second, and merely acts relatively on the parts, and in the four quadrants generates a relative momentum of four times 1524, or 6096. If, then, 98100 he divided by 6096, we have 16 feet and an inch for the velocity with which every unsustained part is driven, as the product of the two motions to the Centre! By these known quantities within our reach, we thus easily determine the true distance of the sun, for 16.1 X 4 X 1524 gives 98146 feet, or 18 miles, for the orbicular motion per second, and this gives 934 millions to a fraction for the sun's distance, and accords with the mean of all the determinations by the parallax. I call this an experimentum crucis, and it defies all cavil or objection. For general satisfaction, however, I have printed separately a popular demonstration of this fundamental theorem, and it may be had of the Booksellers; but every operative mechanic will furnish his own ready demonstration. The high-sounding words, attraction of gravitation, are Anglo-Latin for the well understood word Weight; but the dust of mystified phraseology was necessary to reconcile the abuse that was made of this relative terrestrial force. But as universal weight would have made every thing tumble together, the climax of the whole was the invention of a PROJECTILE FORCE, and finally the introduction of THE OMNISCIENT as a party in this jumble of contradictory powers. Such philosophy might very well be invented by a young man at Cambridge in the same year that some witches were burnt by Sir Matthew Hale at Bury; but the philosophy of that year ought not to have survived the laws for burning witches! Its principles accorded however with those which led to faith in witchcraft and hence its rapid introduction; for be it known, the victims at Bury were not convicted on vulgar prejudice, but on the concurrent testimony of some of the most enlightened men of the time, by which alone the scruples of the judge were removed. Ought then such an age to be for after ages, an authority which is not to be questioned, and ought we not rather to examine with suspicion doctrines emanating from an epoch, when astronomers were astrologers, when chemists were alchemists, when the patrons of all superstitions, Digby, Ashmole, and Aubrey, were leaders of the Royal Society, and when the King cured 1000 per annum of scrofula by the royal touch, of which fact his majesty's chief physician, oddly named Wiseman, published authorized reports! I am aware that many persons will quote the geometrical demonstrations of Newton, but this is a false alliance. Geometry demonstrates nothing about principles, and all its proofs are limited to abstract number and quantity. The principles are arbitrarily allied to number and quantity, but demonstrations about these have no connexion with the principles, which may be true or may be false, in spite of their association with diagrains. It happens that there does exist a law of radiating force, which by action and re-action produces the phenomena of the solar system, but it has no connexion with this force of weight; it is a diffusive force of radiated motion from the sun, not a force directed towards the centre, and therefore requires no projectile force, nor vacuum in space. The force of weight is one of subordinate production, while the force which moves the planets is another, and totally different in its mode of action. Newton assimilated these, and his first error begat the series which runs through his system, and vitiates all the inferences deduced from his transcendant geometry and ingenious analysis. Fie even considered gravitation or local weight as paramount to every thing, and tells us that its purpose is to keep up the quantity of motion in the universe; thereby making a subordinate effect of motion the cause of all causes, yet subservient to a law, and re quiring the aid of a projectile force, a vacuum, &c. &c.! No. 2.-VOL. 2. Attracting and repelling fluids, as electricity, &c. are of course as absurd as their pretended properties. The matter of heat, sometimes repulsive, sometimes attractive, and sometimes latent, is another fancy of the magical school, which violates all common sense. But how great must be that faith which believes that such atoms as those of light travel through all obstructions twelve millions of miles in a minute! Yet these are the current assertions of modern natural philosophy, and they are repeated, and re-echoed, till they are perhaps believed. The materials of all these agents are of course everywhere present and perhaps are common to all; but the peculiar effects arise only from peculiar excitements. Action and separation produce that force and phenomenon of restoration which we call electrical; but there is and can be no fluid. Excitements of motion produce the phenomena of atomic dispersion called Heat, but it is the motion alone which causes the heat, not any property of the matter. Further excitements convert the force of heat into Light or vehement propulsions of the atoms which fill space; and these radiated propulsions of atom to atom constitute all the phenomena of light. When moved in vibration, it is sound; and atoms of light do not travel more than those of sound. It is only the effect that radiates, not the matter or the identical atoms first affected. With regard to the cause of ATTRACTION and REPULSION, there are as many as there are kinds. Sometimes it is the intercepted pressure of the elastic atmosphere; often the direct pressure itself, as in crystallization frequently the union and re-action of the atmospheres of bodies; at others a display of the force of separation or reunion of elementary gases; sometimes the effect of the extreme subdivision of matter and the union of fitting forms; and occasionally it is the action of relative motions within absolute ones, which carry forward the centre. In every case the examination of the true cause unfolds some curious and wonderful economy of nature: but to sink all these inquiries, and overlook the wonders of the world in such absurd