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  EXTRACT OF MR DUTENS INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCOVERIES ATTRIBUTED TO THE MODERNS
  by Louis Dutens
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An inquiry by Louis Dutens into the true origins of discoveries commonly
attributed to modern thinkers, arguing that many scientific and philosophical
advances were actually known to the ancients. A fascinating study in the history
of ideas.

  Chapters: 23

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 0.2 - Introduction
    2. 0.4 - The Authors Preface
    3. Chapter 01 - Of the Circulation of the Blood, and the Fallopian Tubes
    4. Chapter 02 - Of the Chirurgery of the Ancients
    5. Chapter 03 - Of Generation
    6. Chapter 04 - Of the Sexual System of Plants
    7. Chapter 05 - Of the Chemistry of Tile Ancients
    8. Chapter 06 - Of Sensible Qualities
    9. Chapter 07 - Of Animated Nature
   10. Chapter 08 - Nature Active And Animated
   11. Chapter 09 - Of Thunder and Earthquakes; Of the Virtue of Tile Magnet; Of the Ebbing and Flowing ...
   12. Chapter 10 - Of Ether. And the Weight and Elasticity of the Air
   13. Chapter 11 - Newtons Theory of Colours, Indicated by Pythagoras and Plato
   14. Chapter 12 - Of Burning Glasses
   15. Chapter 13 - Of Universal Gravity, and Centripetal and Centrifugal Force
   16. Chapter 14 - Of the Copernican System; The Motion of the Earth about the Sun; And the Antipodes
   17. Chapter 15 - Of the Revolution of the Planets about Their Own Axis
   18. Chapter 16 - The Milky Way; Solar Systems, or a Plurality of Worlds
   19. Chapter 17 - Of Comets
   20. Chapter 18 - Of the Refraction of Light, and Astronomical Refraction; And of Perspective
   21. Chapter 19 - Of the Many Discoveries of the Ancients in Mathematics, &c
   22. Chapter 20 - Of Archimedes; Of the Mechanics and Architecture of the Ancients; And of Microscopes...
   23. Chapter 21 - CONCLUSION

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  CHAPTER 1: 0.2 - INTRODUCTION
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Introduction

Having, by reason of the largeness of the preceding volumes, which contain much
more than I expected, some pages to spare, I am well pleased with an opportunity
of inserting here another extract from one of the most ingenious treatises,
which, I believe, was ever wrote upon the subject: Mr. Deutens’ “Inquiry into
the Origin of the Discoveries attributed to the Moderns.” I am surprised that I
never heard of it till very lately; and I have met with exceeding few that have:
although the Latin original I suppose, for i have not seen it) has been
published good part of twenty years, and the elegant and judicious translation
of it was printed eight or nine years ago. It is true, I am hereby convinced of
several mistakes, which I bad been in for many years. But I look upon every such
conviction as a valuable acquisition. And I trust, my heart will always say both
to God and man,” What I know not, teach thou me.”


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  CHAPTER 2: 0.4 - THE AUTHORS PREFACE
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The Author’s Preface Extract of Mr. Duten’s Inquiry Into the Origin of the
Discoveries Attributed to the Moderns IN the comparison between the moderns and
ancients, a distinction ought to be made between the arts and sciences, which
require long experience and practice to bring them to perfection, and those
which depend solely on talent and genius. Without doubt, the former in so long a
series of ages, have been extended more and more, and brought to a very high
degree of perfection by the moderns, who in this respect surpass the ancients,
though the art of printing, and many other discoveries, have not a little
contributed to it. We know the astronomers in our days understand much better
the nature of the stars, and the whole planetary system, than Hipparchus,
Ptolemy, or any other of the ancients. But it may be doubted whether they’ had
gone so far unaided by telescopes. The modems have certainly perfected the art
of navigation; nay, and discovered new worlds: but yet without the assistance
of’ the compass, America, In all probability had still remained unknown.
Likewise by long observation and experiments often repeated, we have brought the
arts of botany, anatomy, and chirurgery, to the degree of perfection we know
behold them in. Many secrets of nature, not to be penetrated in one age, have
been laid open in a succession of many. Morality itself hath been perfected by
the Christian religion; philosophy hath assumed a new air; and the trifling,
childish, and vain cavils of the schools, have at length been put to flight by
the reiterated efforts of Ramus, Bacon, Newton, and many others.

I willingly therefore give up to the partisans of the moderns, every advantage I
have here enumerated ; but there is no need on that account, to rob the ancients
of the share they have had in promoting all these parts of knowledge, by the
pains they took to beat out for us the tracks we have pursued. Much less should
we assume, as modern discoveries, what the ancients really invented, or
illustrated. It also deserves notice, that the most part of the admirable and
useful inventions, in which our age glories, such as printing, gunpowder, the
compass, telescopes, &c. were not the acquisitions of genius and philosophy. but
mere effects of chance. To place in its true light the share the ancients have
in whatever we pretend to know, and even in what has been called modern
discoveries, is the principal aim of my present undertaking.


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  CHAPTER 3: CHAPTER 01 - OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD, AND THE FALLOPIAN TUBES
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Chapter 1 - Of the Circulation of the Blood, and the Fallopian Tubes

1. THE medical art affords striking instances of the injustice done to the
ancients, in endeavouring to deprive them of the glory of having made the most
important discoveries in it. I shall- produce two or three manifest proofs of’
this, dud doubt not but the reader will perceive not only probable hints, but
demonstrate evidence, that the ancients clearly taught what we now dispute their
having had any knowledge of.

2. It is remarkable with regard to medicine, that none of the siences sooner
arrived at perfection; for in the space of two thousand years, elapsed since the
time of hippocrates, there has scarcely been added a new aphorism to those of
that great man, notwithstanding all the application of so many ingenious men, as
have since studied that science.

3. I omit taking notice of some modern authors, who have endeavoured to prove,
that the circulation of the blood was known to Solomon, that I may pass tc the
more evident proofs of his discovery, which Hippocrates furnishes us with. After
examining those passages, no one will deny but this able physician knew, what he
expresses so clearly.

4. In truth, it is hard to conceive that he knew nothing of the circulation of
the blood, when we hear him say, “That all the veins communicate one with the
other, and run into one another: that the veins which spread themselves over the
whole body, filling it with spirit, juice and motion, are all of them but
branches of one original vein. I protest, I know not, says he, where it begins,
or where it ends, for in a circle there is neither beginning nor ending.” A
little further he says, “that the heart is the source of the arteries, which
carry blood into all parts of the body, communicating to them life and beat; he
adds, “that they ire the rivulets which cherish the human body, and convey life
to every part of man.” in another part, he says, that the “heart and veins are
always in motion.” He comrn pares the course of rivers, which return to their
sources in an unaccountable and extraordinary manner, to the circulation of the
blood. in apoplexies and such like disorders, which he ascribes to obstructions
in the veins, he prescribes bleeding, in order to procure a free motion to the
blood and spirits. He says also, “that when the bile enters into the blood, it
breaks its consistence, and disorders its regular course. He compares its
admirable mechanism to clews of thread, whose filaments overlap each other; and
says, that in a body it performs just such a circuit, always terminating where
it began."

5.The next to Hippocrates is Plato, who speaks with clearness of the circulation
of the blood; (or from the heart, he says, spring the veins and blood, which
with rapidity carries itself into all parts : adding, that when the blood
thickens, it flows with more difficulty through the veins. Aristotle too,
regards the heart as the origin and fountain of the veins and blood. He says,
that from the heart there arise two veins, one on the right, and the other on
the left side; and he was the first who called this aorta. He held that the
arteries had a communication with the veins, and that they were intimately
connected together.

6.Julius Pollox, in his “Onomasticon,” describing all the parts of the body, and
their uses, among other things, says, in speaking of the arteries, that they are
“the passages and canals of the spirits, as the veins are of the blood ;“ and in
speaking of’ the heart, he says, that it: “hath two cavities, the one of which
communicates with the arteries the other with the veins.” Apulelus, in
explaining the doctrine -of-Plato, speaks likewise of the circulation of the
blood, and in a few words describes it as clearly as any of the moderns. It is
true, he does not expressly mention, that the blood flows from the heart
through- the arteries : but on its leaving the heart, he supposes its course
along the lungs, to spread itself afterward into all parts of the body.

7.Nemesius, bishop of Emissa, who may be accounted among the ancients, having
lived in the fourth century, has a very clear passage to this purpose, wherein
he says, “that the motion of the pulse owes: its origin to the heart, and
particularly to the left ventricle of that viscus. The cardiac artery expands
and contracts itself with very much force, but always with great regularity and
harmony of motion. In its expansion it draws in the most subtle parts of the
blood from the adjoining veins, and of that blood forms the aliment of the vital
spirits : and in its contraction exhales all the fumes brought into it by secret
passages from all parts of the body.”

8.It appears from what we have said, that the circulation of the blood was known
to the ancients ; though they did not expatiate upon it: and what reduces to a
very small degree the honour that Hervey can claim, in making that discovery, is
that Servetus had treated of it very distinctly before him, in the fifth part of
his book De Christianismi Restitutione ;“ a work so very scarce, that there are
but few who can boast of having seen it in print. Mr. Wotton, in his reflections
upon the ancients and moderns, cites this passage of Servetus in which he
distinguishes three sorts of spirits of the human body, and says, that blood.
“which he calls a vital spirit is dispersed through the body by the anastomosis,
or mutual insertion of two vessels, at their extremities, into one another.”
Where it deserves observation, that Servetus is the first who employed that term
to express the communication between the veins and arteries. He makes the
“expanded- air in the lungs contribute to the formation of blood, which comes to
them from the right ventricle of the heart, by the canal of the pulmonary
artery.

He says, that the blood is there refined and perfected, by the action of the
air, which subtilizes it, and blends itself with that vital spirit, which the
expanded heart then receives as a fluid pro. per to carry life every where. He
maintains, that this conveyance and manner of preparing the blood in the lungs,
is evident from the conjunction of the veins with the arteries in this viscus.
And be concludes with saying, that the heart having received the blood thus
prepare(l by the lungs, sends it forth again by the artery of its left yen.
tricle, called the aorta, which distributes it into all parts of the body.” And
reas Cesalpinus, who lived likewise in the sixteenth century, hath two passages
which completely contain all that we know about the circulation of the blood.
“He explains at length how the blood gushing from the right ventricle of the
heart through the pulmonary artery, to pass into the lungs, enters by an
anastomosis into the pulmonary veins to be conveyed to the left ventricle of the
heart, and afterward distributed by the aorta into all parts of the body.”

9.Johannes Leonicenus, says, that the famous Paul Sarpi, otherwise named Father
Paul, was he who discovered the circulation of the blood, and first discerned
the valves of the veins, which like the suckers of a pump, open to let the blood
pass, but shut to prevent its return; and that he communicated this secret to
Fabricius ab Aquapendente, professor of medicine, at Padoua, in the sixteenth
century, and successor to Fallopius who discovered it to Hervey, at that time
studying physic under him in the university of Padoua.

10. There is another important discovery in anatomy, attributed to Fallopius,
which had a more ancient origin; I mean the two ducts which insert themselves
into the sides of the womb, and serve to convey the seed or female sperm from
the ovaries into the womb, and are called the Fallopian tubes, being shaped
almost like a trumpet, and thought to have been discovered by Fallopius of
Modena, who died in year 1562. We find them described as follows, by Rufus of
Ephesus, “Herophilus,” says he, “imagined that females had no seminal ves sels;
but in examining the womb of a beast, I found -arising from the ovaries certain
ducts, which entwisted into each other, were entirely varicious, and at their
farther extremity, entered into the cavity of the womb. Upon compressing them,
there issued from them a glutinous humour, and I am firmly persuaded they are
seminal vessels of the very same structure with those in males called the
vericous arastata.”


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  CHAPTER 4: CHAPTER 02 - OF THE CHIRURGERY OF THE ANCIENTS
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Chapter 02 - Of the Chirurgery of the Ancients

1. AS to the subject of this chapter, I cannot entertain my reader better than
by presenting him with an extract of Mr. Bernard’s thoughts upon it, who was
first surgeon to king William. Here follows a faithful translation of a part of
a memoir, which he imparted to his friend, air. Wotton.

“ If we attend well to what the moderns have added to the surgery of the
ancients, we shall be obliged to own that we have not the least right to despise
them, as those do who know nothing of them, nor have ever read them; and who
give the strongest proofs of their own ignorance and pride, in the manner
wherein they presume to treat those great men. I do not say, that the moderns
have in no respect contributed to the advancement of surgery; but what I say is
this, that the merit of the moderns consists rather in having re-introduced the
inventions of the ancients, and set them in a better light, than in any
important discoveries that they themselves have made in this science. Whether
the art of curing wounds, falling immediately under the observation of sense,
has for that reason been the study of men of the earliest times, and by that
means sooner acquired a degree of perfection, than the other branches of
medicine: or that the most part of those who afterward assumed the profession,
were mere empirics, and ignorant of it: which ever of these be the case, it is
certain this art has not for some ages past been cultivated, as it might have
been: and to prove this, we need only to reflect how few the number of good
writers are upon this subject, in comparison of those who have written upon
other branches of the arts and sciences.

Whoever is conversant with the writings of the ancients, and has skill to judge
of their merit in his own practice, will ingenuously own, that what renders the
reading of them more useful than those of the moderns, is, that they are more
exact in describing the symptoms and indications of disorders, and more just and
precise than the moderns, in distinguishing the different species of ulcers and
tumours. if our age has retrenched some superfluities of practice, as it must be
owned it has, yet it cannot be shown that these methods came from the ancients.
It is much more probable, that they were in a great measure introduced by the
ignorant professors of a later date. There is no doubt but that the perfection
to which surgery has been carried in these last ages, is principally owing to
the discoveries which have been made in anatomy, by means of which we are
enabled to give a reason for many of the phenomena, which were before
inexplicable. But the most essential parts the art of curing wounds, to which
all the other parts ought to give way, remains almost in the very same state, in
which the ancients transmitted it to us.

What 1 have said is incontestible: and for proof of it, I appeal to every course
of surgery that has been published by the most celebrated among the moderns, all
of which appear to be but transcripts of one another, excepting those of
greatest note, which are taken from the ancients. Among all the writers of
systems, few deny the pre-eminence of Fabricius ab Aquapendente, a man of
exquisite learning and judgment, but who is not ashamed to declare that Celsus,
among the Latins, Paul Eginetus, among the Greeks, and Albucasis, among the
Arabians, are those to whom he is most indebted in the composition of his
excellent work. But it will be said, that a great many methods of Operation are
at present in use, which were unknown to the ancients. I fear, on the contrary,
that an impartial examination into this would discover many more, and of greater
utility, either omitted or discontinued, than of new, which we have introduced:
provided their inquiry were entered upon with an impartial and unprejudiced
mind,

3. “To begin with the operation for the stone, there is nobody doubts but they
bare a right to claim that as their own. Celsus and many others have given us
exact descriptions of it ; though it must he owned that the method of operation,
deserving the preference in many respects, and known by the name of the grand
operation, was the invention of Johannes de Romanis, of Cremona, who lived at
Rome in the year 1520, and published his work at Venice in 1535. The instrument
that we make use of in trepanning, was doubtless first used by the ancients, and
only rendered more perfect by Woodall and Fabricius ab Aquapendente. Tapping
likewise is in all respects an invention of theirs. Laryngotomy, or the opening
of the larynx in the quinsy, was practised by them with success ; an operation
which, though safe and needful, is almost out of use at present.

4.“The cure of the hernia intestinalis, with the distinguishing differences of
the several species of that malady, and their method of cure, are exactly
described by the ancients. It was they who taught us the cure of the peterygion
and cataract, and treated the maladies of the eye as judiciously as any of our
modern oculists, who, if they would act with honour, should confess, that they
do nothing more but practice over again what those great masters taught. The
opening of an artery, and of the jugular vein, is no more a modern invention,
than the application of the ligature in the case of an aneurism, which certainly
was not well understood even of late by Frederick Ruysch, that celebrated
anatothist of Holland. The extirpation of the amygdales, or of the uvula, is not
at all a late invention, though it must be owned the efficacious cauteries now
used in the case of the former, were neither practised nor known by the
ancients. The method we now use of treating the fistula laclirymalis, a cure so
nice and difficult, is precisely that of the ancients, with the addition that
Fabricius made of the canula for applying the cautery.

5. “ As to the real caustic, which makes a considerable article of Surgery,
although Casteus, Fienus, and Severinus, have written simply on that subject;
yet it is evident from a single aphorism of Hippo crates, that this great
physician knew the use of it as well as those who have come after him: and
besides, it is frequently spoken of in the writings of all the other ancients,
who without doubt used it with great success in many cases where we have left it
off, or know not how to apply it. The cure of the varices, by incision, scarcely
so much as made mention of now, appears to have been a familiar practice among
the ancients, as is manifest from the works of Celsus and Paulus Eginetus; and
whoever is conversant in the treatment of varicous ulcers, will agree, that this
operation is absolutely necessary for the effectual cure of them. The polypus of
the ear is a malady so little understood by the moderns, that we meet but very
rarely with the name of it in their writings; and yet the description of its
cure has not been omitted by the ancients. They were entirely well acquainted
with all kinds of fractures and luxations, and the means of remedying them; as
well as with all the sorts of sutures in use amongst us, besides many which we
have lost. And though some have advanced that cauteries were unknown to them, we
may easily convince ourselves of the contrary, by observing what Celsus and
Coelius Aurelianus have said of them, allowing withal that they seem not to have
known our method of placing and continuing them.

6.“Nor ought I to omit what is so manifest, that nobody will deny it, that all
sorts of amputations, as of limbs, breasts, &c. were performed among them as
frequently, and with as great success, as we can pretend to. As to the art of
bandaging, so very important and necessary, though much neglected at presents
and which the French so much pique themselves upon, as if in this they excelled
all others; the ancients knew it to such a degree of perfection, that we do not
even flatter ourselves with having added any thing considerable to what Galen
hath taught us, in the excellent tract he has written on this subject. And
although the moderns claim an advantage over the ancients, in regard to the
variety of their instruments, it is nevertheless evident, that they were
ignorant and destitute of none that were necessary: nay, it is highly probable,
from what Oribasius, nay and many others have said, that they had great variety
of them. As to topics, or the remedies which are externally applied, it is
certain that we are indebted to them, for having instructed us in the nature and
properties of these we now use ; and as to general methods of cure, the ancients
have so eminently excelled, particularly in that of treating the wounds of the
head, that those of the moderns who have written most judiciously upon it,
thought they could do no better service to posterity than comment upon that
admirable book which Hippocrates wrote on this subject.

7. “ it would require more leisure and ability than I have,” concludes Mr.
Bernard, “to enter into a detail of more particulars, and to show what bath been
invented, set aside, or lost in different ages. What I have already advanced,
sufficiently makes it appear, that we ought to talk of the ancients with great
respect; not that we should blindly yield to their authority, or imagine that
they left nothing to be perfected in following ages; but we ought to imitate the
celebrated Bartholin. ‘We make but an ill judgment of our own interest,’ says
that great man, ‘when we so plunge ourselves in the study of the moderns as to
neglect or contemn that of the ancients, whose writings are so necessary to
throw light upon every part of the science.’ And in another place he says, ‘I
have always shown a particular regard to the opinions and maxims of the moderns,
yet never without paying due homage to antiquity, to which we are indebted for
the very prime foundations of our art.’”


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  CHAPTER 5: CHAPTER 03 - OF GENERATION
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Chapter 3 - Of Generation

1.THERE are two principal sentiments among the moderns, relative to the manner
in which generation is effected. Some think that all the parts of the fetus are
enclosed in miniature in those eggs contained in the ovaries of the female,
which communicate with the womb by the Fallopian tubes; and that the seed of the
male is only a sort of matter proper for detaching the egg, cherishing it, and
conveying it into the womb, where the germ contained in the egg afterward
unfolds its parts: this is the sentiment of Hervey, Redi, and many other
celebrated physicians, who maintain that all animals are oviparous, and spring
from eggs, which in the animal kingdom are what seed is in the vegetable.

2.The other sentiment is that of Lewenhoek, that all animals, and even men,
spring from little animals of extreme minuteness, contained in the seed of the
male ; and he looks upon the eggs in the ovary of the female, only as little
niduses fit to receive these animalculi, and to contribute to their developement
and increase, by imparting to them the nourishment which comes from the vessels
of the womb.

3.The first of these systems was for a time generally received, and appeared to
be founded on just observations. Those who maintain it. declare, that they have
found eggs in the ovaries of every female that came under their notice, often to
the number of more than twenty in each ovary, and of the size of a green pea.
They draw another of their arguments from the analogy that nature every where
observes in all operations, and particularly in the production of plants and
animals. Now if this system deservedly confers glory on the inventor of it, it
is but just that he should have it who is best entitled to it; and he to whom it
appears primarily due is without doubt Empedocles, and next to him Hippocrates,
Aristotle, and Macrobins.

4. Plutarch, relating the different opinions of philosophers, as to the’ the
generation of animals and productions of plants, says, that Empedocles thought
they were all of them at first irregular and imperfect, but acquired afterward
such a just form as distinguished them in shape and species from one another.
And he concludes with saying, that animals are not produced like earth and
water, from homogeneous bodies, but generate one another by the mixture of the
sexes, and like plants, derive the principle of their origin from the particular
seeds or eggs. This is the very same which Aristotle intended to indicate, as
the doctrine of Ernpedocles, when he introduces him, as saying, “that whatever
was born, was born of a particular seed ;“ and as calling the seeds of plants
their eggs, which fall of themselves when they are come to maturity.

5.Herodotus, who lived almost at the same time with Empedocles, relating that a
land adjoining to the Nile had produced a great quantity of fish, gives a
natural reason for it, upon the principles of Empedocles. What seems to me, says
he, to have been the cause of this vast increase of fish, is this, during the
time of the Nile’s overflowing, the fishes having left in the mud of its
borders, a prodiguous quantity of sperm, or eggs, these disclose themselves
after its retreat, covering. the land with a multitude of fish.

6. Hippocrates, speaking of the formation of an infant, describes a fetus six
days old, comparing it to a raw egg without the shell, round, and full of a red
transparent liquor. In another place, he shows “how the same thing happens in
the generation of an infant, as in the production of a plant.” He says “that
nature is always the same, acting uniformly in the generating of men, and of
plants, and of every thing else.”

7.Aristotle, with still more precision, describes the egg containing the foetus.
He says, “that all animals engender and conceive first a kind of egg, containing
a liquor enveloped in a membrane or thin skin, resembling that of an egg shell.
This, in another place, he plainly calls an egg; out of one part of which,” lie
says, “the foetus is produced ; that is, out of the yolk ; whilst the white
part, which is the other, serves to nourish it.”

8.Nothing can be more clear than what Macrobius pronounces on this subject, who
positively avers, that of all kinds of animals who copulate, an egg is the first
principle of their generation; and in another place, that the egg is the
solution or expansion of the seed.

9.The system of animalcules or spermatic vermiculi has hindered that of
generation by the means of eggs, from gaining the unanimous suffrage of the
naturalists. Mr. de Plantades, secretary of the academy of Montpelier, was the
first among the moderns who renewed this conjecture of the ancients. Lewenhoek
and others confirmed this conjecture by observations so accurate, that they
divided the sentiments of naturalists between their own opinion of men’s
proceeding from spermatic animalcula, and that of Hervey, which derives all
generation from eggs. We have already seen that this letter opinion sprung from
Hippocrates, Aristotle, &c. And the other of the existence of spermatic
vermiculi, is as clearly taught by Plato, Hippocrates, Aristotle, arid other
ancient philosophers, as if they had seen them. We can never sufficiently extol
the extreme penetration of those great geniuses, who, guided solely by reason,
arrived so long before us, where we, after all our nice experiments and
laborious researches, are glad to rest.

10.Democritus is the first of the Grecian philosophers, who bath spoken of
certain worms, which assume at length the human form; but no author transmitted
to us, has entered into a detail of this opinion; though Epicurus, Diodorus,
Siculus and Euripides, seem to hint at it. Epicurus thought that the generation
of animals was effected by the continual transformation of one into another.
Anaxagoras, had said the same, as well as Euripides, quoted by Plutarch, Galen,
Eusebius and Philo. But Democritus, in explaining himself more precisely, taught
that men, in their first original, appeared in the form of small worms, which,
in all probability, he conceived to be contained in the seminal juice of the
male; for it is natural to suppose, that in this idea he agreed with
Hippocrates, who insinuates, that the “seed of animals is filled with
animalcula, whose parts unfold themselves and grow all at a time.”

11. That illustrious physician, without all doubt, held conferences upon this
subject with Democritus, whom he found engaged in the dissection of animals,
when be went first to visit him, and long enjoyed the utmost satisfaction in his
company upon matters entirely philosophical. Aristotle seems to hint at
Democritus, when treating of the first formation of men, he says, that some have
thought that “the first men,” after having sprung out of the earth, “began their
existence in the form of little worms ;“ and in another place, he speaks of
Democritus as having believed, that “in the generation of man, the exterior
parts of the foetus are first formed ;“ so that it is even then of human shape,
and therefore even in that condition may be looked upon as a “little man.”

