NOTE CONCLUSORY

Summary

Thus ends a book, composed in solitude, and almost without the cognizance of a single fellowbeing, as solely as possible for the purpose of improving the knowledge of mankind, and through that medium, their happiness. For reasons best to be appreciated by myself, my name is retained in its original obscurity, and, in all probability, will never be generally known. I do not expect that any word of praise which the work may elicit shall ever be responded to by me; or that any word of censure shall ever be parried or deprecated. Sine me—I may say so far more truly than did the lorn exile of the Euxine—it goes forth to take its chance of instant oblivion, or of a long and active course of usefulness in the world. Neither contingency can be of any importance to me, beyond the regret or the satisfaction which may be imparted by my sense of a lost or a realized benefit to my fellow-creatures. The book, as far as I am aware, is the first attempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of creation, and thence to eliminate a view of nature as one grand system of causation. As a first effort towards a task so much above ordinary aspirations, it must necessarily be in some measure crude and unsatisfactory, even overlooking errors of detail justly attributable to my defective knowledge.