The abbe St Pierre, however, possessing a most laudable ambition to manufacture tides from polar ices, and thus to overturn Sir Isaac’s theory relative to the moon’s influence in producing those phenomena, and finding it somewhat convenient for that purpose to place his poles at a greater distance from the centre of gravity than the equator, accordingly took that liberty. He likewise had another substantial reason therefor. Unless his polar diameter was longer than his equatorial, the tides, being caused by the fusion of polar ices, must flow up hill.
He therefore drew a beautiful diagram with which a triangle would (according to the scheme of the author of The Loves of the Triangles, improved from Dr Darwin’s Loves of the Plants) certainly fall in love at first sight. (See page xxxiv. Pref. Studies of Nature.) In displaying his geometrical skill in this diagram, however, he took care to forget that there was some little difference between an oblong and an oblate spheroid.—That flattening the earth’s surface, either in a direction perpendicular or parallel to the poles, would increase the length of a degree of latitude by decreasing the earth’s convexity. That neither an oblate, nor an oblong spheroid was quite so spherical as a perfect sphere. This was very proper, because such facts would have been conclusive against his new Theory of the Tides.
To make a clever sort of plough.
If you wish, gentlemen, to know anything further relative to this instinctive plough, you will take the trouble to consult Mr Godwin’s Political Justice, in which you will find almost as many sublime and practicable schemes for meliorating the condition of man, as in this very erudite work of my own. Let it not be inferred from my not enlarging upon the present and other schemes of this philosopher, that I would regard him as one whit inferior to any other modern philosopher existing, not even excepting his friend Holcroft; but the necessity of expatiating on the redundancy of Mr Godwin’s merits, is totally precluded by the unbounded fame which his chaste productions have at length acquired among the virtuous and respectable classes in community.
They show us how to live for ever.
The learned Dr Price, in his Tracts on Civil Liberty, assures us that such sublime discoveries will be hereafter made by men of science (meaning such as Dr Caustic) that it will be possible to cure the disease of old age, give man a perpetual sublunary existence, and introduce the millenium, by natural causes.
His new exploded solar system.