12.Hippocrates advanced, that nothing in nature absolutely perished; “that
nothing, taking it altogether, was produced anew nothing born but what had a
prior existence ;“ that what we call birth is only “such an enlargement as
brings from darkness to light,” or renders visible” those small animalcula which
were before imperceptible." He says a little farther, it is impossible that what
is not, should be born, there being nothing that can contribute to the
generation of what has no existence. But he maintains, “that every thing
increases much as it can, from the lowest to the highest degree of magnitude."
These principles he afterward applies to human generation. Re says, that “the
largest sizes arise out of the lesser ;“ that “ all the parts successively
expand themselves, and grow and increase proportionally in the same series of
time ; that none of them in reality takes the start of another, so as to be
quicker or slower in their growth; but that those which are naturally larger,
sooner appear to the eye than those which are smaller, though they by no means
preceded them in existence.” In short, in the beginning of this book of
Hippocrates, we meet with a train of reasoning entirely just and solid, the
natural consequences of which is, that at the beginning of the world, the seeds
containing the first lineaments of plants and animals came into existence,
though their extreme minuteness hinders them from being seen. Whence he
concludes, as we have already had occasion to observe, that “the birth of
animals is only such an enlargement of them, as makes them pass from darkness
into light.”

13.It may be objected, that we have already represented Hippocrates and
Aristotle as favouring the system of generation by eggs; and that we now seem to
ascribe a contrary opinion to them. But it ought to be remarked, that in
reality, these two philosophers favoured the former system: for Aristotle only
relates the other opinion as introductory to the establishment of his own; and
Hippocrates contents himself with insinuating the notion, that there may be
animalcula in the male seed, without taking it upon him ‘to establish it as a
truth. Besides, he might have admitted of spermatic vermiculi in the sense that
some moderns do, in order to reconcile the two systems, regarding the eggs as
niduses proper for the reception of the spermatic vermiculi, and containing
matter necessary for contributing to their growth. In this case, the spermatic
worm will be the real foetus, the substance of the egg its nourishment, and the
membranes of it its wrappers.

14. Plato bath still more clearly spoken of those small animals which become
men; for after having compared “the womb to a fertile field,” in which the
scattered seed produces fruit; he says, that “the animalcula, which there
receive their growth, are at first so extremely small as not to be perceptible
to the eye, but coming gradually to unfold themselves and expand, by means of
the food prepared for them in the womb, they afterward spring firth into day in
all the perfection of birth.” Nor can it be denied, that Seneca had a very
distinct idea of this system of human generation by animalcula. when we find
bins teaching, that “ the human form before birth, Was comprised in the seed,
where all the members of the body were con-centered and shrouded up in a little
indiscernible place.” Which Tertullian bath expressed in few words, when he
says, “the seed bath life in it from the very first.”

15.The discovery respecting the multiplicity of animation of which the polypus
is capable, is what nobody makes any difficulty of regarding as due to the
moderns, though Aristotle and St. Augustine speak of it as clearly as any of the
moderns, as a thing which they knew from their own experience. The latter
relates in his book concerning “the dimension of the soul," that one of his
friends performed the experiment before him, cutting a polypus in two; and that
immediately the two parts thus separated betook themselves to flight, moving the
one, one way, and the other another. That great man adds, that this experiment
suddenly threw him into such amazement, that for some time he knew not what to
think of the nature of the soul. Aristotle, speaking of insects, says almost the
same thing; for without naming the creature he speaks of, he observes, that
“there are of these animals or insects, as well as of plants and trees, that
propagate themselves by shoots :“ and as what were but the parts of a tree
before, become thus distinct and separate trees: so in cutting one of these
animals, says Aristotle, the pieces which before composed but one animal, become
of a sudden so many different individuals.


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  CHAPTER 6: CHAPTER 04 - OF THE SEXUAL SYSTEM OF PLANTS
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Chapter 4 - Of the Sexual System of Plants

1.NOBODY at present doubts but that plants propagate themselves, as animals do,
by means of organs, some male and others female; that in a great many plants
these two kinds of organs are found united, which plants are then among
naturalists distinguished by the name of hermaphrodites; and that in other
plants the two sexes are so separated, that the male are on one stem. and the
female on another. This system is founded, first, on the analogy there is
between the eggs of animals and the seed of plants. both serving equally to the
same end, that of propagating a similar race: secondly, on the remarks that have
been made, that when the seed of the female plant is not impregnated with the
prolific powder of the male, it bears no fruit; insomuch, that as often as the
communication between the sexual parts of plants has been intercepted, they have
always proved barren. The authors of this system, after exactly anatomizing all
the parts of the plant assign to each a name, founded on its use and analogy to
the parts of an animal. Thus as to the male organs, the filaments are the
spermatic vessels, their antheres, or tops, the testicles ; and as to the
female, the style answers to the vagina, the germ to the ovary, and the
pericarpium, or fecundated ovary, to the womb.

2. Linnaeus has the honour of having completed this system, by. reducing all
trees and plants to particular classes, distinguished by the number of their
stamina, or male organs. Zaluzianski seems to have been the first among the
moderns, who clearly distinguished from one another the male, female, and the
hermaphroditical plants. About a hundred years after him, Sir Samuel Millington
and Dr. Grew communicated to the Royal Society of London. their observations on
the impregnating dust of the stamina. Camerarius, towards the end of the last
century, observed, that upon plucking off the stamina of some male plants, such
as the mulberry-tree the maize, the buds that ought to have produced fruit, came
not to maturity. Malpighi and Vaillant have also carefully considered this
fecundating dust; the latter of whom seems to have been the first eye-witness of
this secret of nature. Many authors afterward applied themselves to improve this
system.

3.We are now to examine whether the ancients knew any thing of this, or whether
they only speak of it in a vague and indecisive manner. I agree, that they do
not give so exact an account of the anatomy of every part of the flower of a
plant as the moderns do; at least, no such work of theirs hath reached our
times. They are even sometimes so far mistaken, as to apply some of the parts to
purposes they do not serve. But in this they are more excusable than some of our
ablest moderns, who have fallen into great errors on this subject,
notwithstanding all the instructions, experiments and observations of their
cotemporaries. The ablest botanist of his age, Mr. de Tournefort, who could not
be ignorant of what had been advanced by Millington, Grew, Malpighi and
Camerarius, yet maintains, that the stamina of flowers serve only to secrete or
void the less useful parts of the nutritive juices, and are only the excretory
vessels belonging to the calix of the flower.

4.Having made this concession, I may with the more safety affirm, that this one
circumstance excepted, of which I have here made mention, the ancients perfectly
understood the sexual difference in plants, the fecundation of the fruits of the
female by the dust of the flowers of the male, and had a distinct idea of the
two sexes, as having place in different individuals.

5.Theophrastus says, that trees may he distinguished into several classes, on
account of their great variety ; but that the most universal difference among
them is that of their gender ; whether male or female. And Aristotle observes,
that we ought not to fancy that the intermingling of sexes in plants is the same
as among animals.

6.There were it seems, various Opinions among the ancients, as to the manner in
which plants should be admitted to have a difference of sex. Some looked upon
them as complete in that respect, each individual containing in itself the
powers of both sexes. Empedocles endeavoured to solve this, whether in plants
the male was distinct from the female; “or, whether the sexes were united in
each of the species : and he concluded, that plants were hermaphroditical ; that
is a composition of both sexes.” Aristotle doubted, whether he ought to admit,
that the two sexes combined in the same plant, or should pronounce that they
existed separately.

7.True it is, this author errs widely in his manner of distinguishing the male
from the female plant ; for he thought the difference to consist in this, that
the male was larger and stronger, the female weaker, but more fruitful. He said
also that the male was more dry, and came sooner to maturity than the female.
But it should be observed, it is not upon the testimony of Aristotle that we
attempt to show, the ancients knew the sexual system of plants. This is what
only appears confused in his writings; for he employs himself rather in giving
the sentiments of others, than in advancing reasons of his own.

8.Empedocles thought that whatever grew, drew its origin from seed, which he
compares to eggs in this respect; that it originally contains in it a nutritive
aliment, which it immediately communicates to the root. And Aristotle reasoning
on this sentiment of Empedocles, says, “ that in plants the two sexes are
united,” which makes them capable of propagating themselves ; but instead of a
foetus they produce seed, which is the fruit of their generative faculty. And on
this account, Empedocles called plants oviparous for time seed, or” egg,” said
he, “ is the fruit of the generative faculty, one part of which serves to form
the plant, and the other to nourish the germ and root ; in animals of different
sexes, we see that nature, when they would procreate, impels them to unite, and
like plants to become one ; that from this combination of two, there may spring
up another animal.”

9.As to the manner in which fruits were impregnated, the ancients were not
ignorant, that it was by means of the prolific dust contained in the flower of
the male ; and they carried the accuracy of their observations so far as to
remark that the fruits of trees never come to maturity, till they have been
cherished with dust. Upon this, Aristotle says, “that if one shake the dust of a
branch of the male palm over the female, her fruits Will quickly ripen; and that
when the wind sheds this dust of the male upon the female, her fruits ripen
apace.”

10.Theophrastus, treating of the same subject, says, “they bring the male to the
female palm in order to make her produce fruits: The manner in which they
proceed is this : When the male is in flower, they select a branch abounding in
that downy dust which resides in the flower, and shake this over the fruit of
the female. This operation prevents the fruit from becoming abortive, and brings
it soon to perfect maturity.” “ Naturalisis’ says Pliny, “ admit the distinction
of sex not only in trees, but in herbs, and in all plants. Yet this is no where
more observable,” adds he, “ than in palms he females of which never propagate
hut when they are fecundated by the dust of the male.” He calls the female
palms, deprived of male assistance, barren widows. He compares the conjunction
of these plants to that of animals ; and says, that to generate fruit, the
female needs only the aspersion of the dust of the flowers of the male.


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  CHAPTER 7: CHAPTER 05 - OF THE CHEMISTRY OF TILE ANCIENTS
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Chapter 5 - Of the Chemistry of Tile Ancients

1.IF we will be guided by the greatest number of etymologists the needs no deep
research to demonstrate the antiquity of chemistry. Its name seems to declare
its origin. It is agreed almost by all, that it was first cultivated in Egypt.
the country of Cham, of whom it is supposed to have taken its name, Chemia, sive
Chamia, the science of Cham. In the 105th psalm, Egypt is called, “the land of
Cham." According to Bock-hart, the Coptes still call themselves Chemia, or
Chami; and Plutarch. in his isis and osiris, speaking of a district of Egypt,
names it Chamia, quasi Chimia. But without entering here into a philological
discussion, I shall content myself with considering whether the ancients were
chemists, and to what degree; and hope to make it appear, that they not only
knew all of that art, which we do, but had such insight in it, as we have not at
present.*

*must be allowed, that the excellent remarks in this treatise, reflect much
light and credit on the ancients; but it should be borne in mind, that they
apply to a period, which is now itself enrolled with antiquity. Chemistry
particularly, at the time these remarks were made, was a mere confused jumb1e of
experiment and arrangement, and scarce deserved the dignifying title of art or
science. Within a very few years, the discoveries and improvements, have been so
nu

2 The first instance that occurs for ascertaining the antiquity of the science,
is of a very remote date. Nobody, I think, will doubt, hut Tubal-Cain, and those
who with him found out the way of working in brass and iron, must have been able
chemists. It was impossible to work upon these metals, without knowing the art
of digging them out of the mine, of excavating them, and of refining arid
separating them from the ore, all which are chemical operations, and must have
been at first invented by those who excelled in the art, however afterward they
might be put in practice by the meanest artizans. Those who are engaged in the
working of copper mines, for instance, and know that the metal must pass above a
dozen times through the fire, before it can acquire its proper colour and
ductility, will easily enter into this sentiment. It is needless to bring
together here all the passages of heathen historians, which speak of Vulcan, in
the same manner as the sacred author does of Tubal-Cain, and to show the reader
from the resemblance, and as it were identity of names, that all of them relate
to one and the same person. It is enough to observe that those authors represent
Vulcan as skilled in operating upon iron, copper, gold, silver, and all the
other bodies capable of sustaining the action of lire.

3.I likewise pass over whatever carries in it the air of fable: such as the
story of the golden fleece; the golden apples that grew in the gardens of the
ilesperides ; the reports of Manethon and Josephus with relation to Seth’s
pillars ; and come to facts real and established: and for the sake of
chronology, I shall still adhere to the sacred text, in contemplating an action
of Moses, who having broken the golden calf, reduced it into powder to be
mingled with water, and given to the Israelites to drink; in one word, rendered
the gold potable : an operation so difficult, that it is entirely impracticable
to most of the chemists of our days, and owned by Boerhave to be of so exalted a
kind, that it is unknown at present to the most skilful. Yet it must be
admitted, that it hath been looked upon by some able chemists as practicable,
who at the same time acknowledge it to be a most remarkable proof of Moses’
eminent skill in all the wisdom of Egypt. For how, without the aid of chemistry,
could Moses have dissolved the golden calf, and that too without applying
corrosives, which would have poisoned all who had afterward drank of the waters
Yet this was to be done, and in a short time too, though there be but one way of
doing it. Frederick the third, king of Denmark, curious to put this operation in
practice, engaged some able chemists to attempt it. After many trials they at
last succeeded, but it was in merous and important, as to give a new character
to this department of science, and exalt it to a degree beyond all comparison
with antiquity. See notes and observations at the end of the volume. following
the method of Moses, by first reducing the gold into small parts by means of
fire, and then pounding in a mortar, (along with water) till it was so far
dissolved, us to become potable. This fact cannot be called in question, nor has
it any thing supernatural in it We know that Moses was instructed in all the
learning of the Egyptians, among whom the sciences were cultivated with all
manner of success, and from whom the most eminent philosophers of Greece derived
their knowledge.

4.How they formed that cement, which they applied in rearing those monuments
that still subsist, remains a secret to us ; though it be past all doubt, that
they prepared it in a chemical way, so hidden however to us, that we daily
lament the loss of it. The numberless mummies which still endure, after so long
a course of ages, ought to ascertain to the Egyptians the glory of having
carried chemistry to a degree of perfection attained but by few. In their
mummies alone, there is such a series of operations, that some of them still
remain unknown, notwithstanding all the attempts of some of the ablest moderns
to recover them. The art of embalming bodies, and preserving them for many ages,
is absolutely lost; and never could have been carried so far as it was by the
Egyptians, without the greatest skill in chemistry.*

All the essays to restore this art, have proved ineffectual, nor have the
reiterated analyses made of mummies, to discover the ingredients of which they
were composed, had any better success. Some moderns have attempted, by certain
preparations, to preserve dead bodies entire, but to no purpose. The mummies of
Lewis de Bus, who was regarded as eminent in that way, are already in a state of
corruption. There were also in those mummies of Egypt, many things besides,
which full within the verge. of chemistry: such as their gilding so very fresh,
as if it were but of fifty years standing; and their stained silk, so vivid in
its colours, though after a series of thirty ages. In the museum at London,
there is a mummy covered all over with fillets of granated glass, various in
colour, which shows that this people at that time, understood not only the
making of glass, but could paint it to their liking, it may be remarked here,
that the ornaments of glass with which that mummy is bedecked, are tinged with
the same colours, and set off in the same taste, as the dyes in which -almost
all other mummies are painted; so that it is probable, this kind of ornaments
being very expensive, was reserved for personages of the first rank only whilst
others, who could not afford this, contented themselves with an imitation of it
in painting.

*The art of making mummies, has been represented by some travellers, as a mere
local advantage of the soil and climate of Egypt, where the exhalations arising
from the surface of the country, constitute such a body in the atmosphere, as
even to prevent the vapours from forming and descending in rain. The remarks
tend to impart an idea, that these exhalations are so rapid, as to carry off the
humours from a dead body to such a degree, as to prevent putrefaction taking
place. These exhalations are represented to be of a kind of petrifying quality,
whereby the flesh of a dead body is converted into a kind of stone. home
experiments were tried in some of the desert sands, on the dead bodies of some
small animals, which seemed to confirm the opinion.

5. It would be easy to make a more extensive enumeration of the particulars of
the chemical process, which concurred to the composition of a mummy ; but I
proceed to take notice of their manner of painting upon linen, which if I
mistake not, is still a secret to us. After having drawn the outlines of their
design upon the piece of linen, they fill each compartment of it with different
sorts of gums, prepared to absorb the various colours; so that none of them
could be distinguished from the whiteness of the cloth. Then they dipped it for
a moment in a caldron full of boiling liquor, proper for the purpose: and anew
it thence painted in all the colours they intended. And what was remarkable, the
colours neither decayed by time, nor moved in the washing: the caustic,
impregnating the liquor wherein it was dipped, having penetrated and fixed every
colour intimately through the whole contexture of the cloth. This single
instance is sufficient to give us a very high conception of the progress that
chemistry had made among the Egyptians, though their history affords a thousand
others of the kind, not to be wondered at among a people so very active and
industrious, where even the lame, the blind and the maimed, were in constant
employment, and so little subject to envy, that they inscribed their discoveries
in the arts and sciences, upon pillars reared in holy places, in order to omit
nothing that might contribute to the public utility. The emperor Adrian attests
this first part of their character, in a letter written to the consul Servianus,
upon presenting him with three very curious cups of glass, which, like a
pigeon’s neck, reflected, on whatever side they were viewed, a variety of
colours representing those of the precious stone called obsidianum, which some
commentators have imagined to be the cat’s-eye, and others the opal.

6.This art of imitating precious stones, was not peculiar to the Egyptians; the
Greeks, who indeed derived their knowledge from those great masters, were also
very skilful in this branch of chemistry. They could give to a composition of
chrystal, all the different tints of any precious stone they wanted to imitate.
Pliny, Theophrastus, and many others, give instances of this; but they most
remarkably excelled in an exact imitation of the ruby, the hyacinth, the
emerald, and the sapphire.

7. Chemistry being a principal branch of medicine, it will not be amiss to
mention some particulars, wherein the Egyptians have contributed to the
perfection of that science. I set aside the history of Esculapius, who was
instructed by Mercury or Hermes. Their pharmacy depended much upon chemistry;
witness their manner of extracting oil, and preparing opium, for alleviating of
acute pains or relieving the mind from melancholy thoughts. Homer seems to have
had this last in view, when he introduces Helen as ministering to Telernachus a
medical preparation of this kind. They also made a composition or preparation of
clay or fuller’s earth, adapted to the relief of many disorders. particularly to
render the fleshy parts dry, and thence to cure the dropsy and the hemorrhoides.
They knew all the different ways of composing salts, nitre, and alum, sal
cyreniac or ammoniac, so called from being found in the environs of the temple
of Jupiter Ammon. They made use of the litharge of silver, the rust of iron, and
calcined alum, in the cure of ulcers, cuts, biles, deflux ions of the eyes,
pains of the head, &c. and of pitch against the bite of serpents.

They successfully applied caustics. They knew every different way of preparing
plants, or herbs, or grain, whether for medicine or beverage. Beer in
particular, had its origin among them. Their ungents were of the highest
estimation, and most lasting; and their using remedies, taken from metallic
substances, is so manifest in the writings of Pliny and Dioscorides, that it
would be needless to enter upon them here. Dioscorides often makes mention. of
their metallic preparations, such as burnt lead, ceruse, verdigrise, and burnt
antimony; all which they made use of in their plasters, and other external
applications. It should be observed here, that I have had nothing in view, but
the pharmacy of the Egyptians; otherwise I might have made mention of the
Theriac, that famous composition of Andromachus the physician of Nero, which has
at all times been in high estimation, and is now in as much repute as ever. What
little I have advanced respecting the medicinal chemistry of the ancients, must
suffice upon this occasion ; the Greeks and Romans presenting a field too vast
to be comprised in a tract of this kind.

Hippocrates especially, the cotemporary and friend of Democritus was remarkably
assiduous in the cultivation of chemistry. A learned man has composed an entire
book on the extensive comprehension he had of it, whereby it appears, that he
not only understood the general principles of it, but was an adept in many of
its most useful parts. Passages are quoted from Plato, that are received as
axioms in chemistry. Galen knew that the energy of fire might be applied to many
useful purposes, and that by the instrumentality of it, many secrets in nature
were to be discovered, which otherwise must for ever be hid: and he gives many
instances of this in several places of his works. Dioscorides had transmitted to
us many of the mineral operations of the ancients, and in particular that of
extracting quicksilver from cinnabar, which is in effect an exact description of
distillation.

8.The merit of the ancients in having arrived at the knowledge of this important
operation of chemistry, has been much called in question; which makes it
requisite to give particular attention to this passage of Dioscorides, which not
only indicates the practice of distillation among the ancients, but shows that
this branch of chemistry derived from the Greek language the name of its
principal instrument, the alembic. The word ambix, according to Athenaeus, meant
the cover of a pot, or any vessel wherein liquids were set a boiling, and the
Arabs adopted this word in applying it to the same subject, only adding the
syllable alto the beginning of it, a syllable that enters into the beginning of
most of their words, whence sprung the word alembic. Pliny also gives the same
explanation as Dioscorides does, of the manner of extracting quicksilver from
cinnabar by distillation. And Seneca describes an instrument exactly resembling
the alembic, and which seems to have been applied to the same use. But there are
other indications, besides, full as sure as those, that distillation had place
among the ancients. For without reckoning that brewing of beer implies the use
of a still, we find Aristotle observes that oil could be extracted from sea
salt; which never could be done without distillation. Hippocrates describes the
process of that operation; talks of vapours arising from the boiling fluid,
which meeting with resistance, stop and condense till they fall in drops from
the body to which before they clung in the form of vapours. And Zosimus of
Panopohis, not only desires his students to furnish themselves with alembics,
but gives them directions how to use them, and places before their eyes draughts
of such as best deserve to be employed in practice.

9.To proceed to other particulars of general chemistry; the ancients, among
other things were acquainted with lixivial salt, or sal alcali, one of the prime
principles of bodies. Sal alcali means properly the salt extracted by fire from
the Egyptian plant kali, but as it is extracted also from other vegetables,
though in less quantity. chemists extend the name to all those salts, which like
that of this plant, attract and imbibe acids, and by their contexture penetrate
into them, and closely unite with them. These salts are termed promiscuously,
lixivial salt, sal alcali, rock salt, &c. It is of them Aristotle speaks, when
he says, that in Umbria the burnt ashes of rushes and reeds, boiled in water,
yield a great quantity of salt. Theophrastus observes the same of Umbria. Varra
relates, that some who dwell on the borders of the Rhine, having neither sea nor
pit salt, supply themselves with it by means of the saline cinders of burnt
plants. Pliny assures us, that ashes are impregnated with salts, and speaks in
particular of the nitrous ashes of burnt oak; adding that these salts are used
in medicine, and that a dose of lixivial ashes is an excellent remedy. in short,
Hippocrates, Celsus, Dioscorides, and especially Galen, often recommended the
medical use of sal alcali; and their writings are filled with passages, which
show that they all understood it. To the mixture of acids and alcali it was,
that Plato ascribes fermentation; and Solomon seems to have known this effect of
them when he brings as an instance of it, vinegar, and the nitre of Egypt.

10. Another convincing proof of the ability of the ancients in chemistry, the
experiment with which Cteopatra entertained Marc Antony, in dissolving before
him, in a kind of vinegar, a pearl of very great value. I say, in a kind of
vinegar; for at present we know not of any that can produce this effect; but as
the fact itself is so well attested, we must thence conclude that the queen
added something to the vinegar, omitted by the historian: and that Phacas, who
was her physician, assisted her at that time with his aid, enabling her thus to
gain the wager which she had laid with Marc Antony, that she would exceed him in
the costliness of her entertainment. But even the queen herself was a great
adept in this art, as appears from some of her performances, still preserved in
the libraries of Paris, Venice, and the Vatican. And Pliny informs us of the
emperor Caius, that by means of fire he extracted some gold from a quantity of
orpiment.

11.The method of rendering glass ductile, is a secret still uncomprehended by
us, though formerly well known to the ancients. The authors who lived at the
very time when this was done, speak of it so circumstantially, that it is
impossible to doubt of it. They are Pliny, Petronius, lbn, Abd Alhokin, John of
Salisbury, Isidorus, and others. Pliny speaks only of the flexibility of glass,
which he says; was found out in the time of Tiberius: but that the emperor
fearing lest gold and silver, those most precious metals, should thereby fall in
their value, so as to become contemptible, ordered the residence, workhouse, and
tools of the ingenious artisan to be destroyed, and thus cut off this art in its
rise. Petronius goes farther, and says, that in the time of Tiberius there was
an artificer, who made vessels of glass, which were in their composition and
fabric as strong and durable as silver or gold; and that being introduced into
the presence of the emperor, he presented him with a vase of this kind, such as
he thought worthy of his acceptance ; and that meeting with the praise his
invention deserved, and finding his present so favourably received, he, to
increase the admiration of the spectators, and further to ingratiate himself
with the emperor, laid hold on the vase, throwing it with such violence on the
floor, that had it been of brass, it must have been injured by the blow; that he
took it up again whole, but dimpled a little, which he immediately repaired with
a hammer he took from his breast: and that while he was in expectation of some
very ample reward in recompense of his ingenuity, the emperor asked him whether
any body else was acquainted with this method of preparing glass, and being
assured that no other was, immediately ordered his head to be cut off, lest gold
and silver, added he, should become as base as the dirt we tread upon. In these
two testimonies, we see how this discovery came so soon to be lost. if whatever
is new, be with so much difficulty established. notwithstanding every
encouragement, how was it possible for this to endure, when so suddenly
surprised by inevitable fate! Dion Cassius, on this head, confirms the
attestations of Pliny and Pletronius. John of Salisbury and Isidorus, relate
this same fact, in the same way. As to the Arabian Ibn Abd Aihokin, he speaks of
malleable glass as a thing known in the flourishing times of Egypt; but he
himself is so unknown, that I know not how to rest on his authority. Greaves,
who makes mention of him as a celebrated chronologist among the Arabians, cites
from him the passage, wherein it is said, that Saurid king of Egypt, who built
three pyramids, deposited in them, among other precious things, malleable glass,
&c. I ought not to leave this subject, without mentioning the attempts made by
the moderns to render glass pliant and malleable. There is a chemical
composition, well known, formed of silver dissolved in acid spirits, which is
called cornu lunae, a transparent body, easily put into fusion, and very like
horn or glass, and which will bear the hammer. Borrichius makes mention of an
experiment of his own, tending to prove the possibility of rendering glass
ductile; it consisted in composing a pliant and malleable salt, for the making
of which he gives the receipt; concluding from thence, that as glass for the
most part is only a mixture of salt and sand, and as the salt may be rendered
ductile, it ought not to be looked upon as impossible that glass may be made
malleable. And be imagines, that the Roman artificer, spoken of by Pliny, and
Petronius, may have assumed antimony as the principal ingredient of his glass.