terms as ATTRACTION and REPULSION, is to caricature Nature, degrade the human understanding, and render the pretensions of knowledge ridiculous. There may be much to learn, but this and the next generation will not be wiser, if we do not forthwith begin to unlearn; and do not seek the temple of wisdom by the true road, in the study of the phenomena of matter, as produced by transfers, accidents and radiations of Motion. In this last will be traced that law of diffused force which governs the planetary bodies, and which was erroneously supposed to be the diffusion of the local relative force which consolidates planetary masses. To create proper doubts, to excite enquiry and discussion, and to give a fair chance to truth, I therefore make an appeal through the printing press to all clear-headed men and honest inquirers after wisdom; and if they would condescend to apply their energies to these subjects, we may then hope that the rubbish of the dark ages may be removed from our studies before the year 1900, but without such aid it will obstruct the march of knowledge at least till the distant year 2000. Hyde Park Row, London, June 30, 1828. RICHARD PHILLIPS. I shall not be backward in answering all relevant observations; but as on these subjects I have no exclusive personal interest, I hope that direct communications will be transmitted FREE OF POSTAGE. I have and can have no object but the promulgation of truth, for it is only in the paths of truth that man can make important or really useful discoveries, while the paths of error lead only to confusion, AN EXTENSION OF THE VIEW WHICH CELSUS THE PHILOSOPHER TOOK OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN THE SECOND CENTURY. (Concluded from p. 29.) There is something rather superstitious where Celsus says, that the Christians appear to obtain power by means of the names of inferior deities and by incantations. But, perhaps, he was not so perfect a philosopher, as not to retain some residue of superstition inculcated in him in his infancy. However, it does not appear, that he was willing to adopt any new superstition, by taking up opinions without inquiry; for he blames the Jesuans for their non-inquiring disposition; and he exhorts them, that, in the reception of doctrines, they would follow the guidance of reason+; since, from the giving assent without, all deceit arises. And that those who yield to belief without reason, are like those who delight in mountebanks and exhibiters of prodigies, or in apparitions of Hecate, or other inferior deities. For as loose people of that description, deluding the common people, lead which ever way they will; in like manner, says he, it is usually done among the Christians. He adds, that some of them will neither give nor ask a reason for their belief, and they use this expression "Do not examine, but believe; and your belief will save you.' And they are wont to say, wisdom is a bad thing, and folly is a good thing. The mother of Jesus, you must know, while she was with child of him, was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter, because she was false to his bed; and she had this child, by a soldier, whose name was Panthera. The boy was brought up in obscurity and engaged himself as a hired servant in Egypt. He made himself acquainted with the art of conjuring, deceptions, and sleight of hand tricks, for which that nation is famous. He returned from that country, and made use of those arts and abilities to attract admiration, and suffered himself to be accounted a God. Was Jesus's mother beautiful, that, on account of her attractions, God thought her worthy of his embraces? Though his nature is such as not to dispose him to the love of a corruptible body. Nor was it at all fit or suitable, that God should fall in love with a girl, neither rich nor royal, and who was hardly known in her own neighbourhood. And when she became hated and was turned out of doors by the carpenter, she was neither saved by her credulity, nor by the power of God. These things are not reconcileable with God's manner of government. On a certain time, when Jesus was bathing with John, an apparition of a bird flew along the air and approached near to him. Who saw this vision, that was a witness worthy to be trusted? Who heard the voice from heaven adopting thee, Oh Jesus, for the Son of God, except thyself and another, who was thy companion both in crime and punishment? If thou art the Christ, tell us freely; though we have only thine own word for it and a partial witness, one of thine own companions But this A prophet, formerly, in Jerusalem, said, that a son of God would come to be the judge of the virtuous and the punisher of the wicked. alone was predicted, that he would be the judge of the virtuous and the punisher of the wicked! Nothing is said about the place of his birth; nothing about the punishment that was to be inflicted on him by the Jews; * B. 1, nothing about his resurrection, nor his working miracles. How, then, do you, Jesus, discover, that you are predicted in this prophecy, rather than tens of thousands of others, who have lived since the prophecy was pub lished? Some that were madmen and others that were impostors have boasted, that the Son of God has already come down from heaven; but we do not read that the Jews in general admit that any thing of the kind has happened. The prophecies, that are applied to Jesus by his followers, might be made quite to the full as well to suit a variety of other things. Another particular I have to remark, that when Jesus underwent his sentence of crucifixion, he was neither assisted by his Father nor was he able to help or extricate himself†. If you mean to say, Jesus, that any man, on account of God's especial care of him, may be regarded as a son of God; in what respect do you excel other men? Countless numbers will engage with Jesus and refute him, while each of them applies to himself what Jesus fancies to be foretold of him by the prophets. Jesus has boasted also, that certain Chaldeans were persuaded to come