MISFORTUNE ftands with her bow ever bent
Over the world; and he who wounds another,
Directs the goddefs by that part he wounds,
Where to strike deep her arrows in himself.

YOUNG.

LONDON:

PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. WALTER, PRINTING-HOUSE-SQUARE, BLACKFRYAKS

AND AT

NO. 45. LOMBARD-STREET.

M,DCC,LXXXV.

25839. e. 4.

AN

INTRODUCTION.

IT is rather fingular, that fome of the philofophical and mathematical truths established at this day, and most generally acknowledged, were, when first discovered, treated as chimerical and abfurd: Virgil the first Bishop of Saltzburgh in Germany, was perfecuted for having been guilty of the impiety and abfurdity of advancing and maintaining the doctrine of Antipodes; which the ig

norant

norant were foolish enough to say gave the lie to the Scripture, where it was faid that Joshua made the fun ftand ftill: the great Galileo was imprisoned on account of difcoveries and improvements, which have greatly facilitated the progrefs of philofophy: Friar Bacon, from the automaton he was enabled to make by his great knowledge in mechanics, was thought to be a privy counfellor of Belzebub; and Fauftus the inventor of printing, was actually prosecuted as an imp of the devil: but the spherical form of the earth is now demonftrated; the doctrine of optics is well understood; the power of mechanifm

is

is carried infinitely farther than it was by Bacon; and printing is univerfally practifed, while the idea of a præternatural agency in any of these cases, is scouted by all the world. Why the most demonftrable truths fhould have been difputed when first maintained, is truly unaccountable; but nothing is more certain than that by a strange fatality, the most ingenious arts, and the most useful inventions, as well as the nobleft inftitutions, have in their infancy been opposed and ridiculed by ignorant, envious, and Selfish individuals.

WHEN