TO THE FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH EDITIONS OF THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA. WITH PRELIMINARY DISSERTATIONS ON THE HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES. Illustrated by Engravings. VOLUME THIRD. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH; AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND COMPANY, LONDON. 1824. ACCORDING to the arrangement announced in the Advertisement prefixed to this Work, the Second Part of Mr STEWART'S Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy, ought to have appeared with the present Half-Volume. The Editor has been induced so far to depart from that arrangement, as, in the meantime, to substitute Mr BRANDE'S Dissertation, which was originally intended to be given with the Fifth Volume; and to give the remaining Part of Mr Stewart's Dissertation with the First Half of the Fourth Volume. The Second Part of PROFESSOR PLAYFAIR's Dissertation on the Progress of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences, will accompany the First Half of the Fifth Volume. Directions will afterwards be given as to how the whole ought ultimately to be placed. The Editor takes this opportunity to state, that the Work is likely to extend beyond Five Volumes, the number specified in the Advertisement. There are many of the Letters of the Alphabet under which the numberof Articles necessary to be given will be comparatively small; and the Editor has endeavoured, by numerous retrenchments from his original plan, so to model the whole, as to keep within the intended limits; but he sees reason to fear, that this object could not be accomplished, without such a mutilation of the plan as would be greatly prejudicial to the utility of the Work. He does not, therefore, anticipate any displeasure from now announcing, that it may probably extend to, but not beyond, Six Volumes. Edinburgh, February 1818. |
