A dissertation on comets, extracted from the writings of the most eminent modern astronomers and philosophers. In a letter to a reverend professor. To which is prefixed the theory of a comet / by [according to the sentiments of] Sir Isaac Newton [and other ... astronomers].

Date:
[between 1700 and 1799]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dissertation on comets, extracted from the writings of the most eminent modern astronomers and philosophers. In a letter to a reverend professor. To which is prefixed the theory of a comet / by [according to the sentiments of] Sir Isaac Newton [and other ... astronomers]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/68 (page 10)
    Authority the Poets. ( io ) they are Bodies fubjed to the ordinary Laws of Nature, and not Prodigies ; can run with the Torrent of Mankind, and imagine, with the Vulgar, in Spite of the Reafonings of the wifer Few, that they are Heralds of Arms, fent from God to declare War againffc the human Species. If you were a Preacher, I Ihould pardon you 5 becaufe fuch Thoughts, being naturally the moll proper to drefs in all the pompous and pathetic Ornaments of Rhe- fcorick, do much more Honour to thofe who retail them, and make deep Impreffion on the Confciences of the Hearers, than a hundred other Proportions demonftratively proved. But I cannot relifh, that a Collegiate Tutor, who has nothing to perfuade the People of, and who ought to nourifh his own Mind with the purelt Reafon, Ihould fall into Senti¬ ments fo infupportable, and trull his Faith to Tradition, with a few Scraps of the Poets and Hillorians, than which there cannot be a worfe Foundation. To begin with the Poets : You are not ignorant, Sir, that they are all fo fond of befprinkling their Works with pompous De¬ fer iptions, fuch as thofe of Prodigies, and giving an Air of Marvellous to all the Ad¬ ventures of their Heroes, that, to arrive at? thefe Ends, they invent a thoufand llrange Things. Far therefore from believing, on their Word, that the Ruin of the Roman Republic was the Effed of two or three Comets, I would not even believe that any fuch Comets did appear, if others had not confirmed it. We are to imagine, that a Man who once takes it in hi# Bead to write a Poem,