426 Observations on Mr. Hcrapath's Theory. [Dec. 



What can be more self evident? It really seems a pity that 

 Mr.Herapath should have expended so much time in demonstrat- 

 ing by the mathematics that which is in itself as self-evident as 

 that two and two make five. I only wonder how the cannon 

 balls with their hard particles can get on, when they strike the 

 hard particles of the atmosphere in the lines of their centres of 



gravity. 



But to draw these observations to a close. Mr.Herapath has 

 expended, I do not doubt, a degree of labour and industry in the 

 formation of his theory, which, well directed, would have done 

 him great honour ; and in giving any thing like plausibility to 

 arguments founded on such propositions, he has exhibited very 

 considerable intelligence and ingenuity. But he has in truth 

 quite mistaken the road to philosophical science. He must con- 

 tent himself to travel along the beaten path of the inductive 

 philosophy ; it is the only course by which he will make any 

 progress in arriving at truth in natural philosophy. Let him 

 either ascertain new facts by experiment and observation, or 

 reason from facts already known to new and more general laws 

 and principles ; and from the patience and intelligence he has 

 already exhibited, there is no doubt but he will both benefit 

 science and acquire reputation for himself. But if he take 

 another course, and first supposes facts the existence of which 

 he cannot prove, and then endeavours to build upon those mere 

 figments of the imagination, a grand system of nature, he will 

 assuredly ultimately find the foundation give way under him, 

 and oather from it only mortification and regret. True scientific 

 discoveries never have been, and if we can judge from expe- 

 rience, never will be, so made. The Royal Society was origi- 

 nallv founded after Lord Bacon's idea, to oppose such a method 

 of reasoning and establishes one more consistent with sound 

 philosophy. 3 Mr. Herapath, therefore, ought not to wonder that 

 that Society should at first have rejected his paper. On the 

 contrary, the scientific world should rather be surprised that they 

 ultimately admitted into their Transactions a theory founded 

 only on gratuitous assumptions, and on supposed laws of colli- 

 sion of bodies, as contrary to truth, as they are to those princi- 

 ples which have been admitted as incontrovertible by the ablest 

 mathematicians in all ages. 



I remain, Sir, yours, &c. C, 



