Part 100

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Footnote A34:

In 745, Virgilus, bishop of Saltzburg, having publicly asserted in some of his sermons, that there were antipodes, he was charged with heresy, by Boniface, bishop of Mentz, and cited to appear before the Pope, who recommended the hearing of the cause to Utilo, King of Bohemia, and at the same time wrote to him in favour of Boniface. The event was, the bishop of Saltzburg lost his cause, and was condemned for heresy.

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How far indeed the inhabitants of the other planets may resemble man, we cannot pretend to say. If like him they were created liable to fall, yet some, if not all of them, may still retain their original rectitude. We will hope they do: the thought is comfortable.—Cease, Galileo, to improve thy optic tube: and thou, great Newton, forbear thy ardent search into the distant mysteries of nature: lest ye make unwelcome discoveries. Deprive us not of the pleasure of believing that yonder radiant orbs, traversing in silent majesty the etherial regions, are the peaceful seats of innocence and bliss: where neither natural nor moral evil has ever yet intruded; where to enjoy with gratitude and adoration the creator’s bounty, is the business of existence. If their inhabitants resemble man in their faculties and affections, let us suppose that they are wise enough to govern themselves according to the dictates of that reason their creator has given them, in such manner as to consult their own and each other’s true happiness, on all occasions. But if, on the contrary, they have found it necessary to erect artificial fabrics of government, let us not suppose that they have done it with so little skill, and at such an enormous expence, as must render them a misfortune instead of a blessing. We will hope that their statesmen are patriots, and that their kings, if that order of beings has found admittance there, have the feelings of humanity.—Happy people! and perhaps more happy still, that all communication with us is denied. We have neither corrupted you with our vices, nor injured you by violence. None of your sons and daughters, degraded from their native dignity, have been doomed to endless slavery by us in America, merely because their bodies may be disposed to reflect or absorb the rays of light, in a way different from ours. Even you, inhabitants of the moon, situated in our very neighbourhood, are effectually secured, alike from the rapacious hand of the haughty Spaniard, and of the unfeeling British nabob. Even British thunder impelled by British thirst of gain, cannot reach you: And the utmost efforts of the mighty Frederick, that tyrant of the north and scourge of mankind, if aimed to disturb your peace, becomes inconceivably ridiculous and impotent.

Pardon these reflections; they rise not from the gloomy spirit of misanthropy. That being, before whose piercing eye all the intricate foldings and dark recesses of the human heart become expanded and illuminated, is my witness with what sincerity, with what ardor, I wish for the happiness of the whole race of mankind: how much I admire that disposition of lands and seas, which affords a communication between distant regions, and a mutual exchange of benefits: how sincerely I approve of those social refinements which really add to our happiness, and induce us with gratitude to acknowledge our great Creator’s goodness:—how I delight in a participation of the discoveries made from time to time in nature’s works, by our Philosophic brethren in Europe.

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Footnote A35:

It has been shewn, in a preceding note, how much the means of communicating between distant regions, separated by seas, ware facilitated by the discovery and use of the Compass: but those means have been still further and very greatly improved, since the introduction of the use of the Quadrant at sea, especially that called Hadley’s Quadrant.

The true inventor of the reflecting Quadrant was Dr. Robert Hook, a very ingenious English mathematician and philosopher, who died in the year 1702, at the age of sixty-seven years. This instrument, now commonly styled Hadley’s, was afterwards rendered much more complete than Dr. Hook’s invention had made it, by Sir Isaac Newton: but our modern artists, more skilful than those of former times, as Mr. Lalande has observed, have profited of the ideas of the great Newton himself, on the subject; and among the later improvers of the Sea Quadrant, or Octant, is Mr. Hadley, whose name the instrument usually bears.

It would, however, be doing an act of injustice to the memory of an American who possessed an extraordinary genius, to omit, in the course of these memoirs, some notice of his merits in relation to this matter. Mr. Thomas Godfrey, a native of Pennsylvania, is said to have turned his attention to this subject, so early as the year 1730; and in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, No. 435, will be found, an “Account of Mr. Thomas Godfrey’s Improvement of Davis’s Quadrant transferred to the Mariner’s Bow,” drawn up by James Logan, Esq. formerly of Philadelphia, a gentleman of extensive learning, and a very eminent mathematician, Mr. Godfrey is stated to have “sent the instrument (which he had constructed) to be tried at sea by an acquaintance of his, an ingenious navigator, in a voyage to Jamaica, who shewed it to a captain of a ship there, just going for England; by which means, it came to the knowledge of Mr. Hadley, though perhaps without his being told the name of the real inventor.” [See The American Magazine, for July 1758.] In a letter, dated at Philadelphia the 25th of May, 1732, Mr. Logan, who very ably as well as meritoriously patronized Godfrey, communicated to the celebrated Dr. Edmund Halley a detailed account and description of the improved Sea-Quadrant constructed by that ingenious citizen of America, of which his patron confidently believed him to be the original inventor. On the 28th of June, 1734, a further account of Godfrey’s invention was drawn up by Mr. Logan, and subscribed with his name; which, it is presumed, was also communicated to the Royal Society: and on the 9th of November, in the same year, Mr. Godfrey transmitted an account of it, draughted and signed by himself, to the same learned body. The whole of these interesting letters, with some accompanying observations on the subject, are published in the valuable Magazine just referred to, and in the one for the succeeding month.

