Note 1073 — Chapter VII
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The famous central heat of Buffon is often supposed to have been taken from Leibnitz; but, though vaguely taught by the ancients, the real founder of the doctrine appears to have been Descartes. See Bordas Demoulin, Cartésianisme, Paris, 1843, vol. i. p. 312. There is an unsatisfactory note on this in Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. i. p. 100. Compare Experimental Hist. of Cold, tit. 17, in Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 308; Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. p. 100. On the central heat of the Pythagoreans, see Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. i. p. 149; and as to the central fire mentioned in the so-called Oracles of Zoroaster, see Beausobre, Hist. de Manichée, vol. ii. p. 152. But the complete ignorance of the ancients respecting geology made these views nothing but guesses. Compare some sensible remarks in Matter's Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 282.