An Essay to Shew the Cause of Electricity

I hope what I have written on this Subject will not call on me, from the thinking Part of Mankind, any undue Reflection: I have nevertheless met with such an unmannerly Abuse from a Country Show-man, who published some Experiments, and owns he added the Preface to it, in order to write what I am sure no Gentleman would have written – If this Person be poor, and did it for Gain, I heartily pity him. He owns he was much affrighted, when he heard of my publishing this Piece, because of the hard Fate, he says, of his Booksellers; but, before he had read Two Pages, he likewise owns he recovered his Spirits, when he found I pretended to think for myself, and did not let Sir Isaac Newton think for me, after he had been so long dead. I am well satisfy’d, had that Great Man been living, and had seen these electrical Experiments, he would not have bow’d low to this great Philosopher, for thus supporting his Character. His doing this would be as ridiculous as to see a Pygmy attempt to carry a Giant. I believe there are more Answers to Books written to pay a Landlady, or an Alehouse-Score, than from any other Cause; especially, if they think they answer one whose Character will call it into the World. – I know nothing of my Adversary’s Finances; but how rich soever he may have made himself by his Show, he seems to have the Blessing of never being liable to the Headach from his Thinking too intensely.

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