80 



posed; and the ablest Newtonians, even such as 

 ought to be the most interested to preserve to their 

 master the giory of having first discovered those truths 

 which are the principal ornaments of his system, 

 have been the first to point at the sources whence 

 they seem to have been drawn. It is true, the pene- 

 tration and sagacity of a Newton, a Gregory, and a 

 Maclauriti; were requisite to discover, in the few 

 fragments now remaining, the inverse law respecting 

 the squares of the distances, a doctrine which Py- 

 thagoras had taught, but it is no less true, that it 

 vfds contained in those writings. Thus the Newto- 

 nians acknowledge, and are the first to avail them- 

 selves of the authority of Pythagoras to give weight 

 to their system. 



10. Plutarch, of all the philosophers who have 

 spoken of Pythagoras, is he, who as he had a 

 better opportunity of entering into the ideas of that 

 great man, hath explained them better than any one 

 besides. PHny^ Macrobius, and Censorious, have 

 also spoken of the harmony which Pythagoras ob- 

 served to reign in the course of the planets. Plu- 

 tarch makes him say, it is probable that the bodies 

 oi' the planets, their distances, the intervals between 

 their spheres, and the celerity of their courses and 

 revolutions, are not only proportionable among them- 

 selves, but to the whole of the universe. Anil Gre- 

 gory hath been led to declare, it was evident to any 

 attentive mind, that this great man understood that 

 the gravitation of the plants towards the sun, was 

 in a reciprocal ratio of their distance from that lu- 

 ininary ; and that illustrious modern, followed herein 

 by Maclaurin ; makes that ancient philosopher speak 

 thus : 



11. U A musical string, says Pythagoras, yields 

 the very same tone with any other of twice its 

 length, because the tension of the Jattcr, or the force 

 whereby it is extcndedj is quadruple to that of the 



