May justly be regarded as one of the
greatest and most important occurrences to geography contributed by the
eighteenth century.
The truth and justice of these observations will, we trust, convince our
readers, that, in determining to be more general and concise in what
remains of the geographical portion of our works, we shall not be
destroying its consistency or altering the nature of its plan, but in fact
preserving both; for its great object and design was to trace geographical
knowledge from its infancy till it had reached that maturity and vigour, by
which, in connection with the corresponding increased civilization, general
information and commerce of the world, it was able to advance with rapid
strides, and no longer confining itself to geography, strictly so called,
to embrace the natural history of those countries, the existence, extent,
and form of which it had first ascertained.
The great object and design of the commercial part of this work was
similar; to trace the progress of commercial enterprises from the rudest
ages of mankind, the changes and transfers it had undergone from one
country to another, the causes and effects of these, as well as of its
general gradual increase, till, having the whole of Europe under its
influence, and aided by that knowledge and civilization with which it had
mainly contributed to bless Europe, it had gained its maturity and vigour,
and by its own expansive force pushed itself into every part of the globe,
in which there existed any thing to attract it.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, commerce had not indeed assumed
those features, or reached that form and dimensions by which it was
distinguished at the end of this century; but as its dimensions gradually
enlarge, it will be necessary to be less particular and more condensed.
Our plan indeed of being more minute in the early history of geographical
science and commercial enterprise, is founded on an obvious as well as a
just and important principle. In the infancy of geography and commerce,
every fact is important, as reflecting light on the knowledge and state of
mankind at that period, and as bearing on and conducing to their future
progress; whereas when geography and commerce have been carried so far as
to proceed in their course as it were by their own internal impulse,
derived from the motion they have been acquiring for ages, their interest
and importance is much diminished from this cause, as well as from the
minuteness of the objects to which, - all the great ones having been
previously occupied by them, - they must necessarily be confined.
Several circumstances co-operated to direct geographical discovery, during
the eighteenth century, principally towards the north and north-east of
Asia, and the north-west of America.
