BEGINNINGS OF MODERN NATURAL SCIENCE 229 



He even extended this idea to the heavenly bodies, with an ani- 

 mistic tendency. Gilbert is also reputed to have done important 

 work in chemistry, but none of this has survived. 



His work is one of the finest examples of inductive philosophy that 

 has ever been presented to the world. It is the more remarkable 

 because it preceded the Novum Organum of Bacon, in which the 

 inductive method of philosophizing was first explained. - - Thomas 

 Thomson. 



The most prolific writer on natural philosophy and physical 

 science of the sixteenth century was G. della Porta (1543-1615), 

 a native of Naples and a resident of Rome, founder of an early 

 scientific academy there, and afterwards of the famous Accademia 

 del Lincei of Rome. His writings are voluminous and in many 

 books, of which we need mention here only his Magia Naturalis, 

 (1569), De Refractione (1593), Pneumatica (1691), De Distilla- 

 tione (1604), De Munitions (1608) and De Aeris Transmutationi- 

 bus (1609). 



In his Natural Magic, della Porta is the first to describe a 

 camera obscura, besides touching on many interesting properties 

 of lenses, and referring to spectacles, some forms of which had 

 long been known. His work On Refraction deals largely with 

 binocular vision, and is a criticism of the work of Euclid and 

 Galen on that subject. The author hints also at a crude tele- 

 scope, and may have known some form of stereoscope. Della 

 Porta's compositions range all the way from natural magic to 

 Italian comedies, and entitle him to high rank as a tireless and 

 original, if not especially fruitful, thinker and worker. 



REFERENCES FOR READING 



BERRY. History of Astronomy. Chapters IV-VII. 



BREWSTER. Martyrs of Science. 



DREYER. Tycho Brake; Planetary Systems. Chapters XII-XVI. 



FAHIE. Life of Galileo. 



GILBERT. On the Magnet. 



LOCY. Biology and its Makers. 



LODGE. Pioneers of Science, 



