106 The Life of William, Duke of Newcastle 



in such arts and exercises as were proper and fit for a person 

 of quality. 



9. His Natural Wit and Understanding 



Although my Lord has not so much of scholarship and 

 learning as his brother Sir Charles Cavendish had, yet he 

 hath an excellent natural wit and judgment, and dives into 

 the bottom of everything ; as it is evidently apparent in the 

 forementioned art of horsemanship and weapons, which by 

 his own ingenuity he has reformed and brought to such per- 

 fection, as never any one has done heretofore. And though 

 he is no mathematician by art, yet he hath a very good mathe- 

 matical brain, to demonstrate truth by natural reason, and 

 is both a good natural and moral philosopher, not by reading 

 philosophical books, but by his own natural understand- 

 ing and observation, by which he hath found out many 

 truths. 



To pass by several other instances, I'll but mention, that 

 when my Lord was at Paris, in his exile, it happened one 

 time, that he discoursing with some of his friends, amongst 

 whom was also that learned philosopher Hobbes 1 , they began, 

 amongst the rest, to argue upon this subject, namely, Whether 

 it were possible to make man by art fly as birds do ; and 

 when some of the company had delivered their opinion, viz. 

 That they thought it probable to be done by the help of arti- 

 ficial wings ; my Lord declared, that he deemed it altogether 

 impossible, and demonstrated it by this following reason. 

 Man's arms, said he, are not set on his shoulders in the same 

 manner as bird's wings are ; for that part of the arm which 

 joins to the shoulder is in man placed inward, as towards 

 the breast, but in birds outward, as towafd the back ; which 

 difference and contrary position or shape hinders that man 

 cannot have the same flying action with his arms, as birds 



1 ' I have heard Mr. Edmund Waller say that W. Lord Marquis of Newcastle was 

 a great patron to Dr. Gassendi, and M. Des Cartes, as well as to Mr. Hobbes, and that 

 he hath dined with them all three at the Marquis's table, at Paris.' — Aubrey's Letters, 

 iii, 602. I have not succeeded in finding these arguments which the Duchess mentions 

 in the following pages, in the Leviathan. Hobbes, however, acknowledges Newcastle's 

 patronage by several dedications to him, viz. the dedication of his Liberty and Necessity 

 and that of his Elements of Law. He also wrote for Newcastle's benefit a paper of ' Con- 

 siderations touching the Facility or Difficulty of the Motions of a Horse on straight 

 ines and circular,' which is printed in Mr. Strong's Catalogue of the Letters and other 

 Historical Documents exhibited in the Library at Welbeck, p. 237. 



