Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, first edition - Volume I, A-B.pdf/11



TILITY ought to be the principal intention of every publication. Wherever this intention does not plainly appear, neither the books nor their authors have the mallet claim to the approbation of mankind.

diffue the knowledge of Science, is the profeed deign of the following work. What methods, it may be aked, have the compilers employed to accomplih this deign? Not to mention original articles, they have had recoure to the bet books upon almot every ubject, extracted the ueful parts, and rejected whatever appeared trifling or les intereting. Intead of dimembering the Sciences, by attempting to treat them intelligibly under a multitude of technical terms, they have digeted the principles of every cience in the form of ytems or ditinct treaties, and explained the terms as they occur in the order of the alphabet, with references to the ciences to which they belong.

this plan differs from that of all the Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences hitherto publihed, the compilers think it neceary to mention what they imagine gives it a uperiority over the common method. A few words will anwer this purpoe. Whoever has had occaion to conult Chambers, Owen, &c. or even the voluminous French Encyclopedie, will have dicovered the folly of attempting to communicate cience under the various technical terms arranged in an alphabetical order. Such an attempt is repugnant to the very idea of cience, which is a connected eries of concluions deduced from elf-evident or previouly dicovered principles. It is well if a man be capable of comprehending the principles and relations of the different parts of cience, when laid before him in one uninterrupted chain. But where is the man who can learn the principles of any cience from a Dictionary compiled upon the plan hitherto adopted? We will, however, venture to affirm, that any man of ordinary parts, may, if he chues, learn the principles of Agriculture, of Atronomy, of Botany, of Chemitry, ''&c. &c.'' from the

the execution of this extensive and multifarious undertaking, the Compilers laboured under many diadvantages, partly ariing from the nature of the work, and partly owing to the following circumtance.