Volume 1

A system of natural philosophy, being a course of lectures in mechanics, optics, hydrostatics, and astronomy / By T. Rutherforth.

  • Rutherforth, T. (Thomas), 1712-1771.
Date:
1754
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of natural philosophy, being a course of lectures in mechanics, optics, hydrostatics, and astronomy / By T. Rutherforth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. INTRODUCTION. IN explaning the appearances of nature, that alone can be called true philofophy, which is deduced from fadt and experience. For as the caufes of thefe appearances are not arbitrary notions of the minds own making, but are qualities, which really belong to bodies, and which exifl without us; our knowledge of nature will all be fantaftical; unlefs we find out by experiment and obfervation what thefe qualities are, and fo make our knowlege conformable to the reality of things. Indeed fome bodies are fo remote, and others are fo minute, that it is not in our power to make obfervations upon them, and difeover their qualities: and amongft thofe, which are neither removed out of our reach by their diftance nor hidden from our obfervation by their minutenefs, there are but few that we can make experiments upon, in comparifon of that almoft infinite multitude, with which we are furrounded. So that if, in reafoning about natural things, we were to be confined wholly to experience, our know¬ ledge muff fall fhort of being general; for it would be confined to thofe particular bodies only, that we had made experiments upon. The natural philofopher therefore, in order to make his knowledge real and universal, fliould obferve the three following rules. RULE I. No more caufes of natural appearances are to be admitted, than what are real, and what are fufficient to account for thofe appearances. True philofophy can admit of no qualities in bodies, which have not been found by experience and obfervation really to belong to them : if we go beyound this, if in order to explane the appearances of nature we introduce fuch qualities, as no experiments have ever difeovered; how¬ ever we may amufe ourfelves with ingenious conjedtures and plaufible luppofitions, our knowledge will be fantaftical, and our beft digefted iyftems will be only philofophical romances. But