PRINCIPLES OP THINGS. 



27 



Unfolded into being. Hence the breath 



Of life in foraiing each organic frame ; 



Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves ; 



Hence light and shade alternate ; warmth and cold ; 



And clear autumnal skies, and vernal showers j 



And all the fair variety of things. 



While, however, we thus point out the fancifulness and imperfections of 

 these hypotheses, let us, with the candour of genuine philosophy, do justice 

 to the merits of their great inventors, and join in the admiration which has 

 been so duly bestowed upon them by the wise and learned of every coun- 

 try. It was Plato who first suggested to Gallileo, even upon his own con- 

 fession, that antagonist power by which a rectilinear motion can be con- 

 verted into an orbicular, and thus laid a basis for our accounting for the 

 regular movements of the heavenly bodies,* a subject upon which we shall 

 enter to a certain extent in our next lecture ; who, in some degree, antici- 

 pated that correct system of colours which nothing but the genius of a 

 Newton could fully develo.pe and explain ;t who in mathematics unfolded 

 to us the analytic method of solving a problem,J and in theosophy so far 

 surpassed all the philosophers of his country, in his correct views and sublime 

 descriptions of the Deity, that he seems almost to have drunk of the inspi- 

 ration of Horeb or of Sinai ; and who, in his Timaeus, applies to the wis- 

 dom of God, the ^ioyiT/^o^ rov Qsov — a term which in Hebrew could 

 scarcely be translated by any other word than that of Jeveh or Jehovah 



— VeCi ovreJi eJf/,§ " WHATEVER IS ESSENTIALLY ETERNAL," 



Of Pythagoras, it is only necessary to direct the attention to the two 

 following very extraordinary facts, to place him beyond the reach of pane- 

 gyric ; the first of which has occasionally furnished reflection for other 

 writers, though the latter remains unnoticed to the present moment. At 

 an antedate of two thousand two hundred years from the age of Coper- 

 nicus, this wonderful genius laid the first foundation of the Copernican 

 system, and taught to his disciples that the earth revolves both around 

 her own axis and around the sun ; that the latter motion is conducted in 

 an oblique path or zodiac ;ll and that the moon is an earth of the same 

 kind as our own, and replete with animals, whose nature, however, he 

 does not venture to describe. H 



The second extraordinary fact to which I allude, is one we have already 

 slightly glanced at, but which must not so cursorily be relinquished ; I mean 

 that, in ascribing to the primary or elementary forms of bodies, in their 

 unions with each other, relative proportions so exact, yet so diversified, 

 that forms and numbers maybe employed as synonyms or convertible terms, 

 he has exhibited so close a coincidence with one of the latest and most 

 surprising discoveries of the present day, that though 1 dare not call it an 

 anticipation, I am at a loss how else to characterize it : for it has been 

 minutely ascertained within the last ten or twelve years, by an almost infi- 

 nite variety of accurate and well-defined experiments by Higgens, Dalton, 

 Gay Lussac, and Davy, that the combinations and separations of all simple 



* Galilei Discorsi eDimostrazioni Matematiche, p. 254. 4to. Leyd. 1638. Dutens, Origine 

 dcs Decouvertes, &c. p. 90. 4to. Lond. 1796. 



t Plut. de Placitis Philos. lib. i. cap. 15. p. 32. Dutens, ut supr. p. 101. 



I Dutens, ut supr. p. 251. 



§ Plutarch. in^Tim. lib. iii. 34. 37. 



II Plutarch, de Placitis, lib. iii. cap. 11. 13. Diog. Laert. lib. viii. sect. 85. Copernicus 

 hinaself admits that he derived his first hint of the earth's motion from Nicetas, a follower 

 of Pythagoras. Vide his address to Paul III. 



ir Plutarch, de Placit. Cicer. Acad. Quaest. lib. iv. p. 984. col. 1. Something of this doc- \ 

 trine is to be found in the Orphic Hymn. Proct.^e Orpheo, lib. iv. in Timaum, p. 154. 



