impossible to give an intelligent account of it within the compass necessarily prescribed to this publication; and because the subject was not of such general interest or utility, as those which are here treated of.
The Editor is not aware that any apology is due to the Professor on account of this publication. The principal peculiarities of his system had found their way into pretty general circulation, by oral communication, before this work was contemplated; and the accounts which were thus circulated, like most traditions, were by no means calculated to give satisfactory or creditable notions on the subject.
The Editor attended one course of lectures, and after the example of several of his friends, took very copious notes. Finding, however, that the materials which he had thus collected, were so confused and disorderly, as to be nearly, if not wholly, useless; and being unwilling that the time he had bestowed on the subject should become entirely without profit, he applied himself to draw up these lectures in a more intelligible form, for his own use; supplying, at length, the analogies and other illustrations to which the lecturer had very cursorily and distantly alluded. In this attempt,, parum claris dare lucem, the matter swelled it-
