Читать книгу A Treatise on Mechanics онлайн

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(2.) To ascertain by observation the properties of bodies, is the first step towards obtaining a knowledge of nature. Hence man becomes a natural philosopher the moment he begins to feel and to perceive. The first stage of life is a state of constant and curious excitement. Observation and attention, ever awake, are engaged upon a succession of objects new and wonderful. The large repository of the memory is opened, and every hour pours into it unbounded stores of natural facts and appearances, the rich materials of future knowledge. The keen appetite for discovery implanted in the mind for the highest ends, continually stimulated by the presence of what is novel, renders torpid every other faculty, and the powers of reflection and comparison are lost in the incessant activity and unexhausted vigour of observation. After a season, however, the more ordinary classes of phenomena cease to excite by their novelty. Attention is drawn from the discovery of what is new, to the examination of what is familiar. From the external world the mind turns in upon itself, and the feverish astonishment of childhood gives place to the more calm contemplation of incipient maturity. The vast and heterogeneous mass of phenomena collected by past experience is brought under review. The great work of comparison begins. Memory produces her stores, and reason arranges them. Then succeed those first attempts at generalisation which mark the dawn of science in the mind.