individual benefited by the experience or by the improvements of all its predeceffors. Man alone has received from his Divine Creator the inestimable advantage of being benefited by the knowledge of his forefathers, and of his being able to bequeath that knowledge, together with his own improvements, to his pofterity. The accumulated experience of a long feries of years, accurately recorded in a vast many books, or traditionally imparted from one generation to the other, gradually exalts the ftate of human beings, fupplies their wants, increases their fecurity, and promotes their happiness. The plough, the loom, the forge, the prefs, the glass-house, and innumerable other useful inventions of our predeceffors, fucceffively improved by conftant use and experience, form the invaluable advantages of modern times; and their combined effect, actually elevates the individuals of a modern civilized nation, fo far above the uninftructed favages, as might almost seem to render them of a different fpecies. That experience, properly difpofed under diftinct heads, forms the various fubjects of knowledge. The arrangement, and the elucidation of each particular fubject, is called a Science. The ultimate or the practical application of it is called an Art. Arts and fciences are too numerous and too extended, to be comprehended in their greatest extent by each fingle individual: hence is derived the divifion of labour, or the adoption of a particular branch by each fingle individual. But all thofe branches derive their origin from the fame natural powers, they are all in their principles regulated by the fame general laws of Nature, and almost all their applications may be fubjected to calculation and demonstration. The inveftigation of their origin, and of their mutual dependence on each other, the illustration of their principles, the methods of enlarging their limits by means of experiments and calculation, and their application to our various wants, fall under the title of NATURAL or EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY, the ELEMENTS of which form the fubject of this Work. THE PREFACE. THE principal characteristic which distinguishes the human being from the rest of the animal creation, is the inheritance of knowledge, which the individuals of each generation are able to derive from their pre deceffors. The bee of modern times forms the cells of its hive exactly of the fame shape as the bee of the remoteft antiquity; each species of birds builds its neft after the fame unalterable pattern, and fings the fame invariable melody. The sheep of the present day has no better defence against the wolf; nor has the fly against the spider, nor the smaller birds against the eagle, than the like animals of former times. The fame wants, fimilar dangers, the like defects, and unalterable customs, are the conftant attendants of each different tribe; nor is any A 2. individual : |