Contribution to ihe History of Electricity. 139 
sistible power which forced them asunder, and fire was seen to pass 
between the two; with many other things to the same purpose. 
After having read the letter, ail the students agreed that the 
phenomena appeared to them so very ridiculous, that they couid 
not be induced to pay any regard to them. However, Mr. Mac- 
- laurin added, that although he was firmly persuaded that all 
these things were chimeras formed by the imagination, instead of 
facts as his friend affirmed; yet that, as the phenomena of nature 
were sometimes very extraordinary, and as he had on every for- 
mer occasion found his friend a very sober sensible man, not 
ready to be misled by false appearances, he would not reject as a 
falsehood any thiug that he had affirmed, till he had given it a 
fair trial ; and as he had described in a very particular manner 
the apparatus necessary for producing these wonderful effects, he 
would cause one of the machines to be made in a short time, and 
repeat the experiment which he described. This he accordingly 
did. But how great was his surprise to find that upon trial all the 
experiments turned out exactly as they had been described! He 
immediately called together his students ; reminded them of his 
former incredulity—repeated the experiments before them, and 
showed them how much he had been mistaken, and what injury 
he had done his worthy friend; with the utmost ingenvousness 
acknowledged his error ; and warned all those who heard him to 
profit by this lesson which his example afforded them, and never 
to reckon any thing which was delivered, as a new discovery, im- 
possible, however improbable it might appear, till they had given 
it the fairest trial; to preserve their minds ever open to convic- 
tion; and without the smallest hesitation readily to give up any 
error into which at any time they might accidentally have fallen ; 
seeing that human reason is but weak and fallible at the best, 
and ought ever to be corrected by experience and accurate ob- 
servation. 
But he did not rest here. He went to his public class, which 
had till that time heard nothing of it. He told these younger 
students the discoveries that his friend had communicated to 
him; of the manner in which he had talked of him to his private 
class; of the experimentswhich he had made; of the injustice that 
he had done his friend; and of the error which he himself had 
fallen into about these experiments; talked of all these before 
them without the smallest palliation or glossing of any kind to 
conceal his own mistake, and inculcated to them the same lesson 
that he had given his former class, 
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