‘Forasmuch as there is a Book of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in English, to be printed within these four months, or thereabouts; wherein are contained many excellent and new purposes: As first, Thirty Theorems, the most part whereof were never so much as heard of before:’ (Alas! poor professor what a beginning! And is the ending any better!) ‘and an excellent way for knowing, by the eye, the Sun or Moon’s motion in a second of time, which is the 3600 part of an hour, and many others of different kinds, useful and pleasant. These are therefore to give notice to all ingenious persons, who are lovers of Learning, that if they shall be pleased to advance Gedeon Shaw, Stationer at the foot of the Ladies Steps, three pounds Scots, for defraying the present charges of the said Book, they shall have from him, betwixt the date hereof and April next to come, one of the Copies: And for their further security in the interim the Author’s obligation for performing the same.’
‘Which so exposed to my masters the vanity of that confident man, that they were forced plainly to let him know their mind,’ wrote the Arch-Bedal, and some of his own sentiments were expressed in a letter which he afterwards quoted in the Preface to his book The Great and New Art ‘Sir,—I admire exceedingly the forwardness of your humor (I will call it no worse) in your last to ——: he is a person not concerned in you or in your books, neither will he ignorantly commend anything, as it seems ye expected he should have done, when ye sent him these papers. Ye might have known long ago that he had no veneration for what ye had formerly published, for he made no secret of his mind, when he was put to it. Ye may mistake him, if ye think that any by-end will cause him speak what he thinks not: nevertheless he delivered your commission, and was willing to be unconcerned, expecting their answer. They pressed him to know his judgment of your last piece: he told ingenuously the truth, that there was none of them had less esteem for it than himself. He hopes you are so much a Christian, that ye will not be offended with him for speaking what he thought when he had a call to it; and yet albeit ye seem to favour him more than others, he hath ground to look upon himself as one of the sophistical rabble, for they only are such who condemn anything ye do, the rest of the University continuing always learned persons. It is to no purpose to apologize for themselves, ye take all for granted, which ye have heard: I shall not put you to the pains of proving it; yet it seems ye would hardly have believed it so easily, had not your conscience told you, that they had some reason for their judgement, which really was this following: That they see nothing in your last piece, new and great (albeit it be Ars nova et Magna) save errors and nonsense; as your demonstrations of the pendulum, your Nihil spatiale, your Gravitas circularis, and horizontalis, your question “Whether or no a body may be condensed in a point?” etc., too many to fill several letters: for ye must not call experiments new inventions, otherwise ye are making new inventions every day, neither must ye call different explications new inventions, else the same thing might be invented by almost every Writer. I admire how ye question the R. Society; for I desire to know one point of doctrine, which ye or they either pretend to, concerning the weight of the air, the spring of it, or anything else in your book, save mistakes, which was not received by all mathematicians, and the most learned of Philosophers many years before any of you put pen to paper. Ye have been at much pains to prove that by experiment, which all the learned already grant, and some have demonstrat à priori from the principles of Geometry and Staticks, and many à posteriori from experience if sense may be called a demonstration: yet ye are the only man who produceth the Ars Nova et Magna when all others are out of fashion. But more to your commendation, it seems ye do all these wonders by Magick; for ye have the ordinair principles of none of these Sciences: Euclid is as much a stranger as reason in all your Books: and for this Perque Mathematicos semper celebrabere fastus! At last ye come to prove a new doctrine, which before now was near 2000 years old, with thirty new Theorems which must not be named because they are of such a tender and delicat complexion that the very naming of them will make them old. There are also many other excellent things, which will be all new when they were but printed yesterday. It is like some of these dayes, we may have an Ars Nova et Magna, to prove that a piece of lead is heavier than so much cork. I know not wherefore ye undervalue any man, because he hath not as great esteem for your notions as yourself: Have not we as much freedom to speak our mind of you, as ye have to write yours of the R. Society and the University of Glasgow? The greatest hurt ye can do us, is to make Dromo famulus one of our Principals. I think it not strange that ye using only demonstrations of sense, should admire the force of our imagination, in affirming no method of Dyving so good as that of Melgin. I am sure that the man Dyving for a continual time, if he be not also of your invention, must breath of the air; and this air must either be kept close by itself, as in Melgin’s way, or communicat with the air above. If the latter be your invention, I doubt ye must also have some Chirurgical invention to apply to your Dyver at his return, if he go to any great deepness: If the former, it is the same with Melgin’s; and you cannot neither any man else help it, but in circumstances (which alters not the method) and perchance to little purpose. As for Archimedes, I am sure he wanted no necessary requisit to prove the weight of water in its own Element. I know not what else ye intend to prove: Always I am as sure that he had two great requisits, which ye want; to wit, Geometry and a sound head. As to what ye write concerning the imperfection of Sciences; the scientifical part of Geography is so perfected, that there is nothing required for the projection, description and situation of a place, which cannot be done and demonstrat. The scientifical part of opticks is so perfected, that nothing can be required for the perfection of sight, which is not demonstrat, albeit men’s hands cannot reach it; and these being the objects of the fore-said Sciences, your authority shall not persuade me that it is altogether improper to call them perfect. In the Hydrostaticks, it were no hard matter to branch out all the experiments that can be made into several Classes, of which the event and