have arisen from facts, to which the experimenters themselves were not led by any previous train of reasoning, but conducted by accident. Experimental Philosophy shews us, that certain effects are produced under such particular circumstances, which must be minutely attended to. Systematical Philosophy undertakes to shew why they are produced; and from some known effects deduces many others of the same kind. But with all this, there are few practitioners who are not attached by education or affection to some system, so that they will speak for an experiment, instead of permitting it to speak for itself. Having obtained the knowledge of some things, they wish not to be ignorant of any. But he is the happiest practitioner, who has any general scheme, to which the several parts of nature, when examined, will give a general testimony: and this, I think, is the case with that scheme of the Agency of the Elements, which I have endeavoured to cultivate and exhibit in this work, though I have not had occasion to carry it so far in this volume as I apprehend it will go when duly applied.

The Philosophers of Europe have now been making experiments professedly, and with

every possible advantage, for above an hundred years: and it would be hard indeed, if from so much matter, collected with so much success, and illustrated with so much learning, no certain principles could be ascertained in the science of Physics. While I have been musing with myself on the improved state of Experimental Philosophy, I have often indulged a wish that I could exhibit to the wise men and heroes of ancient times, some of those wonderful improvements which are now so familiar to us, but were totally unknown to them. I would give to Aristotle the electrical shock; I would carry Alexander to see the experiments upon the Warren at Woolwich, together with all the evolutions and firings of a modern battalion; I would shew to Julius Cæsar, the invader of Britain, an English man of war; and to Archimedes a fire-engine, and a reflecting telescope. But here, as in other subjects of human attention, so in Philosophy, though we are under all these advantages, we are still carried away by an insatiable thirst after novelty: so true is the reflection of Seneca, naturale est magis noca quam magna mirari; we neglect what is great, to hunt after something that is new, that we may attract the admiration of the public.

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public. We have a strange propensity to be looking either before us or behind us for variety, instead of cultivating the fruitful spot we stand upon. If we are already in possession of many great things, reason demands that we should be making our use of them, rather than be searching for novelties, which may be either of little value, or the same for substance with what is already known. I have, therefore, preferred the profits of culture to the pleasures of the chace; and would rather pass for a labourer than a sportsman upon philosophical ground; though I have reason to think many things new will occur to the reader, if he has the patience to look for them; and that the new things he will meet with, are such as will lead to a new train of experiments. A vain desire of accounting for all experiments, is an error I have endeavoured to avoid. Many phenomena in nature being unaccountable, we must sometimes be humble enough to admire what we cannot perfectly understand; as we survey the ocean with wonder and pleasure, though we cannot see to the bottom of it. After all the researches I have been able to make, I am still at a loss for the physical principle of musical consonance.

By

By SACRED Philosophy I understand that account of the generation of the world, and its present economy, which is revealed in the Scripture; not with the design of sending us to school, to learn Philosophy as a science; but with a view to the interests of religion, and therefore so far only as religion is concerned. The three great ends for which Nature is referred to in the Bible, are, first, to guard men from error; secondly, to open their understandings, by explaining spiritual truth from natural imagery; and thirdly, to inspire them with sentiments of devotion: and all this is generally done in concise language, as there is no room in that book for superfluous words. The History of the

Formation and Constitution of the World is such as was sufficient to guard the Hebrews from the dangerous and profane doctrines of the Gentiles, who conspired universally to deify nature; to confound the Creator with his works; and to give to the world itself that adoration which is due only to the Maker of it. It therefore asserts and sets forth the power of the true God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and describes the natural dominion of the elements as dependent on the power of the Creator: that the sun, the

moon,

moon, and the host of heaven, observe the law they received from him in the beginning of the world: of which subordination and dependence the heathens had lost the knowledge, through the affectation of philosophical wisdom, till at length Nature itself took the place of the Creator; the substance of the elements was confounded with the substance of the Deity; the subtile matter of fire was held to be the soul of the world; the powers of the heaven and the earth became so many distinct divinities, and the history of their operations was converted into a religious mystery, such as we find every where in the occult doctrines of the Pagan Mythology, of which I have given so many examples in the following Discourses, that I trust that matter will no longer be doubtful; and it behoves us not to be unmindful of it. Late discoveries have again filled the world with matter, and revived the knowledge of those powers which the Heathens knew and worshipped. A vacuum is, or will be, forgotten; and the elements are likely to be restored, as of old, to their proper offices in nature. I have long foreseen (or feared I did) that whensoever this should come to pass, the light of Christianity,

VOL. IX.

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