Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis redacta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium. Editio _Veneta_ prima. By Roger Joseph Boscovich. Venice, 1763, 4to.
The first edition is said to be of Vienna, 1758.[359] This is a celebrated work on the molecular theory of matter, grounded on the hypothesis of spheres of alternate attraction and repulsion. Boscovich was a Jesuit of varied pursuit. During his measurement of a degree of the meridian, while on horseback or waiting for his observations, he composed a Latin poem of about five thousand verses on eclipses, {165} with notes, which he dedicated to the Royal Society: _De Solis et Lunae defectibus_,[360] London, Millar and Dodsley, 1760, 4to.
Traite de paix entre Des Cartes et Newton, _precede_ des vies litteraires de ces deux chefs de la physique moderne.... By Aime Henri Paulian.[361] Avignon, 1763, 12mo.
I have had these books for many years without feeling the least desire to see how a lettered Jesuit would atone Descartes and Newton. On looking at my two volumes, I find that one contains nothing but the literary life of Descartes; the other nothing but the literary life of Newton. The preface indicates more: and Watt mentions _three_ volumes.[362] I dare say the first two contain all that is valuable. On looking more attentively at the two volumes, I find them both readable and instructive; the account of Newton is far above that of Voltaire, but not so popular. But he should not have said that Newton's family came from Newton in Ireland. Sir Rowland Hill gives fourteen _Newtons_ in Ireland;[363] twice the number of the cities that contended for the birth of Homer may now contend for the origin of Newton, on the word of Father Paulian.
Philosophical Essays, in three parts. By R. Lovett, Lay Clerk of the Cathedral Church of Worcester. Worcester, 1766, 8vo.
The Electrical Philosopher: containing a new system of physics {166} founded upon the principle of an universal Plenum of elementary fire.... By R. Lovett, Worcester, 1774, 8vo.
Mr. Lovett[364] was one of those ether philosophers who bring in elastic fluid as an explanation by imposition of words, without deducing any one phenomenon from what we know of it. And yet he says that attraction has received no support from geometry; though geometry, applied to a particular law of attraction, had shown how to predict the motions of the bodies of the solar system. He, and many of his stamp, have not the least idea of the confirmation of a theory by accordance of deduced results with observation posterior to the theory.
