Volume 1
A course of lectures on natural philosophy and the mechanical arts / by Thomas Young.
- Thomas Young
- Date:
- 1845
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A course of lectures on natural philosophy and the mechanical arts / by Thomas Young. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![use to fonu to ourselves a general idea of the sciences and arts which are to be placed among them. Upon the advantages of mathematical and philosophical investigation in general it is unnecessary to enlarge, because no liberal mind can require any argnments to be convinced how much the judgment is strengthened, and the invention assisted, by habits of reasoning with caution and accu- racy. The public opinion is leather, on the contrary, in danger, at least in some parts of the world, of being too exclusively biassed in favour of natural jiliilosophy; and has sometimes been inclined to a devotion too much limited to science, without a sufficient attention to such literature as an elegant mind always desires to see united with it. As to the practical importance of philosophical theories of the arts, it may have been overrated by some, but no person is authorised to affirm that it has been too highly estimated, unless he has made himself master of every thing that theory is capable of doing ; such a one, although he may in some cases be obliged to confess the insufficiency of our calculations, will never have reason to com- plain of their fallacy. The division of the whole course of lectures into three parts was origi- nally suggested by the periodical succession in which the appointed hours recur ; but it appears to be more convenient than any other for the regular classification of the subjects. The general doctrines of motion, and their application to aU pm-poses variable at pleasrire, supply the materials of the first two parts ; of which the one treats of the motions of solid bodies, and the other of those of fluids, including the theory of light. The third part relates to the particular liistory of the phenomena of nature, and of the affections of bodies actually existing in the universe, independently of the art of man; comprehending astronomy, geography, and the doctrine of the properties of matter, and of the most general and powerful agents that influence it. The synthetical order of proceeding, from simple and general principles, to their more intricate combinations in particular cases, is by far the most compendious for conveying information with regard to sciences that are at aU referal)le to certain fundamental laws. For these laws being once established, each fact, as soon as it is known, assumes its place in the system, and is retained in the memory by its relation to the rest as a con- necting link. In the analytical mode, on the contrary, which is absolutely necessary for the first investigation of tnith, we are obliged to begin by collecting a number of insulated circumstances, which lead us back by degrees to the knowledge of original principles, but which, until we arrive at those principles, are merely a bui-den to the memory. For the pheno- mena of nature resemble the scattered leaves of the Sibylline prophecies; a word only, or a single syllable, is written on each leaf, which, when sepa- rately considered, conveys no instmction to the mind; but when, by the labour of patient investigation, every fragment is I’eplaced in its appropriate connexion, the whole begins at once to sjieak a ]>erspicuous and a harmoni- ous language. Proceeding, therefore, in the synthetical order, we set ont from the abstract doctrines of mathematics, relating to quantity, Bjjace, and number.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21301840_0001_0041.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
