THAT by the Wisdom of Your Councils, and the Vigour of Your Fleets and Armies, Your MAJESTY may be enabled foon to restore Peace to Europe; that You may again have leifure to extend Your Royal Care to the Improvement of Arts, and the Advancement of Knowledge; that You may Reign long over a Free, a Happy, and a Loyal People; and that the Sceptre of the BRITISH Empire may be swayed by Your MAJESTY'S Defcendants to the latest Posterity, is the earnest prayer of

PRE FAC E.

THE utility of science, and the delight which it affords to the human mind, are acknowledged by every man who is not immersed in the groffest ignorance. It is to the philofopher that the husbandman, the architect, the carpenter, and the feaman, &c. are indebted for the principles of thofe arts, by which they furnish us with most of the accommodations, and with all the elegances, of civilized life; whilft the pleasure experienced in the very progrefs of philofophical research is fuch, as both reason and revelation intimate, not obfcurely, will conftitute part of our happiness in a future ftate. SMALL, however, would be the attainments of any man in fcience, were they confined within the limits of his own researches. Our knowledge of corporeal nature originates. in those perceptions which we have by the organs of fenfe; and which, treasured up in the memory, we can, by the powers of reafon and imagination, variously modify, arrange, and combine, fo as from a number of particular truths to form to ourselves general principles. But these principles would be few indeed, had each individual no other materials of which to form them than the perceptions furnished immediately by his own senses. It has long been a matter of general regret, that the progress of science has been flow and laborious; but it never could have commenced, or could have only. commenced, were every man obliged to begin his career from his own fenfations, without availing himself of the discoveries of others who have travelled over the fame ground: before him.

To this narrow field, however, philofophical inveftigation is not confined. By means of the arts of writing and drawing, the difcoveries of one individual may be made acceffible to another, and the science of every age and of every country treasu red up for the ufe of ages and countries the most remote. Hence arifes the utility of what is generally called literature, or the knowledge of the languages, cuftoms, and manners, which have prevailed among the various nations of the earth. Without this knowledge the fcience of the ancients would be locked up from the moderns; and? even the discoveries of modern nations would be inacceffible to each other.

WITH all the aid which can be furnished by one age or nation to another, the la-bours of the philofopher ftill present themselves as immenfe and difficult. His object comprehends univerfal nature, of which nothing can be known but by fenfation and reflection; but the objects of fenfe are all individuals, almost infinite in number, and. for ever changing: fo that instead of a system of science, the first view of the corporeal world would lead us to imagine, that from our most diligent refearches nothing could. be obtained but a vaft collection of particular truths. Such a collection, whilft it. would burden the memory, could be of little advantage to the arts of life; for we are very seldom brought, on different occafions, into circumftances fo perfectly fimilar, as to require, without the smallest variation, the fame conduct.

BUT

B

BUT though all the objects of fenfe, of memory, and of consciousness, are unqueftionably individuals diftinct from each other, the contemplative mind of man obferves among them various refemblances and analogies. It obferves, that the fenfation communicated to the fight by fnow is fimilar to that communicated by milk, paper, chalk, and a thousand other objects; that all external objects are folid, extended, divifible, and of fome figure; that the path defcribed by a planet round the fun resembles that defcribed by a cannon ball over the furface of the earth; and that many of the actions of brutes are fimilar to those which we are impelled to perform by the internal feelings of defire and averfion.

THIS view of nature, quiefcent and active, fuggefted to the philofopher the expediency of studying the vaft multitude of objects which compofe the univerfe; not individually, but in groups claffed together according to their perceived refemblances or analogies. He faw that his labour would thus be at once fhortened and rendered infinitely more useful; but he likewife faw, or ought to have feen, that it would by no means be taken wholly away. Much cautious attention is requifite to clafs objects in human systems as they are in fact claffed in the fyftem of nature. Analogies are apt to be mistaken for resemblances; a resemblance in a few particulars for a refemblance in all; and events, which have in reality very little in common, to be attributed to the fame or to fimilar causes. These mistakes can be avoided only by a painful induction of facts, by means of experiments accurately made on individual objects; and it was but very lately that induction was employed as the inftrument of scientific refearch.

In ancient Greece, where philosophy first affumed a systematic form, all the objects of human thought were ranged under ten CATEGORIES OF PREDICAMENTS; and every thing which could be affirmed or denied of these categories was fuppofed to be comprehended under five claffes called PREDICAbles. Among the Greek philofophers, therefore, the use of induction was to ascertain the category to which any particular object belonged; after which, nothing more was to be done but, by a fhort process of fyllogiftic reasoning, to affirm or deny of that object whatever could be affirmed or denied of its category.

To this ancient arrangement of human knowledge many infuperable objections have been urged. But it must be confeffed, that the arrangements which have been propofed in its ftead, by the fages of modern times, have little claim to greater perfection. Locke claffed all things under three categories; SUBSTANCES, MODES, and IDEAS. Hume reduced the number to two; IMPRESSIONS and Ideas. The former of these philofophers admitted of only four predicables, all different from those of the ancients; the latter at firft extended the number to feven, but afterwards reduced it to three; among which none of the ancient predicables are to be found, and only one of those which had been admitted by Locke.

