ON THE DISCOVERIES OF

works were only the amusements of his leisurehours; but in contemplating his powers, hefound himself destined for much greater things.He was led, by an invincible impulse, to the studyof philosophy; and no operation of nature everattracted his notice, but he was immediately de-sirous of searching into its cause, and attemptingits explication. His observations upon the na-ture of refraction, parallax, and many other sub-jects of equal importance, are sufficient proofsof his penetration and judgment; and from hisuniting the science of optics with that of astro-nomy, we may easily judge of his genius andabilities,

In the true system of the world, as restored byCopernicus, the astronomer, having no longer astationary situation upon our globe, is obliged totransport himself to the centre of the sun, and toobserve the celestial motions from a point whichis only accessible by the imagination. It wasfrom this point that Kepler contemplated thespectacle of the heavens, and saw the fallacy ofa doctrine, which all the astronomers before histime had considered as infallible. The apparentsimplicity of nature in all her operations, had se-duced them to imagine, that a circular and uni-form motion of the heavenly bodies was a neces-sary consequence of this law. But this opinion,however reasonable it might seem to others, ap-