(393.) It is in this respect an advantageous view of science, which refers all its advances to the discovery of general laws, and to the inclusion of what is already known in generalizations of still higher orders; inasmuch as this view of the subject represents it, as it really is, essentially incomplete, and incapable of being fully embodied in any system, or embraced by any single mind. Yet it must be recollected that, so far as our experience has hitherto gone, every advance towards generality has at the same time been a step towards simplification. It is only when we are wandering and lost in the mazes of particulars, or entangled in fruitless attempts to work our way downwards in the thorny paths of applications, to which our reasoning powers are incompetent, that nature appears complicated:--the moment we contemplate it as it is, and attain a position from which we can take a commanding view, though but of a small part of its plan, we never fail to recognise that sublime simplicity on which the mind rests satisfied that it has attained the truth. INDEX. Acoustics cultivated by Pythagoras and Aristotle, page 248. Æpinus, his laws of equilibrium of electricity, 332. Aëriform fluids, liquids kept in a state of vapour, 321. Agricola, George, his knowledge of mineralogy and metallurgy, 112. Air, compressibility and elasticity of; limitation to the repulsive tendency of, 226. Weight of, unknown to the ancients, 228. First perceived by Galileo, 228. Proved by a crucial instance, 229. Equilibrium of, established, 231. Dilatation of, by heat, 319. Air-pump, discovery of, 230. Airy, his experiments in Dolcoath mine, 187. Alchemists, advantages derived from, 11. Algebra, 19. Ampere, his electro-dynamic theory, 202. Utility of, 203, 324. Analysis of force, 86. Of motion, 87. Of complex phenomena, 88. Anaxagoras, philosophy of, 107. Animal electricity, 337. Arago, M., his experiment with a magnetic needle and a plate of copper, 157. Archimedes, his practical application of science, 72. His knowledge of hydrostatics, 231. Arfwedson, his discovery of lithia, 158. Aristotle, his knowledge of natural history, 109. His works condemned, and subsequently studied with avidity, 111. His philosophy overturned by the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, 113. Arithmetic, 19. Art, empirical and scientific, differences between, 71. Remarks on the language, terms, or signs, used in treating of it, 70. Assurances, life, utility and abuses of, 58.