Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Christian Remembrancer, Vol. 12
But is this work, it will be asked, intended for the general reader, or the man of science? Is it couched in a form intel ligible by the habits of a general education, or does it pre suppose a peculiar and professional study? The author himself shall supply an answer to this question.
In the multiplicity of objects which I have thus cursorily enumerated, the question presents itself; whether general views of nature can be brought to any thing like precision, without deep and earnest study of the several departments of natural science - natural history, natural philosophy, and physical astronomy? Here it is pro er to distinguish carefully betwixt the teacher, who makes selections, and elivers an account of results, and the pupil, who receives the account as something presented to him, not investigated for himself. For the former, the most intimate knowledge of specialities is indispensably necessary he must have long familiarized his mind with'the several sciences, he must himself have taken the length and the breadth of things, observed and made experiments, before he can, with any confidence or propriety, venture on a picture of nature as a whole. The entire bearings of the problems, whose investigation lends such attrae tions to the physical history of the world, are perhaps scarcely to be com prehended in all their clearness, where special preliminary knowledge is wanting; although, without it, the greater number of the propositions can still be satisfactorily discussed. If the great picture of nature be not pre sented with its outlines ually clear and sharp in every part, it will still be found sufficiently true an attractive to enrich the mind with ideas, and to arouse and fructify the imagination.' - Pp. 29, 30.
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