FIGURE.
Every one desirous of instruction should read with attention all the articles in the "Dictionnaire Encyclopédique," under the head "Figure," viz.:
"Figure of the Earth," by M. d'Alembert—a work both clear and profound, in which we find all that can be known on the subject.
"Figure of Rhetoric," by César Dumarsais—a piece of instruction which teaches at once to think and to write; and, like many other articles, make us regret that young people in general have not a convenient opportunity of reading things so useful.
"Human Figure," as relating to painting and sculpture—an excellent lesson given to every artist, by M. Watelet.
"Figure," in physiology—a very ingenious article, by M. de Caberoles.
"Figure," in arithmetic and in algebra—by M. Mallet.
"Figure," in logic, in metaphysics, and in polite literature, by M. le Chevalier de Jaucourt—a man superior to the philosophers of antiquity, inasmuch as he has preferred retirement, real philosophy, and indefatigable labor, to all the advantages that his birth might have procured him, in a country where birth is set above all beside, excepting money.
Figure or Form of the Earth.
Plato, Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Posidonius, and all the geometricians of Asia, of Egypt, and of Greece, having acknowledged the sphericity of our globe, how did it happen that we, for so long a time, imagined that the earth was a third longer than it was broad, and thence derived the terms "longitude" and "latitude," which continually bear testimony to our ancient ignorance?