A FAIR, CANDID, AND IMPARTIAL STATE OF THE CASE BETWEEN SIR ISAAC NEWTON AND MR. HUTCHINSON. IN WHICH IS SHOWN HOW FAR A SYSTEM OF PHYSICS IS CAPABLE OF MATHEMATICAL DEMONSTRATION, HOW FAR SIR ISAAC'S, AS SUCH A SYSTEM, HAS THAT DEMONSTRATION AND CONSEQUENTLY, WHAT REGARD MR. HUTCHINSON'S CLAIM MAY DESERVE TO HAVE PAID TO IT. He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. PROV. xviii. 13. I attempt not to detract from the praise which is justly due to those who by diligent and constant observations and calculations have ascertained the proportions and measures of the motions of bodies, but only to discover the causes of those motions, which I think none ever pretended to show. HUTCH. Vol. xi. p. 226. STATE OF THE CASE, &o. THE attention of the learned world being of himself, otherwise than through the meat present wholly turned on physical specu- dium of "the things that are made;" and lations and inquiries, some embracing the therefore he first gave us the knowledge of method of philosophizing established by Sir the natural world, that through it we might ISAAC NEWTON, and others as warmly standing attain to that of the spiritual. The foot of up for the opinions of Mr. HUTCHINSON; the the ladder was let down to earth, that we public will not, I flatter myself, dislike to thereon might ascend to heaven. The true have a fair, candid, and impartial state of the knowledge of nature then being a thing of so case between these two authors laid before high and momentous a concern to us, a disquithem, that so every one, seeing what the sition into it, when made with modesty and tenets of both are, and wherein they differ, humility, as all such ought to be made, can may be enabled, with very little trouble, to at no time be unacceptable to those who have judge and determine for himself. Nor can any regard for true science. But it will, I this be thought a useless undertaking by any may presume to hope, be more particularly one who considers the high opinion enter- so at this time, when the surprising phenotained from the remotest antiquity, by the mena of electricity, and many other very good and great, of the importance of physical nice experimental discoveries lately made, knowledge, and the benefits accruing from a seem greatly to have awakened and excited right understanding of it to the sons of men; the curiosity and attention of mankind, and to the brightest parts and ablest pens in all ages promise a more just and satisfactory account and nations having ever been exercised and of the cause of motion, and agency of nature, employed in the researches of nature. The than the penetration of philosophers has yet diligent application to the study of this been able to assign. Philosophy, we know, science, of late years more than ever, amongst is a science capable of improvement; and as the moderns, and their unwearied endeavors it is a public treasury, open to and collected to improve and enrich it with new observa- for the use of all, systematic views and pritions and experiments, sufficiently show how vate interests should have no place here, but much they are persuaded of its superior worth general encouragement should be given to and excellence: so that mankind, however any the meanest contributor who can in any they may have differed in their opinions con-wise enrich it, though it be but with a mite. cerning the various and almost numberless Mine pretends not to be more; but, such as schemes and hypotheses that have been offered to the world to explain and account for the operations of nature, yet in this are unanimous, that the study and contemplation of them are well worthy the time and thoughts of every one who has them to spare. And very right and fit it is that they should be so, since he who best knows the wants of his creature man, has thought proper, in infinite wisdom, to begin his gracious revelation to us with a description and explanation of the works of his almighty power, in the creation and formation of the world. Nor does he teach and instruct us in "the invisible things" it is, I offer it the reader, I am sure, with an humble heart, and beg he will not let it pass with him or his friends for sterling, if it appears, upon the strictest trial, not to be so. The NEWTONIAN system has now been in possession of the chair for some years: but there have appeared, since its first publication, some treatises on philosophical subjects by a very curious and inquisitive person (as Mr. WHISTON justly calls him,) Mr. HUTCHINSON, who thought that by the light which revelation afforded him, compared with his own The Longitude Latitude found. &c. versally allowed to be so. Now, if by an inquiry into the nature, use, and application of mathematics, it could be shown what those things are which they are capable of proving, and then from Sir ISAAC's works what he himself says he has proved by them, it would lay open the state of the case with regard to the present situation of affairs in the