Besides we may observe, that nature bath formed many bodies, having an analogy
to that of glass ; such as the horns of animals, amber, the Russian talc, and
several others, all which are transparent, and at the same time pliant and
malleable. Descartes also takes notice, that salt may be rendered malleable, and
for that very reason intimates, that it is possible to succeed in giving the
same property to glass. And Morhoff assures us, that the celebrated Boyle was
also of this opinion. In speaking of glass I may add, that the art of painting,
so far as it depends upon chemistry, was carried formerly to a much higher
degree of perfection, than it is at present. Of this we have striking instances
in the windows of some ancient churches, where paintings present themselves in
the most vivid colours, without detracting from the transparency of the glass;
and which, as Boerhaave observes, are hardly to be imitated at present, we
having lost the secret to a degree, that there are scarce any hopes of ever
recovering it. The enamelling and mosaic works of the ancients, yield the same
kind of evidence of their skill in chemistry ; of the former of which many
instances occur in the works of Pliny and others.

12.Having spoken of the chemistry of the Egyptians, and of that of the Greeks
and Romans. who derived their instructions from these most masters; it would not
be pardonable to omit mentioning critus, the parent of experimental philosophy.
This great man, for the sake of acquiring wisdom, travelled into Egypt, and made
his abode with the priests of the country, as we are informed by Dio genes,
Laertius, Strabo, Clemens Alexandrinus, Eusebius, and Synesius. Vitruvius tells
us, that he wrote many books on natural philosophy, and was wont to put his seal
upon those experiments which he had tried himself. Diogenes Laertius says the
same. Petronius affirms, that he extracted the juice of every simple, and was so
wholly taken up in experiments, that there was not a quality belonging to the
mineral or vegetable kingdoms that escaped his notice. and Seneca asserts, that
he was the inventor of reverberating furnaces’ the first who gave a softness to
ivory, and imitated nature in her production of precious stones, particularly
the emerald.

13.I shall finish this chapter with an assertion, that perhaps will seem
paradoxical: that the ancients knew the use of gunpowder. Virgil and his
commentators Servius, Byginus, Eustathius, La Cerda, Valerius Flaccus, and many
other authors, speak in such a manner of Salmoneus’ attempts to imitate thunder,
as suggest to us that this prince used for that purpose a composition of the
nature of gunpowder. Eustathius in particular speaks of him on this occasion, as
being so expert in mechanics, that he formed machines which imitated the noise
of thunder: and the writers of fable, whose surprise in this respect may be
compared to that of the Mexicans when they first beheld the fire arms of the
Spaniards, give out, that Jupiter, incensed at the audacity of this prince, slew
him with lightning as he was employing himself in launching his thunder. But it
is much more natural to suppose, that this unfortunate prince, the inventor of
gunpowder, gave rise to these fables, by having accidentally fallen a victim to
his own experiments. Dion and Joannes Antiochenus report of Caligula, that this
emperor imitated thunder and lightning by means of certain machines, which at
the same time emitted stones. Themistius informs us, that the Brachmans
encountered one another with thunder and lightning, which they had the art of
launching from on highat a considerable distance. Agathias, the historian,
reports of Anthemius Traliensis, that having fallen out with his neighbour Zeno
the rhetorician, he set fire to his house with thunder and lightning.
Philostratus, speaking of the Indian sages, says, that when they were attacked
by their enemies, they did not leave their walls to fight them, but put them to
flight by thunder and lightning. And in another place he relates, that Hercules
and Bacchus attempting to assail them in a fort where they were entrenched, were
so roughly received by reiterated strokes of thunder and lightning, launched
upon them from on high by the besieged, that they were obliged to retire,
leaving behind them an everlasting monument of the rashness of their enterprise.
It appears from all these passages, that the effects ascribed to these engines
of war, especially those of Caligula, Anthemius, and the Indians, could be only
brought about by gunpowder. And what is still more, we find in Julius Africanus
a receipt for a composition to be thrown upon an enemy, which very nearly
resembles that powder. But what places this beyond all doubt, is a clear and
positive passage of an author called Marcus Graecus, whose work in manuscript is
in the royal library at Paris, entitled, Liber ignium. Dr. Mead had the same
also in manuscript. The author describes several ways of encountering an enemy,
by launching fire upon him; and among others gives the following: mix together
one pound of live sulphur, two of charcoal of willow, and six of saltpetre;
reducing them to a very fine powder in a marble mortar.

He adds, that a certain quantity of this is to be put into a long, narrow, and
well compacted cover, and so discharged into the air. Here we have the
description of a rocket. The cover with which thunder is imitated, he represents
as short, thick, but half filled, and strongly bound with packthread; which is
exactly the form of a cracker. He then treats of different methods of preparing
the match, and how one squib may set fire to another in the air, by having it
enclosed within it. In short, he speaks as clearly of the composition and
effects of gunpowder, as any body in our times could do. I own, I have not yet
been able precisely to determine when this author lived, but probably it was
before the time of the Arabian physician Mesue, who speaks of him, and who
flourished in the beginning of the ninth century. Nay, there is reason to
believe, that he is the same of whom Galen speaks. We see also by two passages,
one of Aristotle, ‘the other of Pliny, that the art of making steel, and of
tempering it, was known even in their time.

14. It has been sometimes objected to the facts I produce, that had the state of
things been really so, their own utility would have preserved them from the
outrages of time; our present ignorance therefore is alleged as of sufficient
force, to invalidate whatever has been reported of the acquisitions of former
times. But how frivolous this objection is, appears not only from the cause
assigned of our having lost the secret of rendering glass malleable, but also
from those monuments which still remain, and are daily before our eyes, of the
superiority of the ancients in many parts of chemistry: such as the Egyptian
mummies, the paintings on glass, the perpetual lamps, &c. not to mention, that
there are now many secrets, practised in different nations, and unknown in
others, such as the Russian way of preparing leather, that of the Turks in
tempering steel, that of the Chinese in making porcelain, the lacquer of the
Japanese, and the dye of the Gobelins.


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  CHAPTER 8: CHAPTER 06 - OF SENSIBLE QUALITIES
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Chapter 6 - Of Sensible Qualities

1.THERE is no part of philosophy which has made less progress among the vulgar,
than that which treating of sensible qualities, dismisses them entirely from
body, to make them reside in the mind. The most eminent philosophers of
antiquity have acknowledged this truth; it sprung naturally from their
principles, and they deduce the same consequences from it. Democritus, Socrates,
Aristippus, Plato, Epicurus, and Lucretius, have clearly affirmed, that cold and
heat, odours and colours, were no other than sensations, excited in our minds,
by the different operations of the bodies surrounding us, and acting on our
senses. And it is easy to show, that Aristotle himself was of this opinion,
“that sensible qualities exist in the mind ;“ though by the obscure manner in
which he opens himself, he hath given occasion to believe that he thought
otherwise. There are only the schoolmen, who have positively affirmed, that
sensible qualities exist in bodies as in minds; that there is in luminous
bodies, for example, the very same thing that is in us when we view light. And
as the philosophy of the schools had for some ages taken possession of men’s
minds, when Descartes, and after him, Mallebranche, arose in opposition to the
common prejudices, taking pains to draw the herd of philosophers out of the
gross errors wherein they found them involved; it was not perceived, that in
this they did nothing but renew the very same truths, which had been taught by
Democritus, Plato, Aristippus, and Sextus Empiricus, supporting them likewise by
the very same arguments, though sometimes farther extended.

Hence all the honour has been ascribed to these moderns, as if the error they
attacked had been that of all ages; nobody designing to search any deeper,
whether in reality, it was so or not. For had they given any attention to what
the ancients had advanced, or consulted their writings, they would soon have
found that some of them, not only stripped body of every power of exciting
opinions in us, but even sometimes called in question its very existence. Yet
this indolence in ascertaining the origin of our improvements, was not entirely
universal. Gassendi had published a tract upon sensible qualities, and given
also an abridgement of the Pyrrhonic philosophy respecting this subject, before
ever Descartes attempted it; so that even among the moderns themselves,
Descartes is not the first who clearly distinguished between the properties of
spirit and body. And as to the ancients, a brief narrative of what Descartes and
Mallebranche have said, compared with what those ancients taught, will quickly
put the reader in a condition of deciding to whom that discovery ought to be
attributed.

2.Descartes begins with remarking, that every one is accustomed from his
infancy, to look upon whatever he perceives by his senses as existing out of his
mind ; and having an entire resemblance to the perceptions which he finds there.
Observing the colour of any object, for instance, we think we see something
without ourselves, and residing in the objects, exactly resembling our idea of
it; and, we acquire such a habit of judging in this manner, that we never
entertain any doubt. This is the case of all our sensations; we seldom imagine
that they exist only in the mind, but rather in our hand or foot, or some other
part of our body. There is nothing however more certain, than that the pain
which we feel in our foot, is nothing but what the mind perceives as there ; in
the same manner as the light we see as it were in the sun, is an idea raised by
it in our minds. In the same manner we say, we perceive colours, or discern
odours in objects; when these sensations arise in us from something or other in
those objects. Such are the misconceptions of our infant state, from which we
can hardly rescue ourselves even in advanced life.

3.Mallebranche seized this idea of Descartes, and more fully opened it. In his
celebrated work, the research into truth, he begins with discovering that the
source of our error is in the abuse of our liberty, and the precipitation with
which we form judgment; insomuch, that our senses could not impose on us, were
it not for our rashness, For example, when we see light, it is certain we do so;
when we feel heat, there is no mistake in imagining we do; but we deceive
ourselves when we fancy, that the heat and odours we perceive are external to
the mind that feels them. He then combats the errors arising from our way of
judging; and having stripped the body of its sensible qualities, instructs us
how mind and body co-operate to produce our sensations, and how we accompany
them with false judgments. He blames those who always judge of objects by the
sensations they excite and by an appeal to their own feelings; for the feelings
of all men being different, though things themselves continue the same, they
must judge variously as they are affected, but ought not to ascribe the
diversity of affections to the objects themselves.

4.Were we to bring into review all the ancients have taught on this subject, we
should be surprised at the clearness with which they have explained themselves,
and at a loss to account how opinions came to be taken for new, which had been
already illustrated in their writings, with such force and precision. It cannot
so much as be said, that the moderns have given a new turn to these opinions;
for they not only reason upon the same principles, but employ the very same
comparisons in proof of them.

5. Democritus was the first who disarrayed body of its sensible qualities. That
great man, who admitted only of atoms and space as the principles of things.
differed from all who had preceded him in that opinion, in that he affirmed,
atoms were void of qualities ; and in this he was followed by Epicurus. He
derived qualities from the different order and disposition of the atoms among
themselves, as well from their diversity of figure; which, according to him, was
the cause of all the various changes and modifications in nature; some of them
being round, others angular, some straight, some pointed, some crooked, &c. “
Thus the first elements of things having in them neither whiteness nor
blackness, sweetness, nor bitterness, heat nor cold, nor any other quality ; it
follows, that colour, for example, exists Only in our perception of it; as also,
that bitterness, and sweetness, which exist only in being perceived, are the
consequences of the different manners in which we ourselves are affected by the
bodies surrounding us, there being nothing in its own nature yellow, or white,
or red, sweet or bitter."

6. Sextus Empiricus, explaining the doctrine of Democritus, says, “that sensible
qualities,” according to that philosopher, “have nothing of reality but in the
opinion of those who are differently affected by them, according to the
different dispositions of their organs ; and that from this difference of
disposition arise the perceptions of sweet and bitter, heat and cold ; and also,
that we do not deceive ourselves in affirming that we feel such impressions ;
but in concluding that exterior objects, must have in them something analagous
to our feelings.”

7. Protagoras, the disciple of Democritus, says, that in man is contained the
rule or measure of every thing ; that the whole existence of external things
consists in the impression we perceive in ourselves; insomuch that what is
imperceptible, has not the consequences of his system; for admitting, with his
master, the perpetual mutability of matter, which occasioned a constant change
in things; he then added, that whatsoever we see, apprehend, or touch, are just
as they appear; and that the only true rule or criterion of things, was in the
perception men had of them. I leave the reader to judge, whether Protagora’s
manner of thinking might not have transmitted to Berkely the idea of a system,
which he with so much subtilty hath maintained “that there is nothing in
external objects, but what the sensible qualities existing in our minds induce
us to imagine, and of course that they have no other manner of existence; there
being no other substratum for them, than the minds by which they are perceived:
not as modes or qualities belonging to themselves, but as objects of perception
to whatever is percipient.”

8.We should think we were listening to the two modern philosophers, when we hear
Aristippus exhorting men “to be upon their guard with respect to the reports of
sense, because it does not always yield just information; for we do not perceive
exterior objects as they are in themselves but only as they affect us. We know
not of what colour or smell they may be, these being only affections in
ourselves. It is not the objects themselves that we are enabled to comprehend,
but are confined to judge of them only by the impressions they make upon us; and
the wrong judgments we form of them in this respect, is the cause of all our
errors. Hence, when we perceive a tower which appears round, or an oar which
seems crooked in the water; we may say that our senses intimate so and so, but
ought not to affirm, that the distant tower is really round, or the oar in the
water crooked: it is enough, in such a case, to say, that we receive the
impression of ,roundness from the tower, and of crookedness from the oar; but it
is neither necessary nor proper to affirm, that the tower is really round, or
the oar broken; for a square tower may appear round at a distance, and a
straight stick always seems crooked in the water.”

9.Aristippus says farther, “there is not in man any faculty that can judge of
the truth of things, any farther than that men have given common names to their
own apprehensions. Thus every body talks of whiteness and sweetness, but they
have no common faculty to which they can with certainty refer impressions of
this kind. Every one judges by his own apprehensions, and nobody can affirm that
the sensation which he feels when he sees a white object, is the same with what
his neighbour experiences in regard to the same object; and because the powers
of apprehension are not entirely the same in all, it is temerity in us to
assert, that what appears in such or such a manner to one, must needs do so to
every body else: for one may be so constituted, that the objects which offer
themselves to his eye may appear white, while to those of a man differently
constituted they seem yellow; as is manifest in those who have the jaundice, or
any other natural diversity of discernment, and who by reason of the different
contexture of their organs, are incapable of receiving from the same things, the
same impressions that others do. Thus he who has large eyes, will see objects in
a different magnitude from him whose eyes are little; and he who bath blue eyes,
discerns them under different colours from him who hath gray.”

10. Plato, following Protagoras, clearly distinguishes between sensible
qualities, and the objects which cause-them. He observes, that the same wind
appears cold to one, and hot to another; to one soft, and to another rough: but
“that we ought not thence to conclude, that the wind is in itself hot and cold
at the same time ; but to say with Protagoras, that he who is hot, feels it
hot,” &c.

11. I come now to Epicurus, whose doctrine is explained with the greatest
exactness by Plutarch, but above all by Diogenes Laertius. This philosopher,
admitting the principles of Democritus, hath thence deduced the most natural
consequences : “that atoms are all of the same nature, and differ only in
figure, magnitude, and weight, and that in the constitution of every thing, they
bear some affinity to its principal properties, such as roundness, bulk, &c. For
colour, says he, cold and heat, and the other sensible qualities, are not
inherent in the atoms, but the result of their assemblage : and the difference
between them flows from the diversity of their size, figure, and arrangement:
insomuch, that any number of atoms in one disposition, creates one Sort of
sensation ; and in another, another: but their own primary nature remains always
the same, because being solid and uncompounded, no parts transpire, otherwise
nature would not be in the main fixed and stable ; and it is from the permanency
of the properties essential to atoms of matter, that the different sensations
arise, which the same. objects produce in animals of different species, and in
men of different constitutions ; for each have in the organs of sight, hearing,
and. the ether senses, an innumerable multitude of pores differently sized and
situated; these are variously adapted and proportioned for the reception of the
small corpuscles, which easily insinuate themselves into some, and with
difficulty into others, (according to the analogy between them and the pores,
and the variety of contexture in the parts) and of course must produce different
impressions.”

12. So that the senses do not deceive us, for they are not judges of the nature
of things; but serve only to inform us of the connexion and relation between the
bodies surrounding us and our own, in subserviency to our happiness in this
life: “whence it is obvious, that our sensations are always true, though the
judgments we many times form respecting their objects are sometimes false :“ as
must always be the case, whenever we alter those objects themselves which are
the exterior causes of our sensations, by either adding something foreign to
them or retrenching from them, what is properly their own. "If any think they
are imposed upon by the different appearances which result from one and the same
object; as, for example, when a body seen at a distance appears of one colour,
and when nigh of another; it is themselves who are guilty of the deception, in
imagining that the one appearance is true, and the other illusory; for in that,
they form a false judgment, not rightly considering the nature of things ;
whereas, they ought, on the contrary, to have concluded that both colours were
true, though different, occasioned by the change of situations in which they
were viewed, which produced two sensations not the same, but equally true.

Whence it also happens, that it is not the sound in the brass that is beaten,
nor the voice itself of a person who sings, that are the objects of our
perception, but only that which acts upon our ear; for one and the same thing
cannot be in two different places at once. And as no man says, that his judgment
is imposed upon, because a sound strikes him more feebly at a distance, than
when he hath approached the place whence it comes: neither can we say, that our
sight illudes us, when at a distance, a tower appears small and round, which
upon our approach to it, would be found large and square: for the representative
size of the object is in exact proportion to that of the angle formed by it in
the eye, which varies according to the difference of the distance. In a word,
the use of the senses is to represent objects to us under certain appearances;
but not at all to judge what they are in themselves: and hence our sensations
are always true; error being only the result of our judgment.”

13.1 have been the more large on this subject, because it is one of the most
proper to prove the truth of my proposition, “that the moderns have often
enriched themselves with the spoils of the ancients, without having done them
the honour of any acknowledgement.” With reason have we praised Descartes and
Mallebranche, for having treated this matter with so much penetration. But they
have scarcely advanced any thing but what had been said before by those ancient
philosophers, whom I have been quoting.


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  CHAPTER 9: CHAPTER 07 - OF ANIMATED NATURE
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Chapter 7 - Of Animated Nature

1.THE ancients, says Mr. Buffon, understood much better, and made a greater
progress in the natural history of animals and minerals than we have done. They
abounded more in real observations; and we ought to have made much better
advantage of their illustrations and remarks. Yet he does not often support his
sentiment by their authority: hence one might be led to believe, that he did not
himself perceive the analogy which every where reigns between his system, and
that of the ancients. Let the reader himself determine of it, upon perusing what
I have to offer. Meanwhile, it is but right to observe, that it cannot be
concluded from Mr. Buffon’s not supporting himself by the authority of the
ancients, that he was not acquainted with their sentiments, and still much less,
that having studied them, he did not discern the conformity between theirs and
his own. And I make this observation with the less repugnance, because I do not
hereby detract from the reputation of that able writer, who will always possess
the merit of having, with the greatest sagacity, apprehended the principles of
the Greek philosophers, and revived their reasonings; the greatest part of which
had been ravaged by the injuries of time.

2. I cannot but look upon the restorer of the system of any great man, the frame
of which only shows itself in a few remaining fragments, as upon an able
sculptor, who, from the broken bust of Phidias, or any other famous ancient, is
capable, by the strength of his own genius, and the skill he has in his art,
exactly to judge by that single piece, of the proportions which ought to take
place in every. member, so as to form and unite them together in so just a
manner, that his statute shall be as perfect as the other. The merit of such a
modern artist, doubtless, deserves great praise; but the glory of the ancient
one will still be superior, because the idea of the proportions of the adjusted
members, was taken from that of those in the broken bust. It is easy to apply
this comparison to modern philosophers, of whom the most eminent, so far from
seeking to avoid the charge of having borrowed their opinions from the ancients,
have often been the first to own it; of which Descartes, and the principal
Newtonians, furnish us with striking examples.

3.Diogenus Laertius, Plutarch and Aristotle inform us, that Anax agoras thought
bodies were composed of similar or homogeneous particles; that those bodies,
however, admitted a certain quantity of small particles that were heterogeneous,
or of another kind; but that to constitute any body of a particular species, it
sufficed that it was composed of a great number of small particles, similar and
constitutive of that species. Different bodies were masses of particles similar
among themselves; dissimilar however, relatively to those of any other body or
to the mass of small particles, belonging to a different species. They believed,
for example, that blood Was formed of many particles, each of which had blood in
it; that a bone was formed of many small bones, which from their extreme
littleness evaded our view. Likewise according to this philosopher, nothing was
properly liable to birth or. to death; generations of every kind, being no other
than an assemblage of small particles, constituent of the kind; and the
destruction of a body being no other, than the disunion of many small bodies of
the same sort, which always preserving a natural tendency to reunite, produce
again by their conjunction with other similar particles, other bodies of the
same species.

Vegetation and nutrition were but means employed by nature for the continuation
of beings: thus, the different juices of the earth, being composed of a
collection of innumerable small particles intermixed, constituting the different
parts of a tree or flower, take according to the law of nature, different
arrangements; and by the motion originally impressed upon them, proceed, till
arriving at the places designed and proper for them, they collect themselves and
halt to form all the different parts of that tree or flower: in the same manner
as many small imperceptible leaves go to the formation of the leaves we see;
many little parts of the fruits of different kinds, to the composition of those
which we eat; and so of the rest. The case was the same, according to that
philosopher, with respect to the nutrition of animals. The bread we eat, and the
other aliments we take, turn themselves according to this system, into hair,
veins; arteries, nerves and all the other parts of our bodies; because there are
in those ailments, the constituent parts of blood, nerves, bones, hair, &c.
which uniting with one another, make themselves by their coalition perceptible,
which they were not before, because of their infinite smallness.

4.Empedocles hath acknowledged the same with respect to animal nutrition, which
be says, forms itself out of the substance of aliments proper and accommodated
to the animal nature. He also taught, that matter had in it a living, principle,
a subtile active fire, which put all in motion; and which Mr. de Buffon calls by
another name, organized matter, always active; or, animated organic matter. And
this matter, according to Empedocles, was distributed through the four elements
among which it had an uniting force to bind them, and a separating, to put them
asunder, for the small parts either mutually embraced, or repelled one another;
whence nothing in reality perished, “but every thing was in perpetual
vicissitude.” Whence it follows, according to the system of Empedocles, as well
as that of Anaxagoras, nothing had either life or death, properly so called, but
that the essence of things consisted in that active principle, whence they
arose, and into which they all reduced themselves at last. He bad also a
sentiment respecting generation, which Mr. de Buffon bath followed, expressing
it in the very same terms ; where he says, that the seminal juices of the two
sexes contain all the small parts analogous to the body of an animal, and
necessary to its production.

5.Plotinus, following the idea of Empedocles, and investigating the reason of
this sympathy in nature, discovered it to proceed from such a harmony and
assimilation of the parts, as bound them together when they met, or repelled
them when they were dissimilar; he says. that it is the variety of these
assimilations that concur to the formation of an animal; and calls that binding
or dissolving force, the magic of the universe: and his able interpreter,
Marsilius Ficinus, explaining the sense of that passage, says, that the
different parts of every animal, have an attractive virtue in them, by means of
which they assimilate such parts of the aliment as best agree with them.

6.I come now to the system of Mr. de Buffon. He thinks with Anaxagoras, that
there is in nature a common matter to animals and vegetables, which serves for
the nutrition and expansion of all that lives or vegetates; and with Plotinus,
that this matter contributes to their nutrition and expansion, in being
assimilated to each part of an animal or vegetative body, and entering into
their inmost pores. This nutritive and productive matter, is universally spread
through all, and composed of organic particles, ever active, tending towards
organization, and of themselves assuming a variety of forms according to their
situations; so that with Anaxagoras, he thinks there is no pre-existent seed,
involving infinite numbers of the same kind, one within another: but an ever
active organic matter, always ready so to adapt itself, as to assimilate, and
render other things conformable to that wherein it resides : the species of
animals and vegetables can never therefore exhaust themselves: but as long as an
individual subsists, the species will be renewed. It is as extensive now, as it
was at the beginning and all will subsist till they are annihilated by the
Creator. It follows from these principles, that generation and corruption are
only a differ. ent association or disjunction of similar parts, which after the
dissolution of an animal or vegetable body, serve to reproduce another, of the
species: provided, according to Mr. de Buffon, that those small constituent
parts meet in a place proper for the expansion of them selves, so as to unclose
what ought thence to result for the generation of an animal, or that they pass
through the interior mould of an animal or vegetable, and assimilate themselves
to the different parts in intimately adhering to them; and it is in this last
respect only, that any difference subsists between the opinions of the ancients
last mentioned, and the theory of Mr. de Buffon. He thinks that the similar and
organic parts do not become specific, till after they have assimilated
themselves to the different parts of the bodies, into whose composition they
enter ; whereas Anaxagoras believed them always specific, and did not think that
they had need to enter the inside of the parts in order to assimilate.

