Transcriber's Notes
1.Typographical Errors have been silently corrected.
2.Variations of spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.
3.The "cover-page" is developed and placed in the public-domain by the Transcriber.
The table of contents has been added by the transcriber.
S. Gosnell, Printer, Little Queen Street, London.
OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
Automaton
CHESS PLAYER,
NOW EXHIBITED IN LONDON,
AT
4, SPRING GARDENS.
BY AN OXFORD GRADUATE.
——ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat.—Hor.
London:
PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD,
NO. 190, OPPOSITE ALBANY, PICCADILLY;
AND SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS.
1819.
Price One Shilling.
Table of Contents
The science of mechanics is one of those in which the ingenuity ofmodern artists appears with superior advantage. The ancients, with thesingle exception of Archimedes, had but an imperfect knowledge of themysteries of this science, as their attempts in the construction ofinstruments for marking time, and of the organ, sufficiently prove.This inferiority may be accounted for upon the principle, that thehighest discoveries in mechanics do not depend upon the capacity,[Pg 6]however enlarged, of any individual, but upon the successivediscoveries of many individuals, during ages, combined at length, bysome powerful genius, and directed to the completion of one greatobject. Hence it was reserved to modern times, to witness the inventionof those exquisite and grand combinations of mechanism, which aredisplayed in the numerous kinds of watch and clock work, and in thehigher order of wind instruments, in their several varieties: and hencethe present age has produced the most finished pieces of mechanicalscience, in the Flute-player of Monsieur de Vaucanson, the Trumpeter ofMaelzel[1],the Panharmonicon of Mr.Gurk, and the Apollonicon of our celebrated native mechanicians,[Pg 7]Messrs. Flight and Robson[2].Notwithstanding, however, the superior ingenuity of modernartists, in mechanics, which these scientific inventions discover, itseems to be a thing absolutely impossible, that any piece of mechanismshould be invented, which, possessing perfect mechanical motion, shouldappear to exert the intelligence of a reasoning agent. This seemingimpossibility is surmounted in the construction of the Automaton ChessPlayer. The