In the Transactions of the Royal Society, for the months of October, November and December, 1731, No. 421, is contained a Proposal, by Dr. Edmund Halley, for finding the longitude at sea, within a degree or twenty leagues, &c. In the conclusion of this paper, Dr, Halley, in speaking of John Hadley, Esq. VP.R.S, (“to whom,” as he observes, “we are highly obliged for his having perfected and brought into common use the reflecting telescope,”) says—He “has been pleased to communicate his most ingenious instrument for taking the angles by reflection,” (referring, here, to the Philos. Trans. No. 420;) “it is more than probable that the same may be applied to taking angles at sea, with the desired accuracy.”

In Mr. Logan’s account of Mr. Godfrey’s invention, dated June 28, 1734, he says: “Tis now four years since Thomas Godfrey hit on this improvement; for, his account of it, laid before the (Royal) Society last winter, in which he mentioned two years, was wrote in 1732; and in the same year, 1730, after he was satisfied in this, he applied himself to think of the other, viz. the reflecting instrument, by speculums for a help in the case of longitude, though ’tis also useful in taking altitudes: and one of these, as has been abundantly proved by the maker, and those who had it with them, was taken to sea and there used in observing the latitudes the winter of that year, and brought back again to Philadelphia before the end of February 1730–1, and was in my keeping some months immediately after.”

In Mr, Logan’s prior letter to Dr. Halley (dated May 25, 1732,) he says, that about eighteen months before, Godfrey told him, “he had for some time before been thinking of an instrument for taking the distances of stars by reflecting speculums, which he believed might be of service “at sea;” and that, soon after, Godfrey shewed him an instrument, which he had procured to be made, for the purpose. Thus, the time to which Mr. Logan refers Godfrey’s communication of his improvement to him, would make its date to be about the month of November, 1730.

In the Rev. Mr. Vince’s great work, entitled, A Complete System of Astronomy, (and contained in “A Treatise on Practical Astronomy,” at the end of the second volume of that work,) is an entire chapter on “Hadley’s Quadrant;” giving a particular description of the instrument, with rules for the computations from the observations and illustrations of them by examples. In this Treatise, the author says, that the instrument took its name from the “inventor,” John Hadley, Esq. and observes, that not only the science of navigation is greatly indebted, to this “incomparable instrument,” but such are its various uses in astronomy, that it may not improperly be called “a portable observatory.” Mr. Vince further observes, that in the year 1742, about ten years after Mr. Hadley’s invention (for so he styles it) was published, a paper in Sir Issac Newton’s own hand-writing was found among Dr. Halley’s papers, after the Doctor’s death, containing a figure and description of an instrument (referring to Philos. Transactions, No. 465,) not much different in its principle from this of Hadley. He adds, that as Dr. Halley was alive when Mr. Hadley’s instrument was shewn to the Royal Society, and he took no notice of this paper of Sir Isaac Newton, it is probable he did not know there was such an one. In another part of his work (under the head of The History of Astronomy, vol. ii. p. 280.) Mr. Vince asserts, that the first person who formed the idea of making a Quadrant to take angles by reflection, was Robert Hook; and he was born in 1635. On the whole, however, the learned author draws this conclusion:—“Both Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Hadley therefore seem entitled to this invention.”

Mr. Lalande, speaking of this instrument, says: “Le Quartier de Reflexion, exécuté en 1731 par Hadley, a donné un moyen facile de mesurer les distances sur mer, à une minute pris, aussi bien determiner le lieu de la Lune en mer.” See his Astronomie, vol. iii. p. 654.

From these facts, and a careful examination of the papers themselves, here quoted and referred to, the scientific reader will be enabled to decide upon the true merits of the controversy that has so long subsisted, concerning the respective claims of Godfrey and of Hadley, to the invention of the instrument that bears the name of the latter.

Before this subject is dismissed, however, it will not be deemed improper to add, that the late Dr. John Ewing communicated to the Am. Philosophical Society an account of an Improvement in the construction of (what he terms) “Godfrey’s double reflecting Quadrant,” which he had discovered in the spring or summer of the year 1767: this will be found in the first volume of the Society’s Transactions. In the conclusion of this communication, Dr. Ewing says:—“This improvement of an instrument, which was first invented and constructed by Mr. Godfrey of this city, and which I do not hesitate to call the most useful of all astronomical instruments that the world ever knew, I hope will make it still more serviceable to mankind.”

This communication to the Society by Dr. Ewing, was made in the year 1770. In one concerning the comet of that year, and made by Dr. Rittenhouse about the same time, the instrument to which Dr. Ewing’s improvement applies, is called Hadley’s Quadrant: but perhaps Dr. Rittenhouse so named it, in conformity to common usage.