7.Another principle of Mr. de Buffon is, that when the nutritive matter abounds
more than sufficient for the nourishment and expansion of an animal or vegetable
body, it is remitted through all parts of the body, into one or more reservoirs,
in form of a liquor, which is the semen of the two sexes, which mingled
together, contributes to the’ formation of a foetus, which becomes male or
female in proportion as the seed of the male or female abounds more or less in
the organic assemblages; and resembles father or mother, according to the
different combinations of the two seeds. One finds all the origin of this idea
in Pythagoras, Aristotle, Hippocrates.

8.It would be to stray from my subject, were I to treat of the merit of one or
other of these systems. My scope will be sufficiently attained, if I make the
analogy of them appear. It seems to me, that both of them are the productions of
very fine geniuses; that of Anaxagoras is more intricate, and not supported by
the exact experiments, which sustain that of Mr. de Buffon; it were to be
wished, therefore, that the Greek philosopher had discovered the principles
traced out by the modern; but the advantage the one had of making use of a
microscope, ought not to turn to, the disadvantage of the other; yet hereafter,
we shall see, that the ancients, in this respect, did not long remain behind.

There is another system, which is no less ingenious than this, and of which we
find equal traces among the ancients.


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  CHAPTER 10: CHAPTER 08 - NATURE ACTIVE AND ANIMATED
========================================================================

CHAPTER VIII NATURE ACTIVE AND ANIMATED

1.After a long course of microscopic observations, Mr. Need. ham hath remarked,
that they all contributed to make appear, that animal and vegetative substances
are originally the same; that they reciprocally turn into one another, by a very
easy change ; that they decompound themselves into an infinite number of
zoophytes, which separating, produce all the different species of common
microscopic animals, which after a certain time become immoveable, separating
themselves again, and producing other zoophytes, or animals of an inferior
species; that the spermatic animalcules have the same property of separating
themselves, and in their decomposition of producing still smaller animals, till
at last the)’ become so very small, that they entirely escape notice. The author
of these observations believes, that it is probable besides, that every animal
or vegetable substance advances as much as it can to its dissolution, to return
by degrees to the principles common to all bodies, and which are of a general
nature.

2.The author then insinuates, that in their decomposition, bodies so subtilize
themselves, that the resistance continually diminishes, and the active moving
force proportionally augments; that after having passed the line of spontaneity,
the movement diminishes quicker or slower, till it becomes purely oscillatary ;
and of course, matter ought to be considered as continually passing from one
state to another, and constituting elements more and more active.

3.A little afterward, he hesitates not to affirm, that in proportion as the
matter decompounds itself, it becomes more subtile, and that the swiftness of
those bodies increases in proportion to their littleness. He says, that every
combination of matter reduces itself at last to such simple parts, as those are
of resistance and motion ; that resistance and motive activity, are the effect
of simple energies; and in short, that a number of beings, simple and
unextended, may contribute to give us an idea of an extended combination of
them, divisible and substantial. lie says afterward, that the principles of
matter are substances in which all essence, existence, and action, terminate in
their last resort, and “that there are active principles in the universe, which
are naturally productive of motion." In short, he concludes with saying, that
matter, carried to its first principles, is no longer an unactive mass, “but
becomes at length, activity itself, endowed with the powers of repulsion,
motion, and life, and that every particle of it partakes of sensations : and in
another place he says, that there is a perceivable life in every particle; and
in short, that there is “a real, active force in matter."*

4. IF we compare this system with that of the ancients, we shall easily discover
a striking conformity. Pythagoras and Plato taught, that all nature was
animated, and that “matter had in itself a principle of motion and rest, tht
held it always in action ; which is no other, according to the system of Mr.
Needham, than active, combined with repelling force.

5. The Pythagoreans believed, that the world was animated ; that there was a
principle of vitality infused through the whole of nature, which extended itself
not only through the animal kingdom, but through the vegetable, by a succession
constant and perpetual; they acknowledged a productive force, an active
principle through matter, which penetrated all, and put all in motion, and which
was the soul of the world, or the force impressed by God on nature.

6.And it is this which Mr. Needham calls the active principles through the
universe, which of themselves produce motion, or the perceptive vitality in
every particle; that motive, or repulsive activity, which Plato also joined to
matters as an active principle, which held all from the beginning, in an
irregular and indetermined movement ; and which, from the foundation of the
world, was regulated by God, and directed according to his eternal laws ; and
that great philosopher positively says, that God has not created matter inert
and inactive; but hath only prevented it from being blindly agitated.

7. Mr. Needham indeed says, that every natural combination can, at last. resolve
itself into its natural principles, endowed with resistance and motion; and that
a number of simple and indivisible principles might concur to give us an idea of
extended combinations of them, divisible and substantial: yet Plato long before
had clearly distinguished, with philosophers of his own times, the matter of
which bodies are composed. from the bodies themselves. He remarked an essential
difference between that matter, which enters into the composition of all bodies,
and the bodies themselves. And Stoboeus, explaining Plato’s sentiments, agrees,
that matter is corporeal, but at the same time warns us not to confound it with
the bodies themselves because, says he, it is destitute of the essential
qualities of body ; such as figures, weight, lightness, &c. although it contains
in it an aptitude to motion, divisibility, and the reception of different forms.
And another great Grecian philosopher hath also said, almost in the same terms
with Mr. Needham, that the ideas of force, impenetrability and weight concur to
give us an idea of bodies.

*Though this doctrine may be considered as absurd, yet here we are not left
destitute of facts, which are capable of assisting our judgment, and directing
our research to a sentiment at once rational and conclusive. It will not be
called in question by the boldest metaphysician, that there is such a principle,
property or quality, (call it what we will,) in being, as vitality, and that it
is capable of acting upon, and organizing gross matter: and consequently, that
there is a susceptibility, or capacity pervading all matter, and by prosecuting
a review of the facts presented to our contemplation on the grand theatre of
being, we should at length attain to the conclusion, that it pleased the Creator
of worlds so to construct them, and that they should consist in d a proportions
of vitality, and susceptibility: and that he has in his wisdom ordained a mutual
and invincible attraction between the vital and susceptible powers of universal
being. So that one could not exist without a proportion of the other: and there
are many circumstances to favour the idea, that on the variety and preponderance
of these proportions, depends in an extensive degree. the variety and diversity
of organized being.

8.Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, held a sentiment respecting generation, to
which that of Mr. Needham’s evidently refers: this author says, that the first
source of vegetation, or its primitive bud, is formed all at once, and
specifically determined : that it is the first thing in motion, that it
commences vegetation, and that afterward heat concurs to assist its expansive
force. Now, is it not this which the ancient Philosophers meant, when they said,
that the seminal force was incorporeal, and acted upon bodies as much is spirit
did And Democritus and Straho have explained themselves hereupon with still more
dignity, when they call its energy spiritual, and convertive of bodies into
itself.


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  CHAPTER 11: CHAPTER 09 - OF THUNDER AND EARTHQUAKES; OF THE VIRTUE OF TILE MAGNET; OF THE EBBING AND FLOWING ...
========================================================================

Chapter 9 - Of Thunder and Earthquakes; Of the Virtue of Tile Magnet; Of the
Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea; And of the Source of Rivers

1.I go on to some articles of natural philosophy, where I shall endeavour to
show the conformity there is between the ancients, and some of our most
celebrated philosophers. It is evident, that the causes of thunder, earthquakes,
the attractive force of the loadstone, the ebbing and flowing of the sea, and
the return of rivers to their source were not hid from the former: nor was it
their fault, that the sentiments they so long ago held on these subjects, were
either not adopted, or not till very lately. It ought not to be objected here,
that the diversity of opinions among them was not so great, that it was
difficult to determine which to choose: unless at the same time, it be
acknowledged, that the same holds true with respect to the equal variety that
reigns at present among us. It is not long ago, that two or three different sets
of notions were raised up against those of Sir Isaac Newton, respecting colours,
but that did not impede the triumph of his system, nor strip him of the glory of
having proposed, what, beyond all others, was most just and solid.

2.The moderns are divided into two opinions as to what occasions thunder; some
of them assigning the cause of it to inflamed exhalations, rending the clouds
wherein they are confined; others ascribing it to the shock that happens between
two or more clouds, when those that are higher and more condensed, fall upon
those that are lower, with so much force as suddenly to expel the Intermediate
air, which vigorously expanding itself, in order to occupy its former space,
puts all the exterior air in commotion, producing those reiterated claps which
we call thunder. I stop not to examine a third theory, which makes the matter
productive of thunder, the same with that which is the cause of electricity; for
though it be the most probable of any, yet the truth of it is still contested.

3.Of those two sentiments of the ancients, which have been adopt ed by our
moderns, the latter belongs to Aristotle, who says, that thunder is caused by a
dry exhalation, which falling upon a humid cloud, and violently endeavouring to
force a passage for itself, produces the peals which we hear. And Anaxagoras
refers it to the same cause. All the other passages, which occur in such
abundance among the ancients, respecting the formation of thunder, evidently
con-thin the reasonings of the Newtonians, and sometimes join together the two
sentiments which divide the moderns.

4.Leucippus held, that thunder proceeded from a fiery exhalation, which enclosed
in a cloud, burst it asunder, and forced its way through. Democritus asserts,
that it is the effect of a mingled collection of various volatile particles,
which impel downwards the cloud which contains them, till by the rapidity of
their motion, they set themselves and it on fire. Seneca ascribes it to a dry
sulphureous exhalation arising out of the earth, which he calls the aliment of
lightning; and which, becoming more and more subtilized in its ascent, at last
takes fire in the air, and produces a violent eruption.

5.The Stoics distinguish two things in thunder, the lightning and the noise.
According to them, thunder was occasioned by the shock of clouds ; and lightning
was the combustion of the volatile parts of the cloud, set on. fire by the
shock: and Chrysippus taught, that lightning was the result of clouds being set
on fire by winds, which dashed them one against another; and that thunder was
the noise produced by that re-encounter: he added, that these effects were
coincident ; our perception of the lightning before the thunder-clap, being
entirely owing to our sight being quicker than our hearing.

6.There is but one opinion respecting the cause of earthquakes, which deserves
any notice; and it is that of the Cartesians, Newtonians, and all our other able
naturalists, They ascribe it to the earth’s being filled with cavities of a vast
extent, containing in them an immense quantity of thick exhalations, of a
fuliginous substance, resembling the smoke of an extinguished candle, which
being easily inflammable, arid by their agitation catching fire, rarely and heat
the central condensed air of the cavern to such a degree, that finding no vent
to issue it, it bursts its enclosements ; and in doing this, shakes the earth
all around with dreadful percussions, producing all the other effects which
naturally follow.

7. The same reason is given by Aristotle and Seneca, in assigning the cause of
such dreadful events. The former, after refuting those who ascribed earthquakes
to the earth itself, or the water it contains, subjoins his own opinion, “that
they were occasioned by the efforts of the internal air in dislodging itself
from the bowels of the earth ;“ and he observes, that “on the approach of an
earthquake, the weather is generally serene, because that sort of air which
occasions commotions in the atmosphere, is at that time pent up in the entrails
of the earth.”

8.Seneca is still more precise ; we might take him for a naturalist of the
present times. He supposes, that “the earth hides in its bosom many
subterraneous fires which uniting their flames, necessarily put into fervid
motion the congregated vapours of its cells, which finding no immediate outlet,
exert their utmost powers, till at last they force a way through whatever
opposes them.” He says also, that if the vapours be too weak to burst the
barriers which retain them, all their efforts end in weak shocks, and hollow
murmurs, without any fatal consequence..

9.Of all the solutions that ever were attempted to be given of the ebbing and
flowing of the sea, the most simple and ingenious, is, that of Kepler and Sir
Isaac Newton. It is founded on this hypothesis, that the moon attracts the
waters of the sea, diminishing the weight of all those parts of it over whose
zenith it comes, and increasing the weight of the collateral parts, so that the
parts directly opposite to the moon, and under it in the same hemisphere, must
become more elevated than the rest. According to this system, the action of the
sun concurs with that of the moon, in occasioning the tides; which are higher or
lower respectively, according to the situation of those two luminaries, which,
when in conjunction, act in concert, raising the tides to the greatest height;
and when in opposition, produce nearly the same effect, in swelling the waters
of the opposite hemispheres: but when in quadrature, suspend each other’s force,
so as to act only by the difference of their powers: and thus the tides vary,
according to the different positions of those luminaries.

*would be more philosophical to say, the moon attracts the atmosphere, and the
waters naturally conform themselves to its figure, or to its various degree! of
pressure. See Note to page 451, vol. I.

10.Pliny’s account agrees with this. That great naturalist. maintained, “ that
the sun and moon had a reciprocal share in causing the tides ;“ and after a
course of observations for many years, remarks that the moon acted most forcibly
upon the waters, when it nearest to the earth, but that the effect was not
immediately perceived by us, but at such an interval as may well take place
between the actions of celestial causes, and the discernible result of them on
earth. He remarked also, that the waters, which are naturally inert, do swell up
immediately upon the conjunction of the sun and moon; but having gradually
admitted the impulse, and begun to raise themselves continue in that elevation,
even after the conjunction is over.

11.There are few things which have more engaged the attention of naturalists,
and with less success, than the wonderful properties the loadstone. At all times
men have hazarded a variety of conjectures, to account for the curious effects
of it. Almost all have agreed in assigning this as a principal reason, that
there are corpuscles of a peculiar form and energy, that continually circulate
around and through, the loadstone, and a vortex of the same matter, circulating
around and through the earth. Upon these suppositions, the modern philosophers
have advanced, that the loadstone hath two poles, similar to those of the earth
; and that the magnetic matter which issues at one of the poles, and circulates
around to enter at the other, occasions that hath pulse which brings iron to the
loadstone, whose, small corpuscles have an analogy to the pores of iron, fitting
them to lay hold of it, but not of other bodies. This is almost all that hath
been reasonably advanced with respect to the virtue of the magnet, and all this
the ancients had said before.

12.This impulsive force, which joins iron to the loadstone, and other things to
amber, was known to Plato ; though he would not call it attraction, as allowing
no such cause in nature. This philosopher called the magnet, the stone of
Hercules, because it subdued iron, which conquers every thing. Lucretius also
knew what caused this property in the loadstone, and without doubt furnished
Descartes with his explanation. He admitted, that there was a “vortex of
corpuscles, or magnetic matter, which continually circulating around the
load-stone, repelled the intervening air betwixt itself and the iron. The air
thus repelled, the intervening space,” says that philosopher,.” became a vacuum
; and the iron, finding no resistance, approached with an impulsive force,
pushed on by the air behind it.” Plutarch likewise is of the same opinion. He
says, “amber attracts none of those things that are brought to it, any more than
the loadstone. That stone emits a matter, which reflects the circumambient air,
and thereby forms a void. That expelled air puts in motion the air before it,
which making a circle returns to the void space, driving before it, towards the
loadstone, the iron which it meets in its way.” He then proposes a difficulty, “
why the vortex which circulates round the loadstone, does not make its way to
wood or stone, as well as iron “ He answers, like Descartes, that the pores of
iron have an analogy to the particles of the vortex circulating about the
loadstone, which yields them such access as they can find in no other bodies,
whose pores are differently formed.

13. It is scarce credible, that the real cause of electricity was known to the
ancients, though there be indications of it in the work of Timoeus Locrensis,
concerning the soul of the world, a respectable monument of ancient philosophy.
It is true, that modern naturalists themselves are divided on this point, not
indeed with respect to the general cause of electricity, hut with regard to the
causes of the different directions of the electric matter. They do not indeed
say wherein the essence of this matter consists; they only define it by its
properties, and explain it by its effects; yet all own, that it is “a very
subtile fluid,” residing around electric bodies, which upon being put into
motion by the friction of those bodies, or any other cause, forcibly rushes into
them, carrying along with it all the minute things contained in its vortex, and
producing all the other effects of electricity which we perceive : now this is
precisely what Tioemus says of it, in giving the reason of amber’s attracting
bodies ; “ this happens,” says he, “ because there issues from the amber a
subtile matter, by which it draws other bodies to itself.”

14.The moderns are also divided in their sentiments, how it comes to pass, that
rivers continually flowing into the sea, do not swell its mass of waters, so as
to make it overflow its banks. One of the chief solutions of this difficulty is,
that rivers return again to their source by subterraneons passages, which nature
hath formed for that purpose; there being between the sea and the springs of
rivers, a circulation analogous to that of blood in the human body. This
explanation of the origin of rivers, and the comparison respecting their
circulation, is taken from Seneca: who accounts not only for their not
overflowing the bed of the ocean, by the secret passages formed for them by
nature to reconduct them to their springs; but assigns this reason why, at their
springs, they retain nothing of that brackishness, which they carried with them
from the sea; because, says he, they are completely filtrated in that extensive
circuit they make under ground, through winding paths of all dimensions, and
through layers of every soil ; so that they must needs return to their source,
as pure and sweet as they departed thence.


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  CHAPTER 12: CHAPTER 10 - OF ETHER. AND THE WEIGHT AND ELASTICITY OF THE AIR
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Chapter 10 - Of Ether. And the Weight and Elasticity of the Air

1. THE moderns understand by ether, a very rare fluid beyond the atmosphere, and
penetrating it, infinitely more subtile than the air we respire, of an immense
extent, filling all the Spaces where the celestial bodies roll, yet making no
sensible resistance to their motions. The existence of such a fluid is generally
acknowledge, although many authors, even among the moderns, differ about its
nature; some supposing it to be a sort of air, much purer than that which
invests our globe; others maintaining, that it is a substance approaching to
that of the celestial fire, which emanates from the sun and other stars; others
make it generically different from all other matter, and its parts finer than
those of light; alledging, that the exceeding tenuity of its parts, render it
capable of that vast expansive force, which is the source of all that pressure
and dilatation whence most of the phenomena in nature arise; for, by the extreme
subtlety of its parts, it intimately penetrates all bodies, and exerts its
energy every where.

2.But, whatever be the sentiments now entertained with respect to the existence
and nature of ether, we find the origin of them all in what the ancients have
said on this subject. The Stoics first of all taught, there was a subtile and
active fire, which diffused itself through, and pervaded the whole universe;
that by the energy of this ethereal substance, to which they gave the name of
ether, all the parts of nature were produced, sustained, preserved, and linked
together: for it embraced every thing, and in it the celestial bodies perform
their revolutions.

3.Aristotle, explaining Pythagoras’s opinion of ether, ascribes the same also to
Anaxagoras, saying, that he looked upon the most remote spaces of the universe,
as filled with a substance, called ether by the philosophers of his time, but
which he himself understood to be a subtile and active tire. And Aristotle
himself, in another place, understands by ether, a fifth element, pure and
unalterable, of an active and vital nature, but entirely different from air and
fire.

4.Pythagoras, according to Diogenes Laertius, and Hierocles, affirmed, that the
air which invests our earth, is impure and mixed; but that the air which is
above, is pure, healthful, and all of a piece. He calls it free ether,
emancipated from all gross matter, a celestial substance that penetrated at will
the pores of all bodies; just like that of the Newtonians, which fills all
space, without giving any obstruction to the stars in their courses. And
Empedocles, one of the most celebrated disciples of Pythagoras, is quoted by
Plutarch, St. Clemens Alexandrinus, as admitting an ethereal substance, which
filled all space, and contained in it all the bodies of the Universe.. Likewise
Plato, speaking of air, distinguishes it into two kinds, the one gross and
filled with vapours, which is what we breathe; the other more refined, called
ether, in which the celestial bodies are immerged, and where they roll.

5.The nature of air was no less known among the ancients, than that of ether.
They regard it as a general menstruum, containing all the volatile parts of
every thing in nature, which being variously agitated, and differently combined
in its embrace, produced all that multiplicity of ferments, meteors, tempests,
and all the other changes in it, which we experience. They were acquainted too
with its weight, though the experiments transmitted to us relative to this are
but few. Aristotle appears to have observed this quality in it, for he speaks of
a vessel filled with air, as weighing more than one quite empty. Plutarch and
Stobceus quote him as teaching that the air in its weight is between that of
fire, and of earth; and be himself’, treating of respiration, reports the
opinion of Empedocles, who ascribes the cause of it to the weight of the air,
which by its pressure insinuates itself with force into the lungs. Plutarch
expresses in the very same terms the sentiments of Asciepiades on this subject,
representing him among other things, as saying, that the external air by its
weight, opened its way with force into the breast. There is still extant a
treatise of Heron of Alexandria, wherein he constantly applies the elasticity of
the air, to produce such effects, as cannot but convince us, that he perfectly
understood that property of it. And what will appear still more surprising, is,
that Ctesibius, upon the principle of the air’s elasticity, invented windguns,
which we look upon as a modern contrivance. Philo of byzantium gives us a very
full and exact description of that curious machine, planned upon the property of
the air’s being capable of condensation, and so constructed, as to manage and
direct the force of that element, in such a manner, as to carry stones with
rapidity to the greatest distance. Seneca also knew its weight, spring, and
elasticity; for he describes the constant effort it makes to expand itself, when
it is impresssed; and affirms, that it has the property of condensing itself,
and forcing its way through all obstacles that oppose its passage.

6.The notions generally received respecting fire, and its properties, are
clearly to be found in Plato, Stoboeus, Aristotle, and Lucretius; the first of
whom says, that fire is generated of motion, it being the effect of the act and
friction of the small particles of bodies. Aristotle speaks of some philosophers
of his time, who taught, that flame was nothing else, but small corpuscular
parts, continually succeeding one another in rapid motion ; that fire was
composed of pyramidical particles whose sharp angles stung us in entering our
pores, and melted metals, by discovering their parts, which is what Descartes
hath repeated from him. Demonax affirms, that fire hath weight. Lucretius does
the same; adding, that the reason of its always appearing to tend upwards, is
owing to a foreign cause; to wit, the pressure of the air, which buoys its flame
up, and makes it seem to mount.


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  CHAPTER 13: CHAPTER 11 - NEWTONS THEORY OF COLOURS, INDICATED BY PYTHAGORAS AND PLATO
========================================================================

Chapter 11 - Newton’s Theory of Colours, Indicated by Pythagoras and Plato

1. THAT the wonderful theory, whereby is investigated and distinguished from one
another, all that variety of colours, which enters into the composition of that
uniform appearance, light, might of itself suffice to establish forever the
glory of Sir Isaac Newton, and be an eternal monument of the extraordinary
sagacity of that great man. That discovery seems. by its importance, to have
been reserved for an age when philosophy had arrived at its fullest maturity ;
and yet it is to be found among some of the eminent men of the first antiquity,
whose genius had no occasion for the experience of many ages to form it, as is
strikingly evident from their having given birth to the sciences. Of this number
are Pythagoras and Plato. The former of whom, and. his disciples after him,
entertained sufficiently just conceptions of the formation of colours. They
taught that they resulted from the differ-. ent modifications of reflected
light; or as a modern author, in explain. ing the sentiments of the
Pythagoreans, expresses it, light reflecting itself with more or less vivacity,
forms by that means our different. sensations of colour. Those same philosophers
of the Pythagoric school, in assigning the reason of the difference in colours,
ascribe it to a mixture of the elements of light ; and divesting the atoms, or
small particles of light, of all manner of colour, impute every sensation of
that kind to the motions excited in our organs of sight. The disciples of Plato
contributed not a little to the advancement of optics, by the important
discovery they made, that light emits itself in straight lines, and that the
angle of incidence is always equal to the angle of reflection.

2.Plato also seems to have apprehended the Newtonian system of colours; for he
calls them the effect of light transmitted from bodies, the small particles of
which were adapted to the organs of sight. Now is not this precisely the same
with what Sir Isaac teaches, “that the different sensations of each particular
colour are excited in us by the difference of size in those small particles of
light which form the several rays; those small particles occasioning different
images of colour, as the vibration is more or less lively with which they strike
our sense” The same philosopher hath gone further: lie bath entered into a
detail of the composition of colours, and inquired into the visible effects that
must arise from a mixture of the different rays of which light itself is
composed. And what he advances a little farther on, that it was not in the power
of man exactly to determine what the proportion of this mixture should be in
certain colours, sufficiently shows, that lie bad an idea of this theory, though
he judged it almost impossible to unfold it; which makes him add, that “should
any one arrive at the knowledge of this proportion, he ought not to hazard the
discovery of it, since it would be impossible to demonstrate it by clear and
convincing proofs ;“ and yet he thought “certain rules might be laid down”
respecting this subject “if in following and imitating nature, we could arrive
at the art of forming a diversity of colours, by the combined intermixture of
colours.” And he afterward adds, what may be regarded as the noblest eulogium
that ever was made on Sir Isaac Newton: “yea, should ever any one,” exclaims
that fine genius of antiquity, “attempt by curious research to account for this
admirable mechanism, he will, in doing so, but manifest how entirely ignorant he
is of the difference between Divine and human power. It is true, God can
intermingle those things one with another, and then sever them at his pleasure,
because he is, at the same time, all-knowing and all. powerful; but there is no
man now exists, nor ever will perhaps, who shall ever be able to accomplish
things so very difficult.” What an eulogimn are these words in the mouth of such
a philosopher as Plato, and bow glorious is he who hath successfully
accomplished what appeared impracticable to that prince of philosophers! And
what elevation of genius, what piercing penetration into the most intimate
secrets of nature, displays itself in what we have just now recited from Plato,
concerning the nature and theory of colours, at a time when philosophy was but
yet in its infancy.

