OR

RATIONAL ANALYSIS:

BEING

A TREATISE

DESIGNED

TO DISCLOSE PHYSICAL TRUTHS, AND TO DETECT
AND EXPOSE POPULAR ERRORS.

BY AUGUSTUS YOUNG.

"These are not, perhaps, very attractive speculations; they disturb old and favorite
associations; they serve to reduce many cherished traditions, much painfully acquired
knowledge, to obsolete lore; but these things are so, and we must accustom ourselves to
regard them and their consequences without shrinking."

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY S. N. DICKINSON & CO.
1846.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by

AUGUSTUS YOUNG,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Vermont.

CONTENTS.

[Although in the work, some of the respective Chapters are divided into, or are
composed of several Sections, such division will be disregarded in the Table of
Contents, the subject matters of the Chapters only being given.]

-

On the Law of Gravity, and the Popular Deduction and Promulgation of the

Supposed Law,

CHAPTER III.

Of the Proper Elements from which to determine the Laws of Force and

Motion, incident to the Heavenly Bodies, in their Eternal Rounds,

CHAPTER IV.

On the Hypothesis suggested by Kepler in respect to Elliptical Orbits, ·

98

......

198

......

217

An Investigation of the Theory of the Progressive Motion of Light,