of
adding to the dryness of the narrative, to include in the record lists of
titles (selected from the catalogues) of the more important of the
books issued by such representative publishers. These titles give in
convenient form for reference, material from which can be secured
not only an interesting indication of the personal interests and
capacities of the publishers themselves but an impression of the
literary tastes, requirements, and possibilities of the times and of the
several communities in which the work of these publishers was done.
I judge that a work of this special character will be utilised rather for
reference than for consecutive reading, and with this understanding,
it has seemed to me desirable to make as complete as possible the
record, presented in each section, of the subject matter considered in
such section, even although such a method has rendered necessary
an occasional repetition of statements of fact or of conclusions.
G. H. P.
New York, September, 1896.
 CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface iii
PART II.—THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.
(CONTINUED.)
IV.— The Early Printer-Publishers of France. 1458-1559 3
The Estiennes 15
V.— The Later Estiennes and Casaubon. 1537-1659 62
Isaac Casaubon 87
William Caxton, and the Introduction of Printing into
VI.— 101
England, 1422-1492
Wynken de Worde 133
Printing in Oxford 134
Later English Presses 137
VII.— The Kobergers of Nuremberg. 1440-1540 149
VIII.— Froben of Basel. 1460-1528 178
IX.— Erasmus and His Books. 1467-1536 192
X.— Luther as an Author. 1483-1546 216
XI.— The House of Plantin. 1555-1650 255
XII.— The Elzevirs of Leyden and Amsterdam. 1587-1688 286
PART III.—THE BEGINNINGS OF PROPERTY IN LITERATURE.
I.— Privileges and Censorship in Italy. 1498-1798 343
Censorship 352
 The Earliest Legislation in Venice 359
The Guild of Printers and Booksellers 364
Copyrights in Venice 369
The Inquisition 371
The Index and the Book-Trade 372
The Interdict and Fra Paolo Sarpi 384
The Printers’ Guild and Press Legislation 394
The Last Contest with Rome 401
II.— Privileges and Regulations in Germany. 1450-1698. 407
Regulations for the Control and the Censorship of
III.— 437
the Printing-Press in France. 1500-1700
Conflicting Authorities 437
Parliament, the University, and the Book-Trade 442
The Beginning of Legislation for the Encouragement 446
of Literature
The Relations of the Crown to Literary Production and
the Attempt of the Church to Secure a Portion of the 456
Control
IV.— The Beginnings of Literary Property in England. 1474- 464
1709
The Development of the Conception of Literary 477
V.—
Property
Index 511

PART II.
THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.
 PART II.
THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.
 CHAPTER IV.
THE EARLY PRINTER-PUBLISHERS OF FRANCE.
1458-1559.

