Tasman’s voyage of discovery*

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been taught the general motion of the fea, the reafon of it, and the caufe and differ-ence of currents in particular places; to which we may add the doctrine of tides, whichwere very imperfectly known, even by the greateft men in former times, whofeaccounts have been found equally repugnant to reafon and experience.

By their obfervations, we have acquired a great knowledge as to the nature andvariation of winds, particularly the monfoons, or trade-winds, and other periodicalwinds, of which the ancients had not the leaft conception : and by thefe helps we notonly have it in our power to proceed much farther in our difcoveries, but we are like-wife delivered from a multitude of groundlefs apprehenfions, that frighted them fromprofecuting difcoveries. We give no credit now to the fables, that not only amufedantiquity,but even obtained credit within a few generations. The authority of Pliny willnot perfuade us that there are any nations without heads, whofe eyes and mouths arein their breafts, or that the Arimafpi have only one eye, fixed in their forehead, andthat they are perpetually at war with the Griffins, who guard hidden treafures; or thatthere are nations that have long hairy tails, and grin like monkeys. No traveller canmake us believe, that, under the torrid zone, there are a nation, every man of whichhas one large flat foot, with which, lying upon his back, he covers himfelf from thefun. In this refpedt we have the fame advantage over the ancients that men have overchildren; and we cannot reflect without amazement, on men’s having fo much know-ledge and learning in other refpects, with fuch childifh underflandings in thefe.

By the labours of thefe great men, in the two laft centuries, we are taught to knowwhat we feek, and how it is to be fought. We know, for example, what parts of thenorth are yet undifcovered, and alfo what parts of the fouth. We can form avery certain judgment of the climate of countries undifcovered, and can forefee theadvantages that will refult from difcoveries before they are made; all which are pro-digious advantages, and ought certainly to animate us in our fearches. I might addto this, the great benefits we receive from our more perfect acquaintance with the pro-perties of the loadflone, and from the furprifing accuracy of aftronomical obfervations;to which I may add the phyfical difcoveries made of late years, in relation to the figureof the earth j all of which are the refult of the lights which thefe great men havegiven us.

It is true, that fome of the zealous defenders of the ancients, and fome of the greatadmirers of the eaftern nations, difpute thefe fads ; and would have us believe thatal'moft every thing was known to the old philofophers, and not only known but prac-tifed, by the Chinefe, long before the time of the great men to whom we afcribe them-But the difference between their affertions and ours is, that we fully prove the factswe allege, whereas they produce no evidence at all: for inftance, Albertus Magnusfays, that Ariftotle wrote an exprefs treatife on the direction of the loadflone; butnobody ever faw that treatife, nor was it ever heard of by any of the reft of his com-mentators. We have in our hands fome of the beft performances of antiquity, i 11regard to geography ; and any man who has eyes, and is at all acquainted with thatfcience, can very eafily difcern, how far they fall ftiort of maps that were made evenan hundred years ago. The celebrated Voffius, and the reft of the admirers of theChinefe, who, by the way, derived all their knowledge from hearfay, may teftify, ip aSftrong terms as they think fit, their contempt for the weftern fages, and their highopinion of thofe in the eaft; but till they prove to us that their favourite Chinefe madeany voyages comparable to the Europeans, before the difcovery of a paffage to China by the Cape of Good Hope , they will excufe us from believing them. Befides, ifancients had all this knowledge, how came it not to difplay itfelf in their performances.