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272 [Doc. 66 .
SWEDENBORG’S CORRESPONDENCE.
fully observed, if you wish to gain all the effect which
an ordinary and a scarce supply of water may produce,’ still the
size of the wheel, the direction and shape of the buckets and
several other things, differ in a wheel for a saw -mill, a forge,
for driving bellows, for a flour-mill, for fountains and water
works, so that there is scarcely any work whatever, which
does not require special properties. One works best when it
turns round rapidly, as the wheel in a saw-mill, another when
it goes less quickly and strongly, as in a forge, etc.; and as
all this requires a longer description than can be given in the
usual way at once, it would therefore be best to take up the
qualities and properties of each kind of work separately,
although they may first be treated in a general way together.
And as we have now begun to treat of the resistance of
mediums, it would not seem out of the way, to treat of the
uses which flow from it, as, for instance, the computations for
fire-engines, for water jets and artificial fountains in parks,
and also for bomb-shells, cannon -balls, etc.; all of which have
their mathematical rules which square with practice, so that
every one may see the connection between them, and may
be convinced that every thing is just as it is determined by
the resistance of mediums.
In fine, if the learned wish to have real satisfaction and
honour from that which they teach others, they ought to have
a better understanding of many things that are now taught;
for nature is in many things quite differently constituted, than
is thought by Descartes and almost all his followers; and this
can scarcely be taught better than by daily experience in
mechanics, and an investigation into its principles; and al
though what I have gained there is extremely little in com
parison with what still remains to be done, I nevertheless
hope that my principles may pave the way for the rest. For
I never approve of anything which does not apply to all
cases and all consequences flowing from it, and whenever
there is one single thing opposed to it, I hold its funda
mental principle to be false. Moreover, it would be no
small honour for the learned mathematicians, if they could
point out what their principle and most intricate figures are
good for in practice, especially the geometrical curves, etc.;
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