tudies afford more extensive,
more wonderful, or more pleasing scenes; and, therefore, there can be no
ideas impressed upon the soul, which can more conduce to its future
entertainment.

In the pursuit of these sciences, it will be proper to proceed with the
same gradation and caution as in geometry. And it is always of use to
decorate the nakedness of science, by interspersing such observations
and narratives as may amuse the mind, and excite curiosity. Thus, in
explaining the state of the polar regions, it might be fit to read the
narrative of the Englishmen that wintered in Greenland, which will make
young minds sufficiently curious after the cause of such a length of
night, and intenseness of cold; and many stratagems of the same kind
might be practised to interest them in all parts of their studies, and
call in their passions to animate their inquiries. When they have read
this treatise, it will be proper to recommend to them Varenius's
Geography, and Ferguson's Astronomy.

4. The study of chronology and history seems to be one of the most
natural delights of the human mind. It is not easy to live, without
inquiring by what means every thing was brought into the state in which
we now behold it, or without finding in the mind some desire of being
informed, concerning the generations of mankind that have been in
possession of the world before us, whether they were better or worse
than ourselves; or what good or evil has been derived to us from their
schemes, practices, and institutions. These are inquiries which history
alone can satisfy; and history can only be made intelligible by some
knowledge of chronology, the science by which events are ranged in their
order, and the periods of computation are settled; and which, therefore,
assists the memory by method, and enlightens the judgment by showing the
dependence of one transaction on another. Accordingly it should be
diligently inculcated to the scholar, that, unless he fixes in his mind
some idea of the time in which each man of eminence lived, and each
action was performed, with some part of the contemporary history of the
rest of the world, he will consume his life in useless reading, and
darken his mind with a crowd of unconnected events; his memory will be
perplexed with distant transactions resembling one another, and his
reflections be like a dream in a fever, busy and turbulent, but confused
and indistinct.

The technical part of chronology, or the art of