3.Although the system of Descartes, respecting the propagation of light in an
instant, is scarcely admitted at present by the most part of philosophers, nor
has been ever since Messrs. Cassini and Romer discovered that its motion was
progressive; yet as that system was for a long while in vogue, and the whole
honour of the invention of it ascribed to Descartes, it will not be amiss, in a
few words, to make appear, that he drew the idea of it from Aristotle and his
commentators. The opinion of the modern philosophers is, that light is nothing
else but the action of a subtile matter upon the organs of sight. This subtile
matter is supposed to fill all that space which lies between the sun and us; and
that particle of it, which is next to the sun, receiving thence an impulse, must
instantaneously communicate it to all the rest which lie between the sun and the
organ of sight. To render this the more evident, Descartes introduces the
comparison of a stick; which, by reason of the continuity of its parts, cannot
in any degree be moved lengthways at one end, without instantaneously being put
into the same degree of motion at the other end.

4.Whoever will be at the pains attentively to read what Aristotle hath written
concerning light, without having recourse to the ridiculous interpretations that
have been put upon his words, will clearly discern, that he was far from being
so unacquainted with the truth in this case, as is generally thought. He defines
it to be the action of a subtile, pure, and homogeneous matter; and Philoponus
explaining the mariner in which this action was performed, makes use of the
instance of a long string, which being pulled at one end, will instantaneously
be moved at the other. In that very place, he resembles the sun, to the man who
pulls the string; the subtile matter, to the string itself; and the
instantaneous action of the one, to the movement of the other. Simphicius, in
his commentary upon this passage of Aristotle, expressly employs the motion of a
stick, to imitate how light, acted upon the sun, may instantaneously impress the
organs of sight. The comparison of a stick, to convey an idea of the celerity
with which light may communicate itself, seems first of all to have been made
use of by Chrysippus.


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  CHAPTER 14: CHAPTER 12 - OF BURNING GLASSES
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Chapter 12 - Of Burning Glasses

1.The fertile genius of Archimedes, illustriously appears, not only in those
works of his which have been handed down to us, but also in the admirable
descriptions which the authors of his time have given us of his discoveries in
mathematics and mechanics. Some o the inventions of this great man have appeared
so far to surpass human ability and imagination, that some celebrated
philosophers have called them in question, and even gone so far as to pretend to
demonstrate their impossibility. I intend in this chapter, to examine into the
subject of the burning glasses, employed by Archimedes, to set fire to the Roman
fleet, at the siege of Syracuse. Kepler, Naudeus and Descartes, have treated it
as a mere fable, though the reality of it bath been attested by Diodorus
Siculus, Lucian, Dion, Zonaras, Galen, Anthemius, Eustathias, Tzetzes and
others. Nay, some have even pretended to demonstrate by the rules of catoptrics,
the impossibility of it, notwithstanding the asseveration of such respectable
authors, who ought to have prevented them from rejecting so lightly, a fact so
well supported.

2.Yet all have not been involved in this mistake. Father Kircher attentively
observing the description which Tzetzes gives of the burning glasses of
Archimedes, resolved to prove the possibility of this; and having by means of a
number of plain mirrors, collected the sun’s rays into one focus, he so
augmented the solar heat, that at last by increasing the number of mirrors, he
could produce the most intense degree of it.

3.Tzetzes’ description of the glass Archimedes made use of, is indeed proper to
raise such an idea as Kircher entertained. That author says, Archimedes set fire
to Marcellus’ navy, by means of a burning glass, composed of small, square
mirrors, moving every way upon hinges; which, when placed in the sun’s rays,
directed them upon the Roman fleet, so as to reduce it to ashes, at the distance
of a bow-shot. It is probable, Mr. de Buffon availed himself of this
description, in constructing his burning glass, composed of one hundred and
sixty-eight little plain mirrors, which produced so considerable a heat as to
set wood in flames at the distance of two hundred and nine feet; melt lead, at
that of one hundred and twenty; and silver, at that of fifty.

4.Another testimony occurs, which leaves not the least doubt in this case.
Anthemius, of Tralles, in Lydia, a celebrated architect, able sculptor, and
learned mathematician, who in the emperor Justinian’s time, built the church of
St. Sophia, at Constantinople, wrote a small treatise in Greek, which is extant
only in manuscript, entitled, “Mechanical Paradoxes.” That work, among other
things, has a chapter respecting burning glasses, where we meet with the most
complete description of the requisites that Archimides must have been possessed
of, to enable him to set lire to the Roman fleet. He begins with this inquiry,
"How in any given place at a bow-shot’s distance, a conflagration may be raised
by means of the sun’s rays “ And immediately lays it down as a first principle.
“The situation of the place must be such, that the rays of the sun may be
reflected upon it in an oblique, or even opposite direction, to that in which
they came from the sun itself.” And he adds, “that the assigned distance being
so considerable, it might appear at first impossible to effect this, by means of
the reflection of the sun’s rays; but as the glory Archimides had gained by thus
setting fire to the Roman vessels, was a fact universally agreed in, he thought
it reasonable to admit the possibility of it, upon the principle he had laid
down.”

He afterward advances farther in this inquiry, establishing certain necessary
propositions in order to come at a solution of it. “To find out therefore, in
what position a plain mirror should be placed, to carry the sun’s rays by
reflection to a given point, he demonstrates that the angle of incidence is
equal to the angle of reflection; and having shown, that in so just a position
of the glass, the sun’s rays might be reflected to the given place, he observes,
that by means of a number of glasses, reflecting the rays into the same focus,
there must arise the given place, the conflagration required, for inflaming heat
is the result of thus concentrating the sun’s rays; and that when a body is thus
set on fire, it kindles the air around it, so that it comes to be acted upon by
the two forces at once; that of the sun, and that of the circumambient air,
reciprocally augmenting and increasing the heat ;“ whence continues lie, “it
necessarily results, that by a proper number of plain mirrors duly disposed, the
sun’s rays might be reflected in such quantity into a common focus at a bow shot
distance as to set all in flames around it.”

5. “As to the manner of putting this in practice,” he says “it might be done by
employing many bands to bold the mirrors in the described position; but to avoid
the confusion that might thence arise, twenty-four mirrors at least, being
requisite to communicate flame at such a distance, lie fixes upon another
method, that of a plain hexagon mirror, accommodated on every side by lesser
ones, adhering to it by means of plates, bands, or hinges, connecting them
mutually together, so as to be moved or fixed at pleasure in any direction. Thus
having adapted the large or middle mirror to the rays of the sun, so as to point
them to the given place, it will be easy in the same manner to dispose the rest,
so that all the rays together may meet in the same focus : and multiply compound
mirrors of this kind, and giving them all the same direction, there must thence
infallibly result, to whatever degree or intenses, the conflagration required at
the place given.”

6. “The better to succeed in this enterprise, there should be in. readiness,” he
adds, “a considerable number of these compound mirrors to act all at once, from
four at least to seven.” He concludes his dissertation with observing, “that all
the authors who mention the burning machine of the divine Archimedes, never
speak of it as one compound mirror, but as a combination of many.” So large and
accurate a description is more than sufficient to demonstrate the possibility of
a fact, so well attested in history, and by such a number of authors, that it
would be the highest arrogance to refuse our suffrage to such invincible
testimony. Vitellion, who lived about the 13th century, speaks of a work of
Anthemius of Tralles, who had composed a burning glass, consisting of
twenty-four mirrors, which conveying the rays of the sun into a common focus,
produced an extraordinary degree of heat. And Lucian, speaking of Archimedes,
says,. “that at the siege of Syracuse, he reduced by a singular contrivance, the
Roman ships to ashes.” And Galen, “that with burning glasses, he fired the ships
of the enemies of Syracuse.” Zonoras also speaks of Archimedes’ glasses, in
mentioning those of Proclus, who, he says, “burnt the fleet of Vitellius, at the
siege of Constantinople, in imitation of Archimedes, who set fire to the Roman
fleet at the siege of Syracuse.” He intimates, that the manner in which Proclus
effected was by launching upon the enemies’ vessels, from the surface of
reflecting mirrors, such a quantity of flame, as reduced them to ashes.

7.Eustathias, in his commentary upon the Iliad, says, that “Archimedes, by a
catoptric machine, burnt the Roman fleet, at a bow shot’s distance." Insomuch,
that there is scarcely any fact in history, warranted by more authentic
testimony; so that it would be difficult not to surrender to such evidence, even
although we could not comprehend how it were possible for Archimedes to have
constructed such glasses: but now that the experiment of father Kircher, and Mr.
de Buffon, have made it apparent, that nothing is more easy in the execution,
than what some gentlemen have denied the possibility of; what ought they to
think of the genius of that man, whose inventions even by their own accounts,
surpass the conception of the most celebrated mathematicians of our days, who
think they have done something very extraordinary, when they have showed
themselves capable of imitating in some degree the sketches of those great
masters, of whom, however, they are very unwilling to be thought the disciples!

8.Again, it appears that the ancients were acquainted with refracting burning
glasses; for we find in Aristophanes’ comedy of the clouds, a passage which
clearly treats of the effects of those glasses. The author introduces Socrates
as examining Strepsiades, about the method he had discovered for getting clear
forever of his debts. He replies, that” he thought of making use of a burning
glass, which he bad hitherto used in kindling his fire; for,” says he,” should
they bring a writ against me, I’ll immediately place my glass in the sun, at
some little distance from the writ, and set it on fire.” Where we see he speaks
of a glass which burned at a distance, and which could he no other than a convex
glass. Pliny and Lactantius have also spoken of glasses that burnt by
refraction. The former calls them balls or globes of glass, or crystal, which
exposed to the sun, transmit a heat sufficient to set fire to cloth, or corrode
away the dead flesh of those patients who stand in need of caustics; and the
latter, after Clemens Alexandrinus, takes notice, that fire may be kindled, by
interposing glasses filled with water, between the sun and the object, so as to
transmit the rays to it.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 15: CHAPTER 13 - OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITY, AND CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL FORCE
========================================================================

Chapter 13 - Of Universal Gravity, and Centripetal and Centrifugal Force Laws of
the movement of the planets, according to their distance from the common centre.

1. IT is here the moderns flatter themselves they have a remark able advantage,
imagining, that they were the first who discovered the principle of universal
gravitation, which they look upon as a truth known to the ancients. It is
however easy to make it appear, that they have done nothing but trod in the
paths of those ancients. It the moderns have demonstrated the laws of this
universal gravitation, and explained them with clearness and precision; but this
is all they have done in this respect, and have added nothing.

2.With the least attention to the knowledge of the ancients, we that they were
not unacquainted with universal gravitation; and knew besides, that the circular
motion, by which the planets describe their course, is the result of the
combination of two moving forces, a rectilinear and a perpendicular, which,
united together, form a curve. They knew the reason why these two movements, or
contrary forces, retain the planets in their orbs; and have explained themselves
on this head, just as the moderns do, excepting only the terms of centripetal
and centrifugal; instead of which, however, they used what was altogether
equivalent. They also knew the inequality of the course of the planets,
ascribing it to’ the variety of their weights reciprocally considered, and of
their proportional distances.

3. I will not expatiate upon Empedocles’ system, in which some have thought the
foundation of Newton’s was to be found; imagining, that under the name of love,
he intended to initiate a law, or power, which separated the parts of matter, in
order to join himself to them, and to which nothing was wanting but the name of
attraction. One sees also, that by the name discords be intended to describe
another force, which obliged the same parts to recede from one another, and
which Newton calls a repelling force. But I leave Empedocles, and pass on’ to
passages more deserving notice. -

4.The Pythagoreans and Platonics, treating of the creation of the world,
perceived the necessity of admitting the force of two powers, viz, projection
and gravity, in order to account for the revolution of the planets. Timoeus,
speaking of the soul of the world, which puts all nature in motion, says, that
God “hath endowed it with two powers, which, in combination, act according to
certain numeric proportions.” Plato, who hath followed Timoeus, in his natural
philosophy, clearly asserts, that God had impressed upon the planets” a motion
which was the most proper for them ; which could be nothing else than the
perpendicular motion, which has a tendency to the Centre of the universe, that
is, gravity ; and what in this case coincides with it, a lateral impulse,
rendering the whole circular. And Diogenes Laer alluding in all likelihood to
this passage of Plato, says, that at the beginning, the bodies of the universe
were agitated tumultuously, and with a disorderly movement, but that God
afterward regulated their course, by laws natural and proportional.

5.Anaxagoras cited by Diogenes Laertius, being asked what it was that retained
the heavenly bodies in their orbit, notwithstanding their gravity ; answered,
that” the rapidity of their course preserved them in their stations ; and should
the celerity of their motions abate,” the equilibrium of the world being broke,
the whole machine would fall to ruin.

6.Plutarch, who knew almost all the shining truths of astronomy, took notice
also of the reciprocal energy, which causes the planets to gravitate towards one
another; and in explaining what it was that made bodies tend towards the earth,
he attributes it “to a reciprocal attraction, whereby all terrestial bodies have
this tendency, and which collects into one the parts constituting the sun and
moon, and retains them in their spheres. He afterward applies these particular
phenomena to others more general; and “ from what happens in our globe, deduces,
according to the same principle, whatever must thence happen respectively in
each celestial body ;“ and then considers them in their relative connexions one
towards another. He illustrates this general connexion, “by instancing what
happens to our moon in its revolution round the earth, comparing it to a stone
in a sling, which is impressed by two powers at once; that of projection, which
would carry it away, were it not retained by the embrace of the sling; which
like the central force, keeps it from wandering, whilst the combination of the
two moves it in a circle. In another place, he speaks “of an inherent power in
bodies ; that is, in the earth and other planets; of attracting to themselves
whatever is within their reach.” It is impossible, not to perceive in all these
passages, a plain reference to the centripetal force, which binds the planets to
their proper or common centres; and to the centrifugal, which makes them roll in
circles at a distance.

7.We have seen that the ancients attribute to the celestial bodies, a tendency
towards one common centre, and a reciprocal attractive power. Lucretius well
perceived this truth, though he deduced’ from it a very strange consequence,
that the universe had no common centre, but that infinite space was filled with
an infinity of worlds like ours; for, says he, if the celestial bodies were all
of them carried towards one common centre, and not restrained from that tendency
by some exterior active force, they must needs soon diverge towards one another,
by virtue of their attractive power, and like bodies tumbling from on high,
reunite at the common centre of gravity, and into one infinite, inactive mass.

8.It appears also, that the ancients knew, as well as the moderns the cause of
gravitation, which attracted all things, did not reside solely in the centre of
the earth. Their ideas were more philosophic; “That this power was diffused
through every particle of the terrestrial globe, and compounded of the various
energy residing in each.”

9.It remains to inquire, whether the ancients knew the law by which gravity acts
upon the celestial bodies; that it was in an inverse proportion of their
quantity of matter, and the square of their distance. Certain it is, that the
ancients were not ignorant, that the planets, in their courses observed a
constant and invariable pro portion; and that they had different opinions
respecting this proportion. Some sought for it in the difference of the quantity
of matter contained in the masses, of which they were composed; and others, in
the differences of their distances. Lucretius, after Democritus and Aristotle,
thought that “ the gravity of bodies was in proportion to the quantity of matter
of which they were composed ;“ and the ablest Newtonians, even such as ought to
be the most interested to preserve to their master the glory of having first
discovered those truths, which are ‘the principal ornaments of his system, have
been the first to point at the sources whence they seem to have been drawn. It
is true the penetration and sagacity of a Newton, a Gregory, and a Maclauren,
were requisite to discover, in the few fragments now remaining, the inverse’ law
respecting the squares of the distances, a doctrine which Pythagoras had taught
; but it is no less true, that it was contained in those writings. This the
Newtonians acknowledge, and are the first to avail themselves of the authority
of Pythagoras, to give weight to their system.

10.Plutarch, of all the philosophers who have spoken of Pythagoras, is he, who,
as be had a better opportunity of entering into the ideas of that great man,
bath explained them better than any one besides. Pliny, Macrobrius, and
Censorinus, have also spoken of the harmony which Pythagoras observed to reign
in the course of the planets. Plutarch makes him say, it is probable that the
bodies of the planets, their distances, the intervals between their spheres, and
the celerity of their courses and revolutions, are not only proportionable among
themselves, but to the whole of the universe. And Gregory bath been led to
declare, it was evident to any attentive mind, that this great man understood,
that the gravitation of the planets towards the sun, was in a reciprocal ratio
of their distance from that luminary; and that illustrious modern, followed
herein by Naclaurin, makes that ancient philosopher speak thus:

11. “ A musical string,” says Pythagoras, “yields the very same tone with any
other of twice its length, because the tension of the latter, or the force
whereby it is extended, is quadruple to that of the former “and the gravity of
one planet, is quadruple to that of any other which is at double the distance.”
in general, to bring a musical string into unison with one of the same kind,
shorter than itself, its tension ought to be increased to Proportion as the
square of its length exceeds that of the other ; “ and that the gravity of any
planet, may become equal to that of any other nearer the sun, it ought to be
increased in proportion as the square of its distance exceeds that of the
other.” If, therefore, we should suppose musical strings stretched from the sun
to each of the planets, it would be necessary,” in order to bring them all to
unison, “to augment or diminish their tensions, in the very same proportion as
would be requisite to render the planets themselves equal in gravity.” And this,
in all likelihood, gave foundation for the reports, that Pythagoras drew his
doctrine of harmony from the spheres.

12.Before I finish this chapter, 1 must not neglect to insert a passage of
Galileo’s, wherein he acknowledges, that he owes to Plato his first idea of the
method of determining, how the different degrees of velocity, ought to produce
that uniformity of motion discernable in the revolutions of the heavenly bodies.
His account is, “Plato being of opinion, that no moveable thing could pass from
a state of rest’ to any determinate degree of velocity, so as perpetually and
equally to remain in it, without first passing through all the inferior degrees
of celerity or retardation; concludes thence, that God, after having created the
celestial bodies, determining to assign to each a particular degree of celerity,
in which they should always move, impressed upon them, when he drew them from a
state of rest, such a force as made them run through their assigned spaces, in
that natural and direct way wherein we see the bodies around us pass from rest
into motion, by a continual and successive acceleration. And he adds, that
having brought them to that degree of motion wherein he intended they should
perpetually remain ; he afterward changed the perpendicular into a circular
direction, that being the only course that can preserve itself uniform, and make
a body without ceasing to keep at an equal distance from its proper centre.”
This acknowledgment of Galileo is the more remarkable, as it comes from an
inventive genius, who least of any owes his eminence to the aid of the ancients
; for it is the disposition of noble minds to arrogate to themselves as little
as possible any merit, but what they have the utmost claim to. Thus do Galileo
and Newton, the greatest of all modern philosophers, set an example which will
never be imitated but by those of their own class.


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  CHAPTER 16: CHAPTER 14 - OF THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM; THE MOTION OF THE EARTH ABOUT THE SUN; AND THE ANTIPODES
========================================================================

Chapter 14 - Of the Copernican System; The Motion of the Earth about the Sun;
And the Antipodes

1.THERE are other truths taught by the ancients long ago, at last adopted by the
moderns; after having undergone a not uncommon fate, that of being rejected and
condemned with disdain. That the earth moves about the sun, and that there are
antipodes, are particulars known long ago, though received almost every where at
first with contempt or ridicule; nay, they have sometimes proved dangerous to
those who held them; yet both these doctrines are now so well established, that
they meet with general approbation. And thus, for two ages past, have we gone on
to re-introduce the most celebrated of the ancient opinions; still affecting,
however, not to know that we are in any manner indebted to those who first held
them.

2.The most reasonable in itself, and what agrees best with the most accurate
observations, is that system of the world proposed by Copernicus, who places the
sun in the centre, the fixed stars at the circumference, and the earth and other
planets in the intervening space; and who ascribes to the earth not only a
diurnal motion around its axis, but an annual round the sun. This system is
entirely simple, and best explains all the appearances of the planets, and their
situations, whether processional, stationary, or retrograde; but it is matter of
surprise, how a system so fully and distinctly inculcated by the ancients,
should derive its name from a modern philosopher. Pythagoras, Philolaus, Nicetas
of Syracuse, Plato, Aristarchus, and many others among the ancients, have in a
thousand places expressed this opinion; and Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and
Stobceus, have with great precision transmitted to us their ideas. And that this
system was no sooner universally received, ought entirely to be ascribed to the
force of prejudice; which, deciding every thing by appearances, prefers sense to
reason, and abandons whatever is not conformable to the judgment of the former.

3.Pythagoras thought the earth was a moveable body, ‘and so far from being the
centre of the world, performed its revolutions around the region of fire, that
is the sun, and thereby formed day and night. It is said he obtained this
knowledge among the Egyptians, who represented the sun emblematically by a
beetle, because that insect keeps itself six months under ground, and six above;
or, rather because having formed its dung into a ball, it afterward lays itself
on its back, and, by means of its feet, whirls that ball round in a circle.

4. Some impute this opinion to Philolaus, the disciple of Pythagoras; but it is
evident, he had the merit only of being the publisher of it, and several other
opinions belonging to that school; for Eusebius expressly affirms, that he was
the first who put Pythagoras’ system into writing. Philolaus added, that the
earth moved in an oblique circle; by which no doubt, he meant the zodiac.

5.Aristarchus, of Samoa, who lived about three centuries before Jesus Christ,
was one of the principal defenders of the doctrine of the earth’s motion.
Archimedes, in his book, “de Arenario,” informs us, “that Aristarchus, writing
on this subject against some of the philosophers of his own age, placed the sun
immoveable in the centre of an orbit, described by the earth in its circuit. And
Sextus Empiricus, also cites him as one of the principal supporters of this
opinion. There is, also, a passage in Plutarch, whereby it appears, that
Clean-thes accused Aristarchus of impiety, in troubling the repose of Vesta, and
all the Larian gods; when, in giving an account of the phenomena of the planets
in their courses, he taught that heaven, or the firmament of the fixed stars,
was immoveable: and that the earth moved in an oblique circle, revolving at the
same time around its own axis.

6.Theophrastus, as quoted by Plutarch, says, in his history of astronomy, which
bath not reached our times, “that Plato when, advanced in years, gave up the
error he had been in, of making the sun turn round the earth ; and lamented,
that he had not placed it in the centre; but put the earth there, contrary to
the order of nature. Nor is at all strange, that Plato should reassume an
opinion which he bad early imbibed in the schools of the two celebrated
Pythagoreans, Archytas of Tarentum, and Timeus the Locrian; as we see in St.
Jerome’s christian apology against Rufinus: and in Cicero, we see that
Heraclides of Pontus, who was a Pythagorean, taught the same doctrine.

7. That the earth is round and inhabited on all sides, and of course that they
are antipodes, or those whose feet are directly opposite to ours, is one of the
most ancient doctrines inculcated by philosophy. Diogenes Laertius says, that
Plato was the first, who called the inhabitants of the earth opposite to us,
antipodes. He does not mean, that Plato was the first who taught this opinion,
but only the first who made use of the term antipodes; for, in another place, he
mentions Pythagoras as the first who taught it. There is also a passage in
Plutarch, whereby it appears, that it was a point of controversy in his time :
and Lucretius and Pliny, who oppose this notion, as well as St. Augustine, all
serve as witnesses that it must have prevailed in their time.

8.I make no mention of the condemnation of bishop Virgilius by pope Zachary, for
having taught this doctrine, because it is a mistake: the pope, in that letter
of his to St. Boniface, speaks only of those who maintained, that there was
another world besides this of ours, another sun, another moon, and so on.

9.As to the proofs which the ancients brought of the sphericity of the earth,
they were the very same that the moderns make use of Pliny on this subject
observes, that the land which retires out of sight to persons on the deck of a
ship, appears still view to those who are upon the mast ; and thence concludes
that the earth is round Aristotle drew this consequence not only from the shadow
of the earth’s being circular on the disk of the moon in the time of an eclipse,
but also from this circumstance, that in travelling south we discover other
stars, and that those which we saw before, whether is the zenith, or elsewhere,
change their situation with respect to us.


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  CHAPTER 17: CHAPTER 15 - OF THE REVOLUTION OF THE PLANETS ABOUT THEIR OWN AXIS
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Chapter 15 - Of the Revolution of the Planets about Their Own Axis

1.HOW useful an aid the invention of telescopes bath been to the astronomical
observations of the moderns, is particularly evident from their discovery, that
the planets revolve on their axis; a discovery founded on the periodical
revolution of the spots observed on their disks: so that every planet performs
two revolutions, by the one of which it is carried with others about a common
centre; and by the other moves upon its axis round its own. But all that the
moderns have advanced in this respect, serves only to confirm to the ancients
the glory of being the first discoverers. The moderns are in this to the
ancients, as the French Philosophers are to Sir Isaac Newton, all whose Labours
and travels in visiting the poles and equator to determine the figure of the
earth, serve only to confirm what Sir Isaac had thought of it, without so much
as stirring from his closet. in the same manner, we have proved, that most of
our experiments have served, and do still contribute to confirm and support the
conjectures of the ancients; although it bath often happened, that those very
conjectures of theirs, which are now so generally received as true, have
formerly been as generally decried. Of this we have had instances in the
preceding chapter, and the present will exhibit another not less remarkable.

2.Whatever were the arguments upon which the ancients founded their theory,
certain it is, they clearly apprehended, that the planets revolved upon their
own axis.. Heraclides of Pontus, and Exphantus, two celebrated Pythagoreans,
intimated this truth long ago, and made use of a very apt comparison to convey
their idea, saying, that the earth turned from west to east, just as a wheel
does upon its axis or centre. And Plato extended this observation from the earth
to the other planets; for, according to Atticus, the Platonic, who explains his
opinion, “to that general motion which makes the planets describe a circular
course, he added another resulting from their spherical shape, which made each
of them move about its own centre, whilst they performed the general revolution
of their course.” Plotinus also ascribes this sentiment to Plato, for speaking
of him, he says, that besides the grand circular course observed by all the
stars in general, he thought “they each performed another about their own
centre.”

