6i6 M E C 
he gained the prize of the academy on the fubjed of the 
comet of 1661, the return of which was eagerly expeded 
in 1790; in the fame year he was admitted a member 
of the academy, and fooil feleded for the fuperintendance 
of the Con.noiflance des Terns. In the year 1790, M. Me- 
chain difcovered his eighth comet, and communicated to 
the academy his obfervations on it, together with his cal¬ 
culations of its orbit. In 1792 he undertook, conjointly 
with M. Delambre, the labour of meafuring the degrees of 
the meridian, for the purpofe of more accurately determin¬ 
ing the magnitude of the earth and the length of a metre. 
See the article Measure, p. 598. 
In the month of June 1792, M. Mechain fet out to 
meafure the triangles between Perpignan and Barcelona; 
and, notwithftanding that the war occafioned a temporary 
iufpenfion of his labours, he was enabled to refume and 
complete them during the following year. While further 
profecuting his undertaking, he met with an accident 
which greatly affeded his conftitution, and obliged him 
to return to Perpignan at the conclufson of the year 1795. 
Afterwards he encountered a variety of hard (hips on the 
dangerous fummits of the Pyrenees; and experienced nu¬ 
merous difficulties till he was joined by M. Delambre in 
1798. Having returned to Paris towards the clofe of the 
year laft mentioned, he was for a long time occupied in 
drawing up an account of his labours ; and he was after¬ 
wards employed in arranging the obfervatory, for which 
Lalande, when he was diredor, had procured a mural 
quadrant worthy of his care. Undaunted by the hard- 
fnips which he had undergone, and the injury which his 
health had fuftained, M. Mechain was defirous of prolong¬ 
ing the meridian to the ifland of Yvica, that the forty- 
fifth parallel might be in the middle of the total arch. 
On this defign he quitted Paris in 1 So j ; and, after his 
arrival in Spain, took infinite trouble in fixing upon all 
the ftations where he was to make his obfervations. Hav¬ 
ing finiflied at Efpadan, in the month of Anguft, he fet 
out for the ftation of Defierto, near Cape Oropefa. This 
was the fourth ftation ; and he hoped to complete his ob¬ 
fervations at the four others during the fame year. Un¬ 
happily, however, he was attacked by the fummer-fever, 
occafioned by the exhalations from the rice-grounds, which 
annually proves fatal to multitudes of perfons on the coaft 
of Valencia. To this difeafe he fell a vidim on the 20th 
of September, at Caftellon dela Plana, in the fixty-fecond 
year of his age. Lalande deplores his lofs, as that of not 
only one of the heft French aftronomers, but one of the 
Hioft laborious-, the mod courageous, and the molt robuft. 
His laft obfervations and calculations of the eclipfe of the 
fun on the eleventh of February, are inferred in the Con- 
noiflance des Terns for the year 15 ; and he alfo publithed 
a great number in the Ephenierides of M. Bode of Berlin, 
which he preferred to the former work, after Lalande be¬ 
came its editor. A more extenfive memoir of his labours 
may be feen in Baron Zach’s Journal for July 1800; and 
in Lalande’s Hiftory of Aftronomy for 1804. 
MECHANE'US, a furname of Jupiter, from his pro- 
tronizing mechanical works. 
MFCHAN'IC,yi \mechanicus, Laf. from Gr.] A 
manufacturer ; a low workman.—A third proves a very 
heavy philofopher, who poflibly would have made a good 
mechanic, and have done well enough at the ufeful philo- 
fopliy of the fpade or the anvil. South. 
Do not bid me 
Difmifs my foldiers, or capitulate 
Again with Rome’s mechanics. Skake/peare's Coriolanus. 
MECHAN'IC, or Mechan'ical, adj. Conftruded by 
the laws of mechanics'.—Many a fair precept in poetry is 
like a feeming demonftration in mathematics, very fpecious 
in the diagram, but failing in the mechanic operation. 
