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  • Audiet Pugnas vitio Parentum / Rara Juventus. Hor: Young men—the few who are left after the crimes of their fathers—will hear of battles. [School and College Latin Exercises]
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  • Review of Conferences and Treaties (1756)
  • Review of Philosophical Transactions (1756)
  • Review of Richard Lovett, The Subtil Medium Prov’d (1756)
  • Review of Benjamin Hoadley and Benjamin Wilson, Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments (1756)
  • Review of Johann Georg Keyssler, Travels (1756)
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Review of Benjamin Hoadley and Benjamin Wilson, Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments (1756)
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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Review of Benjamin Hoadley and Benjamin Wilson, Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments (1756)1
Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments. By Dr. Hoadly and Mr. Wilson, F. R. S. Payne, 1s. 6d. Quarto [1756].
This series of observations and experiments will undoubtedly be received with uncommon regard by the inquisitive and speculative, being the product of two men, of whom one is eminent for mathematical learning, and the other for experimental curiosity, and both at once the favourites of those who cultivate the abstruser and politer arts. One has already published the Lectures on Respiration, and the other Electrical Experiments.2
They begin with great propriety, by laying down the doctrine which they undertake to prove.


Page 354

There is a very fine fluid of the same nature with air, but extremely more subtile and elastic, according to Sir Isaac Newton, every where dispersed through all space, which in his optics he calls aether. This aether is much rarer within the dense bodies of the sun, stars, planets, and comets, than in the empty celestial space between them: and in passing from them to great distances, it grows denser and denser perpetually, and thereby causes the gravity of those bodies towards one another, and of their parts towards the bodies; every body endeavouring to go from the denser parts of the aether towards the rarer. The earth, therefore, is surrounded every where by this aether to a very great distance, in consequence of which the air and all bodies in it gravitate towards the earth, and towards each other, agreeably to the appearances at the surface of it.3
Whether the existence of this aether, which is perhaps but the materia subtilis with a new name, is proved from the following experiments, may perhaps appear when we examine them, but if we consider it as it is now assumed on the authority of Newton, it seems contrived only for the sake of assigning a cause of gravitation, which may be as well considered, as the primary physical agent, as a property impressed by the creator without any previous influence of matter. For what is gained to philosophy by the super-induction of aether but the necessity of answering another question, What is the cause of the gradual condensation of aether? That repulsion from other matter by which aether must be thus condensed as much requires a cause as gravitation, and to create a matter so different from all other matter, as to gravitate only towards itself, is perhaps one of the arts of a philosopher unwilling to be silent when he has nothing to say. Surely the primum mobile with the cycles and epicycles afforded solutions with which importunity might be equally silenced and curiosity equally satisfied.4


Page 355

The authors having thus supposed an aether proceed to other propositions, which are so precisely expressed that they can scarcelya be given with the same clearness in any words but their own. . . .5
Many experiments are mentioned, which seem to have been made with great exactness, and have been considered with uncommon subtilty of reasoning, but as the experiments are connected with each other, and the theory arising from them cannot be well understood without them, this treatise does not well admit of an abstract. The authors towards the conclusion have the following observations.6
Editorial Notes
1 LM, I.235–39; not in Eddy; see “Johnson’s Contributions,” no. 96. Wilson (1721–88) was a scientist and a portrait painter who painted Garrick and maintained a professional relationship with him; Hoadly (1706–57) was a physician and playwright, author of The Suspicious Husband (1747), for which Garrick wrote the prologue and epilogue.
2 Hoadly published Three Lectures on the Organs of Respiration (1740); Wilson published A Treatise on Electricity (1750).
3 Observations, p. 1.
4 SJ refers to aspects of the Ptolemaic system of the universe.
a scarcely emend] scarely
5 SJ quotes and paraphrases pp. 2–9.
6 SJ quotes pp. 68–74.
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Document Details
Document TitleReview of Benjamin Hoadley and Benjamin Wilson, Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments (1756)
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1756
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorJohnson, Samuel
ClassificationSubject: Science; Subject: Electricity; Subject: Matter; Genre: Book Review
PrinterN/A
PublisherJ. Richardson
Publ. PlaceLondon
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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