INVERTED SCHEME OF COPERNICUS; WITH THE PRETENDED EXPERIMENTS UPON WHICH HIS FOLLOWERS HAVE FOUNDED THEIR HYPOTHESES OF MATTER AND MOTION, COMPARED WITH FACTS, AND WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF THE SENSES: AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE FORMATION OF WORLDS OUT OF ATOMS, BY THE POWER OF GRAVITY AND ATTRACTION, CONTRASTED WITH THE FORMATION OF ONE WORLD BY DIVINE POWER, AS IT IS REVEALED IN THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION. BOOK THE FIRST. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A LETTER ΤΟ SIR HUMPHREY DAVY, BART. PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. By B. PRESCOT. LIVERPOOL: PRINTED BY J. LANG, DRURY LANE, WATER STREET, AND SOLD BY G. RIEBAU, BLANDFORD STREET, MANCHESTER SQUARE, LONDON; AND BY THE BOOKSELLERS IN LIVERPOOL. 66 Though in pure mathematics he that can demonstrate well may be sure of the truth of a conclusion, without consulting experience about it; yet because demonstrations are wont to be built upon SUPPOSITIONS or POSTULATES; and some things, though not in arithmetic or geometry, yet in physical matters, are woNT TO BE TAKEN FOR GRANTED, about which men are liable to slip into mistakes; even when we doubt not of the ratiocination we may doubt of the conclusion, because we may of the truth of some of the things it supposes; and this consideration, if there be no other, will I hope excuse me to mathematicians for venturing to confute some reasonings that are given out for mathematical demonstrations. For I suppose it will be considered, that those whose presumed demonstrations I examine, though they were some of them professors of mathematics, yet, did not write merely as mathematicians, but partly as naturalists; so that to question their tenets ought not to disparage those as well certain as excellent and most useful sciences pure mathematics, any more than that the mathematicians that follow the Ptolemaic, the Copernican, the Tychonian, or other systems of the world, write books to manifest one-another's paralogisms in astronomical matters; and therefore it cannot but be a satisfaction to a wary man to CONSULT SENSE about these things that fall under the cognizance of it, and to EXAMINE BY EXPERIENCE WHETHER MEN HAVE NOT BEEN MISTAKEN IN THEIR HYPOTHESES AND REASONINGS." Hon. Rob. Boyle's Works, 2nd Vol. page 742. Ed. 1772. |