תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

Events in our Days, fuch as the wifeft of our Fathers never dreamed of. Men of Genius and Penetration, especially in high Places, fcorn to jog on in the beaten Track of their dull Forefathers, and know that all our Schemes of Politics and Religion, as well as Arts and Sciences, are capable of Improvements. New Schemes naturally produce new Measures, new Meafures always produce new Difficulties, new Difficulties require new Expedients, to qualify or remove them; fo that, in a little Time, the Affairs of the Nation may have quite a new Face, run in quite a new Channel, and require a new Set of Principles, to justify the marvellous Alteration: So that the wifeft Man upon Earth cannot foretel what half a Century more may, or may not, produce in our Favour; especially when the Public fhall be duly apprifed of the Usefulnefs of our Society, the prefent Difficulties under which we labour in the Prosecution of our Scheme, and how fmall a Degree of public Indulgence would entirely remove those Difficulties, and put us upon the fame equitable Foot with our Adverfaries. How useful the Principles and Members of our Society have been in all Ages, in arduous and desperate Services, Changes, Reformations, and Revolutions in Church and State, is not confiftent with our known Modesty to declare; we could not do justice to our own Characters without blushing, which is, to us, a very painful Senfation. Let the Annals of paft Ages declare, and let the Hiftorians of the present and future Times faithfully record, how useful we have been, and may hereafter be, in contriving, executing, and defending the deep Designs, and wondrous Atchievements of Statesmen, Politicians, and Conquerors. Wife Minifters,

therefore,

therefore, fhould fhew a particular Regard to the Body of Paralogicians, as a Set of Men that may be of fingular Use to them in many Articles of Affairs, both Ecclefiaftical and Civil; if, for instance, any Scheme should be concerted, or Project executed, which could not be explained or vindicated by any Rules of the vulgar and popular Logic, or what the common Herd of Mankind have agreed to call Reafon, it would be of infinite Ufe to the Project and the Projector too, to have a Set of extraordinary Principles, Axioms, Rules, and Methods of Reasoning, exactly fitted and adapted to fuch extraordinary Cafes and Occafions. This appears in the Improvements, made of late Years, in another Branch of Science: I mean Arithmetic. Our Forefathers were fo egregiously filly, that they knew no more than the Vulgar and Decimal; they could tell you, with very grave Faces, that 2 and 2 make 4, that 5 and 5 make 10, which every Blockhead knew as well as they; in short, they faw very little in it beyond the low dirty Bufinefs of Oeconomy and Trade. The Arcana Imperii, the Mysteries of Government, the impenetrable Secrets of the Cabinet, on which the Fates of Empires and Kingdoms depend, which are hid from vulgar Eyes, into which none but the Sons of Wisdom, the Adepts in the occult Sciences, are or can be admitted; were not to be directed by fuch low, vulgar, obvious Principles as the popular mercantile Bufinefs of Life; they, therefore, by incredible Application, Intenseness, and Refinement of Thought, at last invented, and brought to Perfection, that most useful Branch of Science, which I call Political Arithmetic, by which alone fuch furprising Wonders have been effected, as our Fathers

[blocks in formation]

would have thought and pronounced to be abfolutely impoffible. The Ufe and Correfpondence of Numbers in thefe Operations is not according to the vulgar Relation, but depends upon a secret magical Power, under certain planetary Influences and Directions, at certain critical Seasons, and momentous Occafions, in which the Power and Value of any Number rifes or falls, increafes or diminishes, in Proportion to the Difficulties and Advantages of any given Queftion: So that whereas, in Vulgar Arithmetic, 5 and 5 make 10, and 10 and 10 make 20; in the Political 5 and 5 fhall make 16, and 7 and 7 fhall make 34: And whereas, in the Vulgar Computation, 15 is generally esteemed to be more than 10, and lefs than 20, here 14 are often known to be more than 24, and 30 than 50. But, what is still more furprising, to those who are not initiated into these Mysteries, is, that even mere Cyphers, which, in Vulgar Arithmetic, are nothing, and stand for nothing, but as they ftand united with some valuable Figure, have here a Weight and Power equal to that of any given Figure, I myfelf have seen, in a moft mysterious Operation, one very infignificant Cypher, of greater Force and Power than a long and regular Arrangement of powerful and fignificant Figures.

