he then received.[2] This the author had resolved on, from a sense of
duty to the world at large, although the promise was rather of
prospective loss than of present benefit. The peculiar form under which
the theory appears, is, therefore, a result of the circumstances above
stated, and of the author's present inability to enter into the minute
details of a subject, which embraces in its range the whole visible
creation.

In extending the theory to other phenomena, he has only fearlessly
followed out the same principles which have conducted him to a knowledge
of a disturbing cause, to which atmospheric storms owe their origin, and
in doing so he has conferred with no one. For whatever of merit or of
blame may therefore justly attach to these views, he alone is
responsible. If he has charged the scientific with inconsistency, or
with sometimes forgetting that the truth of their unnecessarily abstruse
investigations depends on the truth of the data, he at least is
conscientious; for he is too well aware that to provoke an unfavorable
verdict by contending against such fearful odds, is not the surest way
to either wealth or fame, or even to an acknowledgment of at least _the
mite_, which he cannot but feel that he has contributed to the treasury
of knowledge. That the scientific organisations of the day do tend to
curb the aberrations of a fanciful philosophy, cannot be denied; but at
the same time there is engendered such a slavish subordination as checks
the originality of thought, and destroys that perfect freedom from the
trammels of system, so necessary to success in the pursuit of truth. Of
such an influence the author explicitly asserts his entire independence.

In thus introducing his theory, the reader is forewarned that he will
not find it dressed in the fascinating garb of the popular literature of
the day, whose chief characteristic is to promise much when possessing