The inverted scheme of Copernicus; with the pretended experiments upon which his followers have founded their hypotheses of matter and motion

Book The First. To Which Is Prefixed

A LETTER

TO

PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

By B. PRESCOT.

» LIVERPOOL:

printed by j. lang, drury lane, water street, and sold by f. c. and j. rivington, 3, waterloo place,

and 62, st. Paul's church yard, and g. riebau, blandford street, manchester square,

LONDON j

AND BY THE BOOKSELLERS IN LIVERPOOL.

" 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."

To

PRESIDENT

OF THE

ROYAL SOCIETY.

Sir,

Considering the honorable situation you at present occupy, as president of one of the most learned societies in the world, I naturally suppose you must feel a lively interest in whatever tends to the advancement of science in general; but more particularly of those branches, for the improvement of which, the Royal Society was first instituted.

The charters granted by King Charles the Second, and confirmed by his royal successors, I observe expressly state, that the society " was ordained, constituted and appointed, for the improvement of natural knowledge;' and every person, on becoming a member, subscribes an obligation, binding himself to promote its advancement and prosperity. That it has, in an eminent degree, fulfilled the professed intention of its first institution, will readily be admitted by all

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who have looked into the records of its transactions: and when it is considered, that those ample volumes contain the results of the united labours of its numerous members; men of accomplished abilities, and diligent students in every department of natural philosophy; that they have, in succession, zealously cultivated each one his favourite subject, during one hundred and sixty years; it may, at this late period of time, seem almost presumptuous in any one to announce, that he has something new and useful to submit to the consideration of a society so deservedly celebrated in the annals of human improvement: — more particularly when it is further considered, how very few subjects, at the time when it commenced its labours, remained to be examined, that had not previously been investigated and illustrated by the venerated sages of former times.

However, Sir, it appears to me, that much still remains to be done; and, may I presume to add, more, perhaps, remains to be undone. It is only necessary to take a cursory view of the garden of the sciences, to satisfy ourselves, that the plants which are really nutritive, and the flowers that yield a reviving fragrance, bear but a small proportion to the useless and noxious weeds that every where poison the springs of health, offend the senses, ix encumber the ground, and obstruct us in our mental walks: while the husbandmen have slept, enemies have cast in tares, and the world is now reaping the bitter harvest. Since men, from mercenary and other unworthy motives, became authors by profession: since they began to prostitute the immortal talent committed to them, by catering for the public taste, to gratify the sickly and ever-craving appetite for novelty; — these tares have multiplied beyond all measure; — and the sowers of the pernicious seeds have been rapidly advanced to affluence, raised to flattering distinctions, and to temporary fame. By what neglect, or by what means, the garden has thus been brought into a state of disorder — overshadowed with unprofitable weeds, — I shall not further enquire. That it is. so, every attentive observer, who possesses a reflecting mind, may easily perceive: and I think it is equally obvious that many nations are now feeling the calamitous consequences of it. Seeing that Wisdom has declared, that " the multitude of the wise is the welfare of the world;" and in another place, while contemplating prospectively the blessings of a future age, the same Divine Source has promised, that " wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of it;" — it clearly follows, from the daily symptoms of instability in religion,

X philosophy, laws and politics, which is universally manifested in all civilized nations, that real beneficial knowledge is either ill administered, or but little attended to: or, that its advancement is impeded by a variety of erroneous principles plausibly imposed upon the world by great names, and thoughtlessly adopted by those to whose care is committed the education of the superior ranks of society.

But, to come more immediately to the subject of my letter; — it is to one great error in public education that I particularly wish to call your attention; and I consider this, in its tendency, of greater importance than all the rest put together. This error, which has been considered the glory of our nation, holds a conspicuous place in the course prescribed to the students at all our universities and public schools; — the modern system of physics; or, in more precise terms, — the modern system of astronomy— the Solar System; which combines the Copernican, Keplerian and Newtonian hypotheses. I do not hesitate to say, that, to hold a firm belief in this system, and, at the same time, in the sacred records, is an incongruity that cannot rationally exist in any intelligent and reflecting mind. This is a proposition, the substance of which, among other things, I have mainxi

tained in the book of which I have now the honor to request your acceptance, and to recommend to your attentive perusal.