3.Cicero ascribes the same notion to Nicetas of Syracuse, and quotes
Theophrastus to warrant what he advances ; this is he whom Diogcnus Laertius
names Hycetas, whose opinion was, that the celerity of the earth’s motion about
its own axis, and otherwise, was the only cause of the apparent revolutions of
the heavenly bodies.

4.Our secondary planet, the moon, gave the ancients an opportunity of displaying
their penetration. They early discovered, that it had no light of its own, but
shone with that which it reflected from the sun. This, after Thales, was the
sentiments of Anaxagoras and of Empedocles, who thence accounted not only for
the mildness of its splendour, but the imperceptibility of its heat; which our
experiments confirm: for with all the aid of burning glasses, we have never yet
found it practicable to produce the least effect of heat from any combination of
its rays.

5.The observations made by the moderns, tend to persuade us, that the moon has
an atmosphere, though very rare. In a total eclipse of the sun, there appears
about the disk of the moon, a glimmering radiance, parallel to its
circumference, which becomes more arid more extenuated or rare, as it diverges
from it. This, perhaps, is no other than an effect proceeding from such a fluid
as air; which by reason of its weight and elasticity, is rather more dense at
bottom than at top. With a telescope we easily discern in the moon, parts more
elevated and more bright than others, which are judged to the mountains. We
discern also other parts lower and less bright, which seem to be vallies lying
between those mountains. And there are other parts, which reflecting less light,
and presenting one uniform, smooth surface, are supposed to be large pieces of
water. If the moon then has its collections of water, its atmosphere, its
mountains and its vallies ; it is thence inferred, that there may also be rain
there, and snow, and all the other aerial commotions natural to such a
situation, and our idea of the wisdom and power of God intimates to us, that he
may have placed creatures there to inhabit it ; rather than that all this
display of his skill should be a mere waste.

6.The ancients, who had not the aid of telescopes, supplied the defect of that
instrument by a vivacity of’ penetration; for, without the means that we have,
they have deduced all those consequences that are admitted by the moderns: and
discovered long before by the mental eye, whatever bath since been presented to
corporeal sight through the medium of telescopes.

7. We see by some fragments of theirs, in how sublime a manner and worthy of the
majesty of the deity, they entered into the views of that Supreme Being, in his
destination of the planets, and that multitude of stars placed by him in the
firmament. They looked upon them as so many suns, about which rolled planets of
their own, such as those of our solar system. Nay they went farther, maintaining
that those planets contained inhabitants, whose natures they presume not to
describe, though they suppose them to yield to those’ of ours, neither in beauty
nor in dignity. Orpheus is the most ancient whose Opinion on this subject hath
come down to us. Proclus presents us with three verses of that ancient
philosopher, wherein he positively asserts, that the moon was another earth,
having in it mountains, vallies, &c.

8. Pythagoras, who followed Orpheus in many of his opinions, taught likewise,
that the moon was an earth like ours, replete with animals, whose nature he
presumed not to describe, though be was persuaded, they were of a more noble and
elegant kind than ours, and not liable to the same infirmities.

9.It were easy here to multiply quotations, and show, by a cro!d of passages,
that this opinion was very common among the ancient philosophers ; but I shall
content myself with adding a remarkable passage of Stoboeus, wherein he gives us
Democritus’s opinion about the nature of the moon, and the cause of those spots
which we see upon its disk. That great philosopher imagined, that those spots
were no other than shades, formed by the excessive height of the lunar,
mountains, which intercepted the light from the lower parts of that planet,
where the vallies formed themselves into what appeared to us. as shades or
spots. Plutarch went farther, alleging, that there were ernbosomed in the moon,
vast seas and profound caverns. These, his conjectures, are built upon the same
foundation with those of the moderns: for, says he, “those deep and extensive
shades which appear upon the disk of that planet, must be occasioned by the vast
seas it contains, which are incapable of reflecting so vivid a light, as the
more solid and opaque parts; or by caverns extremely wide and deep, wherein the
rays of the sun are absorbed, whence those shades and that obscurity which we
call the spots of the moon.” And Zenophanes said, that those immense cavities
were inhabited by another race of men, who lived there, just as we do upon
earth.

10.Yet it appears from one place in Plutarch, that in his time, as well as of
late, it was disputed by many, whether the moon yielded any exhalations or
vapours for the production of rain and the other meteors. He took part with
those who held the negative, being persuaded that the moon must be so intensely
heated by the never ceasing action of the sun’s rays upon it that all its
humidity must be dried up, so as to render it incapable of furnishing new
vapours; whence he concludes, that there existed there, neither clouds, nor
rains, nor winds; and of course, neither plants nor animals. Now, this is the
very reason alleged by such of the moderns as oppose the notion of the moon’s
being inhabited; whereas, the only necessary consequence is, that the
inhabitants of that planet must be entirely different from those of ours, and by
their constitution fitted to such a clime, and such a habitation. But, however
this be; it appears from this passage, that the opinion here mentioned, had
partizans even in Plutarch’s time, who were no less fertile than we are in
conjectures to support it.


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  CHAPTER 18: CHAPTER 16 - THE MILKY WAY; SOLAR SYSTEMS, OR A PLURALITY OF WORLDS
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Chapter 16 - The Milky Way; Solar Systems, or a Plurality of Worlds

1.THAT lucid, whitish zone, which is seen in the firmament among the fixed
stars, must have for a long while attracted the attention of the ancients, and
occasioned them to advance a great many conjectures about the reason of it, and
among the various opinions respecting it, many without doubt, must to us appear
groundless, since one only can be true. But this kind of deficiency is what will
befal genius in every age, however bright, and especially those who appeared in
remote ages. A course of centuries so familiarizes the discovery of any truth,
after it hath gained the general consent, that we are astonished, men of real
ability, should ever have hesitated about things which we have known from our
infancy; and we never give ourselves the trouble to think, that the day perhaps
shall come when the idea of Locke and Leibnits, and those of the Newtonians,
respecting attraction, and of our other naturalists upon other subjects, will be
regarded by posterity, as things so obvious, that they will be amazed, how such
great men could for any time resist such evidence. Should any one of us appear
to them to have discerned the truth, in those points which are at present in
debate, how many of us will seem to have advanced nothing but reveries: and it
will be happy, if, among such a variety of opinions, some be found to be true;
for it is no inconsiderable thing among men, when at great intervals, some one
or other arises among them, who, with sure steps, so advances as to keep clear
of those devious paths wherein others. had wandered. This’ hath frequently
happened among the moderns, and so it also did among the ancients. Truth often
beamed through the obscurity in which their knowledge was enveloped. Many erred
in their conjectures, whilst only one or two discovered the right course, and
pointed it out to others; so we, of this age, direct our views by the beams of
those geniuses who have illuminated it.

2.The milky way and fixed stars, have been an object of inquiry to many
philosophers. As to the former of these, the Pythagoreans held that it had once
been the sun’s path. and that he had left in it a trace of white, which we now
observe there. The Peripatics have asserted, after Aristotle, that it was formed
of exhalations, pended high in air. I easily admit, that there were mistakes but
all were not mistaken in their conjectures. Democritus, of a telescope, preceded
Galileo in remarking, “that what we call the milky way, contained in it an
innumerable quantity of fixed star mixture of whose distant rays occasioned the
whiteness which we denominate :“ or to express it in Plutarch’s words, “it was
the united brightness of an immense number of stars. -

3.The ancients were no less clear in their conceptions of the nature of the
fixed stars than we are; for it is but a short while ago. that the moderns
adopted the ideas of those great masters on this subject after having rejected
them during many ages. It would be reckoned an absurdity in philosophy at
present, to doubt of those stars being suns like ours, each respectively having
planets of their own which revolve around them, and form various solar systems,
more or less resembling that of ours. All philosophers at present admit of this
theory; and even less philosophic minds, begin to render this conception
familiar to them, thanks to the elegant work of Mr. de Fonte nelle.

4.And this notion of a plurality of worlds, was generally inculcated by the
Grecian philosophers. Plutarch, after having given an account of it, says, “
that he was so far from finding fault with it, that he thought it highly
probable there had been, and were, like this of ours an innumerable, though not
absolute infinite multitude of worlds; wherein were, as well as here, land and
water, invested by sky.”

5.Anaximenes was one of the first who taught this doctrine. He believed, that
the stars were immense masses of fire, around which certain terrestrial globes,
imperceptible to us, accomplished their periodic revolutions. It is evident,
that by these terrestrial globes, turning round those masses of fire, he meant
planets, such as ours, subordinate to their own sun, and forming along with him
a solar system.

6.Anaximenes agreed with Thales in his opinion which passed from the Ionic to
the Italic sect : who held that every star was a world, containing in itself a
sun and planets, all fixed in that immense space which they call ether.

7.Heaclides and all the Pythagoreans taught the same, that “every star was a
world, or solar system, having, like this of ours, its sun and planets invested
with an atmosphere of air, and moving in the fluid ether, by which they were
sustained.” This opinion seems to have been of still more ancient origin. We
find traces of it in the verses of Orpheus, who lived in the time of the Trojan
war, and taught that there was a plurality of worlds ; a doctrine which Epicurus
also looked upon as very probable.

8.Origin, in his Philosophumena, treats amply of the opinion of Hernocritus,
saying, “that he taught, that there was an innumerable multitude of worlds, of
unequal size, and differing in the number of their planets; that some of them
were as large as ours, and placed at unequal distances; that some were inhabited
by animals, which he could not take upon him to describe ; and that some had
neither animals nor plants, nor any thing like what appeared among us.” For that
truly philosophic genius discerned, that the different nature of those spheres
required inhabitants of very different kinds.

9.It appears, that Aristotle who held this opinion, as did likewise Alcinous,
the Platonic, and Lewis Coelus de Rovigo, ascribes it to Plotinus; who held
besides, that the earth, compared to the rest of the universe, was one of the
meanest globes in it.

10. It was certainly in consequence of such an idea, that Phavorinus struck out
into that remarkable conjecture of his, of the existence of other planets,
besides those known to us. He was astonished bow it came to be admitted as
certain, that there were no other wandering stars or planets, but those observed
by the Chaldeans. As for his part, be thought that their number was more
considerable than was vulgarly given out, though they had hitherto escaped our
notice. Here in all likelihood he alludes to the reality of those satellites,
which have since become manifest by means of the telescope. It required singular
penetration to be capable of forming this supposition, and of having, as it
were, predicted this discovery. Seneca makes mention of a similar notion of
Democritus: who, in a treatise which he wrote concerning the planets, of which
only the title has been banded down to us, supposes that there were many more of
them, than had yet come within our view; though he says nothing either of their
names or magnitude.


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  CHAPTER 19: CHAPTER 17 - OF COMETS
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Chapter 17 - Of Comets

1.There is no extravagance of fancy, how wild soever, but what hath been
hazarded in different ages to account for the nature of comets, and the
irregularity of their course. Even in the last age Kepler and Hevelius advanced
conjectures entirely extravagant, respecting the cause of these phenomena. Mr.
Cassini, and after him Sir Isaac Newton, have at length given certainty to the
opinions of the philosophers in this respect, by observations and calculations
most just and accurate; or to speak with more propriety, upon recalling and
fixing our attention upon what had formerly been advanced by the Chaldean
Egyptians, Anaxagoras, Democritue, Pythagoras, Hippocrates Seneca, Appolonius,
Myndius, and Artemidorus. For in treating of the nature of these stars, their
definitions of them, the reasons they assign for the rareness of their
appearance, and the apologies they make for not having yet formed a more exact
theory, are all in the very terms that Seneca had already used. With respect to
the time of that philosopher, we have formerly taken notice, that the collecting
together the observations anciently made by the returns of comets was not
sufficient to establish the theory of them; because, their appearances were so
very rare, that there had not been an opportunity of making a proper number of
observations, to determine whether their course was regular or not; but that the
Greeks, who had some time before observed this, were applying themselves to
researches of this kind.

2.Seneca, in the same place acquaints us, that the Chaldeans looked upon comets
as planetary bodies; and Diodorus Siculus, in his history, giving an account of
the extent of knowledge among the Egyptians, praises them for the application
with which they studied the stars and their courses: where he remarks, that they
had collect ed observations very ancient and very exact, fully informing them of
the several motions, orbits and stations of the planets; adding also, that they
could foretell earthquakes, inundations and the return of comets.

3.Aristotle, in laying down the opinion of Anaxagoras and Demo critus, says of
the first, that he apprehended comets to be an assemblage of many wandering
stars; which, by their approximation, and the mutual blending of their rays,
rendered themselves visible to us. This notion was far from being philosophical,
yet was it preferable to that of some great moderns, such as Kepler and
Hevelius. who would have it, that they were formed out of air, as fishes are out
of water.Pythagoras, who approached very near to the times of Anaxagoras,
taught. according to Aristotle’s account, an opinion worthy- of the most
enlightened age; for he looked upon comets as stars, which circulated regularly,
though elliptically about the sun, and which appeared- to us only in particular
parts of their orbit, and at considerable distances of time; and the error which
Aristotle falls into, in endeavouring- to explain Pythagoras’ sentiment, by a
comparison referring to the planet Mercury, ought not to be imputed to the
Pythagoric-school. Aristotle relates also, the testimonies of Hippocrates of
Chois, and Aeschylus, in confirmation of this opinion.

4.Stoboeus presents us with Pythagoras’ sentiment in the very terms of
Aristotle, though somewhat more clearly; for he says they imagined the comets to
be wandering planets, which appeared only at certain times during their course.

5.Upon the whole, Seneca, more than any other, hath discussed this subject like
a true philosopher. in his seventh book of natural questions, he relates all the
different opinions respecting comets, and seems to prefer that of Artemidorus,
who imagined, “that there was an immense number of them, but that their orbits
were so situated, that so far from being always within view, they could only be
seen at one of the extremities.” He afterward reasons upon this with equal
elegance and solidity. “Why should we be astonished, says he, that comets, which
are so rare a spectacle in the world, have not yet come under certain rules: or
that we have not hitherto been able to determine, where begins or ends the
course of planets, as ancient as universe, and whose returns are at such distant
intervals The time will come, cries he, that posterity will be amazed at our
ignorance in. things so very evident; for what now appears so obscure, will one
day or other, in the course of ages, and through the industry of our
descendants, become manifestly clear; but a small number of years, passed
between study and the indulgence of passion, will not avail for researches so
important, as those which propose to themselves the compression of nature so
remote.”

6.Upon a review of the several passages which we have just now cited, it must
now be admitted, that the moderns have said nothing solid with regard to comets,
but what is to be found in the writings of the ancients: except what later
observations have furnished them with, which Seneca judged to be so necessary,
and which only can be the effect of a long succession of ages.


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  CHAPTER 20: CHAPTER 18 - OF THE REFRACTION OF LIGHT, AND ASTRONOMICAL REFRACTION; AND OF PERSPECTIVE
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Chapter 18 - Of the Refraction of Light, and Astronomical Refraction; And of
Perspective

1.THE Arabians applied themselves with much assiduity to the study of the
sciences, and the situation of their climate led them to prefer astronomy, which
they cultivated very early. There are a considerable quantity of their writings
in our large repositories for books, which have never yet come under our notice,
having still remained in manuscript in their original language: so great has
been our neglect of them for some ages. Yet those who have been at the pains
curiously to ransack those manuscripts, have been well rewarded for their
trouble, by the acquisition they have thence made of many new and original
ideas, and the information they have received of various inventions and
discoveries, useful and entertaining. A learned gentleman at Oxford, who
carefully examined the Arabian manuscripts in the famous library of that
university, gives his sanction to this in a manner that should engage others to
imitate his example in such researches. Among other motives naturally tending to
produce the effect, he says, “the advantages recommending the study of astronomy
to the people of the east were many. The serenity of their weather; the
largeness and correctness of the instruments they made use of much exceeding
what the moderns would be willing to believe; the multitude of their
observations and writings, being six times more than what have been composed by
Greeks and Latins; and, in short the number of powerful princes, who, in a
manner becoming their own magnificence, aided them with protection. One letter
is not sufficient, says he, to show in how many respects the Arabian astronomers
detected the deficiency of Ptolomy, and the pains they took correct him; how
carefully they measured time by water-clucks, sandglasses, immense solar dials,
and even what perhaps will surpris you. the vibrations of the pendulum; and with
what assiduity and accurately they conducted themselves in those nice attempts,
which do so much honour to human genius in the taking the distances of the
stars, and the measure of the earth.”

2.Hence it is manifest that the vibration of the pendulum was employed by the
ancient Arabians, long before the epocha we ordinarily assign for its first
discovery; and the use it was applied to, was, exactly to measure time, the very
purpose for which we employ it.

3.The discovery of the refraction of light, is of more ancient origin than is
generally imagined; for the cause of it appears to have’ been known to Ptolomy.
According to Roger Bacon’s account, that great philosopher and geometrician gave
the same explanation of that phenomenon, which Descartes has done since; for he
says, that a ray, passing from a more rare into a more dense medium, becomes
more perpendicular. Ptolomy, wrote a treatise on optics, which was extant in
Bacon’s time; and Alhazen seems not only to have known that treatise of Ptolomy,
but to have drawn thence whatever is truly estimated in what he advances about
the refraction of light, astronomical refraction, and the cause of the
extraordinary size of planets when they appear on the horizon. This last point,
discussed with so much warmth between Mallebranche and Regis, had already been
adjusted by Ptolomy.

4.Ptolomy, and after him Alhazen, said, that “when a ray of light passes from a
more rare, into a more dense medium, it changes its direction when it arrives
upon the surface of the latter, describing a line which intersects the angle
made by that of its first direction, and a perpendicular falling upon it from
the more dense medium.” Bacon adds, after Ptolomy, that the angle formed by the
coincidence of those two lines, is not always equally divided by the refracted
ray; because in proportion to the greater or less density of the medium, the ray
is more or less refracted, or obliged to decline from its first direction.” In
this he approaches very near to the reason assigned by Sir Isaac Newton, who
deducing the cause of refraction, from the attraction made upon the ray of light
by the bodies surrounding it says, “ that mediums are more or less attractive in
proportion to their density.”

5.Ptolomy, acquainted with the principle of the refraction of light, could not
fail to conclude, that this was the cause also of what was called astronomic
refraction, or of the appearance of planets upon the horizon before they came
there; having recourse therefore to this principle, he accounted for those
appearances from the difference there was between the medium of air, and that of
ether winch lay beyond it; so that the rays of light coming from the planet, and
entering into the denser medium of our atmosphere, must of course be so
attracted as to change their direction, and by that means bring the star to our
view, before it really came upon the horizon. Alhazen tells us of a method
whereby we may assure ourselves of this truth by observation. He bids us “take
an armillary sphere, and upon it measure the distance of any star from the pole,
when it passes nearest its zenith under the meridian, and when it appears on the
horizon. This last, he says, will be its smallest distance.” He then makes it
appear, that refraction is the cause of this phenomenon. Yet Alhazen advances
nothing but what he derived from Ptolomy ; and neither one nor other of them
have applied this important discovery in astronomy. so as to deduce from it,
that the apparent elevation of the stars, when near the horizon, necessarily
requires to be corrected.

6.Roger Bacon, inquiring into the cause of that difference of magnitude in stars
when seen on the horizon, from what they have when viewed over head, says, in
the first place, that it may proceed from this: “that the rays coming from the
star are made to diverge from each other, riot only by passing from the rare
medium of ether into the denser one of our surrounding air, but also by the
interposition of clouds and vapours arising out of’ the earth, which repeat the
refraction and augment the dispersion of the rays, whereby the object must needs
be magnified to our eye." “Though, says he afterward there has been assigned by
Ptolemy and Alhazen, another cause for this; these authors thought that the
reason of a star’s appearing larger at its rising or setting than when viewed
overhead arose from this: that when the star is over head, there are no
immediate objects perceived between it and us, so that we judge it nearer to us,
arid are not surprised at its littleness ; but when a star is viewed on the
horizon, it lies then so low, that all we can see upon earth. interposes between
it and us, which making it appear at a greater distance, we imagine it larger
than it is. For the same reason the sun and moon, when appearing upon the
horizon, seem to be at a greater distance, by reason of the interposition of
those objects, which are upon the surface of our earth, than when they are over
head; and consequently, there will arise in our minds an idea of their
largeness, augmented by that of their distance, and this of course must make it
appear larger to us when viewed on the horizon, than when seen in the zenith.

7.Most of the learned deny the ancients the advantage of having known the rules
of perspective, or of having put them in practice although Vitruvius makes
mention of the principles of Democritus and Anaxagoras respecting that science.
in a manner that plainly shows they were not ignorant of them. “Anazagoras and
Democritus," says he, “were instructed by Agatarchus the disciple of They both
of them taught the rules of drawing, so as to imitate from any point of view the
prospect that lay in sight, by making the lines in their draught, issuing from
the point of view there, exactly resemble the radiation of those in nature;
insomuch that, however ignorant any one might be of the rules whereby this was
performed, could not but know at sight the edifices, and other prospects which
offered themselves in the perspective scenes they drew for the deco ration of
the theatre; where, though all the objects were represented on a plain surface,
yet they swelled out, or retired from the sight, just as objects do endowed with
all dimensions.” Again, he says, “that the painter Apatarius drew a scene for
the theatre at Tralles, which was wonderfully pleasing to the eye, on account
that the artist had so well managed the lights and shades, that the architecture
appeared in reality to have all its projections.”

Plato, in two or three places of his dialogues, speaks in such a manner of the
effects of perspective, as makes it evident that he was acquainted with its
principles. Pliny says, “that Pamphilus, who was an excellent painter, applied
himself much to the study of geometry, and maintained, that, without its aid, it
was impossible ever to arrive at perfection in that art ;“ which holds certainly
true with respect to perspective. And a little farther he uses an expression,
which can allude to nothing-but perspective; when he says, “that Apelles fell
short of Asclepiodorus, in the art of laying down distances in his paintings.”
Lucian, in his dialogue of Zeuxis, speaks of the effects of perspective in
pictures. Philostratus, in his preface to his drawing, or history of painting,
makes it appear that he knew this science; and in the description be gives of
Menoetuis’ picture of the siege of Thebes, he places full in sight the happy
effects of perspective when studied’ with care. There he extols the genius of
this painter, who, in representing the walls of the place invested, and scaled
by soldiers, placed some of them full in view, others to be seen only as far as
the knee, others only at- half length, and others whose heads only, or helmets,
were seen, till the whole ended in the points of the spears of those who were
not seen at all ; and he adds, that all this was the effect of perspective,
which’ deceives the eye by means of the flexure of its lines which gradually
approaching one another as they seem to recede from view, proportionally
diminish the enclosed objects, and make them appear to retire.

8. Aristotle was the first who proposed the famous problem respecting the
roundness of that image of the sun, which is formed by his rays passing through
a small puncture, even though the hole itself be square or triangular. Marolle,
resolved this about the middle of the fifteenth century, by demonstrating that
this puncture is the vortex 0f two cones of light, the one of which has the sun
itself for its base, and the other the refracted image. Upon this, Mr. de
Montucla ascribes to him the whole honour of the solution of this optical
problem, formerly indeed proposed by Aristotle, but which that ancient
philosopher, says he, “according to his wonted way, had but badly accounted
for.” It is with regret that I find myself obliged to animadvert upon some very
material mistakes, into which Mr. deMontuclahas slipt, whose judgment I so much
revere on other occasions. For first of all, from his manner of quoting this
problem of Aristotle, it appears that he neither consulted the Greek text, nor
even the Latin version that accompanies it: insomuch, that I am at a loss to
conceive where be came by this problem of Aristotle, as he produces it; and
still more where he met with this obscure solution of it, which he imputes to
that ancient philosopher.

Aristotle’s only inquiry is, “why the sun, in transmitting his beams through a
square puncture, does hot form a rectilineal figure “ And Mr. de Montucla,
instead of this, makes him substitute quite another question, respecting the sun
in a partial eclipse: Why his rays, in passing through such a puncture, should
produce a figure exactly resembling that part of his disk, which remains yet
obscured But of all this, there is not one word in Aristotle. Mr. de Montucla
afterward affirms, that this question, the proper solution of which had till
then been despaired of by naturalists, reduced them all to the necessity of
saying with Aristotle, that “light naturally threw itself into a round form, or
resumed the resemblance of the luminious body, as soon as ever it had surmounted
the obstacle which put it under constraint.” Now this again is what Aristotle
says nothing at all of. He gives two solutions of his own problem: the first of
which is certainly the foundation, if not the entire substance of what Mr. de
Montucla calls the discovery of Marolle. To enable the reader to decide whether
I have wronged Mr. de Montucla, I present him with a literal ranslation of a
passage of Aristotle’s, containing in it his first solution of this problem. “
Why is it that the sun, in passing through a square puncture, forms itself into
an orbicular, and not into a rectilineal figure, as when it shines through a
grate Is it not because the efflux of its rays, through the puncture, converges
it into a cone whose base is the luminious circle ” This may serve to confirm,
what I have formerly ventured to assert, that we but seldom do justice enough to
the ancients, either through our entire neglect of them or from not rightly
understanding them.


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  CHAPTER 21: CHAPTER 19 - OF THE MANY DISCOVERIES OF THE ANCIENTS IN MATHEMATICS, &C
========================================================================

Chapter 19 - Of the Many Discoveries of the Ancients in Mathematics, &c

1. A LARGE book might be composed, were we but cursorily to mention al the
important discoveries in geometry, mathematics and philosophy, for which we are
indebted to the ancients. Wherefore, not to swell this volume, we shall just
point at the principle of this without insisting at length, because it is
generally acknowledged that they owe their origin to those philosophers of
antiquity.

