Cursory remarks on some parts of a work, entitled Studies of nature ; originally written by M. de Saint Pierre, and translated into English by ... Henry Hunter / [William Cole].

  • Cole, William, active 1807.
Date:
1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cursory remarks on some parts of a work, entitled Studies of nature ; originally written by M. de Saint Pierre, and translated into English by ... Henry Hunter / [William Cole]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    39/80 (page 29)
    said that <( All truths run into one another like the links of a chain,” and he might have added, that error very frequently does the same. Of this he affords us a variety of examples. He is not only unwilling to admit the cause, but seems to deny, or not to understand, the effect of the earth's annual motion ; and, in order to support his own hypothesis, he attributes the different seasons of the year, not to the constant position of the earth’s axis, # and its obliquity to the ecliptic, but to a daily variation in the inclination of the axis, occasioned by a supposed gravitation of the poles towards the sun. Speak¬ ing of the projectile and gravitating forces, and their operation upon the earth in its orbit, he says [Page 56. Yol, II.], “ On the supposition that “ these two contrary forces were combined happily “ enough in favour of the globe, to fix it, with its * * “ vortex in a corner of the firmament, where these “ forces should act without destroying themselves, * The small variation that takes place in the inclination of the earth’s axis, producing what is called the precession of of the equinoxes, we have possed over, as being insensh ble to common observation.