Until about the period of, what has been termed, the revival of learning and the discovery of the art of printing; the first chapters of Genesis, among Jews and Christians, were generally believed to contain faithful accounts of the creation of animate and inanimate things; and, likewise, of the orderly disposition of them, as they appear to us at this day in the great constitution of the universe. Why this venerable and well authenticated account, was so directly opposed, about that particular period, by the revival of the fable of Pythagoras, the magician, is a circumstance which, at this time, is of no great importance to be discussed. One thing, however, is very certain, that the art of printing caused the Bible to be, comparatively, easy of access; and the spread of learning enabled greater numbers of people to examine its contents than at any preceding period of time. It is equally certain, that those writers who first attacked it in its very foundation, by the revival of the greek fable, were not friendly to the circulation of the Holy Scriptures. Why they should have been hostile to its beneficial light and influence, I cannot tell; unless it were that its precepts are favourable to peace and rational xii liberty, and that its light exposes to feondemnation every thing that is false in principle and unjust in practice. The first, it seems, who attacked it in that way, was Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa; a man who was addicted to mathematics and philosophy. Copernicus, a canon of Worms, soon succeeded him in the work, and laboured with considerable success in giving a degree of plausibility to the scheme.

He was followed in the same course by John Kepler, astrologer to the Emperor Rodolf, who appears to have been an apt student in the Pythagorean tenets ; teaching that " all the stars are animated ; and that as all animals move by means of their muscles, the earth and planets have also muscles proportioned to their bulk, which are the instruments they move with. The sun has a very noble and active soul: his rays put in action the souls of the planets." Again, " the faculty of the sublunary world perceives and is terrified at the comet; and together with it, the faculties of all sublunary things. — The faculty of the earth being terrified at the unusual appearance of the comet, in one part of the earth, sweats out a great quantity of vapour, according to the quality of that part of its body; hence proceed great rains and floods." Further, that the earth was "a vast animal, breathing out winds through holes in the mountains, xiii as it were through a mouth and nostrils." He promulgated many other fictions and astrological notions; for which " absurdities," as they termed them, he was severely censured by Bulialdus and Schookius, by way of apology, perhaps, for their adoption of some others of his curious notions, which I have elsewhere noticed and treated of. Galileo, a Florentine gentleman, co-operated with Kepler in the same cause; but as he could not approve of Kepler's laws of muscular motion in the planetary bodies ; he propounded other laws of motion, by which nature never worked. Descartes and Newton afterwards conceived other mediums, powers and laws of motion, and supported them by symbols, diagrams and very elaborate mathematical ratios. The system these learned men had adopted, being contrary to the scriptures and to the human senses, they found it extremely difficult to set and keep their imaginary machinery agoing: hence the varieties and contradictions in their ideal forces and laws of motion. For, when men abandon the evidences of nature and the lights of experience for the purpose of indulging their fancies in the invention of analogies and curious hypotheses, philosophy then sinks down to the level of romance, and serves to occupy the time of the indolent, or to amuse and captivate the credulous and ignorant.

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But the thing that seems to have caused them the greatest inquietude and trouble, was what they termed the vulgar prejudice in favour of certain opposing passages contained in the Bible. This engaged Kepler, Galileo, Didacus a Stunica of Salamanca, Paolo Antonio Foscarini, a carmelite of Naples, Bishop Wilkins of Chester, and a number of others, to write largely in the way of attempting to reconcile, or rather of explaining away, all such passages as obstructed the circulation of their system. Many volumes were published for this extraordinary purpose; but as some of their explanations are sufficiently noticed in the course of the following pages, it is unnecessary further to advert to them at present.

It is somewhat remarkable, that those who revived the Solar System, should have adopted without hesitation, and without examination, Ptolemy's system of the distances of the heavenly bodies; while at the same time, their imaginations, contrary to the evidence of their sight, placed the fixed stars at rest, and, without the least shadow of proof, set the earth in rapid motion. Would it not have been more rational and prudent, out of respect to the senses of mankind and to religion, to have retained the ancient opinion of the earth being at rest in the centre of the universe; and then to have diligently ex-

XV amined, whether the too great distances which Ptolemy assigned to the heavenly bodies, might not upon scientific principles have been diminished? With this correction, and other improvements that might have been suggested by the accurate observations of modern astronomers, all useful and necessary purposes might have been answered; and Christendom might have been saved from that deluge of scepticism, which, amongst the learned, now so generally prevails. To me it seems a most singular and melancholy fact, that Dignitaries of the Church, and Heads of Colleges, should have been the foremost, and the most active, in this war against the sacred records; which they ought to have guarded as the ark of the holy covenant and by no means to have become instruments to hold them up to the derision of the sceptical Philistines. — For, as an inspired writer emphatically said, — If the foundations are destroyed,

WHAT CAN THE RIGHTEOUS DO? Psalm xi. 3.

