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forth in every case, to support the author's interpretation, but in too many instances "it is to the sanctions of fancy, that he is indebted for their application. On other occasions, however, his observations and reasonings assume a more favourable aspect. They evince much learning, an intimate acquaintance with various branches and bearings of prophecy, and a commendable industry in acquiring means for the elucidation of their obscurities, accompanied with a consciousness of the difficulties he has to encounter, and an unwearied perseverance in pursuing the objects of his research.

But although we thus commend the author for his assiduity, and give him the utmost credit for his sincerity, we cannot always congratulate him on the success of his exertions. His reasonings are sometimes rendered obscure and indistinct by the mystery in which they appear to be involved; and not unfrequently they conduct us through crooked paths to conclusions of a doubtful, if not of a novel character. Thus we are told in page 201, that, "The Revelations being that part of the testament of our blessed Lord last given out by him, it is a key to all the phrases which he had before used, concerning the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell-fire, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which he here (Rev. xx. 14, 15.) explains to be the eternal loss of eternal life, by an eternal destruction or nonentity."

For peculiarities in this volume we were somewhat prepared, by the following introductory sentence in the preface. "To the discovery of the name, and number of the name, of the Apocalyptic beast of St. John, which we completed on January the ninth, in the eighteen hundred and twenty-eighth year of the Christian era, after it had escaped the ingenuity of near eighteen centuries, this book owes its origin." This, without doubt, is sufficiently definite. Not only the year, but also the month, and even the day of the month, is assigned; and confiding in his important discovery, the author might very naturally infer that for him was reserved that flood of light which "opens heaven,' in the volume now under inspection. Full of this conviction, Mr. Addis proceeds

as follows:

We hope that those learned men, who have already formed an opinion upon some doctrinal and other points, concerning which we have thought proper to treat in this volume, may not be so prejudiced against new lights, as to reject without examination the opinions of one who is possessed of such good credentials as we are. For 128. VOL. XI.

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if St. John saw HEAVEN OPENED towards the close of the prophetic drama (Rev. xix. 11.) to which we are now arrived, it is plain that heaven must have been before shut; and if heaven was to be opened at some time or other, to whom is it more likely that the key of the mysteries of that kingdom should be given, than to that person, who, twice in the prophecy of our blessed Lord, (Rev. xiii. 18; xvii. 9.) is declared to be possessed of the gift capable of opening it?"-Preface.

These strong and strange pretensions require no comment. The author who fancies himself to possess the wonderful qualifications which they obviously imply, must be privileged to write any thing; and he who can credit his claim, must be prepared to swallow whatever he may advance. In both cases there can be no want either of credulity or presumption, though there may be a trifling deficiency in modesty, prudence, and common decorum. Fortune, however, is always said to favour the bold; and if this be correct, our author bids fair to be successful.

WE live in an age abounding with theo. ries, some of which are recommended to notice by the erudition, ingenuity, and profundity of research displayed by their authors; others by their novelty and boldness; and not a few by their extravagance and absurdity. To which of these classes the work before us belongs, the reader must judge, when we lay before him an analysis of its contents.

By the moderns, the author observes, light is held to be a body propagated by rays, &c.; but if such be in reality its nature, how, it may be asked, is it obscured?

If you put out the candle, or shut up the windows, the light is extinct. What has become of all the solid particles that had poured on us from the sun or candle, illumining the apartment? If they were really light itself, must they not be annihilated! And what is there to execute

such a miracle on material substances?

We are told, light may be stopped at one place and moment, and let pass at the next, and therefore it has parts, and must be a body. Just so, the author argues, sound and weight must have parts, and be material substances.

As to rays in such immense multitudes flying in all possible directions, to and from every object in nature, passing and repassing along the same lines, and even through the same pores of bodies, at the

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same time, how is it possible they could move for a moment without clashing with one another and with things around, and so putting every thing into confusion? The particles, too, being elastic, would be for ever dancing round us at random, like motes in the air, without any determinate motion. Even if free from all interruption, it is hard to conceive how rays, or streams of particles, could either convey or depict images of any kind at the bottom of the eye, or any where else; but that they should do so amidst such confusion, is absurd past all conception; and still more so, that we should be able to see any thing distinctly. Nay, if our organs were of iron, they would be blown to shivers by an influx of solid pellets piercing them through and through at all obliquities with such violence.

They tell us, too, that light is not only a body, but a composition of all colours; then colours, too, must be bodies; else how can they constitute bodies? Nay, shadows, too, must be substances; for colours are but shades of light.

It is then shewn that light is not propagated by impulse, undulation, or motion of any thing, or of any kind; but by reflection on such proper surfaces as merely present themselves.

Light and shade are equally necessary to vision by neither, separately, can aught be distinguished. A column of smoke seen before a dark cloud appears white; before a light one, black; and before one of the same shade with itself, is not seen at all.

