304 Mr. Here/path's Reply to Mr. Tredgold. [Oct. 



my views ; and, therefore, treated the paper with that contempt 

 which is the merited fate of visionary pretensions. I will not say 

 that such is the opinion of Mr. T. and X. ; but I much question 

 whether that letter has not led them to form a less favourable 

 opinion of the subject than they otherwise would, and conse- 

 quently to imagine it no difficult matter to refute a theory which, 

 they suppose, had been already condemned by our highest 

 scientific tribunal. Whether I miscontrued the conduct of 

 those members of the Council, and thus acted from mistaken 

 feelings ; or whether that conduct was not such as I had a right 

 to expect, is a question 1 am not here disposed to discuss. 

 Suffice it to say, that repeated and mature considerations of the 

 whole correspondence and concomitant circumstances have not, 

 in the minds of some respectable and competent judges, created 

 one idea unfavourable to myself as a man, or as a philosopher ; 

 and were Mr. T. acquainted with the whole of the case, he would 

 not, I am persuaded, see any impropriety in my repeating to him 

 the request 1 have made to X. " re-peruse the papers you have 

 attacked, and reconsider your own." However, lest any one 

 should imagine I employ this as a subterfuge to avoid a discussion 

 the consequences of which I have reason to apprehend, I beg 

 leave, in justice to my own character, to cite a few passages 

 from the letters of Sir H. Davy, the President, and D. Gilbert, 

 Esq. the Vice-President, which will serve to show the weight of 

 the objections that a ten months' consideration enabled some 

 of the ablest members of the Society to make, as well as the 

 opinion they entertained of the communication and its author. 



The first I shall quote is from a letter of Mr. Gilbert, dated 

 June 6, 1820. 



" DEAR SIR, 



" I had sometime since the pleasure of receiving your very 

 curious investigation on the cause of gravity. I read it over ; 

 and although 1 must confess myself not satisfied with the ulti- 

 mate deductions, yet I was much pleased with the great inge- 

 nuity displayed throughout the whole ; but I entertained my 

 doubts on the propriety of laying before the Royal Society any 

 thing so abstruse and metaphysical. I, therefore, desired two 

 of the best mathematicians in London to look at the premises, and 

 their opinions have confirmed my doubts. They say such a 

 work should be laid before the public in a separate form." 

 In another letter, dated Oct. 25, 1820, this gentleman says : 

 " You would of course wish to avoid the paper's being read 

 before the Society, and then not ordered for printing by the 

 Council. I, therefore, endeavoured to ascertain the opinion of 

 some members of the Council, who are usually looked up to on 

 such occasions, and they considered the investigations as too 

 theoretical for the Transactions without taking on themselves to 

 judge of the mathematics." 



