42 



means, and the poem which Halley prefixed concluded : " Nee 

 fas est mortalibus propius attingere divos." (It is not lawful for 

 mortals to approach the gods more nearly.) 



" What progress has been made since Newton's time in our 

 knowledge of the universe ? ' ' asked Mr. Davey. He answered 

 by pointing out the development of the infinitesimal calculus by 

 continental workers and the discovery of the difierential equa- 

 tions of gravitational attraction. Except for this, and attempts 

 to solve such equations, absolutely no discovery in gravitation 

 had been made since Newton's time. The difficulty of com- 

 puting the mutual attractions of three gravitating bodies is 

 not yet absolutely overcome. If we had observations upon 

 multiple stars, the problem would have to be faced in all 

 its rigour. The principal need for advances in mathematics at 

 present seems to be further progi-ess in the solution of 

 differential equations ; but probably an entirely new branch of 

 analysis will have to be invented before this advance was of 

 definite advantage. So thorough and complete is Newton's 

 work. 



In a concluding summary, Mr. Davey said that the rise of 

 modern Science in the 16th century was considerably impeded 

 by false views of what was desirable to study ; that, as far as 

 the generality of thinkers was concerned, the nobility of natural 

 Science was first made known by the writings of Francis Bacon, 

 the Lord Chancellor, Court favourite, and Statesman who thought 

 it not undignified to experiment, nay, even that the study of 

 natural Science was the most important of secular emplojTnents. 

 After his death, and during the political turmoil, Englishman 

 after Englishman turned to the path whither Bacon had pointed, 

 and finally the novel materials, quickly accumulated, were em- 

 ployed by a man of the highest genius, whose originality, in the 

 words of his greatest successor, Laplace, "will assure to the 

 Principia a pre-eminence above all the other productions of the 

 human intellect," 



