68 HISTORY of the SOCIETY. 



S iven rife - In tllls laft > however, he has not completely fuc- 

 ceeded ; and that, too, by committing a miftake fnnilar to that 

 which he cenfured in Dr STEWART, and by rejecting quanti- 

 ties not lefs than fome which he retained. He obferved, how- 

 ever, what produced the compenfation that has been taken no- 

 tice of, viz. the immenfe variation of the fun's diftance, which 

 correfponds to a very fmall variation of the motion of the 

 moon's apogee. It is doubtful, whether Dr STEWART was 

 fully apprifed of this circumftance j becaufe the geometrical 

 method, elegant and beautiful as it is, rarely prefents a gene- 

 ral view of the relations, which the magnitudes it treats of 

 bear to one another ; and many of thefe relations may, there- 

 fore, efcape the moft profound Geometer, which an Algebraift, 

 of more ordinary abilities, would not have failed to difcover. 



THERE are other of this Author's ftriclures, which we can- 

 not admit as juft, but which we will not attempt here, either 

 to enumerate or refute. Yet it were doing great injuftice to 

 his remarks not to acknowledge, that, befides being juft in the 

 points already mentioned, they are, every where, ingenious, 

 and written with much modefty and good temper. The Au- 

 thor, who concealed his name, and permits it now, for the 

 firft time, to be publicly mentioned, was Mr DAWSON, a fur- 

 geon at Sudbury in Yorkfhire ; a man, as it mould feem, who 

 might have enjoyed more of the fame, had he been lefs fatis- 

 fied with the pofTeffion of knowledge. 



A SECOND attack was foon after this made on the Sun's Di- 

 Jlancc, by Mr LANDEN j but by no means with the fame good 

 temper which has been remarked in the former. He fancied 

 to himfelf errors in Dr STEWART'S inveftigation, which have 

 no exiftence ; he exaggerated thofe that were real, and feemed 

 to triumph in the difcovery of them with unbecoming exulta- 

 tion. If there are any fubjedls on which men may be expected 

 to reafon difpaflionately, they are certainly the properties of 



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