Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/58

4 Of this sort of conjectural or theoretical history, the most unexceptionable specimens which have yet appeared, are indisputably the fragments in Mr Smith’s posthumous work on the History of Astronomy, and on that of the Ancient Systems of Physics and Metaphysics. That, in the latter of these, he may have occasionally accommodated his details to his own peculiar opinions concerning the object of Philosophy, may perhaps, with some truth, be alleged; but he must at least be allowed the merit of completely avoiding the error by which D’Alembert was misled; and, even in those instances where he himself seems to wander a little from the right path, of furnishing his successors with a thread, leading by easy and almost insensible steps, from the first gross perceptions of sense, to the most abstract refinements of the Grecian schools. Nor is this the only praise to which these fragments are entitled. By seizing on the different points of view from whence the same object was contemplated by different sects, they often bestow a certain degree of unity and of interest on what before seemed calculated merely to bewilder and to confound; and render the apparent aberrations and caprices of the understanding, subservient to the study of its operations and laws.

To the foregoing strictures on D’Alembert’s view of the origin of the sciences, it may be added, that this introductory part of his Discourse does not seem to have any immediate connection with the sequel. We are led, indeed, to expect, that it is to prepare the way for the study of the Encyclopedical Tree afterwards to be exhibited; but in this expectation we are completely disappointed;—no reference to it whatever being made by the author in the farther prosecution of his subject. It forms, accordingly, a portion of his Discourse altogether foreign to the general design; while, from the metaphysical obscurity which pervades it, the generality of readers are likely to receive an impression, either unfavourable to the perspicuity of the writer, or to their own powers of comprehension and of reasoning. It were to be wished, therefore, that, instead of occupying the first pages of the Encyclopédie, it had been reserved for a separate article in the body of that work. There it might have been read by the logical student, with no small interest and advantage; for, with all its imperfections, it bears numerous and precious marks of its author’s hand.

In delineating his Encyclopedical Tree, D’Alembert has, in my opinion, been still more unsuccessful than in the speculations which have been hitherto under our review. His veneration for Bacon seems, on this occasion, to have prevented him from giving due scope to his own powerful and fertile genius, and has engaged him in the fruitless task of attempting, by means of arbitrary definitions, to draw a veil over incurable defects and blemishes. In this part of Bacon’s logic, it must, at the same tine, be owned, that there is something peculiarly captivating to the fancy; and, accordingly, it has united in its favour the suffrages