Volume 1

A compendium of natural philosophy, being a survey of the wisdom of God in the Creation / [John Wesley].

  • John Wesley
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A compendium of natural philosophy, being a survey of the wisdom of God in the Creation / [John Wesley]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/408 (page 5)
    ating God, and under the government of one Heavenly Father, have been rendered more per- spicuous. 9. One or two points in the leading divisions of the great subject of creation may just he mentioned, were it only for the purpose of showing how vast a field is open to every one who is inspired with the love of knowledge. In the philosophy of the heavens, and in the connection of that philosophy with matters which are familiar to us upon earth, Newton may be said to have fully established the general law. But in consequence of the improve- ment of telescopes for viewing distant objects, of measuring instruments—wh ether of lines, of circular arches, or of times—of the number of observers, and the correct agreement of their results, as tend- ing to establish the general laws, it may now with truth be said that as the heavens are the most sub- lime, so it is the most intelligible page in nature’s volume. Not only have the line and the balance been applied to all the systems of bodies that ac- company]Jour sun, but of very late years our more accurate observers are beginning to feel their way to the starry heavens. 10. In the knowledge of the living and growing parts of the material creation, the progress, though there are many more principles, and therefore much more difficulty than in the case of the heavens, has been veiy great. The different classes of animals have been arranged according to their structures; and as those structures are the instru- ments wherewith they work in whatsoever they do, this arrangement has become, not a mere list to burden the memory, but an instrument of philo- sophy, by means of which the knowledge of one