INTRODUCTION

Summary

ON THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF ENJOYMENT OFFERED BY THE ASPECT OF NATURE AND THE STUDY OF HER LAWS.

In attempting, after a long absence from my country, to unfold a general view of the physical phenomena of the globe which we inhabit, and of the combined action of the forces which pervade the regions of space, I feel a double anxiety. The matter of which I would treat is so vast, and so varied, that I fear, on the one hand, to approach it in an encyclopædic and superficial manner, and on the other, to weary the mind by aphorisms presenting only dry and dogmatic generalities. Conciseness may produce aridity, whilst too great a multiplicity of objects kept in view at the same time leads to a want of clearness and precision in the sequence of ideas.

But nature is the domain of liberty; and to give a lively picture of those ideas and those delights which a true and profound feeling in her contemplation inspires, it is needful that thought should clothe itself freely and without constraint in such forms and with such elevation of language, as may be least unworthy of the grandeur and majesty of creation.

If the study of physical phænomena be regarded in its bearings, not on the material wants of man, but on his general intellectual progress, its highest result is found in the knowledge of those mutual relations which link together the various forces of nature.