T HE first reference in the annals of France to the new art of

printing occurs in a record bearing date October 3, 1458, the
original document of which is still preserved in the Library of the
Arsenal.[1] In this document it is stated that the King, having learned
that Messiro Gutenberg, Chevalier, residing in Mayence, in Germany,
a man dexterous in the engraving of stamps and of letters, had
brought to light, by means of such characters, the invention of
printing, and, curious concerning such valuable knowledge (bel
trésor), the King had ordered the masters of the mint to select
persons skilled in the engraver’s art and to dispatch them to Mayence
that they may inform themselves of the said invention. Under this
mandate, Nicholas Jenson, an expert engraver, was sent to
Mayence, where he did acquire the art as he had been instructed to
do. But before his return to Paris, the King had died, and Jenson,
understanding that the new monarch was not likely to be interested in
the undertaking, carried his knowledge to Venice, and was the means
(as we have seen in a previous chapter) of securing for this city an
early prestige for artistic typography and for scholarly publishing.
The King who had planned to bring the printing-press to Paris was
Charles VII., whose reign had begun with a full measure of disaster
and misfortune, but who had succeeded, in his later years, in the task
of consolidating his kingdom and in securing for his subjects, long
harassed by wars and invasions, some years of peace and
prosperity. During his stormy reign, Charles could not have enjoyed
much leisure for the cultivation of literature, but he is described by his
biographers as an appreciative patron of learning and as possessing
an intelligent interest in scholarship. It is probable, therefore, that if it
had not been for his unexpected death in 1461, the beginning of
printing in Paris would have been advanced by a decade, and that,
with the aid of royal favour and influence, Paris would have taken a
much more important place than it did among the earlier publishing
centres of Europe.
Louis XI., the son of Charles, during his reign of twenty-two years,
busied as he was with the work of securing a firm foundation for the
authority of the Crown, was not able to devote much thought to the
interests of literature. He found time, however, to reorganise the
Library of the Louvre, which had been founded in 1369, by Charles V.
(the Wise), and the continuation of which is represented to-day by the
Bibliothèque Nationale. Louis, while characterised as miserly, was
also known as a collector of choice books, and was an important
patron of certain scribes and illuminators, among others, of Jean
Fouquet of Tours.
It was in 1462 that the first examples of printed books were seen in
Paris. In that year, Fust brought from Mayence a supply of his folio
Bible, copies of which he was able to sell for fifty crowns. The usual
price for manuscripts of this compass had been from four to five
hundred crowns. It seems probable that there was little or no
foundation for the stories that were, later, told of Fust’s being harshly
treated as a magician, on the ground that the volumes he was
offering for sale could not have been produced by human hands, or
without the aid of the powers of evil. There was a manifest
improbability in the idea that Satan would interest himself in securing
a wider circulation for the holy Scriptures, unless possibly he had
taken occasion to inject into falsified texts some heretical or
pernicious doctrine. It is probable also that, by the time of Fust’s
arrival, more or less information must already have reached Paris
about the new art, and that, while it was still regarded as mysterious
and wonderful, it was recognised as a human invention that had in
other cities already been applied to practical uses.
The first publishing office in Paris was founded, in 1469, at the
request of two savants of the Sorbonne, Fichet and Heynlin, by
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Other documents randomly have
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subject; and that conjectural modes of action have in this instance
too often usurped the place of those to which a careful examination
of facts alone can lead us.
(372.) Philosophers had long been familiar with the effects of
electricity above referred to, and with those which it produces in its
sudden and violent transfer from one body to another, in rending
and shattering the parts of the substances through which it passes,
and where in great quantity, producing all the effect of intense heat,
igniting, fusing, and volatilizing metals, and setting fire to
inflammable bodies; even its occasional influence in destroying or
altering the polarity of the magnetic needle had been noticed: but as
heat was known to be produced by mechanical violence, and as
magnetism was also known to be greatly affected by the same
cause, these effects were referred rather to that cause than to any
thing in the peculiar nature of the electric matter, and regarded
rather as an indirect consequence of its mode of action than as
connected with its intimate nature. In short, electricity seemed
destined to furnish another in addition to many instances of subjects
insulated from the rest of philosophy, and capable of being studied
only in its own internal relations, when the great discoveries of
Galvani and Volta placed a new power at the command of the
experimenter, by whose means those effects which had before been
crowded within an inappreciable instant could be developed in detail
and studied at leisure; and those forces which had previously
exhibited themselves only in a state of uncontrollable intensity were
tamed down, as it were, and made to distribute their efficacy over
an indefinite time, and to regulate their action at the will of the
operator. It was then soon ascertained that electricity in the act of its
passage along conductors, produces a variety of wonderful effects,
which had never been previously suspected; and these of such a
nature, as to afford points of contact with several other branches of
physical enquiry, and to throw new and unexpected lights on some
of the most obscure operations of nature.
(373.) The history of this grand discovery affords a fine
illustration of the advantage to be derived in physical enquiry from a
close and careful attention to any phenomenon, however apparently
trifling, which may at the moment of observation appear inexplicable
on received principles. The convulsive motions of a dead frog in the
neighbourhood of an electric discharge, which originally drew
Galvani’s attention to the subject, had been noticed by others nearly
a century before his time, but attracted no further remark than as
indicating a peculiar sensibility to electrical excitement depending on
that remnant of vitality which is not extinguished in the organic
frame of an animal by the deprivation of actual life. Galvani was not
so satisfied. He analysed the phenomenon; and in investigating all
the circumstances connected with it was led to the observation of a
peculiar electrical excitement which took place when a circuit was
formed of three distinct parts, a muscle, a nerve, and a metallic
conductor, each placed in contact with the other two, and which was
manifested by a convulsive motion produced in the muscle. To this
phenomenon he gave the name of animal electricity, an unfortunate
epithet, since it tended to restrict enquiry into its nature to the class
of phenomena in which it first became apparent. But this
circumstance, which in a less enquiring age of science might have
exercised a fatal influence on the progress of knowledge, proved
happily no obstacle to the further developement of its principles, the
subject being immediately taken up with a kind of prophetic ardour
by Volta, who at once generalized the phenomena, rejecting the
physiological considerations introduced by Galvani, as foreign to the
enquiry, and regarding the contraction of the muscles as merely a
delicate means of detecting the production of electrical excitements
too feeble to be rendered sensible by any other means. It was thus
that he arrived at the knowledge of a general fact, that of the
disturbance of electrical equilibrium by the mere contact of different
bodies, and the circulation of a current of electricity in one constant
direction, through a circuit composed of three different conductors.
To increase the intensity of the very minute and delicate effect thus
observed became his next aim, nor did his enquiry terminate till it
had placed him in possession of that most wonderful of all human
inventions, the pile which bears his name, through the medium of a
series of well conducted and logically combined experiments, which
has rarely, if ever, been surpassed in the annals of physical research.
(374.) Though the original pile of Volta was feeble compared to
those gigantic combinations which were afterwards produced, it
sufficed, however, to exhibit electricity under a very different aspect
from any thing which had gone before, and to bring into view those
peculiar modifications in its action which Dr. Wollaston was the first
to render a satisfactory account of, by referring them to an increase
of quantity, accompanied with a diminution of intensity in the supply
afforded. The discovery had not long been made public, and the
instrument in the hands of chemists and electricians, before it was
ascertained that the electric current, transmitted by it through
conducting liquids, produces in them chemical decompositions. This
capital discovery appears to have been made, in the first instance,
by Messrs. Nicholson and Carlisle, who observed the decomposition
of water so produced. It was speedily followed up by the still more
important one of Berzelius and Hisinger, who ascertained it as a
general law, that, in all the decompositions so effected, the acids
and oxygen become transferred to, and accumulated around, the
positive,—and hydrogen, metals, and alkalies round the negative,
pole of a Voltaic circuit; being transferred in an invisible, and, as it
were, a latent or torpid state, by the action of the electric current,
through considerable spaces, and even through large quantities of
water or other liquids, again to re-appear with all their properties at
their appropriate resting-places.
(375.) It was in this state of things that the subject was taken up
by Davy, who, seeing that the strongest chemical affinities were thus
readily subverted by the decomposing action of the pile, conceived
the happy idea of bringing to bear the intense power of the
enormous batteries of the Royal Institution on those substances
which, though strongly suspected to be compounds, had resisted all
attempts to decompose them—the alkalies and earths. They yielded