I repeat the words ; — if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? — Destroyed, they cannot be; but if, for a time the foundations are even rejected, or removed, and men form codes of laws and systems of morals and philosophy, upon, comparatively, sandy bases, we see by experience the ruinous coiixvi

sequences that inevitably ensue. The institutions of society must have some fixed principles to rest upon. Enough has happened in our own time to illustrate and confirm all that I mean by this observation. The more we depart from reason, nature and revelation, the more we expose ourselves to a perilous navigation amongst the ever-varying shallows and quicksands of wild hypotheses.

The philosophers, so called, have most certainly laboured hard, for two hundred years at least, to sap and undermine the very foundation upon which rests all that is essentially valuable in law, morals and religion, — the Divine History of Creation; which if discredited, so will be the account of, the universal deluge, the tenth chapter of Joshua, and every other passage wherein almighty power is represented as operating in, by, and through the elements of created matter. The Hebrew people, who were instructed by the Supreme Mind itself, for the universal benefit of mankind, contemplated Divine Power as constantly present, working in all things in heaven and in earth ; and so do even the poor Indians at this day : but modern refinements upon, what are termed, second causes, have a direct tendency to banish all such ideas from the human mind, and to leave it entangled in the webs of sophistry, or to wander amid the

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cheerless and uncertain glimmerings of a false, barren, and delusive philosophy.

It is, however, satisfactory to reflect, that some of the brightest ornaments of our nation, to their great honor, discountenanced these attempts, and proved that their understandings were not to be entrapped in the flimsy snares of the mechanical sophists. I need only mention a few of the great names who flourished in the last century but one. Lord Bacon, Sir William Temple, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Thomas Brown, and the Honorable Robert Boyle; these celebrated men, either declared the hypothesis of the Solar System to be chimerical, or they bore positive testimonies against it. So did the excellent Sir Henry Saville, the founder of the mathematical and astronomical professorships at Oxford, which still bear his name. The Honorable Edward Howard, of Berks, who understood astronomy well, in the year 1705 dedicated a book to the Prince of Denmark, titled, " Copernicans of all sorts convicted/' In which he undertakes to prove, that "their hypothesis was astronomically, philosophically, and sensibly false to all impartial apprehensions." It may be reasonably presumed, that these distinguished and accomplished men, by their great knowledge acquired by learning, experience, reflection and extensive observation in xviii all things, were quite as capable of giving a true and impartial judgment upon the subject, as an equal number of monks shut up in their cloisters, or speculative mathematicians mostly confined to their closets.

I have said in another place, and I again repeat it; if we reject the testimonies of God concerning the origin and order of natural things, who can vouch for those that are spiritual ? Tt is an important question. The two together, may be considered, as the body and the soul of Divine Revelation; and therefore the verity of both should be asserted: otherwise human institutions would fail, and human authorities would vainly endeavour, to preserve the salutary influence of the one part, while the other is rejected and trampled under foot. This is no imaginary statement of the case. If we reject those divine records which represent God as the creator of the universe; the mover of the heavens; as displaying His mighty power in the elements ; as all in all; to what shall we look for evidence of His existence and omnipresence? It was by His power manifested in the elements that He made Himself known to the people of old, both Jews and Gentiles: and in His own book, he threatens destruction to those who live in luxury, and " do not regard His work nor the xix

operation of His hands." Jt appears to me, therefore, that the attention of youth should be directed to the operations of this Great Power, in preference to that, which, according to La Place, "animates the Solar System." The recommendation of that author's book, by a late professor, to the students under his care, accompanied by a caution against certain poisonous principles contained in it, does not appear to me to have been an act of wisdom. It is by the bewildering jargon of the sophists, concerning the imaginary forces of second causes, that men thoughtlessly suffer themselves to be drawn off and estranged from the Great First Cause.

