Dear Sir,

Your kind Letter of Sept. 27. came to hand but very lately, the Bearer having staid long in Holland.

I always rejoice to hear of your being still employ'd in Experimental Researches into Nature, and of the Success you meet with. The rapid Progress true Science now makes, occasions my Regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried in a 1000 Years the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity and give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labour and double its Produce. All Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a Way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity.——

I am glad my little Paper on the Aurora Borealis pleas'd. If it should occasion farther Enquiry, and so produce a better Hypothesis, it will not be wholly useless——

I am ever, with the greatest & most sincere Esteem, Dear Sir, Yours very affectionately

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I have considered the Situation of that Person very attentively; I think that with a little help from the Moral Algebra, he might form a better Judgment than any other Person can form for him.