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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Boyle, though, the identical form of apparatus used by Boyle is 
described. The whole work proceeds, as does that on Percussion, 
with a calm ignoration of the labours of the majority of con- 
temporary philosophers. 
This also must, of course, have been perfectly well known to 
Newton : — and we can now see full reason for the markedly peculiar 
language which he permits himself to employ with reference to 
Mariotte. 
What was thought of this matter by a very distinguished foreign 
contemporary, appears from the treatise of James Bernoulli, 
De Gravitate jEtheris, Amsterdam, 1683, p. 92. 
“Veritas utriusque hujus reguke manifesta fit duobus curibsis 
experimentis ab Illustr. Dn Boylio banc in rem factis, quae videsis 
in Tractatu ejus contra Linum, Cap. V., cui duas Auctor subjunxit 
Tabulas pro diversis Condensationis et Rarefactionis gradibus.” 
In order to satisfy myself that Newton’s language, taken in its 
obvious meaning, really has the intention which I could not avoid 
attaching to it, I requested my colleague Prof, Butcher to state 
the impression which it produced on him. I copied for him the 
passage above quoted, putting A. for the word Wrenno, and B. for 
Mariottus ; and I expressly avoided stating who was the writer. 
Here is his reply : — 
“I imagine the point of the passage to be something of this kind 
(speaking without farther context or acquaintance with the Latinity 
of the learned author) : — 
A established the truth by means of a (simple) experiment, 
before the Royal Society; later, B thought it worth his while to 
write a whole book to prove the same point. 
I should take the tone to be highly sarcastic at B’s expense. It 
seems to suggest that B was not only clumsy but dishonest. The 
latter inference is not certain, but at any rate we have a hint that 
B took no notice of A’s discovery, and spent a deal of useless 
labour,” 
This conclusion, it will be seen, agrees exactly with the complete 
ignoration of Wren by Mariotte. 
When I afterwards referred Prof. Butcher to the whole context, 
in my copy of the first edition of the Principia, and asked him 
whether the use of Clarissimus was sarcastic or not, he wrote — 
