2Sfi WATCHES—NATURAL PHILOSOPHV.
have, among other circumstances, referred our readers tothe eleventh verse of the twentieth chapter of the secondBook of Kings , and to other prominent notices of themode of division of time by the posterity of Abraham andother Asiatic people. Because, to use the words of the verylearned author of Pseudodoxia Ephlemica, with respect tosun-dials and hour-glasses, “ both which iustrumeuts are of“ the most remote antiquity.”
Of all historical speculations, which the mind of a finiteand imperfect creature can attempt to comprehend, or essayto describe, surely none can be more extensive in nature,important in consequences, or so transcend an tly majesticin effects, as is the History of Natural Philosophy. It em-braceth the most extensive periphery of human knowledge,of practical and theoretic speculation; nay, it even aspiresbeyond those confined bounds of usualspeculative inquiry,—ascending beyond those limits of positive certainty whichmankind are usually in the habit of contemplating as theeffects of natural causes. It disrobes mysticism of its veil,follows nature through all her intricate mazes, explores theconnexion between causes and their effects; reconciles toreason and probable truth those effects which lie beyondthe ken of common observation, by analogy with thingsalready known; tending to clear and elevate the humanunderstanding, at the time it essays to correct our falseimpressions, to amend and humanize the heart. These,in our conception, are the views of the history of nature;—should they be correct, we trust their importance issufficiently impressed upon our mind to induce the utmostexertion of our powers correctly to conceive, and faithfullyto render our conceptions to the world in unison with thoseof the philosophic and wise, from the most remote agesof antiquity.
Its History .— We have already been favoured with a tran-sient glance of the chief characters, who have beeneminent in the history of natural philosophy, in thebrief view we have already taken of Astronomy ;— but asthat wmnderful prodigy of human intellect, successful re-search, and unremitting industry, Aristotle , is there onlycasually mentioned ; and since his acute investigation couldnot be satisfied with those systems he found already thenexisting,—he investigated things personally,—adopting onlysuch truths as he thought he had discovered, and which fromthe trouble he took to ascertain, he thought incontrovertible.