4 Examination of the Theory of a Resisting Medium. e 
. manner, each planet is itself the centre of a smaller vortex, by the 
subtile matter of which the phenomena of gravity are produced, just 
as with us at the surface of the earth.”(9) In this system of phi- 
losophy, if such it may be called, the agency of the ether, in causing 
and sustaining the planetary motions, is indispensable ; and when we 
consider how universal was the belief, by all learned and scientifick 
men, in this doctrine, for more than half a century, we find a ready 
excuse for the opinion of the less informed upon the subject. For 
more than thirty years after the publication of Newton’s discoveries, 
this absurd doctrine of vortices kept its ground in France, Germany, 
and in the universities of England and Scotland. It was finally 
driven out of the Cambridge University, in England, by a friend of 
Newton’s publishing, in 1718, an edition of their Cartesian text 
book, with notes, embracing the truths which Newton had disclosed. 
These gradually undermined the doctrine of Descartes, and finally 
caused its expulsion.(10) ‘This, however, was a work of time; and 
the absurdities in question were not generally, or even in any con- 
siderable degree, driven from the colleges and learned societies of 
Europe, before about the year 1720.(11) 
When the errours of Descartes were finally removed from the 
schools, and from the minds of philosophers, they gave place to the 
Copernican system of the universe, as rigidly demonstrated by New- 
ton, upon the basis of the laws'of Kepler. By this system, and these 
demonstrations, the celestial revolutions are shown to be carried 
on independently of all assistance from the ether; and the agency 
of that fluid was consequently no longer demanded. But, though 
thus discarded from all participation in planetary motion, a belief in 
(9) Playfair on Mathematical and Physical Science, part 1, Sec. 4, Art. 4. 
(10) Ibid. part 2, Sec. 4. 
(11) It is, then, no more than about one hundred and seventeen years since even 
the learned world became sane upon the grand outline, alone, of the celestial 
mechanism. Three of the colleges of our own country were founded prior to 
that date, namely, Harvard, in 1638; William and Mary, in 1693; and Yale, in 
1700. At that early period of our history, and with the professors’ chairs, in these 
institutions, generally occupied by Eurepean scholars, we can hardly suppose 
wide deviations, in the doctrines taught, from the received opinions in Europe; 
and consequently, without any direct proof at hand, upon this point, we from ne- 
cessity infer that the New World has just claims to a portion of whatever of re- 
nown or reproach may rightfully attach to the inculcation of the Cartesian doc- 
trine of the universe, at so late a day; and that, for a period of eighty years, this 
was gravely taught and believed at one, and for shorter periods at two other of 
the colleges of our infant country. 