to him, at the time of his birth, to worship him as a God, when he was an infant: and that they told his high quality to Herod the Tetrarch. And that the latter sent his guards and slew all the children that were born about that time; thinking that he would perish among the rest, and so not live to an age, when he would be capable to assume the regal power §. That is a fabulous narrative also, that relates that the husband withdrew into Egypt with the boy and his mother. But if there was such a sacrifice made of the lives of children, Jesus, that you might not become king, when you was grown up, how is it, that now, you have reached the age of a man, you do not attain to royalty; but on the contrary, that you, the excellent Son of God, should, in a way not in the least respectable, beg your bread in the manner of ragamuffins; and betake yourself, through fear, to lurking-places, and be reduced to a sad plight? You, Jesus, after you had collected about you, ten or eleven infamous fellows, tax-gatherers and profligate jack-tars, shifted from one place to another in the country, flying from the hands of justice, obliged to put up with the most ordinary food and the most sorry accommodations. What necessity was there, Jesus, for you to be carried into Egypt, that you might not have your throat cut; for it is not rational to suppose that a God could have any apprehension of death? But an angel must come from heaven to bid your family betake themselves to flight, that you might not be included in the approaching massacre: and so this great God was not able to preserve you his son in your own home; though he had already sent down two angels on your account¶? We are not to suppose, that there was something divine, Jesus, intermixed with your body and soul, but that your body itself, of course, was something like what is described in the poems of Homer. And yet your blood, it seems, was not such as is usual in the blessed Gods. The fables of the ancients, that assign a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus, and Minos, though they carry no likelihood with them, yet, to make the fiction more probable, they relate of those heroes certain wonderful things, and altogether surpassing the human nature. But what ⚫ p. 38 and 39. + .41. B. 1, p. 44.- § p. 45. have you, Jesus, displayed to us, that is excellent or admirable, though you were called upon and challenged in the temple to make it manifest, that you were the Son of God, by some unquestionable miracle * ? Now, suppose we give you credit, Jesus, for your cures, your resurrections, and a multitude fed with a few loaves, and other things related of you, in short, whatever else your disciples have chosen to give out, to set off the greatness of your miracles: these things are only upon a level with the performances of conjurors exhibited in the market-place, and of which they learnt the art in Egypt; and which tricks and deceptions, they admit people to see for a few copper pieces. These conjurors too drive out demons from men, expel diseases with their breath, call back the souls of heroes, and exhibit the imaginary spectacle of sumptuous dinners, and luxurious eatables. Are we then to believe, because they do these things, that, therefore, they are sons of God; ought we not rather to say, that these are the acts of good-for-nothing wretches †? Moreover, the body of a God does not originate as yours originated, Jesus; nor does the body of a God sustain itself on such food as you lived on. Your transactions are those of a profligate conjuror hated by God on account of your wicked doctrines. I now address myself to the professors of the religion of Jesus. What the plague could possess you, that you abandoned the law of your Jewish forefathers; that you should suffer yourselves to be enticed by the fellow, I have been speaking of, and let yourselves be deceived in such a ridiculous manner, and go over from your former customs and rites to a different way of living? Not long ago, he was brought to punishment, and yet you have suffered him to drive you like a herd of brute animals, and induce you to renounce the institutions of your ancestors. How was it possible for the Jews to think Jesus to be the Son of God, since he performed none of those things that he promised? Besides, that, he was condemned to capital punishment, and when there was a search after him, he skulked about concealing himself; and he was captured in a disgraceful manner: for he was betrayed by those whom he called his disciples. But it was not consistent with the condition of a God to betake himself to flight, and be caught, and be conveyed away to punishment; and still less that he should be betrayed and delivered up by his intimate friends, who were privy to all his secrets, who had been his disciples, and who had regarded him as a saviour and as a son and messenger of God. Though I could relate many true particulars of Jesus, and not like what has been written by his disciples and adherents, I think it as well advised to omit them. His partizans have trumped up an idle tale that he foreknew and foretold every thing that was to happen to him. As it was out of their power to deny facts known to every body, they bethought themselves to feign that he knew all those events before hand. With a view to apologize for their master, they have spoken as inconsistently as any one who should affirm that a man was just and honest, yet let it out that he had acted as a knave; and should maintain that he was kind and humane, yet let it appear that he had committed murder; and should assert that he was immortal, yet own that he was dead. This is the part they have acted, in pretending that Jesus was apprized before hand of every thing that was to befal him. For what superior or inferior God, or what man of a good understanding, if he was aware that such things would be likely to happen to him, would not have kept out of the ways of the mischiefs, since he would have had full opportunity to do it? * B. 1, p. 52. + p. 53. ‡ p. 51, 59, 62. |