But it will be said, there is some difference between light and shade. If you bring an opaque body into light, you produce a shade; but you would not produce light by plunging it into darkness. No, nor would you produce shade by plunging it into general luminousness. But we know of no such luminousness: all light with us is partial, lighting only one side of the object, leaving the rest dark by contrast. General light would no more help us to see, than darkness. The necessary conclusion is, light has no existence, but an optical one, an apparent existence, and is therefore neither more nor less than an ocular sensation, as heat and sound are sensations of feeling and hearing. Would the sun then cease to shine, if all creatures were deprived of sight? Un doubtedly; to shine is to exhibit a lumin bus appearance, and what appearance can there be, where nothing does appear? It is the eye that makes the sun luminous to us, as the fiddler is made musical by

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means of the stick. He ascribes it to agitation, that bodies are put into a state capable of appearing luminous, and also of feeling hot. But the two sensations are derived in different ways: that of heat by a similar agitation communicated to our bodies; but that of light, by simply placing the eye in presence of the lumi nous or agitated object.

Our author now enters on the science itself of optics; and in the first dialogue shews that the surfaces of all distinct media act as double mirrors, reflecting things both within and without; and conse quently cannot transmit them; and that we cannot, as commonly supposed, see into water, or other transparent medium, nor discover any thing in or through such, except by means of its image on the surface. Even objects in air are only seen at second hand by means of the image on the eye; and those in, or beyond other media, at third or fourth hand, by help of like images on the intervening surface, and finally copied on the eye. It is in admitting these transcriptions of images from one surface to another, that transparency consists.

Farther, an object in water appears nearer than it is on the perpendicular view, and in a different direction also on the oblique view. This too is a deception. What we see is the image on the water, which being less vivid, from the objects being in a medium darker than air, appears not to be on the surface, but below, and there being mistaken for the object, the latter is imagined to appear nearer than it is, on this direct view; and in consequence of this again, it appears in a different direction also, on the oblique view; and so far out of the direction of the object, that the line of vision, continued through the image on the surface, makes, at that image, an angle with a line from the object to the same image, equal onefourth of the angle, at which the eye has declined from the perpendicular; i. e. as others talk, making the angle of refraction one-fourth of the angle of incidence; for in that proportion the object appears nearer, and the image farther off, than they are; and that because in the same ratio the dimming effect of water is greater than that of air. The dialogue ends with an experiment which seems to afford ocular demonstration, that neither in the candlelight, in water experiment, nor that of the ray in the box, which have always been deemed the main buttresses of refraction, does any such operation take place: the whole is founded on mistake.

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Dial. II. What regulates transmission through inclined surfaces is not the sign of the angle of incidence; but the angle at which the surfaces are inclined to each other. The image on the glass must deviate so far from the line of direct vision, that the angle which the object and image make at the eye, together with that which the eye and image make at the object, may equal the inclination of surfaces; a law which no rays could respect; because, the observance depends on the position of the eye, as well as object. If the eye is within focal distance, all things are seen in directions converging to the lens; if at the focus, in parallel directions; and if beyond, in directions converging thither. If this were the work of rays, they must be convergent, parallel, and divergent at the same time, and at all times. Can there then, the author asks, be more than one opinion on the subject?

To help them over this difficulty, philosophers were ingenious enough to fabricate pencils of rays, which our author thinks could afford no aid whatever, if it were possible for such queer things to exist, He looks on them with such ineffable contempt, that he thinks them not worth confuting; they sufficiently confute themselves.

Again, on the old principles, all things, however near, seen through the convex lens, affect the eye as if they were really at an infinite distance, and even further: a position so repugnant to common sense, as well as common experience, that rather than assent to it, the learned Tacquet, after publishing his Optics, did actually renounce the very principles on which his work was founded, when he reflected on this absurdity, in which they necessarily involve their advocates; and on this subject Dr. Barrow observes, "there is something here that lies deeply hid in the subtlety of nature, which perhaps cannot be discovered, till we understand the nature of vision more perfectly." The author thinks this passage oracular.

Dial, III. Distant objects are not inverted at the second focus, but at the first. Their images are seen inverted on the glass, and must have come thither in that state. The parts cross at the first focus, on perpendiculars to the second surface, as being there reflected on themselves, after being excluded from the first surface, when the eye and object become too remote to observe the angle of the lens; as fully explained in the diagram. These things again could not possibly consist with refracted rays.

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So the inverted picture of the candle at the focus of the lens, is the spectrum or shadow of this image on the glass, thrown forward by the strong light behind, like the figures of the magic lantern. This fact, while it shews the true nature of the spectrum, is conclusive also as to the actual existence of the image on the glass. Just so is the picture on the retina, the spectrum of the image on the cornea, which image is always erect. Objects to the eye never are inverted; for though we see with the eye, we do not see through it. But the spectrum is inverted at the second focus. No eye, however, can see its own retina, nor consequently the picture there. It is true, when that picture is most perfect, things are seen most distinctly; but it does not follow that the spectrum is what we see. The truth is, when the latter is most perfect, the retina is exactly at focal distance, and then the image on the pupil is most vivid; because the chamber of the eye is most dark. So much for the philosophic dream of our seeing all things inverted. It is no vulgar error, the vulgar have always looked on it as a joke, and laughed at it; while the learned have been exercising their wits in vain to account for it. know the tale of the fish that was of no weight in water, and the sage consultation said to be thereupon holden. Fortunately the scales settled that point by shewing that the fish, as well as tub and water, was in rotation with the earth. To ascer tain facts and principles before we build systems on them, would save much idle speculation and dispute.