to the force applied, and a total revolution was thus effected in
chemistry; not so much by the introduction of the new elements
thus brought to light, as by the mode of conceiving the nature of
chemical affinity, which from that time has been regarded (as Davy
broadly laid it down, in a theory which was readily adopted by the
most eminent chemists, and by none more readily than by Berzelius
himself,) as entirely due to electric attractions and repulsions, those
bodies combining most intimately whose particles are habitually in a
state of the most powerful electrical antagonism, and dispossessing
each other, according to the amount of their difference in this
respect.
(376.) The connection of magnetism and electricity had long
been suspected, and innumerable fruitless trials had been made to
determine, in the affirmative or negative, the question of such
connection. The phenomena of many crystallized minerals which
become electric by heat, and develope opposite electric poles at
their two extremities, offered an analogy so striking to the polarity of
the magnet, that it seemed hardly possible to doubt a closer
connection of the two powers. The developement of a similar
polarity in the Voltaic pile pointed strongly to the same conclusion;
and experiments had even been made with a view to ascertain
whether a pile in a state of excitement might not manifest a
disposition to place itself in the magnetic meridian; but the essential
condition had been omitted, that of allowing the pile to discharge
itself freely, a condition which assuredly never would have occurred
of itself to any experimenter. Of all the philosophers who had
speculated on this subject, none had so pertinaciously adhered to
the idea of a necessary connection between the phenomena as
Oërsted. Baffled often, he returned to the attack; and his
perseverance was at length rewarded by the complete disclosure of
the wonderful phenomena of electro-magnetism. There is something
in this which reminds us of the obstinate adherence of Columbus to
his notion of the necessary existence of the New World; and the
whole history of this beautiful discovery may serve to teach us
reliance on those general analogies and parallels between great
branches of science by which one strongly reminds us of another,
though no direct connection appears; as an indication not to be
neglected of a community of origin.
 (377.) It is highly probable that we are still ignorant of many
interesting features in electrical science, which the study of the
Voltaic circuit will one day disclose. The violent mechanical effects
produced by it on mercury, placed under conducting liquids which
have been referred by Professor Erman to a modified form of
capillary attraction, but which a careful and extended view of the
57
phenomena have led others to regard in a very different light, as
pointing out a primary action of a dynamical rather than a statical
character, deserve, in this point of view, a further investigation; and
the curious relations of electricity to heat, as exhibited in the
phenomena of what has been called thermo-electricity, promise an
ample supply of new information.
(378.) Among the remarkable effects of electricity disclosed by
the researches of Galvani and Volta, perhaps the most so consisted
in its influence on the nervous system of animals. The origin of
muscular motion is one of those profound mysteries of nature which
we can scarcely venture to hope will ever be fully explained.
Physiologists, however, had long entertained a general conception of
the conveyance of some subtle fluid or spirit from the brain to the
muscles of animals along the nerves; and the discovery of the rapid
transmission of electricity along conductors, with the violent effects
produced by shocks, transmitted through the body, on the nervous
system, would very naturally lead to the idea that this nervous fluid,
if it had any real existence, might be no other than the electrical. But
until the discoveries of Galvani and Volta, this could only be looked
upon as a vague conjecture. The character of a vera causa was
wanting to give it any degree of rational plausibility, since no reason
could be imagined for the disturbance of the electrical equilibrium in
the animal frame, composed as it is entirely of conductors, or rather,
it seemed contrary to the then known laws of electrical
communication to suppose any such. Yet one strange and surprising
phenomenon might be adduced indicative of the possibility of such
disturbance, viz. the powerful shock given by the torpedo and other
fishes of the same kind, which presented so many analogies with
those arising from electricity, that they could hardly be referred to a
different source, though besides the shock neither spark nor any
other indication of electrical tension could be detected in them.
(379.) The benumbing effect of the torpedo had been
ascertained to depend on certain singularly constructed organs
composed of membranous columns, filled from end to end with
laminæ, separated from each other by a fluid: but of its mode of
action no satisfactory account could be given; nor was there any
thing in its construction, and still less in the nature of its materials,
to give the least ground for supposing it an electrical apparatus. But
the pile of Volta supplied at once the analogies both of structure and
of effect, so as to leave little doubt of the electrical nature of the
apparatus, or of the power, a most wonderful one certainly, of the
animal, to determine, by an effort of its will, that concurrence of
conditions on which its activity depends. This remained, as it
probably ever will remain, mysterious and inexplicable; but the
principle once established, that there exists in the animal economy a
power of determining the developement of electric excitement,
capable of being transmitted along the nerves, and it being
ascertained, by numerous and decisive experiments, that the
transmission of Voltaic electricity along the nerves of even a dead
animal is sufficient to produce the most violent muscular action, it
became an easy step to refer the origin of muscular motion in the
living frame to a similar cause; and to look to the brain, a
wonderfully constituted organ, for which no mode of action
possessing the least plausibility had ever been devised, as the
58
source of the required electrical power.
(380.) It is not our intention, however, to enter into any further
consideration of physiological subjects. They form, it is true, a most
important and deeply interesting province of philosophical enquiry;
but the view that we have taken of physical science has rather been
directed to the study of inanimate nature, than to that of the
mysterious phenomena of organization and life, which constitute the
object of physiology. The history of the animal and vegetable
productions of the globe, as affording objects and materials for the
convenience and use of man, and as dependent on and indicative of
the general laws which determine the distribution of heat, moisture,
and other natural agents, over its surface, and the revolutions it has
undergone, are of course intimately connected with our subject, and
will, therefore, naturally afford room for some remarks, but not such
as will long detain the reader’s attention.
(381.) In zoology, the connection of peculiar modes of life and
food, with peculiarities of structure, has given rise to systems of
classification at once obvious and natural; and the great progress
which has been made in comparative anatomy has enabled us to
trace a graduated scale of organization almost through the whole
chain of animal being; a scale not without its intervals, but which
every successive discovery of animals heretofore unknown has
tended to fill up. The wonders disclosed by microscopic observation
have opened to us a new world, in which we discover, with
astonishment, the extremes of minuteness and complexity of
structure united; while, on the other hand, the examination of the
fossil remains of a former state of creation has demonstrated the
existence of animals far surpassing in magnitude those now living,
and brought to light many forms of being which have nothing
analogous to them at present, and many others which afford
important connecting links between existing genera. And, on the
other hand, the researches of the comparative anatomist and
conchologist have thrown the greatest light on the studies of the
geologist, and enabled him to discern, through the obscure medium
of a few relics, scattered here and there through a stratum,
circumstances connected with the formation of the stratum itself
which he could have recognised by no other indication. This is one
among many striking instances of the unexpected lights which
sciences, however apparently remote, may throw upon each other.
(382.) To botany many of the same remarks apply. Its artificial
systems of classification, however convenient, have not prevented
botanists from endeavouring to group together the objects of their
science in natural classes having a community of character more
intimate than those which determine their place in the Linnean or
any similar system; a community of character extending over the
whole habit and properties of the individuals compared. The
important chemical discoveries which have been lately made of
peculiar proximate principles which, in an especial manner,
characterize certain families of plants, hold out the prospect of a
greatly increased field of interesting knowledge in this direction, and
not only interesting, but in a high degree important, when it is
considered that the principles thus brought into view are, for the
most part, very powerful medicines, and are, in fact, the essential
ingredients on which the medical virtues of the plants depend. The
law of the distribution of the generic forms of plants over the globe,
too, has, within a comparatively recent period, become an object of
study to the naturalist; and its connection with the laws of climate
constitutes one of the most interesting and important branches of
natural-historical enquiry, and one on which great light remains to be
thrown by future researches. It is this which constitutes the chief
connecting link between botany and geology, and renders a
knowledge of the vegetable fossils, of any portion of the earth’s
surface, indispensable to the formation of a correct judgment of the
circumstances under which it existed in its ancient state. Fossil
botany is accordingly cultivated with great and increasing ardour;
and the subterraneous “Flora” of a geological formation is, in many
instances, studied with a degree of care and precision little inferior
to that which its surface exhibits.
 CHAP. VI.
OF THE CAUSES OF THE ACTUAL RAPID ADVANCE OF THE
PHYSICAL SCIENCES COMPARED WITH THEIR PROGRESS
AT AN EARLIER PERIOD.