reason might perfectly be deduced, as consectaries (I speak not here of long deductions, as ye seem to rant) to something already published: if it be noticed but rudely (as ye, not understanding what niceties of proportion means, must do) only considering Motion and Rest: And I believe there is none ignorant of this who understands what is written in this Science. Upon this account writing to you, I might call it perfect, albeit I know there are many things relating to the proportion and acceleration of the motions of fluids, which are yet unknown, and may perchance still be. Ye shal not think that I speak of you without ground; (for in your Ars Magna et Nova, ye bring in your great attempts for a perpetual motion; all which a novice of eight days standing in Hydrostaticks would laugh at). I do not question that this age hath many advantages beyond former ages; but I know not any of them, it is beholden to you for: only I admire your simplicity in this. Astronomers seek always to have the greatest intervals betwixt Observations, and ye talk that ye will give an excellent way for observing the Sun or Moon’s motion for a second of time; that is to say, as if it were a great matter that there is but a second of time betwixt your Observations. I wonder ye tell me the eye should be added; for the invention had been much greater had that been away. I do confess that a good History of Nature is absolutely the most requisite thing for learning; but it is not like that you are fit for that purpose, who so surely believe the miracles of the West, as to put them in print; and record the simple meridian altitudes of Comets, and that only to halfs of degrees or little more as worth noticing. However, if ye do this last part concerning Coal-sinks well, and all the rest be but an Ars Magna et Nova, ye may come to have the repute of being more fit to be a Collier than a Scholar. Ye might have let alone the precarious principles and imaginary worldes of Des Cartes, until your new inventions had made them so: For I must tell you Des Cartes valued the History of Nature, as much as any experimental Philosopher ever did, and perfected it more with judicious experiments, than ye will by all appearance do in ten ages. Ye are exceedingly misinformed, if ye have heard that any here have prejudice or envy against you; for there is none here speaks of you but with pity and commiseration: neither heard I ever of any man who commended you for what he understood. As for your Latin Sentences, if they be not applied to yourself, I understand them not; for here we are printing no books, we are not sending tickets throughout the country to tell the wonders we can do: We are going about the imployments we are called to, and strive to give a reason for what we say. Where then are our Doli et fallaciae, tabulae et testes, sapientia ad quam putamus nos pervenisse? etc. In these things ye publish, ye know there is no Sophistry but clear evidence: If ye had done such great matters in Universale et ens rationis, ye might have had a shift; but here ye must either particularize your inventions, or otherwise demonstrat yourself derogatory to the credit of the Nation: For what else is it to confound R. Societies and Universities with Ars Magna et Nova; and yet when ye were put to it in print, to show your inventions, all ye could say was, that the publisher should have reflected upon the wisdom of the Creator, etc., so that the Poet said well of Democritus, etc., of which I understand not the sense, except ye make yourself the summus vir, and us all the Verveces. I suppose this may be the great credit that ye say ye have labored to gain to your nation; to wit to get us all the honrable title of Wedders. No more at present, but hoping this free and ingenuous Letter shal have a good effect upon you (for I am half perswaded, that the flattery of scorners and ignorants, hath brought you to this height of imaginary learning) and that when ye come to yourself ye will thank me for my pains.
I rest your humble servant.’
To this letter Professor Sinclair in his turn very pertinently remarked, that they should not criticise his book till they had seen it, and the St Andrews’ teachers were convinced. But unfortunately in the address to the reader with which Professor Sinclair’s Hydrostaticks commences, he gave expression to his wounded feelings.
‘When this Book was first committed to the press, I sent an intimation thereof to some of my friends, for their encouragement to it, a practice now common, and commendable which hath not wanted a considerable success, as witness the respect of many worthy persons, to whom I am oblidged. But there is a generation, that rather than they will encourage any new invention, set themselves by all means to detract from it and the authors of it; so grieved are they, that ought of this kind should fall into the hands of any, but their own. And therefore if the Author shall give but the title of New to his invention, though never so deservedly, they fly presently in his throat, like so many Wild-Catts, studying either to ridicule his work altogether—a trade that usually, the person of weakest abilities, and most empty heads, are better at, than learned men; like those schollars, who being nimble in putting tricks, and impostures upon their Condisciples, were dolts, as to their lesson, or else fall upon it with such snarling and carping as discover neither ingenuity, nor ingeniousness, but a sore sickness called, Envy.’
Now, indeed, now was the Arch-Bedal justified, and so in hot haste he wrote that stinging book, which purported to be by Patrick Mathers (the Arch-Bedal to the University of St Andrews), but was really by Gregorie, a fact which its erudition must have made clear to Sinclair, even before that kind person, the mutual friend, had confided the fact to him.
The curious thing was that with all his desire to heap ridicule upon his adversary, Gregorie only touched upon what would naturally now appear the most vulnerable point, the passage about the Devil of Glenluce.
In the meantime the clear air of St Andrews was daily suggesting to him how desirable a place it was in which to teach Astronomy. At night, when he walked over the links, the stars were so clear above him, and the hills so inconsiderable on the horizon, that he felt that nowhere in Scotland was there a site more suitable for an observatory. His idea was cordially agreed to by the University, and sufficient money had been collected by 1673 to admit of the authorities commencing their arrangements. Accordingly Gregorie was commissioned to proceed to the selection of the instruments needed for the carrying out of his plan.