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But when I consider, that luxury and her constant follower tyranny, who have long since laid in the dust, never to rise again, the glories of Asia, are now advancing like a torrent irresistible, whose weight no human force can stem, and have nearly completed their conquest of Europe; luxury and tyranny, who by a vile affectation of virtues they know not, pretend at first to be the patrons of science and philosophy, but at length fail not effectually to destroy them; agitated I say by these reflections, I am ready to wish—vain wish! that nature would raise her everlasting bars between the new and old world; and make a voyage to Europe as impracticable as one to the moon. I confess indeed, that by our connections with Europe we have made most surprising, I had almost said unnatural, advances towards the meridian of glory; but by those connections too, in all probability, our fall will be premature. May the God of knowledge inspire us with wisdom to prevent it: let our harbours, our doors, our hearts, be shut against luxury. But I return to my subject, and will no longer indulge these melancholy thoughts.

Some have observed, that the wonderful discoveries of the microscope ought to go hand in hand with those of the telescope; lest whilst we contemplate the many instances of the wisdom and power of divine Providence, displayed in the great works of creation, we should be tempted to conclude that man, and other less important beings of this lower world, did not claim its attention. But I will venture to affirm, without at all derogating from the merits of those who have so greatly obliged the world with the success of their microscopical enquiries, that no such danger is to be apprehended. Nothing can better demonstrate the immediate presence of the Deity in every part of space, whether vacant or occupied by matter, than astronomy does. It was from an astronomer St. Paul quoted that exalted expression, so often since repeated; “In God we live, and move, and have our being.” His divine energy supports that universal substratum on which all corporal substances subsist, that the laws of motion are derived from, and that wings light with angelic swiftness.

If the time would permit, how agreeable the task to dwell on the praises of Astronomy: to consider its happy effects as a science, on the human mind. Let the sceptical writers forbear to lavish encomiums on their cobweb Philosophy, liable to be broken by the smallest incident in nature. They tell us it is of great service to mankind, in banishing bigotry and superstition from amongst us. Is not this effectually done by Astronomy? The direct tendency of this science is to dilate the heart with universal benevolence, and to enlarge its views. But then it does this without propagating a single point of doctrine contrary to common sense, or the most cultivated reason. It flatters no fashionable princely vice, or national depravity. It encourages not the libertine by relaxing any of the precepts of morality; nor does it attempt to undermine the foundations of religion. It denies none of those attributes, which the wisest and best of mankind, have in all ages ascribed to the Deity: Nor does it degrade the human mind from that dignity, which is ever necessary to make it contemplate itself with complacency. None of these things does Astronomy pretend to; and if these things merit the aim of Philosophy, and the encouragement of a people, then let scepticism flourish, and Astronomy lie neglected; then let the names of Berkeley, and Hume, become immortal, and that of Newton be lost in oblivion.

I shall conclude this part of my discourse with the words of Dr. Barrow—It is to Astronomy we owe “that we comprehend the huge fabric of the universe, admire and contemplate the wonderful beauty of the divine workmanship, and so learn the invincible force and sagacity of our own minds, as to acknowledge the blessings of heaven with a pious affection.”

I now come, in the last place, to point out some of the defects of Astronomy at this day. Which I am induced to undertake by the hopes I entertain that some of those defects may be removed under the auspices of this society, and of you my fellow citizens, who have so zealously promoted its institution. “The advantages arising from Astronomy, the pleasure attending the study of it, the care with which it was cultivated by many great men among the ancients, and the extraordinary attention paid to it in Europe by the present age,” all contribute to recommend it to your protection, under which we have the best reason to expect that it will flourish.

The mildness of our climate and the serenity of our atmosphere, perhaps not inferior to that of Italy, and likewise our distant situation from the principal observatories in the world (whence many curious phænomena must be visible here that are not likely to be observed any where else) are so many circumstances greatly in our favour.

And I trust there will not be wanting men of genius, to arise in this new world, whose talents may be particularly adapted to astronomical enquiries. Indeed I am persuaded that nature is by no means so nigardly in producing them, as we are apt to imagine. Some are never tempted forth from obscurity, some are untimely snatched away by death, a striking instance whereof we have in Horrox; and many are accidentally led to other pursuits.

The Astronomy of comets is still in its infancy; not that the attention of the learned and ingenious has at all been wanting for more than a century past; but because it will necessarily require many ages to bring it to perfection. I wish we were in a condition to promote it in some degree, by carefully observing such comets as may appear. As yet we scarce dare affirm that any one has or will return a second time. It has never, that I know of, been certainly proved by observation, that a comet has descended within a parabolic orbit, and until that is done we have only a coincidence of periods and orbits (none of which have been very precise) to depend on for their return. Far less are astronomers able to determine the changes that may, and probably do, happen in their orbits and velocities in every period, so as to predict their nearer or more remote approach to the earth or any planet. Whether their business be to repair or destroy, whether they are worlds yet in formation or once habitable worlds in ruins; whether they are at present habitable and regular attendants of our Sun only, or whether they are the vast links that connect the distant parts of creation by surrounding more suns than one, we know not.