philosophical world, and make it perfectly clear and intelligible to the very meanest capacity; as it would show at one view, what room there is for any farther improvements, and consequently, what regard the claim of Mr. HUTCHINSON, or any other author who writes after Sir ISAAC, may deserve to have paid it. How far this is done in the following pages must be left to the judgment of my readers, when they have considered the reasoning in them. If any person, when he has done that, shall think it worth his while to condescend so far as to point out my errors to me, in a spirit of candor and good manners (as i hope it will be allowed I have treated all those whom I have had occasion to mention in the course of this undertaking,) I shall esteem him my greatest benefactor, nor fail to make him my public acknowledgments. And one thing I can sincerely promise him for his encouragement, that he shall find it is no sort of difficulty or hardship to me to own myself mistaken. This premised, I proceed to the inquiry. observations, he saw farther into the consti- demonstrations, which are in themselves unitution of the universe, and the operations carried on in it, than Sir ISAAC had done. As the publication of these pieces was at a time when Sir ISAAC had set the learned on a warm pursuit after physical knowledge, and as, by their titles, they certainly promised and pretended to something very great and important, as well as new and surprising, one should have thought they would have been immediately canvassed, and thoroughly sifted, that so the wheat might have been separated from the chaff, and gathered into the common granary. But experience has shown us this was not the case. Their claim has been slighted and neglected, and they have been greatly discouraged and opposed; and what is amazing, and almost incredible, in so curious and inquisitive an age, it has been chiefly, if not altogether, either by those who, through some prejudices, (incident, alas! to the greatest and best of men!) have judged and determined without reading or hearing the merits of the cause, or by those whose indolence was content to suffer such to judge and determine for them. But their claim has lately been revived again, and a second hearing demanded (if the first could be called a hearing) before sentence is passed. A new edition of Mr. HUTCHINSON's works, which were before grown scarce and out of print, has put them into every body's hands. Many persons of leisure and curiosity, having carefully perused, and given them a fair and impartial examination, have highly approved of his general plan, without thinking themselves obliged, upon that account, to submit implicity to him in every particular etymology or interpretation as infallible. And this they have done, not out of any superstitious bigotry, desire of novelty, or love of paradox and system (to which no people have a more mortal aversion,) but a sober, serious, and rational conviction of its truth and rectitude, the reasons of which they have been always ready to give, either in conversation or writing, could they but meet with common candour and civility. To move the court that these may be granted them till the evidence be produced, and the cause determined as truth and justice shall require, is the design of the present undertaking. One great reason why Mr. HUTCHINSON's discoveries have not been received, at least examined to see whether they deserve it or no, I am fully persuaded, upon a thorough consideration of the matter, is this-It has been an opinion for some time entertained, that Sir ISAAC's philosophy is absolutely certain and infallible, because it is founded upon and proved by mathematical principles and And here, as it is the best way, before we enter upon any disquisition, to have the terms defined, and the sense we use them in fully ascertained, that so there may be no mistake or misunderstanding about them, I shall begin with a definition of physics and mathematics. The science of physics then, I apprehend, as appears by its very name, is that which teaches us to understand the operations of nature, i. e. how matter acts upon matter, and produces all those various effects, or phenomena, which we every day see produced in the world. Mathematics, on the other hand, treat of magnitude and numbers, instructing us how to measure, estimate, and compute the different distances, magnitudes, and motions of bodies, with respect to one another.* From these definitions, the widely different nature and genius. of each science, I think, plainly appears. The definitions given by Chambers in his Cyclopendia are to the same effect with those here set down, though not expressed exactly in the same words-Natural philosophy, otherwise called physics, is that science which considers the powers of nature, the properties of natural bodies, and their science of quantity, or a science that considers mutual action on one another. Mathematics is the things as computable, or incasuaraule.” |