Note 2 — PREFACE.

This gentleman kindly offered to contribute from his own private means, to forward the publication, but he could do nothing officially without submitting the manuscript to three different censors. He who claims a new discovery, will seldom be satisfied to have it judged by men who are engaged in the same investigations, however pure and honorable they may be. Is this Institution adopting the best plan of aiding truth, in its struggles against error? Should any man sit as judge in his own trial? If there had been a powerful Institution to stand between Galileo and the scientific of his day, his doctrines would not have been condemned, and the world would have been fifty years more in advance.