Excerpt from Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence On presenting to the public a work of this novel character, overstepping, as it does, the barriers erected by modern systems to the further progress of knowledge, a few words of explanation may not be inappropriate. Early imbued with a desire to understand the causes of natural phenomena, the author devoured with avidity the interpretations contained in the elementary works of orthodox science, until reason and observation rendered him dissatisfied with the repast. To him it appeared that there was an evident tendency in scholastic instruction, to make the knowledge of nature inaccessible to the many, that the world might be made more dependent on the few; while many of the established principles, on which the learned rested, seemed to be at variance with the simplicity and consistency of truth.
