MAU 



MAU 



only way in which itis capable of acting, by 

 any action t.'iat is properly its own. If it be 

 said, that one particle of matter can act 

 upon another without contact and impulse, 

 or that matter can, by its own proper 

 agency, attract or repel other matter 

 which is at a distance from it, then a 

 ma^dm hitherto universally received must 

 be false, that " nothing can act where it 

 is not." Newton, in his letters to Bent- 

 ley, calls the notion, that matter possess- 

 es an innate power of attraction, or that it 

 can act upon matter at a distance, and 

 attract and repel by its own agency, an 

 absurdity, into which he thought no one 

 could possibly fall. And in another place 

 he expressly" disclaims the notion of in- 

 5iate gravity, and has taken pains to 

 shew that he did not take it to be an es- 

 sential property of bodies. By the same 

 kind of reasoning pursued, it must ap- 

 pear, that matter has not the power of 

 attracting and repelling; that this power 

 is the power of some foreign cause, act- 

 ing upon matter according to stated 

 laws ; and, consequently, that attraction 

 and repulsion, not being actions, much 

 less inherent qualities of matter, as such 

 it ought not to be defined by them. And 

 if mutter has no other property, as Dr. 

 Priestley asserts, than the power of at- 

 tracting and repelling, it must be a non- 

 entity ; because this is a property that 

 cannot belong to it. Besides, all power 

 is the power of something; and yet, if 

 matter is nothing but this power, it must 

 be the power of nothing; and the very 

 idea of it is a contradiction. 



MATTHIOLA, in botany, so named 

 from Pietro Andrea Matthiolus, the fa- 

 mous botanist, a genus of the Pentandria 

 Monogynia class and order. Natural or- 

 der of Rubiaceae, Jussieu. Essential 

 character : calyx entire ; corolla tubu- 

 lar, superior, undivided; drupe with 

 a globular nucleus. There is but one 

 species, riz. M. scabra, a native of Ame- 

 rica. 



MATTUSCHKJEA, in botany, a ge- 

 nus of the Tetrandria Monogynia class 

 and order. Essential character : calyx 

 four-parted, with linear leaflets; co- 

 rolla one-pctalled, with a long tube 

 and four cleft border? germ superior, 

 (bur-cleft ; seeds four, nuked. There is 

 but one species, viz. M. hirsuta, found in 

 Guiana. 



MAUNDY "'A.v-vr.-iW, is the Thursday 

 in Passion Week, whicn was called Maun- 

 elay or Mandate Thurs- lay, from the- com- 

 mand which our Saviour gave his apos- 

 tles, to commemorate him hi the Lord's 



Supper, which he this day instituted ; or 

 from the new commandment w r hich IK 

 gave them, to love one another, after he 

 had washed their feet as a token of his 

 love to them. Our Saviour's humility 

 in washing his disciples' feet, is com- 

 memorated on this day by most Chris- 

 tian kings ; who wash the feet of a cer- 

 tain number of poor people, not indeed 

 with their own royal hands, but by the 

 hands of their lord almoner, or some 

 other deputy. 



MAUPERTUIS (PKTER Louis MOR 

 CEAU DE), a celebrated French mathe- 

 matician and philosopher, was born at 

 St. Malo in 1698, and was there private- 

 ly educated till he attained his sixteenth 

 year, when he was placed under the 

 celebrated professor of philosophy, M 

 Le Blond, in the college of La Marche, 

 at Paris ; while M. Guisnee, of the Acade- 

 my of Sciences, was his instructor in ma- 

 thematics. 



For this science he soon discovered a 

 strong inclination, and particularly for 

 geometry. He likewise practised in- 

 strumental music, in his early years., 

 with great success ; but fixed on no pro 

 fession till he was twenty, when he en- 

 tered into the army; in which he re- 

 mained about five years, during which 

 time he pursued his mathematical studies 

 with great vigour ; and it was soon re- 

 marked by M. Freret, and other acade- 

 micians, that nothing but mathematics 

 could satisfy his active soul and unbound- 

 ed thirst for knowledge. 



In the year 1723, he was received 

 into the Royal Academy of Sciences, 

 and read his first performance, which 

 was a memoir upon the construction and 

 form of musical instruments. During- 

 the first years of his admission, he did 

 not wholly confine his attention to ma- 

 thematics; he dipped into natural philoso- 

 phy, and discovered great knowledge 

 and dexterity in observations and experi- 

 ments upon animals. 



If the custom of travelling into remote 

 countries, like the sages of antiquity, in 

 order to be initiated into the learned mys- 

 teries of those times, had still subsisted, 

 no one would have conformed to it with 

 more eagerness than Muupertuis. His 

 first gratification of this passion was to 

 visit the country which had given birth to 

 Newton ; and during Irs residence at 

 London he became as zealous an admirer 

 and follower of that philosopher as any 

 of his own countrymen. His next excur- 

 sion was to Basil in Switzerland, where 

 he formed a friendship with the celebrat- 



