on Mr. HerapatJis Theory. 28T 



one such a case. This, in the present state of C.'s writings, is 

 all the notice I can take of his baseless accusation. 



Every person, who takes the pains to read C.'s last communi- 

 cation, can easily discover the "honourable" means to which 

 he has had recourse to shift from the charges of palpable mis- 

 representation which I have in my former reply so clearly proved. 

 Before I proceed " to examine the reasoning" which he calls 

 mathematical, I will extract from C.'s " reply " a few speci- 

 mens out of a countless number of that sort of truth, " which," 

 one would have thought, " his honourable feelings, intelligence, 

 and integrity, would have alike disdained." If they can do 

 nothing else, they will serve to show how impossible it is for 

 a person of C.'s " integrity" to depart from that kind of recti- 

 tude to which he has been accustomed. In the Annals for 

 September, p. 198, C. giving a quotation from my first reply 

 makes me say, " In more than one instance C. has not been 

 over delicate in this respect." The original has the phrase 

 " / think" immediately alter " has." But this omission, which 

 merely converts a matter of opinion into an absolute assertion, 

 is, I presume, in C.'s system of no consequence, especially as it 

 happens to be in the very page and paragraph, in which he is 

 trying to call in question my " moral deficiency " for a mis- 

 representation of which indeed his own imagination is the 

 author. I pass over in the same pages his " honourable" sup- 

 pression of the principal part of what I had (Annals, April, 

 p. 292,) advanced to prove his having "falsely" charged 

 Mr. H. with attributing to hard bodies the properties of elastic, 

 and his insinuating that what he has quoted is all that I had 

 advanced; his curious quotations from Newton and Hutton 

 to support a consequence of a property, instead of the property 

 itself; his creditable quibble on the word almost; his very 

 justifiable statement that D. "admits that Mi-. H. advisedly 

 used the one word instead of the other ;" his edifying attempt 

 to get rid of his discovery of having proved truth error ; to- 

 gether with many things of the same stamp in the first few 

 pages only of his reply, — not l>ecause I think they would 

 be unimportant or not discreditable to a person who values 

 his reputation, but because they appear in fact, in C.'s reply, 

 like the glimmering of nebulae stars amidst an endless con- 

 stellation of glowing violations of facts ; I i)ass, I say, these 

 things over, not for their real but their relative unimportance. 

 I will now, however, adduce a few sjjecimens, that will not 

 want the aid of comment to illustrate their object and their 

 origin, 'i'hey will besides set at rest the claims of C. to vera- 

 city, to " integrity," and to " honourable feelings." " But 

 what has this to do," says C, Annals, September, p. 21 1, "with 



Mr. 



