with notes, which he dedicated to the Royal Society: De Solis et Lunæ defectibus,[[360]] London, Millar and Dodsley, 1760, 4to.
Traité de paix entre Des Cartes et Newton, précédé des vies littéraires de ces deux chefs de la physique moderne.... By Aimé Henri Paulian.[[361]] Avignon, 1763, 12mo.
I have had these books for many years without feeling the least desire to see how a lettered Jesuit would atone Descartes and Newton. On looking at my two volumes, I find that one contains nothing but the literary life of Descartes; the other nothing but the literary life of Newton. The preface indicates more: and Watt mentions three volumes.[[362]] I dare say the first two contain all that is valuable. On looking more attentively at the two volumes, I find them both readable and instructive; the account of Newton is far above that of Voltaire, but not so popular. But he should not have said that Newton's family came from Newton in Ireland. Sir Rowland Hill gives fourteen Newtons in Ireland;[[363]] twice the number of the cities that contended for the birth of Homer may now contend for the origin of Newton, on the word of Father Paulian.
Philosophical Essays, in three parts. By R. Lovett, Lay Clerk of the Cathedral Church of Worcester. Worcester, 1766, 8vo.
The Electrical Philosopher: containing a new system of physics founded upon the principle of an universal Plenum of elementary fire.... By R. Lovett, Worcester, 1774, 8vo.
Mr. Lovett[[364]] was one of those ether philosophers who bring in elastic fluid as an explanation by imposition of words, without deducing any one phenomenon from what we know of it. And yet he says that attraction has received no support from geometry; though geometry, applied to a particular law of attraction, had shown how to predict the motions of the bodies of the solar system. He, and many of his stamp, have not the least idea of the confirmation of a theory by accordance of deduced results with observation posterior to the theory.
BAILLY'S EXAGGERATED VIEW OF ASTRONOMY.
Lettres sur l'Atlantide de Platon, et sur l'ancien Histoire de l'Asie, pour servir de suite aux lettres sur l'origine des Sciences, adressées à M. de Voltaire, par M. Bailly.[[365]] London and Paris, 1779, 8vo.
I might enter here all Bailly's histories of astronomy.[[366]] The paradox which runs through them all more or less, is the doctrine that astronomy is of immense antiquity, coming from some forgotten source, probably the drowned island of Plato, peopled by a race whom Bailly makes, as has
been said, to teach us everything except their existence and their name. These books, the first scientific histories which belong to readable literature, made a great impression by power of style: Delambre created a strong reaction, of injurious amount, in favor of history founded on contemporary documents, which early astronomy cannot furnish. These letters are addressed to Voltaire, and continue the discussion. There is one letter of Voltaire, being the fourth, dated Feb. 27, 1777, and signed "le vieux malade de Ferney, V. puer centum annorum."[[367]] Then begin Bailly's letters, from January 16 to May 12, 1778. From some ambiguous expressions in the Preface, it would seem that these are fictitious letters, supposed to be addressed to Voltaire at their dates. Voltaire went to Paris February 10, 1778, and died there May 30. Nearly all this interval was his closing scene, and it is very unlikely that Bailly would have troubled him with these letters.[[368]]
An inquiry into the cause of motion, or a general theory of physics. By S. Miller. London, 1781, 4to