T
(383.) here is no more extraordinary contrast than that presented
by the slow progress of the physical sciences, from the earliest ages
of the world to the close of the sixteenth century, and the rapid
developement they have since experienced. In the former period of
their history, we find only small additions to the stock of knowledge,
made at long intervals of time; during which a total indifference on
the part of the mass of mankind to the study of nature operated to
effect an almost complete oblivion of former discoveries, or, at best,
permitted them to linger on record, rather as literary curiosities, than
as possessing, in themselves, any intrinsic interest and importance.
A few enquiring individuals, from age to age, might perceive their
value, and might feel that irrepressible thirst after knowledge which,
in minds of the highest order, supplies the absence both of external
stimulus and opportunity. But the total want of a right direction
given to enquiry, and of a clear perception of the objects to be
aimed at, and the advantages to be gained by systematic and
connected research, together with the general apathy of society to
speculations remote from the ordinary affairs of life, and studiously
kept involved in learned mystery, effectually prevented these
occasional impulses from overcoming the inertia of ignorance, and
impressing any regular and steady progress on science. Its objects,
indeed, were confined in a region too sublime for vulgar
comprehension. An earthquake, a comet, or a fiery meteor, would
now and then call the attention of the whole world, and produce
from all quarters a plentiful supply of crude and fanciful conjectures
on their causes; but it was never supposed that sciences could exist
among common objects, have a place among mechanical arts, or
find worthy matter of speculation in the mine or the laboratory. Yet it
cannot be supposed, that all the indications of nature continually
passed unremarked, or that much good observation and shrewd
reasoning on it failed to perish unrecorded, before the invention of
printing enabled every one to make his ideas known to all the world.
The moment this took place, however, the sparks of information
from time to time struck out, instead of glimmering for a moment,
and dying away in oblivion, began to accumulate into a genial glow,
and the flame was at length kindled which was speedily to acquire
the strength and rapid spread of a conflagration. The universal
excitement in the minds of men throughout Europe, which the first
out-break of modern science produced, has been already spoken of.
But even the most sanguine anticipators could scarcely have looked
forward to that steady, unintermitted progress which it has since
maintained, nor to that rapid succession of great discoveries which
has kept up the interest of the first impulse still vigorous and
undiminished. It may truly, indeed, be said, that there is scarcely a
single branch of physical enquiry which is either stationary, or which
has not been, for many years past, in a constant state of advance,
and in which the progress is not, at this moment, going on with
accelerated rapidity.
(384.) Among the causes of this happy and desirable state of
things, no doubt we are to look, in the first instance, to that great
increase in wealth and civilization which has at once afforded the
necessary leisure and diffused the taste for intellectual pursuits
among numbers of mankind, which have long been and still continue
steadily progressive in every principal European state, and which the
increase and fresh establishment of civilized communities in every
distant region are rapidly spreading over the whole globe. It is not,
however, merely the increased number of cultivators of science, but
their enlarged opportunities, that we have here to consider, which, in
all those numerous departments of natural research that require
local information, is in fact the most important consideration of all.
To this cause we must trace the great extension which has of late
years been conferred on every branch of natural history, and the
immense contributions which have been made, and are daily
making, to the departments of zoology and botany, in all their
ramifications. It is obvious, too, that all the information that can
possibly be procured, and reported, by the most enlightened and
active travellers, must fall infinitely short of what is to be obtained
by individuals actually resident upon the spot. Travellers, indeed,
may make collections, may snatch a few hasty observations, may
note, for instance, the distribution of geological formations in a few
detached points, and now and then witness remarkable local
phenomena; but the resident alone can make continued series of
regular observations, such as the scientific determination of climates,
tides, magnetic variations, and innumerable other objects of that
kind, requires; can alone mark all the details of geological structure,
and refer each stratum, by a careful and long continued observation
of its fossil contents, to its true epoch; can alone note the habits of
the animals of his country, and the limits of its vegetation, or obtain
a satisfactory knowledge of its mineral contents, with a thousand
other particulars essential to that complete acquaintance with our
globe as a whole, which is beginning to be understood by the
extensive designation of physical geography. Besides which, ought
not to be omitted multiplied opportunities of observing and recording
those extraordinary phenomena of nature which offer an intense
interest, from the rarity of their occurrence as well as the instruction
they are calculated to afford. To what, then, may we not look
forward, when a spirit of scientific enquiry shall have spread through
those vast regions in which the process of civilization, its sure
precursor, is actually commenced and in active progress? And what
may we not expect from the exertions of powerful minds called into
action under circumstances totally different from any which have yet
existed in the world, and over an extent of territory far surpassing
that which has hitherto produced the whole harvest of human
intellect? In proportion as the number of those who are engaged on
each department of physical enquiry increases, and the geographical
extent over which they are spread is enlarged, a proportionately
increased facility of communication and interchange of knowledge
becomes essential to the prosecution of their researches with full
advantage. Not only is this desirable, to prevent a number of
individuals from making the same discoveries at the same moment,
which (besides the waste of valuable time) has always been a fertile
source of jealousies and misunderstandings, by which great evils
have been entailed on science; but because methods of observation
are continually undergoing new improvements, or acquiring new
facilities, a knowledge of which, it is for the general interest of
science, should be diffused as widely and as rapidly as possible. By
this means, too, a sense of common interest, of mutual assistance,
and a feeling of sympathy in a common pursuit, are generated,
which proves a powerful stimulus to exertion; and, on the other
hand, means are thereby afforded of detecting and pointing out
mistakes before it is too late for their rectification.
(385.) Perhaps it may be truly remarked, that, next to the
establishment of institutions having either the promotion of science
in general, or, what is still more practically efficacious in its present
advanced state, that of particular departments of physical enquiry,
for their express objects, nothing has exercised so powerful an
influence on the progress of modern science as the publication of
monthly and quarterly scientific journals, of which there is now
scarcely a nation in Europe which does not produce several. The
quick and universal circulation of these, places observers of all
countries on the same level of perfect intimacy with each other’s
objects and methods, while the abstracts they from time to time (if
well conducted) contain of the most important researches of the day
consigned to the more ponderous tomes of academical collections,
serve to direct the course of general observation, as well as to hold
out, in the most conspicuous manner, models for emulative
imitation. In looking forward to what may hereafter be expected
from this cause of improvement, we are not to forget the powerful
effect which must in future be produced by the spread of elementary
works and digests of what is actually known in each particular
branch of science. Nothing can be more discouraging to one
engaged in active research, than the impression that all he is doing
may, very likely, be labour taken in vain; that it may, perhaps, have
been already done, and much better done, than, with his
opportunities, or his resources, he can hope to perform it; and, on
the other hand, nothing can be more exciting than the contrary
impression. Thus, by giving a connected view of what has been
done, and what remains to be accomplished in every branch, those
digests and bodies of science, which from time to time appear, have,
in fact, a very important weight in determining its future progress,
quite independent of the quantity of information they communicate.
With respect to elementary treatises, it is needless to point out their
utility, or to dwell on the influence which their actual abundance,
contrasted with their past remarkable deficiency, is likely to exercise
over the future. It is only by condensing, simplifying, and arranging,
in the most lucid possible manner, the acquired knowledge of past
generations, that those to come can be enabled to avail themselves
to the full of the advanced point from which they will start.
(386.) One of the means by which an advanced state of physical
science contributes greatly to accelerate and secure its further
progress, is the exact knowledge acquired of physical data, or those
normal quantities which we have more than once spoken of in the
preceding pages (222.); a knowledge which enables us not only to
appretiate the accuracy of experiments, but even to correct their
results. As there is no surer criterion of the state of science in any
age than the degree of care bestowed, and discernment exhibited,
in the choice of such data, so as to afford the simplest possible
grounds for the application of theories, and the degree of accuracy
attained in their determination, so there is scarcely any thing by
which science can be more truly benefited than by researches
directed expressly to this object, and to the construction of tables
exhibiting the true numerical relations of the elements of theories,
and the actual state of nature, in all its different branches. It is only
by such determinations that we can ascertain what changes are
slowly and imperceptibly taking place in the existing order of things;
and the more accurate they are, the sooner will this knowledge be
acquired. What might we not now have known of the motions of the
(so-called) fixed stars, had the ancients possessed the means of
observation we now possess, and employed them as we employ
them now?
(387.) In any enumeration of causes which have contributed to
the recent rapid advancement of science, we must not forget the
