Letters on the English Nation (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER XXIX. 3o the Reverend Father Lorenzo Franciosini at Rome. Dear Sir, YESTERDAY arhufihg myfelf with a walk in that church where the monuments of illuftrious men of this nation are moftly pla- Ced; amongft others I remarked that of the great Newton, where in a bas-relief, the other orbs of this folar fyftem are weighed by boys againft the fun, on a ftillyard. This naturally led me to think on the fate of thofc philofophies, which from the earlicft account of times have eome down to us thro Ariftotle to Defcartes and Newton; each of the former exploded by all living writers iinlefs you except Monfr. Fontenelle; and the latter attacked by the late Mr. Hutchinfon and his fdi-' lowers, a fed of enthufiaftic philofophers; who fanfy ing they have found in the hiftory of Mofes, the beft fyftem of the heavens and natural phi- lofophy decry all others as delufive. Vol. U. C This reftection led me naturally to confi- der the unftable ftate of truth, as well as that of fafhion, and thence the feeble condition of the human mind, as it is generally found to exift in mof t beings of our fpecies. The fy- ftem of Ptolomy, and the natural hiftory of Ari- (totle and Pliny, were followed and received as undoubted truth for many ages. Copernicus and Defcartes driving thefe from the opinions of mankind, won the whole world to their manner of conceiving things; the firft of thefe remains generally received, and the philofophy of the latter, which was defigned to explain the revolutions of the planets, is, as I have already faid, almoft totally exploded. Fontenelle alone, at ninety-fix, like a fepulchral lamp, remains quivering over the dead body. I F we mould fcrutinize too feverely into the minds of men, how contemptibly mull we think of their capacities; they have fol...