It is probable, then, that there is an instinctive tendency in man to meditate on the nature and properties of those material objects and phenomena which are frequently presented to his view; and subsequently to derive from this meditation the means of applying those objects and phenomena to his wants, whether of a necessary or an artificial character. Thus astronomy was originally cultivated with most success by those who lived in a climate in which

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"baked them, they bruise them between two stones into a paste which will keep unto the following season. The paste, "before it is dried, is subjected to several washings in a sieve; "which process, they say, deprives it of the bitter taste com

mon to the acorn. We cannot but remark the great resem"blance this custom bears to the method adopted by the South

sea islanders to keep their bread-fruit: nor ought we to fail to "notice the manner in which Providence points out to different “tribes the same wise means of preserving their food, and pro"viding against a season of scarcity." (p. 399.) A similar reflection will naturally occur to the reader with respect to their mode of decoying deer and ducks: their plan, in the latter instance, differing very little from our own; in the former, being conducted on the principle of the stalking horse, (p. 399, 400. See also De Bry, vol. i. pl. 25. Descript. of Florida.)

On one occasion, in alluding to the structure of the bow among uncivilized nations, Captain Beechey forcibly reminds the classical reader of a line in the first book of the Iliad: δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ ̓ ἀργυρέοιο βιοιο : for, after having said that the Californians string their bows much as we do (p. 402), he states that the Esquimaux leave the string in contact with about a foot of the wood at each end; while the Californians muffle that part with fur, in order to prevent the report, which would betray them, when fighting in ambush. (p. 575.)

an unclouded sky prevailed; navigation, by those who lived on the borders of the ocean; and the general arts of life, by those who inhabited regions characterised by the fertility of their soil, and the abundance and variety of their mineral productions. Of these positions, ancient Egypt, Phenicia, and India are respectively instances: though it is not intended to affirm that an unclouded sky is alone sufficient to produce a tendency towards the cultivation, much less a national superiority in the science of astronomy; nor a vicinity to the sea, an excellence in nautical skill; nor, lastly, a fertile soil and abundance and variety of mineral riches, a correspondent skill in the general arts of life. In every instance it may be presumed that civilization must have advanced sufficiently to have produced many artificial wants, before individuals feel that powerful stimulus which prompts them to take the full advantage of those resources which nature has placed within their reach. The miserable natives of New Holland, though inhabiting a country as extensive, and in parts as fertile as Europe, have afforded no indications of an approach towards that degree of civilization which would lead them to discover and apply its re

sources.

But, though it would be a vain and useless speculation to inquire in what way the arts and

sciences actually arose, or how it has happened that they were more or less successfully cultivated by different nations, it cannot be either uninteresting or uninstructive to compare the progress which natural science had made in Europe, at a period shortly antecedent to the Christian era, with the state in which it now exists and such a comparison is in strict accordance with the original intention of this treatise. The materials for this comparison, which will be attempted only on a plan the most general, have been principally derived from Lucretius, and from that work of Aristotle which is entitled, Περὶ Ζώων Ιστορίας. It should be remembered, however, that there is a broad line of distinction between the mode in which natural science was cultivated by the ancients, and that which has been adopted by the moderns. The ancients, though on many occasions as accurate observers of the obvious phenomena of nature as the moderns, were too hasty in coming to conclusions as to the character and cause of those phenomena; and hence the crude opinions and theories with which their philosophy abounded. But, if we justly consider the precept of Thales, "Know thyself," as a precept of the highest wisdom for our moral conduct, we must, on equally strong grounds, consider it as the highest prerogative of reason, or our intellectual nature, to know the actual

extent of its own powers: and it is one of the glories of the philosophy of the present day, that, instead of being ashamed of its own limitations, and consequently prone to hurry into unfounded assumptions for the purpose of hiding its ignorance, it explicitly, and at once, acknowledges the point which for the present must be considered as a barrier to further progress; still however looking forward to the period when the increased accumulation of new facts shall enable it to remove that barrier.

SECT. II.

Opinions of Lucretius on the Constitution of Matter in general; and on the Nature of Light, Heat, Water, and Air.

IN attempting to explain the constitution of the universe, and the general phenomena of nature, Lucretius assumes that matter in its primary form consists of very small and impenetrable particles, which, from their supposed incapability of further division, are called atoms; that, from the fortuitous concourse of these atoms, all natural bodies were originally produced; and that into these they are again resolved by those common processes which we are constantly witnessing, as the death and consequent decomposition of vegetables and animals, and the wearing away of the most solid bodies by the effect of exposure to the air, or by the insensible attrition of other bodies: and, lastly, he main

tains that these atoms existed from eternity, and are in their essence indestructible.

He asserts as untenable, in fair reasoning, the opinion that there is no term to the divisibility of matter; since, on that supposition, the smallest bodies would consist of an infinite number of parts: and he consequently concludes that those indivisible bodies or atoms must be perfectly solid d. He impugns, as opposed to common sense, the doctrine of Heraclitus that all things are formed from fire, and also the doctrine of others, that all things are formed from fire or air, or water or earth £; or from binary combinations of them, as of air and fire, or of earth and water: and, lastly, he rejects also the doctrine of Empedocles, that all natural substances are produced from the joint union of fire, earth, air, and water. And Lucretius himself supposes that the original atoms of matter may, by a mere variation in the modes of combination, produce all the objects of nature, whether animate or inanimate ; illustrating his argument ingeniously by a reference to the fact, that an endless variety of words, of the most different meaning and sound, is produced by various combinations of the same letters h.

It is not necessary, on the present occasion, to comment on the obviously atheistical charac

d Lucret. lib. I. passim. f Lib. I. 706-712.

© Lib. I. 636–639, and 691-700. 8 Lib. I. 713-717. k Lib. I. 817-829.