very important one of improved and constantly improving means of
observation, both in instruments adapted for the exact measurement
of quantity, and in the general convenience and well-judged
adaptation to its purposes, of every description of scientific
apparatus. In the actual state of science there are few observations
which can be productive of any great advantage but such as afford
accurate measurement; and an increased refinement in this respect
is constantly called for. The degree of delicacy actually attained, we
will not say in the most elaborate works of the highest art, but in
such ordinary apparatus as every observer may now command, is
such as could not have been arrived at unless in a state of the
mechanical arts, which in its turn (such is the mutual re-action of
cause and effect) requires for its existence a very advanced state of
science. What an important influence may be exercised over the
progress of a single branch of science by the invention of a ready
and convenient mode of executing a definite measurement, and the
construction and common introduction of an instrument adapted for
it cannot be better exemplified than by the instance of the reflecting
goniometer. This simple, cheap, and portable little instrument, has
changed the face of mineralogy, and given it all the characters of
one of the exact sciences.
(388.) Our means of perceiving and measuring minute
quantities, in the important relations of weight, space, and time,
seem already to have been carried to a point which it is hardly
conceivable they should surpass. Balances have been constructed
which have rendered sensible the millionth part of the whole
quantity weighed; and to turn with the thousandth part of a grain is
the performance of balances pretending to no very extraordinary
degree of merit. The elegant invention of the sphærometer, by
substituting the sense of touch for that of sight in the measurement
of minute objects, permits the determination of their dimensions
with a degree of precision which is fully adequate to the nicest
purposes of scientific enquiry. By its aid an inch may be readily
subdivided into ten or even twenty thousand parts; and the lever of
contact, an instrument in use among the German opticians, enables
us to appretiate quantities of space even yet smaller. For the
subdivision of time, too, the perfection of modern mechanism has
furnished resources which leave very little to be desired. By the aid
of clocks and chronometers, as they are now constructed, a few
tenths of a second is all the error that need be apprehended in the
subdivision of a day; and for the further subdivision of smaller
portions of time, instruments have been imagined which admit of
almost unlimited precision, and permit us to appreciate intervals to
the nicety of the hundredth, or even the thousandth part of a single
59
second. When the precision attainable by such means is contrasted
with what could be procured a few generations ago, by the rude and
clumsy workmanship of even the early part of the last century, it will
be no matter of astonishment that the sciences which depend on
exact measurements should have made a proportional progress. Nor
will any degree of nicety in physical determinations appear beyond
our reach, if we consider the inexhaustible resources which science
itself furnishes, in rendering the quantities actually to be determined
by measure great multiples of the elements required for the
purposes of theory, so as to diminish in the same proportion the
influence of any errors which may be committed on the final results.
(389.) Great, indeed, as have been of late the improvements in
the construction of instruments, both as to what regards
convenience and accuracy, it is to the discovery of improved
methods of observation that the chief progress of those parts of
science which depend on exact determinations is owing. The balance
of torsion, the ingenious invention of Cavendish and Coulomb, may
be cited as an example of what we mean. By its aid we are enabled
not merely to render sensible, but to subject to precise
measurement and subdivision, degrees of force infinitely too feeble
to affect the nicest balance of the usual construction, even were it
possible to bring them to act on it. The galvanometer, too, affords
another example of the same kind, in an instrument whose range of
utility lies among electric forces which we have no other means of
rendering sensible, much less of estimating with exactness. In
determinations of quantities less minute in themselves, the methods
devised by Messrs. Arago and Fresnel, for the measurement of the
refractive powers of transparent media by means of the
phenomenon of diffraction, may be cited as affording a degree of
precision limited only by the wishes of the observer, and the time
and patience he is willing to devote to his observation. And in
respect of the direction of observations to points from which real
information is to be obtained, and positive conclusions drawn, the
hygrometer of Daniell may be cited as an elegant example of the
introduction into general use of an instrument substituting an
indication founded on strict principles for one perfectly arbitrary.
(390.) In speculating on the future prospects of physical science,
we should not be justified in leaving out of consideration the
probability, or rather certainty, of the occasional occurrence of those
happy accidents which have had so powerful an influence on the
past; occasions, where a fortunate combination opportunely noticed
may admit us in an instant to the knowledge of principles of which
no suspicion might occur but for some such casual notice. Boyle has
entitled one of his essays thus remarkably,—“Of Man’s great
Ignorance of the Uses of natural Things; or that there is no one
Thing in Nature whereof the Uses to human Life are yet thoroughly
60
understood.” The whole history of the arts since Boyle’s time has
been one continued comment on this text; and if we regard among
the uses of the works of nature, that, assuredly the noblest of all,
which leads us to a knowledge of the Author of nature through the
contemplation of the wonderful means by which he has wrought out
his purposes in his works, the sciences have not been behind hand
in affording their testimony to its truth. Nor are we to suppose that
the field is in the slightest degree narrowed, or the chances in favour
of such fortunate discoveries at all decreased, by those which have
already taken place: on the contrary, they have been incalculably
extended. It is true that the ordinary phenomena which pass before
our eyes have been minutely examined, and those more striking and
obvious principles which occur to superficial observation have been
noticed and embodied in our systems of science; but, not to mention
that by far the greater part of natural phenomena remain yet
unexplained, every new discovery in science brings into view whole
classes of facts which would never otherwise have fallen under our
notice at all, and establishes relations which afford to the philosophic
mind a constantly extending field of speculation, in ranging over
which it is next to impossible that he should not encounter new and
unexpected principles. How infinitely greater, for instance, are the
mere chances of discovery in chemistry among the innumerable
combinations with which the modern chemist is familiar, than at a
period when two or three imaginary elements, and some ten or
twenty substances, whose properties were known with an approach
to distinctness, formed the narrow circle within which his ideas had
to revolve? How many are the instances where a new substance, or
a new property, introduced into familiar use, by being thus brought
into relation with all our actual elements of knowledge, has become
the means of developing properties and principles among the most
common objects, which could never have otherwise been
discovered? Had not platina (to take an instance) been an object of
the most ordinary occurrence in a laboratory, would a suspicion have
ever occurred that a lamp could be constructed to burn without
flame; and should we have ever arrived at a knowledge of those
curious phenomena and products of semi-combustion which this
beautiful experiment discloses?
(391.) Finally, when we look back on what has been
accomplished in science, and compare it with what remains to be
done, it is hardly possible to avoid being strongly impressed with the
idea that we have been and are still executing the labour by which
 61
succeeding generations are to profit. In a few instances only have
we arrived at those general axiomatic laws which admit of direct
deductive inference, and place the solutions of physical phenomena
before us as so many problems, whose principles of solution we fully
possess, and which require nothing but acuteness of reasoning to
pursue even into their farthest recesses. In fewer still have we
reached that command of abstract reasoning itself which is
necessary for the accomplishment of so arduous a task. Science,
therefore, in relation to our faculties, still remains boundless and
unexplored, and, after the lapse of a century and a half from the
æra of Newton’s discoveries, during which every department of it
has been cultivated with a zeal and energy which have assuredly
met their full return, we remain in the situation in which he figured
himself,—standing on the shore of a wide ocean, from whose beach
we may have culled some of those innumerable beautiful
productions it casts up with lavish prodigality, but whose acquisition
can be regarded as no diminution of the treasures that remain.
(392.) But this consideration, so far from repressing our efforts,
or rendering us hopeless of attaining any thing intrinsically great,
ought rather to excite us to fresh enterprise, by the prospect of
assured and ample recompense from that inexhaustible store which
only awaits our continued endeavours. “It is no detraction from
human capacity to suppose it incapable of infinite exertion, or of
62
exhausting an infinite subject.” In whatever state of knowledge we
may conceive man to be placed, his progress towards a yet higher
state need never fear a check, but must continue till the last
existence of society.
(393.) It is in this respect an advantageous view of science,
which refers all its advances to the discovery of general laws, and to
the inclusion of what is already known in generalizations of still
higher orders; inasmuch as this view of the subject represents it, as
it really is, essentially incomplete, and incapable of being fully
embodied in any system, or embraced by any single mind. Yet it
must be recollected that, so far as our experience has hitherto gone,
every advance towards generality has at the same time been a step
towards simplification. It is only when we are wandering and lost in
the mazes of particulars, or entangled in fruitless attempts to work
our way downwards in the thorny paths of applications, to which our
reasoning powers are incompetent, that nature appears complicated:
—the moment we contemplate it as it is, and attain a position from
which we can take a commanding view, though but of a small part
of its plan, we never fail to recognise that sublime simplicity on
which the mind rests satisfied that it has attained the truth.
 INDEX.

