436 



tendons, before lliey allow the partiality of his countrymen to place 

 him in a rank with Newton or Copernicus. 



Dr. Hutton's friend and pangyrift, Profcjfor Playfair, among other 

 eulogiums he beftows upon his late maftcr's theory, fays, (page 127) 

 " It is impoffible not to be ftruck with the novelty and beauty of the 

 " views which it fets before us, and which point it out as a work of great 

 " and original invention ;" And again, (page 134) " Dr. Hutton' s theory 

 *' merits, in the flrictefl; fenfe, the appellation of ?iew and original." 



But whatever other merit Dr. Mutton's fyftem may have, it cannot 

 claim that of novelty ; for it feems ftrongly to referable the opi- 

 nions entertained by Heraclitiis of old, and which he affigns as the 

 ■caufe of his melancholy. * 



Among the moderns who may contend with Dr. Hutton for the 

 credit of this invention, the moft formidable will probably be found 

 among the feet of the Illuminati, who have their Opinions accurately 

 laid down and detailed in the lecture of a Pruffian Illumine, a knight 

 of the Phenix, who gives us a fort of a phyfical creed, which thofc 

 who wiflied to become members of the fociety mufl previoufly adopt. 

 I will quote a paffage from this ledure, as publiflied hy the Abbe 

 BarrueL 



" After 



Ta fJ.h -Tix^EovTOC ov doKsu fjiiyxKa^ ra J Ir^^ia yffitij Iffofisvx 'rnx'^na.-i ctn^^ar >,iyu 



eif y.via^vx ^avTot, (ryvEiXsoVTXt — /^.=yJt, ^oipw' avQ y.a.70 w£^(;^o^£Uoj't«, xai ct i^.^'oOjAiyx i* Tp' 

 ToS ulitat waiJw L.UCIAN. Bin Ufi^crit. Chap. iJ. 



He fays, " Tht prefent {kte of things I do not much admire, and what is to 

 " happen in future I confider as quite calamitous ; for I expefl conflagrations and 

 " the fubverfion of the univerfe. Therefore I weep ; becaufe I fee nothing ftable 

 " and fixed ; and all things are to be mixed up in a fort of hodge-podge, greaj 

 ^and fmall, whifl^ed about, up and down, inveited in the fport of time." 



