ADVERTISEMENT. XV 



was flattened there. The truth is, his fyftem of the 

 Heavens occupying all the faculties of his vaft ge- 

 nius, prevented his detefling on the Earth a geo- 

 metrical inconfequence : he adopted, therefore, 

 without examination, an experiment which he 

 thought favourable to his fyftem, not perceiving 

 that it was diametrically oppofite to him. Modern 

 Aftronomers have, in their turn, fuffered them- 

 felves to be feduced by the reputation of Newton^ 

 and by a weaknefs fo apt to warp the human 

 mind, that of attempting to explain all the opera- 

 tions of Nature by a fmgle law. Boiigiier himfelf, 

 one of their co-operators, in his T^reatije on Navi' 

 gatioHy bookv. chap. v. §. 2. page 435, fays ex- 

 prefsly, that, " on this difcovery of the flattening 

 " of the Poles, the whole of Phyfics, almoft, de- 

 *' pends." 



Our Aftronomers, then, have fet out on a 

 ramble to the extremities of the Earth, in queft of 

 phyfical proofs of a celeftial fyftem, happy and 

 luminous ; and they were fo dazzled with it be- 

 forehand, that they miftook, in their turn, the 

 truth itfelf, which, far from the prejudices of Eu- 

 rope, had, in deferts, juft fought refuge under 

 their wings. If the moft illuftrious of modern 

 Geometricians, could fall into fo grofs an error in 

 his peculiar Science ; and if Aftronomers, in other 

 refpefls, abundantly filled with a fenfe of their 



OvVn 



