14^ Nofkes respecting New Books. 



patetics; and, having been implicitly adopted by the schoolmen, 

 has been since called the Scholastic Philosophy : they aflirmed 

 that eacli effect of bodies flowed from its individual nature; but 

 whence the several natures proceeded, they did not show ; they 

 were defective in observation and experiment, dwelling rather on 

 the nam.es of things, than on the things themselves. According, 

 therefore, to the Newtonians, wliose words I borrow, they had 

 invented a philosophical language, but could not be said to have 

 taught philosophy^'. 



" Some, indeed, according to the statement of the Newtonians, 

 had, emerging somewhat from this obscurity of mere v/ords, 

 maintained tliat all matter was of the same kind ; and that all 

 the variety of forms, which we see in bodies, arises from the 

 most simple atfections of their component parts : but to those af- 

 fections they assigned other modes than what, it appears, have 

 been assigned to them by nature, indulging themselves in a li- 

 berty, which, however j)lausible to the imagination, was not 

 founded in reality ; they conceived certain unknown figures and 

 magnitudes, positions and motioiis of parts, together with certain 

 occult fluids, which, by entering the pores of the bodies, agitated 

 them with great subtlety and force : here, too, it was insisted, 

 tliey had no authority, from observation or experiment, their 

 theory being all founded on conjecture : the Newtonians, on ad- 

 vancing these objections, had in vicAV the doctrine of atoms and 

 vortices of Descartes and his followers. The accuracy of many 

 of their mechanical laws and deductions was admitted ; but their 

 speculations were considered as mere hypotheses, ' fabulam (said 

 the Newtonians.) elegantem force et venustam, fabulam tamen 

 concinnarc dicendum esse.' 



** " Thus was Newton led on to that third way of philosophizing, 

 called experimental : he assrmed no principle that was not 

 sanctioned bv phcenomena, and from the most simple ])rinciples 

 he aimed to arrive at general causes, and original laws : hypo- 

 theses he laid down not as systems to be believed, but as cjues- 

 tions to be tried ; and he proceeded by a twofold method, which 

 he called analytic, and synthetic : he deduced the more simple 

 powers and laws of forces from certain select phsenoraena ; this he 

 called analysis; and then proceeding from those single phaeno- 

 mena to more general and comprehensive forms, he established 

 synthesis. Not that this v.ay of proceeding by analysis and syn- 

 thesis are novelties, they are noticed by Aristotle. But these are 

 the rules followed by Sir Isaac Newton, in his way of philoso- 

 phizing, and by these he established a theory, which was said to 

 explain and illustrate tlie system of the universe, 

 ■" According to this ll-.eory, then, it was maintained, that all 

 * Newtoui Priaciiiia Philosophiae Xaturalis. Pref, a R. Cotes. 



bodies 