Acoustics cultivated by Pythagoras and Aristotle, page 248.

Æpinus, his laws of equilibrium of electricity, 332.
Aëriform fluids, liquids kept in a state of vapour, 321.
Agricola, George, his knowledge of mineralogy and metallurgy, 112.
Air, compressibility and elasticity of; limitation to the repulsive
tendency of, 226.
Weight of, unknown to the ancients, 228.
First perceived by Galileo, 228.
Proved by a crucial instance, 229.
Equilibrium of, established, 231.
Dilatation of, by heat, 319.
Air-pump, discovery of, 230.
Airy, his experiments in Dolcoath mine, 187.
Alchemists, advantages derived from, 11.
Algebra, 19.
Ampere, his electro-dynamic theory, 202.
Utility of, 203, 324.
Analysis of force, 86.
Of motion, 87.
Of complex phenomena, 88.
Anaxagoras, philosophy of, 107.
Animal electricity, 337.
Arago, M., his experiment with a magnetic needle and a plate of
copper, 157.
Archimedes, his practical application of science, 72.
His knowledge of hydrostatics, 231.
Arfwedson, his discovery of lithia, 158.
Aristotle, his knowledge of natural history, 109.
His works condemned, and subsequently studied with avidity, 111.
His philosophy overturned by the discoveries of Copernicus,
Kepler, and Galileo, 113.
Arithmetic, 19.
Art, empirical and scientific, differences between, 71.
Remarks on the language, terms, or signs, used in treating of it,
70.
Assurances, life, utility and abuses of, 58.
Astronomy, cause of the slow progress of our knowledge of, 78.
Theory and practical observations distinct in, 132.
An extensive acquaintance with science and every branch of
knowledge necessary to make a perfect observer in, 132.
Five primary planets added to our system, 274.
Positions, figures, and dimensions of all the planetary orbits now
well known, 275.
Atomic theory, 305.
Advantage of, 306.
Atomic weights of chemical elements, 306.
Attraction, capillary, or capillarity, investigated by Laplace and Young,
234.

