PHYSICALanD LITERARY. gy 
‘impelling it towards a body at hand, with a 
greater force than towards one at a diftance, 
is in reality not more difficult, than to ima- 
gine it exerting always the fame force, with- 
out regard to diftance. 
4 Ir is not improbable, that the above men- 
tioned objection, of a body’s acting where 
it is not, hasled Leibutz and other foreign 
 philofophers, to adopt the vortices of Des 
Cartes, rather than Sir J/aac Newton’s theo- 
ty; liable, according to their notion of it, 
to an infuperable objection. Yet there can- 
not be conceived a more whimfical hypothe- 
fis, than that of a fluid circulating about the 
fun, in which the planets are involved and 
carried along, like a fhip ina torrent. The. 
ingenious Mapertuis, in his efay upon attra- 
ction, moves feveral objections to it, even as 
new moulded by Jater writers. He objects 
in the firft place, that the planets do not 
_ move in acircle, but inan elipfe. In the 
next place, that they do not move with ce- 
_ lerities proportionable to their diftances from 
the fun ; which they behoved to do, if car- 
tied along in a vortex moving, like a wheel, 
“equably round the fun. ‘Thefe objections are 
jut; but, in my apprehenfion, he has over- 
5, ae looked 