Dry den. —The main bufinefs of natural philofophy is to 
argue from phenomena without feigning hypothefes, and 
60 deduce caufes from effeds till we come to the very firft 
M E C, 
caufe, which certainly is not mechanical ; and not only t» 
unfold the ir.echanifm of the world,, but chiefly to refolve 
thefe, and fucli like queftions. Newton. —Skilled in me¬ 
chanics; bred to manual labour.—Mean ; fervile; of mean 
occupation.—Hang him, mechanical falt-butter rogue ; I 
will ltare him out of his wits ; I will hew him with my 
cudgel. Skakefpeare. 
Mechanic flaves, 
With greafv aprons, rules, and hammers, (hall 
Uplift us to the view. Skakefp. Antony and Cleopatra. 
To make a god, a» hero, or a king, 
Defcend to a mechanic dialed, Rofcommoit. 
MECHANICAL ARTS, thofe employments wherein 
the hand and body are more concerned than the mind, as 
diftinguifhed from the Liberal Arts. See that article, 
vol. xii. p. 578, 
In an enlightened age, the fciences are juftly confidered 
as the bafis of the arts ; but, in the order of invention and 
difeovery, the arts preceded the fciences : men meafured 
land before they ftudied fpeculative geometry ; and of 
courfe the mechanical arts preceded the iiberal arts. 
The pre eminence of fome arts over others, and their 
divifion into liberal and mechanical arts, though a very 
reafonable riiftindion, has been produdive of fome evil, 
by bringing into difrepute a number of very valuable and 
ufeful perfons who pradife the mechanical arts 5 and has 
produced in many men a kind of lazinefs (upported by 
pride, by which they would perfuade themfelves that to 
pradife or even to ftudy the mechanical arts is unworthy 
of men of genius ; (and hence there are very few treatifes 
upon thefe arts, which can be depended upon as uniting 
theory with practice.) But fuch were not the ideas of our 
great countryman Bacon ; nor of Colbert, one of the 
greatef; minifters that ever governed France ; nor in fhort 
of the wifelt men in every age. Bacon regarded the hif¬ 
tory of the mechanical arts as the molt important branch 
of true philofophy; he therefore was far from defpifing the 
pradice of them. And it was well obferved by bifhop 
Spratt, in his Hiftory of the Royal Society, that “ Philo¬ 
fophy would attain to perfedion when the mechanical la¬ 
bourers (hall have philofophical heads, or the philofopher# 
(hall have mechanical hands.” 
In the opinion of men who appreciate things truly, un¬ 
dazzled by appearances, thofe who have brought over or 
encouraged the arts of painting, engraving, fculpture, &c. 
who taught the arts of weaving, making glafs, and efpe- 
cially of printing, have not done lefs fervice to the (late 
than thofe who have beaten our enemies, and added to the 
extent of our territory. Put in one fcale the real advan¬ 
tages accruing from the mod fublime fciences and the li¬ 
beral arts, and in the other the folid benefits we gain by 
the mechanical arts; and we (hall find that the elleem in 
which each is generally held is not in a juft proportion. 
We have given more praife to men whofe employment has 
been to perfuade us that we are happy, than to thofe con¬ 
tinually occupied in making us really fo. But how con- 
• tradidory is often our judgment! we continually exhort 
men to be ufefully employed ; yet thofe that are fo we 
defpife, and think them beneath us in the fcale of nature. 
The hand of man, however ftrong, however flexible, 
can produce but few effeds ; if it perform great works^ 
it tnuft be by the agency of inftruments and the help of 
rules. Inftruments and rules operate as additional muf- 
cles to increafe the ftrength of the arm, and as new lights 
to extend the force of genius. The intent of an art in ge¬ 
neral, or of any colledion of inftruments and rules to ac- 
complifh a particular intent, is to imprint certain determi¬ 
nate forms upon a bafis given by nature; and this bafi» 
is either the material, or genius, or fome fundion of tha 
foul, or fome produdion of nature. In the mechanical arts, 
of which we now more particularly fpeak, becaule very 
little touched upon by former writers, “ the ftrength of 
aian is employed in comprefling or dilating natural bodies 5 
thus 