Pythagoras and his Difciples are universally known to have been great Dealers in Numbers, and boaft much of their Virtues and magical Powers, even in medicinal Cafes, and refolve all or most of the furprifing Cures, which the Ignorance of the Moderns afcribes to Sympathy or occult Qualities, to the sole Viṛtue of Numbers, into which all Sympathy, Harmony, Concord, and Order are ultimately resolved. In natural and bodily Maladies, arifing purely from difharmonious,

diforderly

disorderly Motions of the Fluids and Animal Spirits, certain Bodies carefully collected from the Vegetable or Mineral World, under fome certain and particular Configuration of the heavenly Bodies, and prepared by the Direction of fome magical Words and Numbers, would affect a certain, fpeedy, and almoft miraculous, Cure: And in fpiritual Disorders, even of the moft malignant Kind, fuch as particularly Epilepfy and Madness, which they generally imputed to the Poffeffion of Damons, they were all infallibly cured by the Charms of Music, which is known to be the highest Perfection of Numbers, reduced to perfect Harmony, Proportion, and Order. These were great and useful Discoveries, confidering the Age in which they were made: But, had that great Philofopher lived in these our marvellous Days of Science and Erudition, he would not have made a much better Figure than a common Mountebank; for, in both these Cafes, there was the Ufe and Application of external Means to the very Person of the Patient, such as any old Woman that had been used to gather Simples, or any young Fellow that could play a tolerable Fiddle, might be able, with a little Inftruction, to apply and explain. But how much more furprising Operations have I seen effected, purely by a lucky Combination of Numbers in Political Arithmetic! I have seen a Perfon both deaf and dumb, who hath been immediately cured by the Application of a fmall Piece of Paper, in which, among other magical Words and Characters, were the Numbers 500 or 1000, or more or lefs, according to the Nature of the Cafe, and the Neceffities of the Patient, upon the immediate Perufal of the Charm, he could hear diftinctly, and fpeak fluently

D 4

upon

upon any Question, or Side of a Question, for a whole Hour by the Clock: And because fome incredulous, ill-natured People, were for fufpecting the Reality of the Cure, and imputing the whole to a politic Collufion betwixt the Doctor and the Patient, he has been prevailed upon to try the Efficacy of the Charm in a different and contrary Experiment, and has, for the Conviction of the Incredulous, by the fame Charm, with some little Variation of Characters, ftruck a Man at once abfolutely deaf, and dumb, and blind, who had been but juft before in full Poffeffion of his Health, Memory, Understanding, and Senfes. Nay, more than this, I have been credibly informed, that a Patient, languishing, and almost expiring, under an univerfal Decay, from a Complication of Disorders, was at once reftored, by the Force of Numbers,without any visible Application at all made to the Patient, to perfect Health and Soundness of Body. And that others, who had been over-run with an Irruption of malignant Humours breaking out, and stinking like Plague Sores, were, by the fole Power of Numbers made as found as Heart of Oak, and as sweet as a Rofe, with numberless other Cures too tedious to mention, which may be well attefted, to the Satisfaction of any curious Enquirer. I cannot say that I faw these wonderful Operations myself, or ever examined the State or Constitution of the Patients so restored; but, which is equally fatisfactory to Men of modeft and ingenuous Tempers, I was affured of it upon the Honour of those who performed the feveral above-mentioned Cures, and gave the Patients conftant Attendance till they were completed, being upon the fair and honourable Conditions of, No Cure no Pay, who therefore must be

prefumed

« הקודםהמשך »