Chapter VI
Natural Philosophy
I am an advocate for freedom of challenge of every fact and principle which any one may suspect to be founded in error. one
man’s opinion being free as another’s, neither is to controul or to be controuled by the other. on the contrary, the freer
the enquiry, the more favorable to truth.
letter from
Thomas Jefferson
to dr. hosea humphrey, june 15, 1816.
Hosea Humphrey, 1757-1818, physician, was in early life a saddlemaker in Providence. Later he moved to Norfolk, Connecticut. He was the author of a dissertation on fire, published in Providence in 1814.
. . . sincerely a friend to science, & feeling the fraternal relation it establishes among the whole family of it’s votaries,
wheresoever dispersed through nations, friendly or hostile . . .
letter from
Thomas Jefferson
to g. voolit, may 2, 1810.
1
Clerici Physica.
12
mo.
1815 Catalogue, page 29. no. 1, Clerici Physica, 12mo.
LE CLERC,
Jean.
Joan Clerici Physica, sive de rebus corporeis, libri quinque, in quibus, præmissis potissimis corporearum naturarum phænomenis & proprietatibus,
veterum & recentiorum de eorum causis celeberrimæ conjecturæ traduntur . . .
Londini: Impensis
A. Swall &
T. Childe,
1696.
12mo. 304 leaves; no copy was obtained for collation.
This edition not in Haag.
STC L823A.
Arber,
Term Catalogues II, 570 (Feb. 1696).
Jean le Clerc, 1657-1736, Swiss protestant theologian. The first edition of his
Physica was published in Amsterdam in 1695. This is the
first
English edition and is less well known than the Cambridge edition, 1700.
[628]
2
Physique de Rohault.
2. v.
24
s.
1815 Catalogue, page 30. no. 2, as above,
16s.
ROHAULT,
Jacques.
Traité de Physique.
Paris,
1683.
2 vol. 12mo. or smaller. No copy of this edition was located for collation. Jefferson describes the format as 24s; the 1815
and later catalogues as 16s.
Jacques Rohault, 1620-1675, French physicist and disciple of Descartes.
[629]
3
Spectacle de la Nature de la Pluche.
11. v.
12
mo.
1815 Catalogue, page 30. no. 3, as above.
[PLUCHE,
Noel Antoine]
Le Spectacle de la Nature, ou Entretiens sur les Particularités de l’Histoire Naturelle . . . Tome Premier [-Huitième],
Paris
1771--
Histoire du Ciel,
ib
1788. [
i.e. “1778”?--
Ed.]