2. All the learned agree, that Thales was the first we know who predicted
eclipses; pointed out the advantages that must all from a due observation of the
little bear, or polar star; taught that the earth was round, and the ecliptic in
an oblique position. He had no less service to geometry than astronomy. He
instructed in that science the Egyptions themselves, to who he went to be
taught. He showed them how to measure the pyramids by the length and distances,
by the proportion of the sides of a triangle. He demonstrated the various
properties of the circle; particularly that whereby it appears that all
triangles which have the diameter for their base, the subtending angle of which
touches the circumference are in that point of contact right angled. He
discovered respecting the isosceles triangle, that the angles at its vase were
equal; and was the first who found out, that in right lines cutting one another,
the opposite angles are equal,. In short, he taught a great may other valuable
truths, too long to be narrated. We owe to Anaximander, the successor of Thales,
the invention fo the armillary sphere, and of sun dials; he was likewise the
first who drew a geographical map.

3. Pythagoras has already afforded to us many instances of his profound
knowledge in all the sciences. There are few philosophers, even among the
ancients, who had so much sagacity and depth of genius, He was the first who
gave sure and fundamental precepts, with respect to music, which he fixed upon
by a reach of discernment that was extraordinary. Struck by the difference of
sounds which issued from the hammers of a forge, but came into unison at the
fourth, and fifth, and eighth percussions; he concluded that this must proceed,
from the difference of weight of the hammers; he had them weighed, and found
that he had conjectured right. Upon this he wound up some musical strings, in
number equal to the hammers, and of a length proportional to their weight; and
found, that at the same intervals, they corresponded with the hammers in sound.
It was upon the same principle that he devised the monochord; an instrument
consisting of one string, yet capable of easily determining the various
relations of sound. He also made many fine discoveries in geometry, among
others, that-property of a right angled triangle, that the square of the
hypothenuse, or side subtending the right angle, is equal to the squares of the
two other sides. And he gave the first sketch of the doctrine of isoperimeters,
in demonstrating, that of all plane figures, the circle is the largest; and of
all solids, the sphere.

4. Plato likewise applied himself to the study of mathematics; and we owe to him
many fine discoveries in that science. He it was, who first introduced the
analytic method, or that geometric analysis which enables us to find the truth
we are in quest of, out of the proposition itself which we want to resolve. He
it was, who at length solved the famous problem, respecting the duplication of
the cube, on account of which so much honour is paid, by all the philosophers of
his school, to Euxodes, Archydes and Menechinus; To him also, is ascribed the
solution of the problem concerning the tri section of an angle; and the
discovery of the conic sections. Pappus. hath given us the summary of a great
many analytic works. In the preface to his seventh book, we meet with this
principle of Guldinus, “that whatever figure arises from the circumvolution of
another, is produced by the revolution of the latter about its centre of
gravity.”

5.Geometry is indebted to Hipparchus for the first elements of plain and
spherical trigonometry; and to Diophantes, who lived three hundred and sixty
years before Jesus Christ, we owe the invention of algebra. That the ancients
laid the first foundation of algebra, is a thing out of doubt, as shown by the
celebrated Wallis, in his history of that science. He makes no question but
algebra was known to the ancients, and that they thence drew those long and
difficult demonstrations which we meet with in their works. He supports his
opinion by the testimonies of Schoten, Oughtred and Barrow; and makes mention of
a manuscript in the Savillian library, which treats of this science, and bears
the name of Appollonius. But he thinks the ancients carefully concealed a
method, which furnished them with so many beautiful and difficult
demonstrations; and that they chose rather to prove their propositions by
reasonings ad absurdum, than to hazard the -discovery of that method, which
brought them more directly to the result of what they demonstrated.

One to whom algebra is much indebted, Leibnits, forms the same judgment.
Speaking of the higher operations of it, he says, “in perusing the arithmetic of
Diophantes, and the geometrical books of Apollonius and Pappus, we cannot doubt,
but the ancients had some knowledge of it. Vietus extended it still further, in
expressing by those general characters, not only unknown numbers and
proportions, but such as are known ; doing that by figures, which Euclid does by
reasoning. And Descartes hath extended it to geometry, in marking by equations
the proportions of lines. Yet, even since the discovery of our modern algebra,
Mr. Bouillaud, whom I was acquainted with at who was without all doubt, an
excellent geometrician, never reflect, but with astonishment, on the
demonstrations of Archimedes concerning the properties of the spiral line, and
could not how that great man hit upon the applying the tangent of- that line to
the commensuration of the circulation of the circle.” Nunes is of the same
opinion with the former ; and in his history of Algebra, regrets that the
ancients concealed from US, a method which they-themselves used; and says, “that
we are not to think that the greater part of the propositions of Euclid and
Archimedes, were founded by those great men in that way of reasoning, in which
they have thought proper to transmit them to us.”

6.This method of theirs, which resembled our algebra, sometimes however,
discovers itself in their researches. We meet with traces of it sufficiently
strong in the thirteenth book of Euclid; especially, if we make use of the Greek
text, or the old Latin translation. And although Wallis imagines, that they may
belong to some other scholiasts; yet the antiquity of the science itself will
still be the same. Some indeed make it mount much higher, who, led by the
authority of some able mathematicians among the ancients, assign the first
invention of it to Plato. Whoever desires to enter into a more exact examination
of this, will find in Wallis a guide and monitor, whose authority may be
acquiesced in, he having set this matter in the-clearest light, as well as made
the first and noblest efforts in our time, to raise algebra to the state of
perfection which it bath now attained.

Now, according to this able geometrician, the method of investigating infinite
serieses took its rise from his arithmetic of infinites, published in 1656; and
he himself acknowledges, that both of them are founded on the method of
exhaustions, used by the ancients. He farther says, “that the method of
indivisibles introduced ;by cavallieri, is no other than an abridgment of that
of exhaustions, though somewhat more obscure.” He observes, that the lines and
surfaces, whose proportion and contents are inquired into, and ascertained by
Cavallieri, differ in nothing from the inscribed and circumscribed triangles,
whose approaches Archimedes brought so near, that the difference of space
enclosed between them, and that which they approached, and about which they were
drawn, to wit, the -contents of the circle, might become less than any
assignable quantity: and this he proves afterward, by an analytical exposition
of both. I may however remark, that from the time of Diophantes, algebra made
but small progress, till that of Vietus, who restored and perfected it, and was
the first who marked the known quantities by the letters of the alphabet.

7.Besides the discoveries made in astronomy by the ancients, which we have been
reading, there are a great many others, which I cannot bring into view, in that
full manner they deserve. Yet I cannot omit mentioning here one important
observation of Aristarchus. was the first who suggested a method of measuring
the distance of the sun from the earth, by means of the half section of the
moon’s disk, or that basis of it wherein it appears to us when it is in its
quadratures.

8. Hipparchus was the first who calculated tables of the motion of the sun and
moon, and composed a catalogue of the fixed stars. He was also the first, who,
from the observation of eclipses, determined the longitude of places upon earth
: but what above all does immortal honour to his genius is, that he laid the
first foundations for the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Mr.
Bayle reprebends Rohault as laying under a mistake, when he says that,
“Hipparchus knew nothing of the peculiar motion of the fixed stars from west to
east, which is the cause of their varying the longitude.”— Yea, and Timoeus
Locrensis, who lived before Plato, taught this very astronomical truth in clear
terms.’


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  CHAPTER 22: CHAPTER 20 - OF ARCHIMEDES; OF THE MECHANICS AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE ANCIENTS; AND OF MICROSCOPES...
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Chapter 20 - Of Archimedes; Of the Mechanics and Architecture of the Ancients;
And of Microscopes. Of Sculpture, Painting, and the Origin of Music

1.ARCHIMEDES alone would afford sufficient matter for a volume, in giving a
detail of the marvellous discoveries of a genius so profound and fertile in
invention. We have seen, that some of his discoveries appeared so much above the
reach of men, that many of - the learned of our days found it more easy to call
them in doubt, than even to imagine the means, whereby be had acquired them. We
are again going to produce proofs of the fecundity of genius belonging to this
celebrated man. Leibnits did justice to the genius of Archimedes, when he said,
that if we were better acquainted with the admirable productions of that great
man, we would throw away much less of our applause on the discoveries of eminent
moderns.

2.Wallis calls him a man of admirable sagacity, who laid the foundation of
almost all those inventions, which our age glories in having brought to
perfection. In reality, what a glorious light hath he diffused over the
mathematics, in his attempt to square the circle, and in discovering the square
of the parabola, the properties of spiral lines, the proportion of the sphere to
the cylinder, and the true principles of statics and hydrostatics! What a proof
of his sagacity did he give in discovering the quantity of silver, that was
mixed gold in the crown of king Hiero; whilst be reasoned upon that principle,
that all bodies immerged in water, lose just so much of their weight, as a
quantity of water equal to them in bulk weighs ! Hence he drew this consequence,
that gold being more compact -must lose less of its weight, and silver more; and
that a mingled mass of both must lose in proportion to the quantities mingled.
Weighing there... fore, the crown in water and in air, and two masses, the one
of gold,. and the other of silver, equal in weight to the crown; he thence
determined what each lost of their weight, and so resolved the problem.

He likewise invented a perpetual screw, valuable on account- of its being
capable to overcome any resistance; and the screw that still goes by his name,
used in elevating of water. He, of himself alone, defended the city of Syracuse,
by opposing to the efforts of a Roman general, the resources he found in his own
genius. By means -of many various warlike machines, all of his own construction,
he tendered Syracuse inaccessible to the enemy. Sometimes he hurled upon their
land forces, stones of such an enormous size, as crushed whole bodies of them at
once, and put the whole army into confusion. And when they retired from the
walls, he still found means to annoy them; for with his balistae, he overwhelmed
them with arrows innumerable, and beams of a prodigious weight. If their vessels
approached the fort, he seized them by the prows with grapples of iron, which he
let down upon them from the walls; and rearing them up in the air, to the great
astonishment of every one, shook them with such violence, as either to break
them in pieces, or sink them to the bottom.

3.Superior knowledge he had in sciences, and his confidence in the powers of
mechanism, prompted him once to say to king Hero, who was his patron, admirer,
and friend, “give me where to stand, and I will move the earth.” And when the
king, amazed at what he said, seemed to be in hesitation, he gave him a striking
proof of his skill, in launching, singly by himself, a ship of a prodigious
weight. He built likewise for the king an immense gallery, of twenty banks of
oars, containing spacious apartments, gardens, walks, ponds, and all other
conveniencies, suitable to the dignity of a great king. He constructed also a
sphere, representing all the motions of the stars, which Cicero esteemed one of
the inventions, that did the highest honour to human genius. He perfected the
manner of augmenting the mechanic powers, by the multiplication of wheels and
pulleys; and, in short, carried mechanics so far, that the works he produced
surpass imagination.

4.Nor was Archimedes the only one, who succeeded in mechanics. The immense
machines, and of astonishing force, as were those which the ancients adapted to
the purpose of war, are a proof, they came nothing behind us in this respect. It
is with difficulty we can conceive, how they reared those bulky towers, a
hundred and fifty-two feet in -height, and sixty in compass, ascending by many
stories, having at bottom a battering-ram, a machine of strength sufficient to
beat down walls; in the middle a drawbridge, to be let down upon the wall of the
city attacked, in order to open a passage into the town for the assailants; and
at the top a body of men, who, being placed above the besieged, harassed them
without running any risk. An ancient historian has transmitted to us an action
of an engineer at Alexandria, which deserves to have a place here. In defending
that city, when it was attacked by Julius Caesar, he, by means of wheels and
other machines, drew from the sea a prodigious quantity of water, which he
turned upon the adversary, to their extreme annoyance. Indeed, the art of war
gave occasion for a great number of instances of this kind, which cannot but
excite in us the highest idea of the enterprising genius of the ancients, and
the vigour wherewith they put their designs in execution. The invention of pumps
by Ctesibus, and that of water-clocks, cranes, anatomical figures, and
wind-machines by Heron, and the other discoveries of the Grecian geometricians,
are so very numerous, that it would exceed the limits of a chapter, even to
mention them.

5.Should we pass to other considerations, we should find equally incontestable
evidences of greatness of genius among the ancients, in the difficult and indeed
astonishing experiments in which they so successfully engaged. Egypt and
Palestine still present us with proofs of this, the one in its pyramids, the
other in the ruins of Palmyra and Balbec.* Italy is filled with monuments and
the ruins of monuments, which aid us in comprehending the former magnificence of
that people. And ancient Rome even now attracts much more of our admiration,
than the modern.

6.The greatest cities of Europe give but a faint idea of that grandeur, which
all historians unanimously ascribe to the famous city of Babylon; which, being
fifteen leagues in circumference, was encompassed with walls two hundred feet in
height, and fifty in breadth ;t whose sides were adorned with gardens of a
prodigious extent, which arose in terraces one above another, to the very summit
of the walls. And for the watering of those gardens, they had contrived
machines, which raised the water of the Euphrates to the very highest of these
terraces; a height equalling that, to which the water is carried by the machine
at Marly. The tower of Belus, arising out of the middle of a temple, was of so
vast a height, that some ancient authors not ventured to assign the measure of
it: others put it at a thousand paces.

* It is proper to remark, that the temples and immense palaces of Palmyra, whose
magnificence surpasses all other buildings in the world, appear to have been
built at the time, when architecture was in its decline.

One celebrated historian states the walls surrounding this famous city, to be
350 feet high, and 87 feet thick, so that eight carriages could pass abreast
upon them; their circumference is stated, by the same historian, to be sixty
English miles; they formed an exact square, each side being fifteen miles in
length.

7.Ecbatane, the capital of Media, was of immense magnificent being eight leagues
in circumference, and surrounded with seven in form of an amphitheatre; the
battlements of which were of various colours, white, black, scarlet, blue, and
orange; but all of them covered with silver or with gold. Persepolis was also a
city, which all historians speak of as one of the most ancient and noble of
Asia, There remain the ruins of one of its palaces, which measured six hundred
paces in front, and still displays the relics of its ancient grandeur.

8.The lake Mocris is likewise a striking proof of the vast under takings of the
ancients. All historians agree in giving it above a hundred and fifty leagues in
circuit: yet was it entirely the work of one Egyptian king, who caused that
immense compass of ground to be hollowed, to receive the waters of the Nile,
when it overflowed more than ordinary, and to serve as a reservoir for watering
Egypt by means of its canals, when the overflowing of the river was not of
height sufficient to enrich the country. Out of the midst of this lake arose two
pyramids, of about six hundred feet in height.

9.The other pyramids of Egypt, in their largeness and splidity, so fir surpass
whatever we know of edifices, that we should be- ready to doubt of the reality
of their having ever existed, did they not still exist to this day. Mr. De
Chezele, of the academy of sciences, who travelled into Egypt in the last
century, to measure them, assigns to one of the sides of the base of the highest
pyramid, a length of six hundred and sixty feet, which reduced to its
perpendicular altitude, makes four hundred and sixty-six feet. The free-stones,
of which it is composed, are each of them thirty feet long; so that we cannot
imagine, how the Egyptians found means to rear such heavy masses to so
prodigious a height. The Colossus of Rhodes was another of the marvellous
productions of the ancients. To give an idea of its excessive bigness, it need
only be observed, that the fingers of it were as large as statues, and very few
were able with out-stretched arms to encompass the thumb. Pliny and Diodorus
Siculus relate, that Semiramis made the mountain Bagistan, between Babylon and
Media, be cut out into a statue of herself, which was seventeen stadia high;
that is, near two miles: and around it were a hundred other statues, of
proportionable size, though less large. And Plutarch speaks of a very great
undertaking, which one Stesicrates proposed to Alexander; viz. to make a statue
of him out of mount Athos, which would have been a hundred and fifty miles in
circumference, and about ten in height. His design was to make him hold in his
left hand a city, large enough to contain ten thousand inhabitants ; and in the
other an urn, out of which should flow a -river, poured by him into the sea. See
also the same Plutarch, vol. 1. p. 705. But Nitruvius gives to this statuary the
name of Dinocrates.

10.In short, what shall we say of the other structures of the ancients, which
still remain to be spoken of- Of their cement, which in hardness equalled even
marble itself; of the firmness of their highways, some of which were paved with
large blocks of black marble; and of their bridges, some of which still subsist,
irrefragable monuments of the greatness of their conceptions The bridge at Gard,
three leagues from Nimes, is one of them. It serves at once as a bridge and an
aqueduct. It goes across the river Gardon, and joins together the two mountains,
between which it is enclosed. It comprehends three stories ; the third is the
aqueduct, which conveys the waters of the Eure into a great reservoir, which
supplies the amphitheatre and city of Nimes. The bridge of Aleantara, upon the
Tagus, is still a work fit to raise in us a great idea of the Roman
magnificence: it is six hundred and seventy feet long, and contains six arches,
each of which measures above a hundred feet from one pier to the other; and its
height from the surface of the water is two hundred feet. The broken remains of
Trajan’s bridge over the Danube are still to be seen; which had twenty piers of
free stone, some of which are still standing, a hundred and fifty feet high,
sixty in circumference, and distant one from another a hundred and seventy.

I should never end were I to enumerate all the admirable monuments left us by
the ancients: the slight sketch here given of them will more than suffice to
answer my purpose. As to the ornaments and conveniencies of their buildings,
among many I shall mention but one, that of their using glass in their windows,
and in the inside of their apartments, just in the same manner as we do. Seneca
and Pliny inform us, that they decorated their rooms with glasses; and do not we
the same, in the use of mirrors and pier-glasses But what will now shock the
general prejudice is, that they should know how to glaze their windows, so as to
enjoy the benefit of light, without being injured by the air; yet this they did
very early. Before they discovered this manner of applying glass, which is so
delightful and so commodious, the rich made use of transparent stones in their
windows, such as the agate, the alabaster, the phengistes, the talcum, &c.
whilst the poor were under the necessity of being exposed to all the seventies
of wind and weather.

11.If we admire the ancients in those monuments which remain to us, of the
greatness of their undertakings, we shall have no less reason for wonder, in
contemplating the dexterity and skill of their artists in works of a quite
different kind. Their works in miniature are well deserving of notice. Archytas,
who was contemporary with Plato, is famous in antiquity for the artful structure
of his wooden pigeon. which imitated the flight and motions of a living one.
Cicero, according to Pliny’s report, saw the whole Iliad of Homer written in so
fine a character, that it could be contained in a nut-shell. And Elian speaks of
one Myrmesides, a Milesian, and of Callicrates, a Lacedemonian; the first of
whom made an ivory chariot, so small and so delicately framed, that a fly with
its wing could cover it; and a little ivory ship of the same dimensions: the
second formed ants and other little animals out of ivory, which were so
extremely small, that their component parts were scarcely to be distinguished.
He says also in the same place, that one of those artists wrote a distich in
golden letters, which be enclosed in the rind of a grain of corn.

12.It is natural here to inquire, whether in such undertakings as our best
artists cannot accomplish, without the assistance of microscopes, the ancients
had not any such aid; and the result of this research will be, that they had
several ways of helping the sight, of strengthening it. and of magnifying small
objects Jamblichus says of Pythagoras, that he applied himself to find out
instruments as efficacious to aid the hearing as a rule, or square, or even
optic glasses, were to the sight. Plutarch speaks of mathematical instruments,
which Archimedes make use of, to manifest to the eye the largeness of the sun;
which may be meant of telescopes. Aulus Geflius, having spoken of mirrors, that
multiplied objects, makes mention of those which inverted them; and these of
course must be concave or convex glasses.-

Pliny says that in his time artificers made use of emeralds to assist their
sight, in works that required a nice eye; and, to prevent us from thinking that
it was on account of its green colour only that they had recourse to it, he
adds, that they were made concave, the better to collect the visual rays; and
that Nero made use of them in viewing the combats of the gladiators. In short,
Seneca is very full and clear upon this head, when he says, that the smallest
characters in writing, even such as almost entirely escape the naked eye, may
easily be brought to view, by means of a little glass ball filled with water,
which had all the effect of a microscope, in rendering them large and clear: and
indeed this was the very sort of microscope, that Mr. Gray made use of in his
observations. To all this add the burning-glasses made mention -of before, which
were in reality magnifying-glasses: nor could this property of them remain
unobserved.

13.It would be a needles task to undertake to show, that the ancients have the
preeminence over the moderns in architecture, engraving, sculpture, medicine,
poetry, eloquence, and history, The moderns themselves will not contest this
with them: on the contrary, the height of their ambition is, to imitate them in
those branches of science. And indeed what poets have we to produce, fit to be
compared with Homer. Horace, and Virgil; what orators equal to Demosthenes and
Cicero; what historians to match Thucidides, Xenophon, Tacitus, and Titus
Livius; what physicians, such as Hippocrates and Galen; what sculptors like
Phidias, Polycletus, and Praxiteles; what architects to rear edifices similar to
those, whose very ruins are still the object of our admiration Till we have
those, whom we can place in competition with the ancients in these respects, it
will become our modesty to yield to them the superiority.

14.‘Tis worth notice, that the merit of the ancients is generally most
controverted by those, who are least acquainted with them. There are very few of
those who rail at antiquity qualified to relish the original beauties of the
Iliad, Aeneid, and other immortal performances, of the authors just enumerated.
There are fewer still, who are capable at one view to take in all that variety
of science, which bath been laid before the reader, and which comprehends in it
almost the whole circle of our knowledge. Of the remaining admirable monuments,
which show to what perfection the ancients carried the arts of sculpture and
design, how few have taken any due notice; and of those, how very few have been
able to judge of their- real value True it is, that time and the hands of
barbarians have destroyed the better part of them; yet still enough is left to
prove the excellence of what hath perished, and to justify encomiums bestowed on
them by historians. The group of figures in the Niobe of Praxiteles,* and the
famous statue of Lacoon, still to be seen at Rome, are, and ever will be models
of beauty and true sublime in sculpture; where much more is to be admired, then
comes within the comprehension of the eye. The Venus de Medicisa the Hercules
stifling Antacus, that other Hercules, who rests upon his club. the dying
Gladiator, and that other in the vineyard of Borghese, the Apollo of the
Belviderejf the maimed Hercules of the same place, and the Equerry in the action
of braking a horse on mount Quirinal, are all

* Some ascribe this piece to Scopas, the cotemporary of Phidia, and who reached
the times of Praxiteles. It is still in being, and to be seen at Rome. The joint
labour of Agesander, Folydorus and Athenodorus, of Rhodes: who, according to
Maffeus, lived all of them about the eighty-eighth Olympiad; it is in the
Belvidere at Rome. The workmanship of Cleomenes, the Athenian, still to be seen
in the Farnesian palace at Florence.

Ascribed to Polycletus, who made the Colossial statues of Juno in gold and
ivory, at Argos, which no longer exist. The work of Glycon, still remaining in
the Farnesian palace at Florence Done by Ctesilas, or Ctesias, in the gallery of
the capitol. By Agathias, of Ephus. By the same. These two last were at Antiuin,
now Nettuno.

Ascribed by some to Phidias, by others to Praxiteles. Those who assign it to the
latter imagine it to be that of Alexander breaking Bucephalus. But if it was
done by the former, it must be another subject, that sculptor having flourished.
about a century before. It is thought that nothing of this is now remaining His
Olympian Jupiter was an object of admiration for many ages, and continued of
them monuments. which loudly proclaim the just pretensions of the ancients to a
superiority in those arts. These pretensions are still further supported by
their remaining medals, the precious stones of their engraving and their cameos.
There is still to be seen medal of Alexander the Great, on the reverse of which
there- is sitting on his throne, finished with the finest strokes of art; not a
feature, even the smallest, but seems to declare his divinity: stones engraved
by Pyrgoteles, who had an exclusive privilege engraving Alexander’s head, as
Lysippus had of making his statue, and Apelles of painting him; those of
Dioscorides, who engraved the heads on the seals of Augustus; the celebrated
Medusa, Diomedes, Cupid, and other performances of Solon; in short, all the
other nent pieces of sculpture and engraving, so carefully sought the curious,
and with so much reason admired by connoisseurs, under it needless for me to
enlarge on the praises of artists sufficiently -renowned, by being the authors
of works so lasting and so precious

15.As to painting, so few and so scanty are the relics, and so more injured by
time, than the statues and other remains of sculpture in bronze and marble, that
to form a proper judgment of the merit of the ancients in it appears at first
very difficult. Yet if due attention be paid to what of that kind has been
discovered at Rome, and more lately in the ruins of Herculaneum, we shall be
obliged to admit the -justice of that applause, which the painters of antiquity
received from their contemporaries; an applause confirmed by all we -have had
occasion to observe of their excellency in sculpture. The ancient paintings in
freses, still to be seen at Rome, are, a reclining Venus,at full length,* and
seven other pieces, taken out of a vault at the foot of mount Palatine; among
which are a satyr drinking out of a horn-, and a landscape with figures, both of
the utmost beauty. There--are also a sacrificial piece, consisting of three
figures and an Oedipus, and a sphinx; which all of them formerly belonged to the
tomb of Ovid. These are specimens from which, without temerity, we may form a
very advantageous judgment of the ability of the masters who executed them; but
those discovered at Herculaneum; disclose beyond all others, a happiness of
design and boldness of expression, that could proceed only from the hands of the
most accomplished artist. The picture of Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur, that
of the birth of still at Constantinople, in the beginning of the thirteenth
century; together with the beautiful Caidan Venus, the happy work of Praxiteles,
and the statue of Opportunity, by Lysippus. It is probable, these fine remains
were destroyed at the taking of the city by Baldwin.

