1822.] C.’s Reply to D. 99) 
sophical controversies, but which are contained in the papers of 
D. Nor can it be unobserved that there is in these papers an 
apparent most intimate acquaintance with every part of the 
theory of Mr. H. both published and unpublished, and of the 
meaning, and even secret motives of the expressions and omis- 
sions in Mr. H.’s former papers, and at the same time an un- 
usually energetic and triumphant interest in his philosophical 
opinions. These things may probably induce many persons to 
do Mr. H. the injustice to ascribe the papers to him, and, per- 
haps, therefore, he may. think it worth while publicly to disown 
them ; but for myself, having traced in them so many other 
unfounded assumptions, I can easily admit that these circum- 
stances should be added to the number. The contrary too is not 
so easily conceived. Though indeed it is neither extraordinary 
nor unpardonable that a writer, having with no inconsiderable 
labour prepared a new theory in an important branch of natural 
philosophy, should be induced to value it rather more highly 
perhaps than its merits would warrant, and be led by a zeal and 
energy in its support, to use language not suited nor usual in 
philosophical discussions ; it is not easily to be imagined that 
any one who feels within him any pulse of honourable ambition, 
to distinguish himself in the scientific discoveries and controvet- 
sies of the age, should almost at his very outset stoop to such a 
course of wilful misstatement and misrepresentation as D.’s papers 
exhibit, even to the extent of giving in inverted commas as the 
literal expressions of a writer, what was never written, meant, or 
thought by him. Such conduct must necessarily wither all his 
hopes in their very opening, by rendering it impossible for an 
person of honourable feeling to continue a correspondence with 
him. 
I must indeed still think that Mr. Herapath has mistaken the 
path to philosophical science, in departing from experiment and 
observation, as the foundation of his opinions, and resting them 
on certain supposed properties of bodies, the knowledge of the 
existence of which is not deduced from the examination of phe- 
nomena, but springs from the imagination ; contenting himself, 
if the theory be so framed, as to accord with some one consider- 
able class of facts. Such was not Newton’s mode of philosophi- 
cal discovery. ‘“ Quicquid enim ex phenomenis non deducitur 
aces vocanda est; et hypotheses, seu metaphysice, seu 
physice, seu qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanice, in philoso- 
phia experimentali locum non habent.” (Newt. Opera, vol. iv. p. 
493.) ‘The main business of natural philosophy is to argue 
from phenomena without feigning hypotheses,” and when once 
the inductive philosophy is departed from, and the imagination, 
instead of fact and observation, is made the basis of theory, “there 
is no end of fancying.” But however much it may be necessary 
that Mr. H. should change his course of philosophical thought 
and study before he can generally attain among scientific men 
