VOL. XXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 153 



the world; whence it seems to follow that he cannot do any thing within the 

 bounds of the world, unless by an incredible miracle. The one teaches that philo- 

 sophers are to argue from phaenomena and experiments to the causes thereof, and 

 thence to the causes of those causes, and so on till we come to the first cause : 

 the other that all the actions of the first cause are miracles, and all the laws im- 

 prest on nature by the will of God, are perpetual miracles and occult qualities, and 

 therefore not to be considered in philosophy. But must the constant and uni- 

 versal laws of nature, if derived from the power of God, or the action of a 

 cause not yet known to us, be called miracles and occult qualities, that is to 

 say, wonders and absurdities ? Must all the arguments for a God taken from 

 the phaenomena of nature be exploded by new hard names ? And must experi- 

 mental philosophy be exploded as miraculous and absurd, because it asserts no- 

 thing more than can be proved by experiments, and we cannot yet prove by 

 experiments that all the phaenomena in nature can be solved by mere mechani- 

 cal causes ? Certainly these things deserve to be better considered.* 



A new Star in the Neck of the Swan. By M. Gottfried Kirch. N° 343, p. 226. 



Translated from the Latin. 



Though various changes happen among the fixed stars, as to their apparent 

 magnitude, yet none was more surprising than that which Fabricius observed in 

 the neck of the Whale, in 1569 ; though at first it was taken for a new star^ 

 which had never existed before, and after disappearing was to return no more; 

 yet now it has been sufficiently confirmed by experience, that it still exists, and 

 that it doubtless existed from the beginning of the world, in that very place 

 where it now is. What is surprising in this star is, that it appears every year 

 of a different magnitude, and commonly at certain times it cannot be distinctly 

 seen by the naked eye ; for which reason Hevelius called it Stella mira, or the 

 wonderful star. 



M. Kirch likewise observed another star, like this, in the neck of the Swan, 

 but much smaller, and seen every year for a shorter space of time; whence it 

 is not surprising that it was so long unknown ; nay, it was lucky that it appeared 

 at that time, and that it was seen in its greatest magnitude, when Bayer was 

 observing and delineating the stars in the Swan, having represented it by -^^ and 

 reckoned it among the fixed stars of the 5th magnitude, that constantly appear: 

 and at the same time he likewise found the above-mentioned star in the Whale's 



* From the precise and correct language, from the highly important matter, and from the very 

 strong and able manner of the foregoing composition, it seems to give evidence of its great author, 

 Newton himself. 



VOL. VI. X 



