134 On Asiro-almospkerical Sc'unce. 



rcadily-offercd asbist.-ince was refused with horrob, bccaubC 

 nothing less tlian diabolical cooperation could have induced me 

 to expect to recover a life wliich God had permitted to cease. 



I trust mv motive in the insertion of these anecdotes will he 

 obvious, as they serve to prove the vague ideas which have pro- 

 bably given rise to the old stories of 7tta^ic and 7iecromuncy. 



The experiments in tlie practice of what is now usually com- 

 prehended under Natural Philosopliv, have ever appeared to the 

 uninformed wonderful effects beyond the ordinary power of hu- 

 man nature. Hence Friar Bacon and other Franciscans en- 

 dured the censure of their ignorant contemporaries: and necro- 

 mancy has, I conceive, no other origin than what has been 

 ascribed to it by weak minds, whose terrors may have been aug- 

 mented by the artfid for sinister purposes. 



Every frieiid of literature must regret the destruction of the 

 library founded bv Plolemv Philade!|)hus, which is said to have 

 contained four himdred thousand valuable manuscripts, when 

 Julius Caesar (47 A. C.) set fire to Alexandria. 



A second library, founded by the stic-cessors of Ptolemy, in- 

 tended to repair the loss of the foniicr, and said to have con- 

 sisted of seven lumdred thousand volumes, was destroyed by 

 Omar the caliph of the Saracens, A. D. (J 42. 



Without noticing other collections of ancient literature which 

 have been destroyed by coniiagration, I cannot hesitate to ex- 

 press regret that the mathcmaticiaiis were so indiscriminately 

 banished from ancient Rome: noi' can I see aught to connnend 

 in the voluntary destruction of books on the subject of natural 

 philosophy, by some of the enrlv converts to Ciiristanity. — In 

 those days all the laboiu-s of the learned were in mamiscript j 

 and we may infer that in numerous instances they were irrcco- 

 veral)Ie: — tbe impetuosity of the Roman warriors, the bigotry of 

 the Saracen army, and the unrestrained zeal of the Christian 

 converts, contributed to annihilate many momur.ents of ancient 

 knowledge, whence we might have obtained the elements and 

 the raliojiale of the systems wliich had in the most ancient pe- 

 riods of the world been maintained. 



If, instead of such infatuated measures, we could nowbringtothe 

 test of enlightcne 1 science, whatever contributed to raise the fame 

 of those reputed learned, we might discriminate truth from error. 



If (to descend to a later period j, instead of acts of parliament 

 against uiuhcrajt, (which were not till within our own time re- 

 pealed,) the development of the pretended secrets had been en- 

 couraged, the absurdity of the belief Mould have been most 

 effectually exploded, and posterity would have been rescued 

 from the possibility of imagining that nothing short of diabolical 



ygeucy 