* In the Palace of Barbirini. In the gallery of the college of St. Ignatus. In
the possession of Cardinal Alexander Albani. In the Villa Altieri.

Telephus, that of Chiron and Achilles,* and that of Pan and Olympe, present
innumerable beauties to all who have discernment, and strike most the eye of the
more intelligent beholder. If indeed we examine the countenance of Achilles in
the original picture itself and not in the imperfect impression published of it,
we shall perceive in it something inimitably just and line in its air, energy
and expression; every thing contributes to display the young hero’s ardour for
glory ; and he looks with such eagerness and impatience on his master as if he
wanted but an opportunity to acquire it- at all hazards. There were found also,
among the ruins of that city, four capital pictures, wherein beauty of design
seems to vie with the most skilful management of the pencil. They appear to be
-of an earlier date than these we have spoken of, which belong to the first
century ; a period when painting, as Pliny informs us, was in its decline. What
then are we to think of the paintings of Zeuxis and Apelles, when even this art
itself, in its very decline, was capable of exhibiting such productions as
these, which however justly exciting our praise, seem to have been but of an
inferior kind, when compared to the noble performance of those great masters
This accounts for the silence observed by Pliny,- and the other historians, in
relation to them.

16.Another kind of work, of affinity to painting, and which deserves to find a
place here, is the mosaic, which the Romans made use of in paving their
apartments. One of the most beautiful monuments of that kind, and elegantly
described by Pliny, was found some years ago in the ruins of Adrian’s famous
country seat at Tivile. It represents a basin of water, with four pigeons around
the brim of it, one of which is drinking, and in that attitude its shadow
appears in the water. Pliny in the same place says, that on the same pavement,
the breaking up of an entertainment was so naturally represented, that you would
have thought you really saw the scattered fragments.

17.Music is as ancient as the world. It seems to have been born with man, to
accompany him in his painful career, to sweeten his labours, and charm away his
cares. This was its first employment. It was afterward consecrated to divine
service, and having thus risen in its dignity, became of principal account among
the people, in accompanying the traditional narratives, relative to the
characters and’ exploits of their ancestors. Hence it came to be the first
science wherein their children were instructed. Music, and poetry its ally,
accompanied all their studies. They even deified those, who first distinguished
themselves in it: Apollo was of this number. Orpheus, Amphion, and Linus, for
their eminent talents in this art, were accounted more than men. Philosophers
applied themselves to it; Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, recommend it as
worthy of being cultivated, not only by their disciples, but by the best
regulated states. The Grecians, and particularly the Arcadians, enacted the
study of it by law. regarding it as indispensably necessary to the common,
welfare. A science so generally cultivated, should have arrived at perfection
very early; yet did it continue in a state of imbecility and without principles
till the times of Pythagoras. We have seen before in what manner this great man
first determined its fundamental rules.

* These two are, perhaps, the performances of Parrhasius.

Till his time, music was so vague and uncertain that it required as
extraordinary effort of genius to reduce it to method and order. He precisely
determined the proportions which sounds bear one to other, and regulated harmony
upon mathematical principles. let the precision of his mind carry him too far,
in subjecting music to the judgment of reason alone, and admitting no pauses or
rests, but such as had an arithmetical or geometric proportion in them. texenes,
the disciple of Aristotle, thought, on the contrary, that this subject came
entirely within the verge of hearing, and that the ear was the only judge of
sounds. He therefore regulated the order, the umson and break in tones, solely
by the judgment of the earth his system prevailed for some time in Greece.
Olympus, a Phrygian. came soon after to Athens, who invented a stringed
instrument which, gave the semitones, whereby he introduced so many new graces
into music, as gave it entirely another air. He joined Aristoxenes, appealing
for the merit of his system to the decision of the ear. At length. the famous
Ptolomy appeared, and with superior spirit equally disclaimed the partiality of
both sides.

He took a middle course, asserting that sense and reason had a joint right to
judge of sounds. He accused the Pytbagoreans of fallacy in their speculations,
with respect to proportions; as well as of folly in so disregarding the
decisions of the ear, as to refuse it that kind of harmony which was agreeable
to it, merely because the proportions of it did not correspond with their
arbitrary rules. And he charged the partisans of Aristoxenes with absurd neglect
of reasoning, in that though they were convinced of the difference of grave and
acute tones, and of the proportions subsisting between them; and that those.
proportions invariably depended: upon the several lengths of the musical chords;
yet they never took the trouble of considering this, so as to enter into the
reason of it. Be therefore determined in deciding upon the principles of
harmony, to make use not only of reason but also of the ear, as being of aid to
one another; and in consequence of this, laid down a sure method for finding out
the proportions of sounds. Had the ancients done more with respect to music,
than made the discoveries already taken notice of, that science must be
infinitely more indebted to them, than it possibly could be to those who
succeeded them, for what additions they have afterward made. The’ ancients have
the whole. merit of having laid down the first exact principles of music; and
the writings of the Pythaoreans, of Aristoxenes, Euclid, Aristides, Nicoma chus,
Plutarch, and many others, even such of them as still remain, contain in them
every theory of music yet known. They knew, as well as we, the art or noting
their tunes, which among them was called the parasemantic, or semeiotic,
performed by means of entire letters, either contracted or reversel, placed upon
a line parallel to the words and serving for the direction, the one of the
voice, and the other of the instrument ; and the scale itself, of which Guy
Aretin, is the supposed inventor, is no other than the ancient one of the Greeks
a little enlarged, and what Guy may have taken from a Greek manuscript, written
above eight hundred years ago. which Kircher says he saw at Mesina in the
library of the Jesuits, wherein he found the hymns noted, just as in ‘he manner
of Aretin.

18.As to the effects which music produced, and the manner of performing it, so
far were the ancients from filing short of the moderns in these respects, that
as to the former, after reducing the accounts we have of it to the most rigid
conformity to truth, they still appear therein to have gone far beyond us: and
as the latter, though it be alleged, that their instruments were not so complete
as ours, and that they knew not, nor put in practice those divisions in harmony
which enter into our concerts; yet this seems to be a groundless objection. The
lyre, for instance, was certainly a very harmonious instrument, and in Plato’s
time was so constructed, and so full of variety, that he regarded it as
dangerous, arid too apt to relax the mind. In Anacreon’s time it had already
obtained forty strings, Ptolomy and orphyry described instruments resembling the
lute and theorby, having a handle with keys belonging to it, and the strings
extended from the handle over a concave body of woods There is to be seen at
Rome an ancient statue of Orpheus, with a musical bow in his right hand, and a
kind of violin in his left. In the commentaries of Philostrastus by Vigenere, is
a medal of Nero with a violin upon it. In the passages referred to below, it
plainly appears, that the flute was carried to so high a degree of perfection by
the ancients, that there were various kinds of them, and so different in sound,
as to be wonderfully adapted to express all manner of subjects. And in
Tertullian we meet with a very full description of an hydraulic organ, invented
by Archimedes, which was so far from being inferior in any respect to ours, that
it plainly exceeded them in its mechanism, as being made to play by water. “
Behold,” says Tertullian, “ that astonishing and admirable hydraulic organ of
Archimedes, composed of such a number of pieces, consisting each of so many
different parts, connected together by such a quantity of joints, and containing
such a variety of pipes for the imitation of voices conveyed in such a multitude
of sounds, modulated into such a diversity of tones, breathed from so immense a
combination of flutes; and yet all taken together constitute but one single
instrument.”

19.Should we for the present confine our views only to harmony or the consenting
notes in music, we shall find that the ancients were by no means ignorant of it.
Many respectable authors have cursorily treated of it. Macrobius speaks of five
notes, among which the bass bears such a symphony with those above it, that
however different they’ be among themselves, they come to the ear as if they
altogether composed but one sound. Ptolomy, speaking of the monochord, calls it
a mighty simple instrument, as having neither unison, accompanyment, variety,
nor complication of sounds. Seneca, in one of his letters, says to his friend, “
Don’t you observe how many different voices a band of music is composed of!
There you have the bass,” the higher notes, and the intermediate, the soft
accents of and the stories of men, intermingled with the sound of flutes,
however separately distinct, form altogether but one harmony of sound, in which
each hears a share.”

Plato sufficiently makes it appear, that he knew what harmony was, when he says,
that music is a very proper study for youth, and should employ three years’ of
their time ; but that it was improper to put them upon playing alternately in
concert, it being enough for them. if they could accompany their voice with the
lyre. And the reason he gives for it is, that the accompanyment of various
instruments, the bass with those of a higher key, and the variety, and even
opposition of symphonies, where music is played in divisions, can only embarrass
the minds of youth. True it is, the ancients did not much practice compound
music; but that proceeded only from their not liking it. For Aristotle, after
asking, why one instrument, accompanied only by a single voice, gave more
delight than that very voice would do with a greater number, replies, that the
multitude of instruments only obstructed the sound of the song, and hindered it
from being heard.

Yet the same author in another place expressly says, that music, by the
combination of the bass arid higher tones, and of notes long and short, and of a
variety, of voices, arises in perfect harmony. And in the following chapter,
speaking of the revolutions of the several planets, as perfectly harmonizing
with one another, they being all of them conducted by the same principle, he
draws a comparison from music to illustrate his sentiments. “Just as in a
chorus,” says he, “of men and women, where all the variety of voices, through
all the different tones, from the bass to the higher notes, being under the
guidance and direction of a musician, perfectly correspond with one another, and
form a full harmony.” Aurelius Cassiodorus defines symphony to be the art of so
adjusting the bass to the higher notes, and them to it, through all the voices
and instruments, whether they be wind or stringed instruments, that thence an
agreeable harmony may result And Horace speaks expressly of the bass and higher
tones, and the harmony resulting from their concurrence. All these testimonies
therefore uniting in favour of the harmony of the ancients, ought not to leave
us the least doubt respecting this branch of their knowledge. We have seen the
reason why they did not much use harmony in concert. One fine voice alone,
accompanied with one instrument, regulated entirely by it, pleased them better
than mere music without voices, and made a more lively impression on their
feeling minds. And this is what even we ourselves every day experience.

20.1 come now to consider the effects, which the ancient music produced, and
begin with observing, that it is not at all probable they would unanimously
consent to impose upon posterity, in matters delivered with such an air of
truth. There is scarcely any thing in history better supported. To begin with
sacred story. We find there, that the ministers of Saul bid him send for a
player upon an instrument, to relieve him of his malady. The consequence of this
was, that David came, and administered the expected relief. And to be convinced,
that there was nothing supernatural in this, but that music was at that time a
known specific in such maladies as Saul complained of, it need only to be
remarked, that those, who gave this, advice, were but household servants.
Profane history supports us in this reflection, by a great number of instances
of the same kind. Aulus Gellius and Athenaeus make mention of many cures
performed among the Thebans by music, and cite Theophrastus as to what happened
in his time. Galen, a very grave author, and whose authority is of the greatest
weight in subjects of this kind, speaks very seriously of this custom. And
Aristotle, Appollonius, Dipscolus, Capella. and many others, speak of singing as
a nostrum in many maladies. There is a passage in Tzetzes, which gives rise to a
conjecture, that may very naturally accompany these facts. He says, that Orpheus
recalled Euridice from the gates of death, by the charms of his lyre. Now to
take this literally, one might presume from it, that Eurydice had been bit by a
tarantula instead of a serpent, as historians give out, and that Orpheus having
recovered her by means of music, as is practised in Italy even at this day, in
process of time there was founded on this the well known allegory of his descent
into hell. But if, in opposition to this, it be alleged, that there are no
tarantulas in Thrace, which is what I cannot take upon me to affirm, the
objection is easily evaded by admitting with historians, that she was really bit
by a serpent, observing withal, that she might still be cured of that bite by
means of music. Theophrastus, among other writers, is quoted by Aulus Gellius,
as an ocular evidence of the medical effects of music, in the case of persons
bit by serpents or vipers, he work indeed referred to is now lost. Another
purpose, to which e ancients applied their music was to alleviate the rigour of
their punishments; and in this they displayed their humanity. The Americans
entertain the same idea of the power of music, having recourse to it to allay
the severity of their toils. Plutarch reports of Antigenidas, that he so roused
the spirit of Alexander, by playing on the flute, that in a transport of heroism
the prince immediately started up from table, and flew to his arms. Every body
hath hear of’ the wonderful influence which the music of the famous Timotheus
had over the mind of that prince, when touching his lyre. he so inflamed him
with rage, that drawing his sabre he suddenly slew one of his guests; which
Timotheus no sooner perceived, than, altering the air from the Phrygian to a
softer measure, he stripped him of his fury, becalmed his passion, and infused
into him the tenderest feelings of grief and compunction for what he had done.
Jamblicus relates’ like extraordinary effects of the lyres of Pythagoras and
Empedocles The painter Theon dextrously availed himself of this force of music,
when going to make a public exhibition of a piece he had finished wherein a
soldier was represented as just ready to assail the enemy, he first of all
warmed the spirit of the company by a warlike air, and when he found them
sufficiently animated, uncovered the picture, which struck the whole assembly
with admiration. Plutarch informs us of a sedition quelled at Lacedernon by the
lyre of Terpander; and’ Boetius of rioters dispered by the musician Damon.

21.To conclude this inquiry respecting the merit of the ancients in music, I
shall make but two observations. The first is, that their airs in delicacy very
much surpassed ours, and that it is in this respect principally, that we may be
said to have lost their music. Of these three kinds of music, the diatonic,
chromatic, and the enharmonic, there exists now only the first* and second. The
difficulty there was to find voices and hands proper to execute the enharmonic
kind, brought it first into neglect, and then into oblivion : insomuch that all
now remaining of the ancient music is that of coarser sort, which” knows no
other refinement, than that of the whole and the deminote, instead of these
finer kinds, which carried on the division of a note into threes and fours.
Doubtless the prevalency of that system, which referred the determination of
sounds to the judgment of the ear, occasioned the rejection of the enharmonic
species, which was too fine for the decision of the ear, and sprung entirely
from the Pythagoric system. But this by no means ought to hinder us from
acknowledging the excellency of that music above the modern, in the extreme
delicacy of its tones. The second observation is, that the variety of manner, in
which the ancient music was performed, placed it in a rank of dignity, superior
to ours. Our modes are but of two kinds, the flat and the sharp: whereas the
ancients modified theirs’ into five, the principal of which were the Ionic, the
Lydian, the Phrygian, the Doric, the Aeolic each adapted to express and excite
different passions ; and by that means, especially, to produce such effects as
we have just now taken notice of, not only from the authentic manner in which
they have been recorded, but from the very state and condition in which music at
that time was.

*Dutens, is mistaken in saying, first, that only the first, viz, the diatonic
kind now remains; and secondly, that this divides the tones into semitones;
which certainly is done by the chromatic, and not the diatonic scale.


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  CHAPTER 23: CHAPTER 21 - CONCLUSION
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Chapter 21 - CONCLUSION

1.We have seen in how many truths of the greatest importance the ancients
preceded the moderns, or at least pointed out, or prepared the way for their
discoveries. It appears also, that the latter have not always bad the
disinterestedness to own, that the former guided them in attaining their ends.
And here it may not be amiss to remark, that those very philosophers, when their
opinions were attacked, or when they dreaded they might be so, recurred to the
authority of those great men, to put envy and calumny to silence. Descartes,
Mallebranche, and some Newtonians, are instances of this.

2.The first of these, at the conclusion of his principles of philosophy,
advertises the reader, that he had advanced nothing but what had been authorised
by Aristotle, Democritus, and many other philosophers of antiquity.
Mallebranche, observing his system accused not only of being false, but of being
impious, immediately bad recourse to the authority of St. Augustin. And some
Newtonians, upon seeing that attraction was by many regarded as a mere whim, set
about proving, that the ancients owned and taught it; trusting by this to open a
reception for it. Some, to conciliate the favour of the public, have had
resource to the authority of the ancients ; others, upon being attacked, have
tied to them for succour and protection. Others again, distrusting their own
ability to support what they advanced, have rather chosen to abdicate the glory
of invention, than give up their favourite ideas a prey to their adversaries ;
and have therefore, to put them out of reach, placed their origin at a vast
distance. Nor are there wanting those, who seeing themselves secure of success,
in hazarding certain opinions, have ventured to pass them under their own names,
though they belong to others ; and observing, that they were not reclaimed to
their real authors by the public, have silently gloried in their borrowed
lustre; many conscious that they had no right, and some., though few in number,
thinking that they had.

3.What little we have taken notice of respecting the conduct of Descartes,
Locke, and Mallebranche, is sufficient to authorize what we here advance.
Descartes bath not specified the authors, from whom in particular he derived his
thoughts. He only says in general that the greatest philosophers of antiquity
have thought as he has done. Locke hath passed for an original, though his
principles be the same with those of Aristotle, and his distinctions just such
as were employed by the stoics. Mallebranche did not at first avow,’ that his
opinion was the same with that of the Chaldeans, Permenides, Plato, and St.
Augustin ; but when he saw himself warmly attacked by his adversaries, against
the philosophical part of them, he held up the buckler of Plato, whilst he fled
to St. Augustin for shelter against the divines. The glory of having been the
first, who clearly distinguisheth: the properties of the mind from those of the
body, and demonstratad, that sensible qualities had their existence in the mind
of the percipient, and not in the object perceived, hath been wrongfully
ascribed to Descartes ; since we have seen, that he was preceded in all these’
respects by Lencippus, Democritus, Flato, Strato, Aristippus, Plutarch, and
Sextus Empiricus.

4.Leibnits hath not only revived the doctrine of Pythagoras; but employed the
very same arguments, which the Pythagoreans made use of to demonstrate the
necessity of admitting the existence of simple and uncompounded things, anterior
to those that were compounded, and as being the foundation of the existence of
body itself. Mr. de Buffon hath sometimes quoted Aristotle and Hippocrates, but
never when there was any inquiry about the groundwork of his system, which has
always been thought to be new, though it appears to be almost entirely: the same
with that of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Piotinus. According to the system of
Pythagoras, Plato and Epicurus, the production of every thing in nature was
ascribed to the concurrent force of simple and active principles, long before
Mr. Needham thought of it. The philosophy of Gassendi and the Newtonians, is no
other than that of Moschus, Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. The
acceleration.. of motion was known to, Aristotle, and the best manner of
accounting” for it is that which he makes use of. Lucretius observed long before
Galileo, that bodies the most unequal in weight, such as gold and down, must
descend with equal velocity in a vacuum.

Universal gravity attractive, centripetal, and centrifugal force, were clearly
indicated by Anaxagoras, Plato, Airstotle, Plutarch, and Lucretius. We have’
also seen, that, without the aid of telescopes, Democritus and Phavorinus
entertained very just ideas of the milky way, and predicated the discovery of
the satellites ; that a plurality of worlds, and the doctrine of vortices, were
clearly and with precision taught by the ancients; and that Plato had a notion
of the theory of colours. We have seen, that two thousand years before
Copernicus, Pythagoras had proposed the same system; and that Plato,
Aristarchus, and many others, had admitted it; as they did, also, without
difficulty. the doctrine of antipodes, which though very reasonable in itself,
had so much difficulty is gaining a reception among us. The revolution of the
planets about their own axis was known also in the schools of Pythagoras and
Plato. There was nothing left to the moderns to say new, respecting the return
of comets, their nature, and their orbits. The Chaldeans, Egyptians, Pythagoras,
Democritus, Hippocrates of Chios, Artemidorus, and Seneca, had already fully
settled the theory of them ; though the moderns, it is true, demonstrated more
clearly some parts of it. The mountains, valleys, and inhabitants of the moon,
had been suggested and supposed by Orpheus, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and
Democritus.

5.Aristotle knew the weight of the air; Seneca its spring anti elasticity.
Lucippius, Chrysippus, Aristophanes, and the stoics, had fully accounted for
thunder and earthquakes. Pytheas, and Seleucus of Erytherea, preceded Descartes
in explaining the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the sea ; and PlinAcibre
Sir Isaac Newton had made mention, in that case, of the combined forces of sun
and moon.

6.We have also seen, that Hippocrates and Plato knew the circulation of the
blood, and that Rufus described, sixteen hundred years ago, the various
parastatae, called by, us the Fallopian tubes. And by the sentiment of an able
surgeon of the present age, we have shown, that there were as great advances
made in that art a thousand years ago, as there are at present. The art of
working metals, of rendering gold potable, glass ductile and malleable ; that of
distillation, of painting upon glass, of making gunpowder, and a thousand other
chemical preparations, with which we have proved the ancients to have been
acquainted, leave not the least doubt of their skill in chemistry. We have seen,
that the sentiment of Harvey. Steno, and B.hedi, respecting generation by eggs,
was only a renewal of what had been taught by Hippocrates, Empedocles,
Aristotle, and Macrobius ; and the system of Hartsoeker, and Leuwenhoeck, with
respect to spermatic animalcula, is found in Aristotle, Hippocrates, Plato,
Lactantius, and Plutarch. And the sexual system of plants, the merit of
discovering which we chiefly assigned to Morland, Grew, Vaillant, and Linnacus,
was accurately expounded by Empedocles, Theophrastus, Pliny, and Diodorus
Siculus.

7.Though we did not employ much time in our survey of mathematics and geometry,
yet we made it appear, that the noblest discoveries in those sciences were made
by the ancients. All the English geometricians agree with Leibnits and Wolf in
acknowledging, that, notwithstanding all the attempts made by the ablest
geometricians in these last ages, Euclid’s method still remains the most
accurate and perfect. We observed, that the most difficult problems in those
sciences were solved by Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, and Apollonius.
We have seen, that their mechanical contrivances were carried to such a pitch,
as to surpass even the conception of the most learned among us. Archimedes’s
burning-glasses furnished us with an instance of this. Their application of the
equal vibration of the pendulum, their knowledge of the refraction of light, and
their attempts to square the circle, their discovery of the fundamental
propositions of geometry, and above all that of algebra, and the pre cession of
the equinoxes, afford convincing proofs of the depth and acuteness of the genius
of the ancients. We have also made it appear, that microscopes were not unknown
to them; and that in the arts of pointing, sculpture, and the science of music,
they not only equalled, but even surpassed us. In laying before the” eyes. of
the reader, a sketch of the admirable works of the ancients in architecture, and
in the art of war, we have likewise given proofs, that they were no less able in
the arts, than in the sciences; insomuch that there is no part of knowledge in
which they have not: either preceded us, directed, or surpassed us.

8.Now, if it hath been demonstrated, that the writings of those great masters
contain the greatest part of what is to be known, that the most celebrated
discoveries of the moderns have thence derived their origin; is it not very
reasonable, that we should rather go to the fountain head of science, than to
confine ourselves entirely to the little streams that issue from it ! But in
recommending the study of the ancients, I am far from thinking that the moderns
are to be neglected. I apprehend, on the contrary, that it is of great use
attentively to consider their labours in order to remark what they have added to
the knowledge of the ancients by their experiments; for without doubt there may
be daily added something to our knowledge. This makes it necessary attentively
to compare the ancients and moderns together; for in these last many things may
be found, which have ever been omitted, or but obscurely treated of in the
former. Nay, farther, the labours of the moderns may serve to replace, as it
were, some of those treatises of the ancients, which have been lost, and of
which there now remain only the titles, to give us an idea of the greatness of
our loss. Another advantage, which may arise from this comparison, is, to
sustain us in our reflections; for where the ancients, and moderns agree, it is
natural, that their joint consent should determine our judgment in such or such
a point. And even when they differ, the diversity of their reasonings may tend
to throw light on the mind.

9.Free from partiality towards either, we ought to think, that whatever efforts
have been made to bring our knowledge to perfection, there will remain something
still to be done in that respect, by us and our posterity. There is no man
sufficient of himself to establish or perfect any one art or science. Having
received from our ancestors the product of all their meditations and researches,
we ought daily to add what we can to it, and by that means contribute all in our
power to the increase and perfection of knowledge. Let us put on the disposition
of Seneca, who expresses himself on ‘this subject with his usual eloquence. "I
‘hold in great veneration says be, “the inventions of the wise, and the
inventors themselves. This is an inheritance, which every one may and ought to
lay claim to. To me they have been transmitted; for me they have been found out.
But let us in this,” continues he, “act like good managers ; let us improve what
we have received, and convey this heritage to our descendants, in better
condition than it came to us. Much remains for us to do; much will remain for
those who come after us. A thousand years hence, there will stilt be occasion,
and still opportunity, to add something to the common stock. But had every
thing’ been found out by...the ancients, there would still this remain to be
done anew, to put their inventions into use, and make their knowledge When I
first read over the preceding treatise, I bad had little though or design of
making so large an extract from it. But I afterward considered, 1. That this
might be a means of making that valuable work more extensively known, (as men of
learning would naturally desire to see and examine the proofs at large ;) and,
That it might serve for a kind of recapitulation of the preceding volumes. Such
a recapitulation as, on the one hand, could not be unentertaining to the
sensible reader; and on the other, might repress the vanity which is apt to
arise in our minds, when we imagine we have made new discoveries Alas! how
little new has been discovered, even by Gassendi, Mallebranche, Mr. Locke, or
Sir Isaac Newton! How plain is it, that is philosophy, as well as the course of
human affairs, “ there is nothing new under the sun !" The more we consider
this, the more we shall be convinced of the inconceivable littleness of human
knowledge. But although with our utmost efforts, we can know so small a part of
the things that surround us, yet we can know, and that with the greatest
certainty, our’ whole duty to Him that made them. And what can we reasonably
desire more For “this is the whole of man,” (which is the literal rendering of
Solomon’s words) his whole business, his whole happiness, In this our infant
state we cannot know much: but we may love much. Let us secure this point, and
we shall soon be swallowed up in the ocean both of Knowledge and Love!

London, November 16, 1777.


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