Excerpt from History of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. 2 of 3: From the Earliest to the Present Time

We enter now upon a new region of the human mind. In passing from Astronomy to Mechanics we make a transition from the formal to the physical sciences; - from time and space to force and matter; - from phenomena to causes. Hitherto we have been concerned only with the paths and orbits, the periods and cycles, the angles and distances, of the objects to which our sciences applied, namely, the heavenly bodies. How these motions are produced; - by what agencies, impulses, powers, they are determined to be what they are; - of what nature are the objects themselves; - are speculations which we have hitherto not dwelt upon. The history of such speculations now comes before us; but, in the first place, we must consider the history of speculations concerning motion in general, terrestrial as well as celestial. We must first attend to Mechanics, and afterwards return to Physical Astronomy.

In the same way in which the developement of Pure Mathematics, which began with the Greeks, was a necessary condition of the progress of Formal Astronomy, the creation of the science of Mechanics now became necessary to the formation and progress of Physical Astronomy.

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