ion. He was a
member of the Royal Society, prebend of Worcester, and rector
of Bath, where he died, October 4, 1680.--ED.

[261] The ninth chapter in the "Plus Ultra," entitled "The Credit of
Optic Glasses vindicated against a disputing man, who is
afraid to believe his eyes against Aristotle," gives one of
the ludicrous incidents of this philosophical visit. The
disputer raised a whimsical objection against the science of
optics, insisting that the newly-invented glasses, the
telescope, the microscope, &c., were all deceitful and
fallacious; for, said the Aristotelian, "take two spectacles,
use them at the same time, and you will not see so well as
with one singly--_ergo_, your microscopes and telescopes are
impostors." How this was forced into a syllogism does not
appear; but still the conclusion ran, "We can see better
through one pair than two, therefore all perspectives are
fallacious!"

One proposition for sense,
And t'other for convenience,

will make a tolerable syllogism for a logician in despair. The
Aristotelian was, however, somewhat puzzled by a problem which
he had himself raised--"Why we cannot see with two pair of
spectacles better than with one singly?" for the man of axioms
observed, "_Vis unita fortior_," "United strength _is
stronger_." It is curious enough, in the present day, to
observe the sturdy Aristotelian denying these discoveries, and
the praises of optics, and "the new glasses," by Glanvill. "If
this philosopher," says the member of the Royal Society, "had
spared some of those thoughts to the profitable doctrine of
optics which he hath spent upon _genus_ and _species_, we had
never heard of this objection." And he replies to the paradox
which the Aristotelian had raised by "Why cannot he write
better with _two pens_ than with a _single one_, since _Vis
unita fortior_? When he hath answered this _Quaere_, he hath
resolved his own. The reason he gave why it should be so, is
the reason why 'tis not." Such are the squabbles of infantine
science, which cannot as yet discover causes, although it has
ascertained effects.

[262] This appears in chap. xviii. of the "Plus Ultra." With great
simpli