CHRISTIAN HUYGENS ' 83 



enjoyed, in respect of this idea also, the advantages of a 

 country in which, thanks to Luther's deeds, he had not 

 to fear the anger of the Pope. Newton, who shared this 

 advantage with him, showed by his success even more 

 clearly its importance for the progress of science. 



ISAAC NEWTON 

 1643-1727 



Not quite a year after Galileo's death, a weakly child was 

 born in the village of Woolsthorpe in East Anglia, whom it 

 was hardly hoped to rear, but who was destined to be the 

 author of one of the greatest revelations which mankind had 

 ever received from scientific investigation . Newton discovered 

 universal gravitation, the force which holds the heavenly 

 bodies together, guides earth, planets, and moon in their 

 paths, acting according to a fixed and highly simple law; 

 while it is also the force which causes a stone to fall to the 

 ground, or to describe its trajectory. Indeed, it acts between 

 all matter, earthly or heavenly, small or large. For the first 

 time therefore, the whole of the visible world appeared as 

 a single great unity; heaven and earth ceased to be opposed 

 to one another. Nevertheless, the Universe only became 

 more astonishing than ever before, when everything was 

 found to form a single whole, united by an all pervading 

 and uniformly acting force, to which all visible motion is 

 subjected, from our nearest surroundings on earth to the 

 whole solar system and likewise to the other more distant 

 suns, which revolve around one another. A new insight was 

 given to man, which once grasped, should have raised him 

 spiritually, and made him better and nobler. This great 

 increase of our knowledge concerning the nature of the world 

 in which, at first completely ignorant, we find ourselves, 



