Transcriber Note Text emphasis denoted as _Italics_. [Illustration: FONTENELLE.] CONVERSATIONS ON THE _PLURALITY OF WORLDS_. ══════════════ BY BERNARD DE FONTENELLE, One of the Forty belonging to the French Academy; and Secretary to the Academy of Sciences. ══════════════ WITH NOTES, AND A CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS, BY _JEROME DE LA LANDE_, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF THE OBSERVATORY AT PARIS. ══════════════ Translated from a late Paris Edition, by MISS ELIZABETH GUNNING. ══════════════ London: PRINTED BY J. CUNDEE, IVY-LANE; SOLD BY T. HURST, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1803. CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF THE _Life and Writings of the Author_, BY JEROME DE LA LANDE. ══════════════ Whenever I have entered into conversation with any sensible woman on astronomy, I have always found that she had read Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds; and that his book had excited her curiosity on the subject. As it has been so much read already, it must continue to engage attention: I therefore thought it would be useful to point out its faults; to add some observations, without which the reader would be led into error with respect to the vortices; to make known the late discoveries; and to shew what numbers, before our author, had written on the plurality of worlds. But I have made no alterations in the text; the reputation of Fontenelle renders him respectable, even in his mistakes. The Astronomy for Ladies, which I have published as a substitute for this book, would be more instructive, but less amusing; therefore, as it will be but little read, I shall endeavour to supply the defects of Fontenelle's work, by adding to the original some ideas more exact than his own. M. Codrika has translated it into Greek, with explanations taken from my Astronomy. M. Bode has translated it into German; and his translation has already gone through three editions: the last is that of 1798, Berlin, in octavo, Bernard de Fontenelle, _Dialogen ueber die Mehrheit der Welten_.