Bacon, celebrated in England for his knowledge of science, 72.

Benefits conferred on Natural Philosophy by him, 104.
His Novum Organum, 105.
His reform in philosophy proves the paramount importance of
induction, 114.
His prerogative of facts, 181.
Illustrated by the fracture of a crystallized substance, 183.
His collective instances, 184.
Importance of, 185.
 His experiment on the weight of bodies, 186.
Travelling instances of, frontier instances of, 188.
His difference between liquids and aëriform fluids, 233.
Bartolin, Erasmus, first discovers the phenomena exhibited by doubly
refracting crystals, 254.
Beccher, phlogistic doctrines of, 300.
Bergmann, his advancement in crystallography, 239.
Bernoulli, experiments of, in hydrodynamical science, 181.
Biot, his hypothesis of a rotatory motion of the particles of light
about their axes, 262.
Black, Dr., his discovery of latent heat, 322.
Bode, his curious law observed in the progression of the magnitudes
of the several planetary orbits, 308.
Bodies, natural constitution of, 221.
Division of, into crystallized and uncrystallized, 242.
Bones, dry, a magazine of nutriment, 65.
Borda, his invention for subdivision, 128.
Botany, general utility of, 345.
Boyle, Robert, his enthusiasm in the pursuit of science, 115.
His improvement on the air-pump, 230.
Brain, hypothesis of its being an electric pile, 343.
Bramah’s press, principle and utility of, 233.
Brewster, Dr., his improvement on lenses for lighthouses, 56.
His researches prove that the phenomena exhibited by polarized
light, in its transmission through crystals, afford a certain
indication of the most important points relating to the
structure of crystals themselves, 263.

Cabot, Sebastian, his discovery of the variation of the needle, 327.

Cagnard, Baron de la Tour, utility of his experiments, 234.
Causes and consequences directors of the will of man, 6.
Causes, proximate, discovery of, called by Newton veræ causæ, 144.
Celestial mechanics, 265.
Chaldean records, 265.
Chemistry furnishes causes of sudden action, also fulminating
compositions, 62.
Analogy of the complex phenomena of, with those of physics, 92.
Benefits arising from the analysis of, 94.
Axioms of, analogous to those of geometry, 95.
Many of the new elements of, detected in the investigation of
residual phenomena, 158.
The most general law of, 209.
Illustration of, 210.
Between fifty and sixty elements in, 211.
Objects of, 296.
General heads of the principal improvements in, 302.
Remarks on those general heads, 304.
Chemistry, Stahlian, cause of the mistakes and confusions of, 123.
Chladni, experiments of, in dynamical science, 181.
Chlorine, disinfectant powers of, 56.
Clarke, Dr., his experiments on the arseniate and phosphate of soda,
170.
His success in producing a new phosphate of soda, 171.
Climate, change of, in large tracts of the globe, alleged cause of,
145.
Coals, power of a bushel of, properly consumed, 59.
Quantity consumed in London, 60.
Cohesion, an ultimate phenomenon, 90.
Cold, qualities of, 318.
Compass, mariner’s, 55.
Condensation, a source of heat, 313.
Conduction of heat, laws of, 205.
Copernicus, effect of his discoveries on the Aristotelian philosophy,
113.
Objections to his astronomical doctrines, 269.
Crystallography, laws of, 123, 239.
 A determinate figure supposed to be common to all the particles
of a crystal, 242.

