DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

any other auspices than yours. Having drawn from your Memoirs The Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, the Academy's official annual records of scientific discoveries and papers., GENTLEMEN, the knowledge that has served as my guide, how satisfied I would be if I dared to flatter myself with having applied your thoughts successfully enough to the perfection of Hydraulic Architecture Hydraulic Architecture: The 18th-century term for civil engineering related to water, including the design of canals, pumps, bridges, and maritime defenses., so that you might still find them worthy of not being disowned! For how could one imitate you in the manner in which you treat the subjects of which you speak? Are they of such sublimity as to appear beyond the human mind? You reach them without losing your way; you strip them of what is abstract, to make them tangible, through ideas that are simple and pleasing. Must one descend to others that are less attractive? You give them relief: it is enough that they interest Society to become the object of your research; your ambition is to instruct, and not to make yourselves admired: enemies of all ostentation, you avoid chasing after a false glory, and this conduct ensures you the only true glory capable of touching you.

It is through such pure sentiments that you give, GENTLEMEN, brilliance to your productions: and could they fail to have it? They which announce to the whole Universe that Physics In the 1700s, "Physics" (Physique) referred generally to natural philosophy and the study of the laws of nature, rather than the narrower modern definition. which was previously presented only as a web of poor conjectures, has been brought, by your care, to Experi- The text breaks mid-word at the bottom of the page; the missing portion is "ences" (Experiences/Experiments).