A Dictionary of Science: Comprising Astronomy, Chemistry, Dynamics, Electricity, Heat, Hydrodynamics, Hydrostatics, Light, Magnetism, Mechanics, Meteorology, Pneumatics, Sound, and Statics; Preceded by an Essay on the History of the Physical Sciences

Excerpt from A Dictionary of Science: Comprising Astronomy, Chemistry, Dynamics, Electricity, Heat, Hydrodynamics, Hydrostatics, Light, Magnetism, Mechanics, Meteorology, Pneumatics, Sound, and Statics; Preceded by an Essay on the History of the Physical Sciences

Metaphysics and Physics have always been more or less connected, and at an early period, the distinction between them was less obvious than it has since been. In the first ages of philosophy, the two were closely blended; in a later age they were entirely dissevered; later again there was a slight union of the two at certain points of contact which had not before appeared. There was undoubtedly a crude form of physical philosophy coeval with the rise of mental philosophy; but the former can scarcely be said to have existed for more than two centuries. Compared with the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of matter is essentially modern. There were vast and exhaustive treatises on the one, before the other had received any development whatsoever. In the Platonic philosophy, we find the grandest development of a pure philosophy of mind, but at this time, and twenty centuries later, there was no physical system which could pretend to any degree of completeness.

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