rush together, as in the former cafe. A depreffion of the furface between the two corks will, by diminifhing the quantity of water, occafion them to recede from each other.

It is not yet decided whether the attraction of cohesion, or the power by which bodies retain the aggregation of their parts, be one and the fame with the attraction of combination, or chemical affinity. But, as far as experiment has yet extended on this fubject, there is reafon to believe that they are the effects of different powers.

When the rational method of philofophizing from obfervation and experiment was lefs known and esteemed than it is at present, many objections were made to the admitting attraction as a general cause Among others, it was faid to be a revival of the trifling philofophy of occult causes. But nothing can be more inconfiftent and abfurd than to compare that philofophy, which deduces general laws from the obfervation of phenomena, with the compendious method that vanity has invented to disguise or conceal human ignorance, by referring particular facts to occult caufes. The laws of motion, the extenfion, the inertia, the resistance, and the attraction of matter, are deduced in the fame manner; and if the causes of these be occult or unknown, it is not that philofophers are unwilling, but because they have not yet been able to discover them, or because fome of them are, perhaps too, fo fimple, as to be referred to any other caufes which our fenfes are adapted

to

rush together, as in the former case. A depreffior of the furface between the two corks will, by diminishing the quantity of water, occafion them to recede from each other.

I It is not yet decided whether the attraction of

K

cohesion, or the power by which bodies retain the aggregation of their parts, be one and the fame with the attraction of combination, or chemical affinity. But, as far as experiment has yet extended on this fubject, there is reafon to believe that they are the effects of different powers.

When the rational method of philofophizing from obfervation and experiment was lefs known and esteemed than it is at prefent, many objections were made to the admitting attraction as a general caufe. Among others, it was faid to be a revival of the trifling philofophy of occult caufes. But nothing can be more inconfiftent and abfurd than to compare that philosophy, which deduces general laws from the obfervation of phenomena, with the compendious method that vanity has invented to disguise or conceal human ignorance, by referring particular facts to occult caufes. The laws of motion, the extension, the inertia, the resistance, and the attraction of matter, are deduced in the fame manner; and if the causes of these be occult or unknown, it is not that philofophers are unwilling, but because they have not yet been able to discover them, or because fome of them are, perhaps too, fo fimple, as to be referred to any other caufes which our fenfes are adapted

to