J$Z Mr. Bentbam's V a tent, cic. 



general be found fufficient, however large the fcale ! A 

 lpindle Hiding in fuch a collar gives rectilinear motion ;'•' 

 Wonderful ! " A fpindle turning round on its axis give3 

 circular motion ;" wonderful 1 ! " From one or other of 

 thefe two, or indeed from either of them, any other motions 

 may he produced at pleafure:" — and if you cannot, from this 

 description, frame a parcel of Aiidroides able to work in 

 your vacuum chamber, in packing beef and butter into 

 calks, gilding and plating metals, calling images, glueing 

 boards together, filling thermometers, and performing every 

 thing you can wiih, it is becaufe your fcull is a vacuum alfo. 



Whoever can dlfcover the means, whether by an air-pump 

 or, otherwife,, to make, with facility fuch large vacuums, and 

 ctLYi contrive t\\ejack hi tie box- who is to perform the various 

 operations required, may do it without confulting with, this 

 patentee, whofe 'invention con/ijh in an idea that mould others 

 contrive fuch machinery^ he could prevent them from ufing 

 it. without paying him for the privilege. It is however a 

 mi ftake, founded upon another, that what becomes an art 

 or manufacture ccales to be philofophical ; when the fact is,' 

 that an art is only perfect in proportion as it is llrictly fo. 

 Tie labours under another error, when he believes that the 

 difference in the fcale, on which any procefs may be carried 

 on. will furnilh grounds for a patent ! Great and fmall are 

 merely relative terms, and abfolutely mean nothing in them- 

 felves — 1000 is a great number when compared with unity, 

 but when contrafted with 1,000,000 it becomes a fmall one. 



The duty we owe to the public calls upon us to point out 

 the faults as well as the merits of Patent Inventions ; but 

 when we fee, as in the prcfent inftance, an unjuft effort made 

 to monopolize the fruits of the accumulated fagacity of thole 

 who labour for the benefit ol their fellow-creatures in gene- 

 ral it lavs us under a double obligation to expofe the impu- 

 dence of the attempt. 



IX, Qk 



