l'^ 



o 



thers, impressed with the same liberal i^rinciple, and connecting 

 in tLeir views knowledge and freedom, although the country was 

 then engaged in a distressing war, the most important to the lib- 

 erties of mankind, which was ever undertaken, instituted this so- 

 ciety. Mr. BowDOiN was unanimously chosen our Phesident, 

 and has been annually reelected to the same office. It is in this 

 station that he has been more nearly in our view. Tt is in 

 this character that we have considered him as our patron, philo- 

 sopher, and friend. Active in procuring our institution, and 

 persevering in his attention to its interests, he not only promot- 

 ed our establishment by his influence, but contributed by his lit- 

 erary labours to fill up our design. With this view he wrote and 

 delivered the ]3hilosophical discourse, wdiich introduces the first 

 vokime of our memoirs • in which are marked his acquaintance 

 with literary subjects, and his ardent desire to advance the objects 

 for which we w^ere incorporated. Not long after he communi- 

 cated three memoirs, written by himself. In the first, were ob- 

 servations upon an hypothesis, for solving the phenomena of 

 light which Dr. Franklin had raised in opposition to the the- 



-^ 



ory of Sir Isaac Newton. In this, Mr. Bowdoin, w^ith inge- 

 nious perspicuity, and with that friendly freedom which great 

 and candid men use towards each other, examines the hypothe- 

 sis of Dr. Franklin, and elucidates and confirms that of Sir 

 Isaac Newton, leaving this astonishing genius in possession of 

 his title of the '' Father of the Theory of Light," without di- 

 mmishing the just claims of the American to the discovery of the 

 Electric system, and the means of guarding against its surprismg 

 effects. The second and third memoirs, are also on the subject 

 of light, and are an attempt, by a new theory, to account for the 



D 



manner 



