Say, could we doubt his Jack-a-lantern light Where sense had gone, and where discretion fled. The full grown feelings of the swelling breast: D Or as when Sirius sheds his sultry ray, With words of sense to still his clam'rous roar. er'd, And streams of eloquence on all sides pour'd; But boys and men, with clamours vile and rude, My text thus prov'd-all that remains behind, Is to apply the subject to the mind By inference clear I'll make the truth go down, To ease the torments of the great man's ghost, Transplant th' inscription here from yonder post, And in the vacant niche, on glory's boards, In golden letters write the following words."To honour SAM this bright inscription's made ;""Twas hither brought with wonderful parade"Astonish'd meteors throng'd the realms of day "While SAM's pure honours streak'd along the way." Thus when sublime, by rapid whirlwinds driven, A kite majestic scales the vault of heaven, Bright through the air its tail in splendour flies. And paper glory blazes round the skies. Long, O Philistia! shall thy sons revere That Wisdom disapprov'd the last town-meeting vote. ECHO.....NO. VI. From the Connecticut Gazette, of October 20, 1791. [Some time since a writer in the Connecticut Gazette attacked the Newtonian Philosophy with such astonishing force of argument, that many of its friends trembled for its fate. However, as he rested a considerable period, they fondly hoped it would survive the shock. A week or two since, he poured forth another volley, which has induced the Echo to speak in an audible voice, what he had before uttered in a whisper.] "Messrs. Green, "Your inserting the following in your useful paper will oblige one of your readers and perhaps make others reflect. "THE Newtonian philosophy accounts for all the phenome na of nature by one principle, which it supposes to pervade all material nature: and the principle is this, viz.—that matter attracts matter. But, that this principle never did, nor does now, nor never will exist, I thus prove. “If matter attracts matter, either there must be an universal plenum, or matter must act where it is not. But, that there is not an universal plenum in material nature has been mathematically demonstrated by all Newtonians of any note: and that mat ter can act where it is not, is an impossibility, for it is an impossibility that matter should be where it is not-therefore a much greater impossibility that it should act where it is not, and therefore matter, never did-does not now-nor ever will attract mat ter. "Nay, farther, even upon the hypothesis of an universal plenum, in material nature, matter's attracting matter would be physically inconsistent with the essence of matter. For, though in a plenum all the particles would be perfectly coherent or contiguous to each other, yet their coherency or contiguity would not be the effect of the attraction of the particles, but of something else, namely, immaterial impulse ab extra. The principal essential property of matter, which is to resist all change of its present state of rest or motion, is absolutely inconsistent with the idea of matter's attracting matter: for, since a particle of matter, from its vis inertia, cannot possibly change its own state of rest or motion, it must be absolutely impossible, that it should change the state of rest or motion of an extraneous particle. "To go still farther, if matter should be supposed unresisting, that is, deprived of its vis inertiæ, that it would be still more unfavourable to the Newtonian principle, that matter attracts matter, may be easily demonstrated. Hence, let the Newtonians no more pretend to account for the various phenomena of nature by their favourite principle, till they refute these arguments and many more ready to be adduced. ANONYMOUS." |