WEATHER, Sciences may be suid to have had their origin principally in two causes: the needs of human life, and the natural desire of mankind to explain and understand the phenomena of the world. Which of these two aims is considered the more important, depends upon the character of a given nation: whether the practical, material advantages derivable from such knowledge, or, the purely scientific explanation, by which the complicated phenomena which are observed around us are traced, by speculative investigation, to first priuciples, The genius of the Chinese has led them to direct their efforts more to the former than to the latter course and, being inferior in mental power to Buropeans, they have really done nothing for science beyond making three or four useful discoveries—such as the manufacture of gunpowder and porcelain, the uso of the mariner's-compass, and so on—for not one of which any logical faculty or habit of scientific observation was necessary. Such inventions may well be the result of accident; and that they were no more is borne out by the fact that the Chinese have shown themselves
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.