Instead of seeking to discover
the 'mean' or 'medium' point, around which oscillate, in apparent
independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this system
delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and
in organic forms for something beyond the marvel of a regular succession,
and an internal and progressive development. Ever inclined to believe that
the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses to recognize in the present any
analogy with the past, and guided by its own varying hypotheses, seeks at
hazard, either in the interior of the globe or in the regions of space, for
the cause of these pretended perturbations.
It is the special object of the present work to combat those errors which
derive their source from a vicious empiricism and from imperfect inductions.
The higher enjoyments yielded by the study of nature depend upon the
correctness and the depth of our views, and upon the extent of the subjects
that may be comprehended in a single glance. Increased mental cultivation
has given rise, in all classes of society, to an increased desire of
embellishing life by augmenting the mass of ideas, and by multiplying means
for their generalization; and this sentiment fully refutes the vague
accusations advanced against the age in which we live, showing that other
interests, besides the material wants of life, occupy the minds of men.
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