THESE different claffifications of knowledge are the natural confequences of mens attempting what the greateft powers of the human intellect will never be able to accomplish. It certainly was the aim of Ariftotle, or whoever was the inventor of the categories and the predicables, to delineate the whole region of human knowledge, actual and poffible; to point out the limits of every diftrict; and to affign to every thing which can be the object of human thought its proper place in the vast arrangement. Such an attempt evinces the ambition of its author: nor has the ambition been much lefs of fome of those by whom the rash arrogance of the Stagyrite has been moft severely cenfured. Locke fays exprefsly, that as the objects of our knowledge are confined to fubftances, modes, and ideas, fo we can difcover nothing of thefe, but, ft, their identity or diverfity; 2d, their relation; 3d, their co-existence or neceffary connection; and, 4th, their real existence: while Hume declares, with fome hesitation indeed, that we can know nothing but the resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and causation of our impreffions and ideas.

- THESE

THESE attempts, as well modern as ancient, to contract the whole, furniture of the human mind into the compafs of a nut-fhell, and to give at once a complete chart of knowledge, have been cenfured, not only as prefumptuous, but as the fertile fources of error, by a philofopher whofe writings do honour to this age and nation. “To make a perfect divifion (fays Dr Reid), a man must have a perfect comprehenfion of the whole subject at one view. When our knowledge of the subject is imperfect, any division we can make must be like the first sketch of a painter, to be extended, contracted, or mended, as the subject fhall be found to require. Yet nothing is more common, not only among the ancient but even among modern philofophers, than todraw from their incomplete divifions, conclufions which fuppofe them to be perfect. A divifion is a repofitory which the philofopher frames for holding his ware in convenient order. The philofopher maintains, that fuch or fuch a thing is not good ware, because there is no place in his ware-room that fits it. We are apt to yield tỏ this argument in philofophy, but it would appear ridiculous in any other traffic."

THE truth of these observations will be controverted by no man who is not an absolute stranger to the various fyftems, ancient and modern, of what has been called the first philofophy.

BUT if every scientific arrangement of knowledge which has hitherto been propofed be so very imperfect, what judgment are we to form of that which is adopted by the compilers of Dictionaries or Encyclopædias, in which the arts and sciences are arranged according to the order of the alphabet, and A, B, C, &c. confidered as the categories? The author whom we have juft quoted affirms, that of all methods of arrangement this is the most antiphilofophical; and if he allude only to fuch Encyclopædias as are mere dictionaries, in which the feveral arts and sciences are broken into fragments, scattered through the work according as the alphabet has happened to dispose of the various technical terms which have place in each, his affertion is unquestionably true. Its truth is indeed admitted by Chambers himself, the compiler of one of the first and most valuable of these dictionaries, who fpeaks of the works of his predeceffors as containing nothing but a multitude of materials, or a confused heap of incoherent parts. “Former lexicographers (fays he) fcarce attempted any thing like structure in their works; they seem not to have been aware that a dictionary is in fome measure capable of the advantages of a continued difcourfe and hence it is, that we fee nothing like a whole in what they have done."

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PROPOSING to remedy this defect in his own Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, he informs us, that "his view was to confider the several matters, not only in themselves, but relatively, or as they respect each other; both to treat them as fo many wholes, and as fo many parts of fome greater whole; and to point out their connection with each other, and with that whole, by reference: fo that by a courfe of references from rals to particulars, from premises to conclufions, from cause to effect, and vice versa, a communication might be opened between the several parts of the work, and the detached articles be in fome measure replaced in the natural order of science, out of which the alphabetical order had removed them." To enable the reader with the greater ease to replace in the order of science the various articles fcattered through the dictionary, he furnished him in the preface with what must be confidered as an elegant analysis of human knowledge; by which may be feen, at one view, the mutual dependence of the feveral parts upon each other, and the intimate connection of the whole.

་

BUT though the found judgment of Mr Chambers thus directed him to make the arrangement of his Cyclopædia vaftly preferable to that of any work of the fame kind which had been published before it; we are afraid that, in its original form, it was ftill liable to the objections of Dr Reid. Had all the articles in the work been treated in fufficient detail to conftitute, when reunited in the order of fcience, fo many complete systems; yet the multitude of references was fo great, that this reunion could not have been made but by a degree of irksome labour, to which few readers will ever fub.

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mit (A). The work therefore, with all its improvements, was ftill a book of fhreds and patches, rather than a scientific dictionary of arts and sciences; and confidering the letters of the alphabet as the categories, the arrangement was certainly inconve nient as well as antiphilosophical.

Of this inconveniency, infeparable from a mere dictionary of arts and fciences, the original Compilers of the Encyclopædia Britannica were fully aware; and they refolved to conftruct their own Work upon a plan from which it might be completely removed. They were equally apprifed with their predeceffors of the utility of explaining by itfelf every technical term, and of illuftrating every particular topic, in the wide circle of the arts and fciences; but they were at the fame time fenfible, that it is only by thinking in method, and reducing their ideas to the order of nature, that mankind can make

(A) To be convinced of the truth of this affertion, one needs but to caft his eye over the author's table of arrangement It is as follows.

KNOWLEDGE is either

[Internal; employed in discovering their agreement and disagreement; or their relations in respect of truthcalled LOGICS.