Copy 1, Volume 1

Studies of nature ... / By James-Henry-Bernardin de Saint-Pierre ... Translated by Henry Hunter.

  • Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 1737-1814
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of nature ... / By James-Henry-Bernardin de Saint-Pierre ... Translated by Henry Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was flattened there. The truth is, his fyftem of the Heavens occupying ail the faculties of his vaft ge- nius, prevented his deteding on the Earth a geo- metrical inconftquence : he adopred, therefbre, without examination, an experiment which he thought favourable to his fyftem, not perceiving that it was diametrically oppofite to him. Modem Aftronomers hâve, in their turn, fuffered them- felves to ’oe feduced by the réputation of Neivlon, and by a weaknefs fo apt to warp the human mind, that of attempting to explain ail the opera- tions of oJature by a fingle law. Bouguer himfelf, oneof their co-operators, in his Treatife on Navi- gation, book v. chap. v. §. 2. page 435, fays ex- prefsly, that, “ on this difcovery of the fîattening tc of the Pôles, the whole of Phyfics, almoft, de* “ pends.” Our Aftronomers, then, hâve fet out on a ram b le to the extremities of the Earth, in queft of phyfical proofs of a celeftial fyftem, happy and luiHinous ; and they were fo dazzled with it be- forehand, that they miftook, in their turn, the truth nfelf, which, far from the préjudices of Eu- rope, had, m deferts, juft fought refuge under their wings. ]f the moft illuftrious of modem eometricians, could fall into fo grofs an error in his peculiar Science ; and if Aftronomers, in other Fe peas» abundantly filled with a fcnfe of their ovvn