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Dial. IV. On the same principles of the image on the surface, and observing the angle of the prism, are the phenomena of the latter fully explained; while the protuberance of the field, its arched form and various contractions, dilatations, and velocities, in different positions of the glass, &c. are all particularly explained, and shewn to be incompatible with refraction.

Dial. v. Light, instead of being of all colours, is proved to be of none, nor capable of any, but by means of shade. Be it what it may, colours are always darker than it. And how is light to be obscured without shade? Seen through the smoke of a large town, the sun appears red. What is this redness, but shaded light? Here then is ocular demonstrations in na ture, that colour is not pure light, but light coloured by shade, or shade coloured by light. So when we look with the prism on a cross-bar of the window, which is in shade, as seen against the light, its

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Review

shaded image appears on the glass, and the light of the window through it assumes a similar redness. And the surface being inclined, this red, the deepest and strongest of all colours, fines off into less glass, that is, into less shade, yellow, and into more, blue. But why not fine off into less shade, lighter and still lighter red, why into orange and yellow? Because being in shade, orange and yellow actually are lighter shades or tints of red. The parent shade on the glass fines off till too weak to be distinguished as red; and as it fines off, farther, for it is not yet pure light, it must take an appearance compounded of less red, and more light; and what is this but yellow, or, if you will, orange? The conflict lies between dark red and sheer light. So far as our eyes can distinguish it, the red prevails, and after that the light predominates and makes it first orange, and then yellow, the lightest of all colours. As to blue, he is in some doubt whether to call it a colour or not. It is then shewn that as light is of no colour before refraction, so mere refraction could never colour it. No, no, says the author, when I shall see the letters formed by the same ink in my pen assume different colours, according to the different inclinations given them, then I may be tempted to believe that rays might be coloured by being differently refracted. If indeed there were such rays, observes Cal. True, replies Mu. they ought to exist before they are coloured or refracted.

Dial. VI. Prismatic spectrum, and polarity of light. If the former were an original image independent of that on the glass, it would improperly be called a spectrum; the two things are as different in themselves, as a shadow from its substance. The image never is seen but on the glass. The spectrum is never seen there, but only on a proper surface at, or, as there, beyond the focus; thrown inverted on the wall, as in case of the focal spectrum, and that in the eye. Philosophers affect not to know that the prism has a focus; because they see no possibility of their rays crossing there. They admit the spectrum to be on the wall, where it appears to be; but the real image which they see on the prism, they tell us is not there, but at the bottom of the eye forsooth. Whereas the picture in the latter place is only cat spectrum, and positively never is seen. In ai word, thats the spectrum is am inverted copy of the image on the glass, the followings very simple experiment, he thinks, places beyond dispute between the prism on its axis either way, the image

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vanishes down, and the spectrum up; this is downright demonstration that the colours of the latter have crossed at the irregular focus.1910 on ad ban trat bas ito,da As to polarization, be seems to think it a hoar: but consenting to examine it, he finds it, all-absurd as it is, not incon sistent with the old principles; but how he solves the phenomena on the new, we can convey no idea without the figure.

Dial. VII. Inversion by reflection on spherical surfaces is regulated by the same law respecting the angle of inclination, as inversion by transmission. For this too it is necessary to consult the plates. He then shews why the eye can only see the sun's image on that spot of a piece of water, where the altitudes of the sun and eye are equal; why objects are reflected on themselves only on the perpendicular, and why the eye, object, and image must be on the same plain.

Dial. vIII. His account of the rainbow differs little from that of others, except that he excludes refraction. He then explodes the fallacy of homogeneous and heteroge neous light, and closes the work with a strict examination of the six leading ex periments of the Opticians, including the famous experimentum crucis, which are supposed to prove the different refrangi bility of rays. But to follow him through this part of his subject, the reader will find it useful to have both works before him.

REVIEW.-The Reigning Principles of Astronomy exploded and all the Phenomena solved on Principles entirely new, and in perfect harmony with Nature, Reason, and Common Sense. By the Author of Mulamen and Callacles. 8vo. pp. 88. Longman, Lon

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THIS writer possesses as strong a repugnance to the principles of astronomy, as to those of optics. In Mulamen and Callacles he regards gravitation, projection, and a va cuum as creatures of imagination, which have no real existence, and which, if they did exist, would neither accounts for the formation nor revolutions of the heavenly bodies; nay, would have inevitably pres vented their ever revolving or existing at all. load vi

Most philosophers are of copinion, that the natural state of matter is rest. And to save themselves the trouble of inquiring into the cause and origin of the planets, and their motion, they are content to ascribe both to the immediate act of God.