Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/219

 Authority to condemn the most unlikely Things for impossible; unless they have been often attempted in vain, by many Eyes, many Hands, many Instruments, and many Ages.

This is the Assistance and Information they have given to others to provoke them to enquire, and to order and regulate their Inquisitions. To these I will add the Relations of the Effects of Nature and Art, which have been communicated to them. These are infinite in Number: And though many of them have not a sufficient Confirmation to raise Theories, or Histories on their Infallibility; yet they bring with them a good Assurance of Likelihood, by the Integrity of the Relators; and withal they furnish a judicious Reader with admirable Hints to direct his Observations. For I will once more affirm, that as the Minds of Men do often mistake Falshoods for Truths, though they are ever so circumspect; so they are often drawn by uncertain, and sometimes erroneous Reports, to stumble on Truths and Realities. Of this vast Heap of Relations, which is every where scattered in their Entry Books, will only take notice of these occasional Accounts.

Relations of two new Kinds of Stars, observed in the Year sixty six, the one in Andromeda, the other in Cygnus, in the same Place where they appeared sixty Years since, and have ever since disappear'd; of several Observations of Cœlestial Bodies made in Spain; of Observations of several of the Planets made at Rome, and in other Parts, by extraordinary Glasses; of the comparative Goodness of Glasses us'd in other Countries; of several Eclipses observ'd in diverse Parts of the World.

Relations of Parhelii, and other such Appearances Rh