Mtchanical P kilos ophif. 21 



standing of all the physical sciences will he sim- 

 piihed and smoothed to a most pleasing degree.^ 



But besides these new theories, and ingenious 

 discussions, respecting the general principles and 

 properties of matter, almost all the particular de^ 

 partments of mechanical philosophy have been 

 investigated w^ith great diligence and success, 

 throughout the whole of the period under consi- 

 deration. 



ELECTRICITY, 



Concerning Electricity, that powerful and still 

 mysterious agent, the philosophers of the last 

 age have made splendid discoveries. At the be^ 

 ginning of the eighteenth century, this branch of 

 science could hardly be said to have a place in 

 systems of philosophy. Its phenomena had been 

 so little the subject of experiment, and its law^s had 

 been so little comprehended or methodized, that 

 scarcely any thing which deserves the name of 

 theory, on the subject, w^as then presented to tlie 

 world. It is true, a number of facts were then 

 known, and some experiments had been made, in 

 order to elucidate this dark recess of science. But 

 they w^ere known, for the most part, only as in- 

 sulated facts, without any correct idea of the rela- 

 tion subsisting between them, or of the general 

 principles upon which they depended. The prin- 

 cipal of these facts had been brought to light by Dr. 

 Gilbert, Mr. Boyle, and Sir Isaac Newton; 



/ The author has never yet been able to procure a copy of the Thcoria 

 Philosophids Naturalis of Boscovicn, publi'^hcd in I758; but a very satis- 

 factory abstract of the work is given in the Supplement to the Enc-dnpadia^ 

 lately published by Mr. Dobson. The system is, in some of its parts, so 

 intricate, and throughout so involved in mathematical calculation, that a 

 more full account of it could not be given in the present sketch. It is 

 charged, by some, with having an c^^^/V/.'fa/ foundation and tendency. Of 

 the ground of this charge too little is known by the writer to attempt a 

 discuoaion of it. 



