Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

14 a2 ABSTRACTION.
provision made by nature to facilitate and abridge, more and
more, the process of study, in proportion as the truths to be
acquired increase in numbers Nor is this prospect derived
from theory alone. It is encouraged by the past history of all
the sciences; in a more particular manner, by that of mathematics and physics, in which the state of discovery, and the
prevailing methods of instruction, may, at all times, be easily
compared together. In this last observation I have been anticipated by a late eminent mathematician, whose eloquent and
philosophical statement of the argument cannot fail to carry
conviction to those who are qualified to judge of the facts on
which his conclusion is founded.'To such of my readers as may be slow in admitting the
possibility of this progressive improvement in the human race,
allow me to state, as an example, the history of that science in
which the advances of discovery are the most certain, and in
which they may be measured with the greatest precision. Those
elementary truths of geometry and of astronomy, which, in
India and Egypt, formed an occult science, upon which an amb{tious priesthood founded its influence, were become, in times
of Archimedes and Hipparchus, the subjects of common education in the public schools of Greece. In the last century, a
few years of study were sufficient for comprehending all that
Archimedes and Hipparchus knew; and, at present, two years
employed under an able teacher, carry the student beyond
those conclusions which limited the inquiries of Leibnitz and
of Newton. Let any person reflect on these facts, let him
follow the immense chain which connects the inquiries of Euler
with those of a priest of Memphis; let him observe at each
epoch, how genius outstrips the present age, and how it is overtaken by mediocrity in the next; he will perceive, that nature
has furnished us with the means of abridging and facilitating
our intellectual labor, and that there is no reason for apprehending that such simplifications can ever have an end. Hle will
perceive, that at the moment when a multitude of particular
solutions, and of insulated facts, begin to distract the attention,
and to overcharge the memory, the former gradually lose them*