We are happier in the Uſes for which the Air and Water ſerves us; both of which helps us in our Navigation, and furniſhes us with a Strength ſufficient, without any Labour of our own, to turn round our Mills and Engines; Things which are of uſe to us in ſo many different Employments. For with them we grind our Corn, and ſqueeze out our Oil; with them we cut Wood, and mill Cloth, and with them we beat our Stuff for Paper. An incomparable Invention! Where the naſtieſt uſeleſs Scraps of Linen are made to produce fine white Sheets. To theſe we may add the late diſcovery of Printing, which not only preſerves from Death Arts and Knowledge, but makes them much eaſier to be attained than before. Nor muſt we forget the Arts of Engraving and Painting, which from mean Beginnings have improved to that Excellence, that nothing that ever ſprung from the Wit of Man can claim Pre-eminence to them. Nor is the way of melting and blowing Glaſſes, and of poliſhing and ſpreading Quick-ſilver over Looking-Glaſſes, unworthy of being mentioned, nor above all, the admirable uſes that Glaſſes have been put to in natural Knowledge, ſince the Invention of the Teleſcope and Microſcope. And no leſs nice and fine is the Art of making Clocks, ſome of which are ſo ſmall as to be no weight to the Bearer; and others ſo exact as to meaſure out the Time in as ſmall Portions as any one can deſire: the Improvement of both which the World owes to my [1]Inventions. [From the diſcoveries of our Age.] I might add much here of the late Diſcoveries, moſt of them of this Age, which have been made in all ſorts of Natural Knowledge as well as in Geometry and Aſtronomy, as of the Weight and Spring of the Air, of the Chymical Experiments that have ſhown us a way of making Liquors that ſhall ſhine in the Dark, and with gentle moving ſhall burn of themſelves. I might mention the Circulation of the Blood through the Veins and Arteries, which was underſtood indeed before; but now, by the help of the Microſcope, has an ocular demonſtration in the Tails of ſome Fiſhes: of the Generation of Animals, which now is found to be performed no otherwiſe than by the Seed of one of the ſame kind; and that in the Seed of the Male are diſcover’d, by the help of Glaſſes, Millions of ſprightly little Animals, which it’s probable are the very Offspring of the Animals themſelves: a ſurpriſing thing, and never before now known! [The Planets have, tho’ not theſe ſame, yet as uſeful Inventions.]