{"product_id":"2940011894138","title":"THE HISTORY OF the LIFE AND SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF MR. DUNCAN CAMPBELL","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original hardcover edition for enjoyable reading. (Worth every penny spent!)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn excerpt from the beginning of the:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOF all the writings delivered in an historical manner to the world, none certainly were ever held in greater esteem than those which give us the lives of distinguished private men at full length; and, as I may say, to the life. Such curious fragments of biography are the rarities which great men seek after with eager industry, and when found, prize them as the chief jewels and ornaments that enrich their libraries; and deservedly, for they are the beauties of the greatest men's lives handed down by way of example or instruction to posterity, and commonly handed down likewise by the greatest men. Since, therefore, persons distinguished for merit in one kind or other are the constant subjects of such discourses, and the most elegant writers of each age have been usually the only authors who choose upon such subjects to employ their pens, and since persons of the highest rank and dignity, and genii of the most refined and delicate relish, are frequently curious enough to be the readers of them, and to esteem them the most valuable pieces in a whole collection of learned works, it is a wonder to me, that when any man's life has something in it peculiarly great and remarkable in its kind, it should not move some more skilful writer than myself to give the public a taste of it, because it must be at least vastly entertaining, if it be not, which is next to impossible, immensely instructive and profitable withal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf ever the life of any man under the sun was remarkable, this Mr. Duncan Campbell's, which I am going to treat upon, is so to a very eminent degree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt affords such variety of incidents, and is accompanied with such diversity of circumstances, that it includes within it what must yield entire satisfaction to the most learned, and admiration to persons of a moderate understanding. The prince and the peasant will have their several ends of worthy delight in reading it; and Mr. Campbell's life is of that extent that it concerns and collects (as I may say) within itself every station of life in the universe. Besides, there is a demand, in almost every page that relates any new act of his, for the finest and closest disquisitions that learning can make upon human nature, to account how those acts could be done by him; for he daily practised, and still practises, those things naturally which puts art to the rack to find out how nature can so operate in him; and his fleshly body, by these operations, is a living practical system or body of new philosophy, which exceeds even all those that have hitherto been compounded by the labour and art of many ages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf one that had speculated deep into abstruse matters, and made it his study not only to know how to assign natural reasons for some strange new acts, that looked like miracles by being peculiar to the individual genius of some particular admired man, but carrying his inquiry to a much greater height, had speculated likewise what might possibly be achieved by human genius in the full perfection of nature, and had laid it down as a thesis by strong arguments, that such things might be compassed by a human genius (if in its true degree of perfection) as are the hourly operations of the person's life I am writing, he would have been counted a wild, romantic enthusiast, instead of a natural philosopher. Some of the wisest would be infidels to so new and so refined a scheme of thinking, and demand experiment, or cry it was all against reason, and would not allow the least tittle to be true without it. Yet the man that had found out so great a mystery as to tell us what might be done by human genius, as it is here actually done, would have been a great man within himself; but wanting farther experimental proof, could lay no claim to the belief of others, or consequently to their esteem. But how great, then, is the man who makes it constantly his practice actually to do what would not otherwise have been thought to be of such a nature as might ever be acquired by mortal capacity, though in its full complement of all possible perfection? He is not only great within himself, be is great to the world: his experiments force our belief, and the amazing singularity of those experiments provokes both our wonder and esteem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf any learned man should have advanced this proposition, that mere human art could give to the deaf man what should be equal to his hearing, and to the dumb man an equivalent for his want of speech, so that he should converse as freely almost as other hearing or talking persons; that he might, though born deaf, be by art taught how to read, write, and understand any language as well as students that have their hearing, would not the world, and many even of the learned part of it, say that nothing could be more extravagantly wild, more mad and frantic?....","brand":"OGB","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47170071986416,"sku":"2940011894138","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940011894138_p0.jpg?v=1763551074","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940011894138","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}