The publication of a work of seven hundred and fifty pages upon the constitution and economy of the universe, without even an allusion to a Creator, would scarcely have been countenanced under the heathenish institutions of ancient Greece and Rome. This, however, was done in France; received into the universities of other christian countries, and La Place was applauded for, (as it was said,) putting a finishing hand to the Newtonian System! This author has indeed said something about nature; but what he meant is not explained: One thing is, however, tolerably clear, and perhaps that explains his meaning; namely, that he imagined every particle of matter to

XX possess the inherent power of moving itself! Dr. Robison, professor of natural philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, at the close of the first volume of his " Mechanical Philosophy," gently remonstrates, and even reproves him for, — the atheistical tendency of some passages in his system of the world. He even expresses his grief- — after he had recommended the book to his pupils! It would appear that the Doctor, in some degree, felt the dilemma in which the principles of the mechanical philosophy were involving its supporters, as PROFESSORS OF CHRISTIANITY. " It

is somewhat amusing,' says he, 44 to remark how the authority of Sir Isaac Newton has been eagerly catched at, by the atheistical sophists, to support their abject doctrines" Again, he remarks, 44 the doctrine of universal fate, is now founded on Newton s great discovery of gravitation in the inverse ratio of the distances." And in another place, 44 thus Newton, one of the most pious of mankind, was set at the head of the atheistical sect" The Doctor, of course, shows great zeal and anxiety to acquit the discoveries of his illustrious master, as he calls him, of all such baneful tendency, and he really appears to have lost his temper: as a proof of it, he makes a side cut at La Place's 44 Corsican Master." — 44 1 was grieved ," said he, 44 when I first saw xxi

M. de la Place, after having so beautifully epitomised the philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, conclude his performance with a marked and ungraceful parody on the closing reflections of our illustrious Master."

You will recollect, Sir, that Newton, at the close of his " Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy," gives a rapid sketch of the system of his own creation; and in imitation of the Divine Creator, who on a general survey of his own stupendous works, " saw that every thing he had made was very good;" Newton, in like manner, on viewing his work, though his system directly contradicted the Divine one, magisterially declared it to be "most beautiful." Dr. Robison goes a little farther; for he says, " those who are able to follow the footsteps of Newton over the magnificent scene," (of his imaginary creation,) "must be affected as he was, and must pronounce all very good" When Newton published his work, scepticism had made no great progress, excepting among a few mathematicians, and therefore, as he had begun his work, and even carried it on to the end, without deriving any assistance whatever from the Divine History of the Creation, it would seem, in order to give it currency, that he deemed it proper to father it upon some ideal Being: he therefore declares, that "it could only proceed xxii

from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being." He then proceeds in lofty terms to declare what that Being is and what he is not; " to discourse of whom, from the appearance of things," says he, " certainly belongs to natural philosophy."

From this it would appear, that, if we wish to know any thing about this Being, we must apply to the discourses delivered by the High Priests of Gravity and Attraction ! La Place having been furnished by Newton with Powers, Beings, or Spirits, sufficient for his purpose, gives Newton a sly hit upon this passage of his book ; hence the notice of the marked and ungraceful parody, which offended the sensitive nerves of professor Robison. Now, Sir, I call upon the disciples of Newton to point out a single passage in their books, concerning a Supreme Being, His nature, attributes and power, that is not infinitely excelled in the various revelations of Himself which he has been pleased to have recorded in His own book ; or rather, I ask them to produce a single passage that will afford us any light whatever, on that important subject, that was not previously given by himself.

If indeed we were to rely upon the assertion of Sir Isaac Newton, that to discourse of the true God certainly belongs to natural philosophy; we should find, in the first place, as I xxiii

have fully shown, in the following pages, that the constant disagreement in opinions amongst natural philosophers, would leave us nothing to rest our judgment upon; and, in the second place, if we could seriously adopt the doctrines of Newton and his followers, concerning the perturbations, derangements and destructions which they pretend to demonstrate to be the inevitable consequences of the properties which they ascribe to matter, and to their laws of motion; we should form as gross conceptions of the Divine wisdom and power in the formation and economy of the universe, as the heathens generally did of his moral attributes in the government of the nations. Instead of contemplating him as a God of order, which he has declared himself to be, — we should consider Him in all things quite the reverse. In fact, our own works and our own imaginations would be the standards of our judgment concerning His power and His wisdom.

With regard to the moving Powers introduced by Newton into his own system; he says " I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and our sea by the Power of Gravity: but I have not yet assigned the cause of this power; but am certain that it penetrates to the very centres of the sun and planets." He then adds, " hitherto I have not been able to

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discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypothesis." That is to say, — the cause of an imaginary power, as I have in another place fully shown. What! if such a powerful agent really exist, was he not able to assign the cause of its properties? Could there be any other than the Great First Cause of all things? Could not this most pious of mankind, when he read the first chapter of Genesis, comprehend, that God himself created the peculiar essences, properties and qualities of all things, according to their different species, and for their respective uses? And could he not discover that whatever He, in the beginning, created, remains indestructible and essentially unalterable? But it was neither suitable nor convenient to his system, to refer to the first chapters of Genesis.

