But excepting NEWTON and HUYGENS, the learned seemed universally to acquiesce in the justness and sufficiency of the principles of gunnery invented by GALILEO, enlarged by TORRICELLI, confirmed and reduced to system by ANDERSON, BLONDEL, HALLEY and others; and so far were the theorists, in that branch of science, from suspecting any defect or fallacy in these principles, that they seemed rather to reproach the practical artillerists, for not profiting more by the instructions which they had so liberally imparted to them. Nor do we find that an apology was made for the empirical exercise of the art, by any author of note in that line, earlier than the sixteenth year of this century, when M. de RESSONS, a French officer of artillery, distinguished by the number of sieges at which he had served, by his high military rank, and by his abilities in his profession; when he, I say, thus qualified to bear testimony, presented a _memoire_ to the Royal Academy (of which he was a member) importing, that _although it was agreed that theory joined to practice did constitute the perfection of every art, yet experience had taught him, that theory was of very little service in the use of mortars. That the work of M. BLONDEL had justly enough described the several parabolic lines, according to the different degrees of the elevation of the piece; but that practice had convinced him there was no theory in the effects of gun-powder: for that having endeavoured, with the greatest precision, to point a mortar agreeably to those calculations, he had never been able to establish any solid foundation upon them[19]._