The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-25 00:00:00

been made to the law of gravitation, and the dynamical
system of the universe. Gehleo's important propositions
on motion, especially on curvilinear motion, anti Kepler's
laws upon the elliptical form of the planetary orbits, the
proportion of the areas to the times, and of the periodic
times to. the mean distances ; and Huygens's theorems
on centrifugal forces had been followed by still nearer
approaches to the doctrine of attraction. Borelli had
distinctly ascribed the motion of satellites to their being
drawn towards the principal planets, and thus prevented
from flying off by the centrifugal force. Even the com-
position of white light, and the different action of bodies
upon its component parts, had been vaguely conjectured
by Ant. tle Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, at the be-
ginning, and more precisely in the middle of the seven-
teenth century by Marcus ( Kronland, of Prague), un-
known to Newton, who only refers to the archbishop's
work; while the treatise of Huygens on light, Grimaldi's
observations on colours by inflexion, as well as on the
elongation of the image in the prismatic spectrum, had been
brought to his attention, although much less near to his
own great discovery than Marcus's experiment. But all
this only shows that the diTcoveries of Newton, great and
rapid as were the steps by which they advanced
our knowledge, yet obeyed the law of continuity,
or rather of gradual progress, which governs all
human approaches towards perfection. The limited nature
of man's faculties precludes the possibility of his ever
reaching at once the utmost excellence of which they are
capable. Survey the whole elide of the sciences, and trace
the history of progress in each, you find this to be the
universal rule. The grand difference, then, between one
discovery or invention and another is in degree rather
than in kind; the degree in which a person, while he out-
strips those whom he comes after, also lives, as it were,
before his age. Nor can any doubt exist that, in this
respect, Newton stands at the head of all who have ex-
tended the bounds of knowledge. The sciences of dyna-
mics and of optics are especially to be regarded in this
point of view; hut the former in particular; and the
completeness of the system which he unfolded, its having
been at the first elaborated and given in perfection, its
having, however new, stood the test of time, and survived,
nay gained by, the most rigorous scrutiny, can be predi-
cated of this system alone, at least in the same degree.
That the calculus, and those parts of dynamics which are
purely mathematical, should thus endure for ever is a
matter of course. But his system of the universe rests
partly upon contingent truths, and might have yielded to
new experiments and more extended observation. Nay,
at times it has been thought to fail, and further investi-
gation was deemed requisite to ascertain if any error
had been introduced—if any circumstance had escaped
the notice of the great founder. The most memo-
rable instance of this kind is the discrepancy
supposed to have been found between the theory and the
fact in the motion of the lunar apsides, which about the
middle of the last century occupied the three first analyst
of the age. The error was discovered by themselves to
have been their own iii the process of their investiga-
tion ; and this, like all the other doubts that were ever
momentarily entertained, only led in each instance to
new and more brilliant triumphs of the system. The
prodigious superiority in this cardinal point of the
Newtonian to other discoveries appears manifest upon
examining almost any of the chapters in the history of
science. But the most marvellous attribute of Newton's
discoveries is that in which they stand out prominent
among all the other feats of scientific research, stamped
with the peculiarity of his intellectual character ; they
were, their great author lived before his age, antici-
pating in part what was long after wholly accomplished,
and thus unfolding some things which at the time could
be put imperfectly, others not at all comprehended, and
not rarely pointing out the path and affording the means
of treading it, to the ascertainment of truths then veiled
in darkness. He not only enlarged the actual dominion
of knowledge, penetrating to regions never before ex-
plored, and taking with a firm hand undisputed posses-
sion, but he showed how the bounds of the visible
horizon might be yet further extended, and enabled his
successors to occupy what he could only descry; as the
illustrious discoverer of the new world made the inha-
bitants of the old cast their eyes over lands and seas
far distant from those he had traversed—lands and seas
of which they could form to themselves no conception,
any more than they hail been able to comprehend the
course by which he led them on his grand enterprize.
In this achievement, and in the qualities which alone
made it possible, inexhaustible fertility of resources,
patience unsubdued, close meditation that would suffer
no distraction, steady determination to pursue paths
that seemed all but hopeless, and unflinching courage to
declare the truths they led to, how far soever removed
from ordinary apprehension—in these characteristics of
high and original genius we may be permitted to com-
pare the career of those great men. lint the contem-
plation of Newton's discoveries raises other feelings than
wonder at his matchless genius. The light with which
it shines is not more dazzling than neon!. The diffi-
culties of his course and his expedients, alike copious
and refined for surmounting them, exercise the faculties
of the wise while commanding their admiration. But
the results of his investigations, often abstruse, are
truths so grand and comprehensive, yet so plain, that
they both captivate and instruct the simple. The grati-
tude, too, which they inspire, and the veneration with
which they encircle his name, far from tending to obstruct
future improvement, only proclaim his disciples the
zealous because rational followers of one whose example
both encouraged and enabled his successors to make fur-
ther progress. How unlike the blind devotion to a master
which for so many ages of the modern world paralyzed the
energies of the human mind :
Had ws still paid that homage to a name
Which only God and Nature justly claim,