Having, in his void spaces, set his system of imaginary worlds agoing by his phantom of gravity, of the cause of which he declares himself to be ignorant, his imagination then, in his concluding paragraph, descends to the earth, and he mysteriously and oracularly tells us, of " a most subtile, electric, and elastic Spirit, which" he says " pervades and lies hid" (certainly no one ever saw or felt it,) " in all gross bodies. By the force and action of which spirit" (amongst other wonders, he

XXV tells us of,) " all sensation is excited, and the members of animal bodies move, at the command of the will;" (what will?) " namely, by the vibrations of this spirit, mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the outward organs of serase, £o £Ae brain, and yrowt £Ae Jram m£o the muscles. But these are things that cannot be explained in few words; nor are we furnished with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic Spirit operates" Had he been discoursing of dead bodies, he might have applied to resurrectionmen and made his own experiments, or he might have attended at Surgeons' Hall and witnessed as many as he wished: but here he is discoursing of living bodies; and he brings forward a mysterious phantom, or spirit, as he terms it, to give sensation and motion to animal bodies; and this, without once alluding to a Creator, or, which would have been virtually the same, — to the first chapter of Genesis. But this spirit, it seems, he cannot fully unveil to us in a few words for want of experiments! Let us, then, see if we cannot explain all that can be explained on the subject, in a few words, and without experiments. Is not God the acknowledged source of life; and did not man derive his life immediately xxvi

from his Creator? And is not that life the cause of all sensation, motion and will? When that life leaves the body; do not sensation, motion and will cease? Can any thing more be said, or understood, of the matter? What then become of the vibrations of Newton's animating spirit, commencing its vibrations in the outward organs of sense, which are mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves to the brain, and then proceed to give muscular motion! Ah! this was all that La Place wanted! Newton gave him two powers; — one to move inanimate bodies, and the other animated bodies. No wonder, then, that he sneered at that which Newton introduced by the by, considering it not only superfluous but dangerous. " Far from us," says he, " be the dangerous maxim, that it is sometimes useful to mislead, to deceive, and enslave mankind, to ensure their happiness." — That was the sentiment that raised the Doctor's ire; for he remarks upon it, and I believe truly, " more is meant than meets the ear." La Place has, however, done little more than spun and woven into a plausible mathematical dress the reveries of Spinoza and Toland, who had preceded him in the same cause; both had deified nature; and the latter, in particular, adopted the doctrines of, motion being essential to matter; a plurality of xxvii

worlds, and the divinity of ;etherial Fire. Toland, it appears, was the chaplain and secretary to the sect of the Pantheists; and a part of their creed, extracted from their liturgy, runs thus, "The setherial fire; environing all things and therefore supreme i — the aether is a reviving fire — it rules all things; it disposes all things — in it is soul, mind, prudence. This fire is Horace's particle of divine breath, and Virgil's inivardly nourishing spirit — all things are comprised in an intelligent nature, — this force they call the soul of the world, as also a mind, and perfect wisdom, and consequently God." This expresses more accurately than Newton's admirers are willing to allow, the meaning of the last paragraph of his Principia.

After maturely reflecting on these things, I am no longer surprised that those philosophers, who could admit the moving powers and spirits of Newton, should overlook the Great First Cause, and sink their views down to the level of materialism.

Professor Burckhardt, of Gottingen, in his account of the " construction of the comet of 1811," makes the following most wonderful remarks. " There is every reason to believe, that the nucleus of the present comet is nothing more than a conglomeration of vapours of very little density, so little perxxviii haps as to be transparent. Whether this be the case or not, might be easily ascertained, if those who are in the habit of observing it would watch the moment of its transit athwart the disk of some star, the rays of which would have sufficient power to perforate it, if transparent. Such a body might very possibly

be AN INCIPIENT WORLD, JUST PAST ITS

gaseous state, and which was to derive solidity from the precipitation and condensation of the matter surrounding it. The successive observation of some comets, in which it may be possible to distinguish the different stages of chaos and progressive formation, can alone furnish any knowledge with respect to this point." TillocKs Phil Mag.