D’Alembert, his improvements in hydrodynamics, 236.

Dalton, his announcement of the atomic theory, 305.
His examination of gases and vapours, 319.
Davy, Sir H., brings the voltaic pile to bear upon the earths and
alkalies, 339.
Deduction, utility of, 174.
De l’Isle, Romé, his study of crystalline bodies, 239.
Dew, causes of, investigated, 159.
Effects of, on different substances, 160.
Objects capable of contracting it, 161.
A cloudless sky favourable to its production, 162.
General proximate cause of, 163.
Drummond, lieutenant, his improvement on lenses for lamps of
lighthouses, 56.
Dynamics, importance of, 96, 223.

Earth, the orbit of,—diminution of its eccentricity round the sun, 147.
Economy, political, 73.
Egypt, great pyramid of, height, weight, and ground occupied by it,
60.
Accuracy of the astronomical records of, 265.
Elasticity, an ultimate phenomenon, 90.
Electricity may be the cause of magnetism, 93.
Universality of, 329.
Effects of, 330.
Activity of, 331.
Equilibrium of, 332.
Productive of chemical decomposition, 338.
Empirical laws, 178.
Evils resulting from, 179.
Encke, professor, his prediction of the return of the comet so many
times in succession, 156.
Englefield, sir H., his analysis of a solar beam, 314.
Equilibrium maintained by force, 222.
Erman, professor, his opinion of the effects of the voltaic circuit, 340.
Euler, his improvement on Newton’s theory of sound, 247.
Experience, source of our knowledge of nature’s laws, 76.
Experiment, a means of acquiring experience, 76.
Utility of, 151.

Facts, the observation of, 118.

Faujas de St. Fond, imaginary craters of, 131.
Fluids, laws of the motion of, 181.
Compressibility of, 225.
Consideration of the motions of, more complicated than that of
equilibrium, 235.
Force, analysis of, 86.
The cause of motion, 149.
Phenomena of, 221.
Molecular forces, 245.
Fourier, baron, his opinion that the celestial regions have a
temperature, independent of the sun, not greatly inferior to
that at which quicksilver congeals, 157.
His analysis of the laws of conduction and radiation of heat, 317.
Franklin, Dr., his experiments on electricity, 332.
Fresnel, M., his mathematical explanation of the phenomena of
double refraction, 32.
His improvement on lenses for lamps of lighthouses, 56.
His opinions on the nature of light, 207.
His experiments on the interference of polarized light, 261.
His theory of polarization, 262.
Friction, a source of heat, 313.

Galileo, celebrity of, for his knowledge of science, 72.

 His exposition of the Aristotelian philosophy, 110.
His refutation of Aristotle’s dogmas respecting motion, his
persecution in consequence of it, 113.
His knowledge of the accelerating power of gravity, 168.
His knowledge of the weight of the atmosphere, 228.
Galvani, utility of his discoveries in electricity, 335.
His application of it to animals, 336.
Gay-Lussac, his examination of gases and vapours, 319.
Generalization, inductive, 1, 90.
Geology, 281.
Its rank as a science, 287.
Geometry, axioms of, an appeal to experience, not corporeal, but
mental, 95.
Gilbert, Dr., of Colchester, his knowledge of magnetism and
electricity, 112.
Gravitation, law of, a physical axiom of a very high and universal
kind, 98.
Influence of, decreases in the inverse ratio of the square of the
distance, 123.
Greece, philosophers of, their extraordinary success in abstract
reasoning, and their careless consideration of external nature,
105.
Their general character, 106.
Philosophy of, 108.
Grimaldi, a jesuit of Bologna, his discovery of diffraction, or inflection
of light, 252.
Guinea and feather experiment, 168.
Gunpowder, invention of, 55.
A mechanical agent, 62.

Haarlem lake, draining of, 61.

Harmony, sense of, 248.
Head, captain, anecdote of, 84.
Heat, 193.
Radiation and conduction of, 205.
One of the chief agents in chemistry, 310.
Our ignorance of the nature of, 310.
Abuse of the sense of the term, 311.
The general heads under which it is studied, 312.
Its most obvious sources, 312.
Animal heat, to what process referable, 313.
Radiation and conduction of, 314.
Solar heat differs from terrestrial fires, or hot bodies, 315.
Principal effects of, 317.
The antagonist to mutual attraction, 322.
Latent heat, 322.
Specific heat, 323.
Herschel, sir William, his analysis of a solar beam, 314.
Hipparchus, his catalogue of stars, 276.
Holland drained of water by windmills, 61.
Hooke almost the rival of Newton, 116.
Huel Towan, steam-engine at, 59.
Huyghens, his doctrine of light, 207.
Ascertains the laws of double refraction, 254.
Hydrostatics, first step towards a knowledge of, made by
Archimedes, 231.
Law of the equal pressure of liquids, 232.
General applicability of, 232.
Hypothesis, not to be deterred from framing them, 196.
Conditions on which they should be framed, 197.
Illustrated by the laws of gravitation, 198.
Use and abuse of, 204.

Induction, different ways of carrying it on, 102.

Steps by which it is arrived at on a legitimate and extensive scale,
118.
First stage of, 144.
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