. 



HALLEK, JOIIANN. 



HALLKY, KDMUND. 



- > 



whioh could throw any light on the action* oocorring in th* living 

 Uiy, be poinUd oat in numberless inUnc* what part of them was 

 to b* UnboUd to the Uwi of inorganic mailer and what to thoM 

 peculiar to th* (tat* of life, while li carefully avoided aduiiUing any 

 of th* former at sufficient by themselves to explain the whole of the 

 Utur. which had b*tn th* chief error of nearly all hi* predecessors, 

 lie rarely draw any ooucluaion respecting the mode of action of any 

 organ or part in the human body without previously investigating the 

 analogous function in the bodies of animal* by dissection or expert- 

 meat, trcH he tell u that he often found that queitiona to whiob no 

 ifllnienl answers could be obtained by observations on the human 

 body, were at once solved by hi* examinations in the various classes 

 of animals. Deeply read in all the work* of those who preceded him, 

 and in all those of his contemporaries in every nation, he did nut 

 atutsapi to decide anything till he had considered all their statements 

 and compared them with his own investigations ; and hence each of 

 hi* works contain* so perfect an epitome of the labours of all former I 

 writers on the same subject, and a mass of evidence so extensive, that 

 whatever error* the conclusions he sometimes arrived at may contain, 

 they can never fail to be records of the highest value. At the saino 

 time the elegant and lucid style in which they are written, the result 

 of th* combination, almost unique, of the poet with the anatomist, 

 bms rendered them attractive, notwithstanding their great extent, to 

 his successors in every country. 



llaller was fortunate in receiving the high honours which he 

 deserved during his life-time. In 1739 he was appointed physician to 

 the King of England. In 1743 he was elected a Fellow of the Itoyal 

 Society of London, and at different times subsequently of all the 

 scientific societies of Europe. When George II. visited Giittingen in 

 1748 he was ennobled by the emperor; he was invited by Frederick 

 the Great to settle in Berlin, with a handsome salary, to which no 

 duties were attached, and was offered a professorship at Oxford and 

 at Utrecht. He enjoyed throughout hU life the friendship and 

 esteem of th* most eminent of his contemporaries throughout Europe; 

 and, varied as his pursuit! were, he acquitted himself in all with the 

 highest honour and success. It would be impossible here to give a 

 complete list of his original writings and compilations ; few writers 

 have ever been so voluminous ; and it is extraordinary that, amidst all 

 his personal and laborious investigations, he should have had oppor- 

 tunity for the composition of so extensive a library as they alone 

 would form. A large portion were probably formed from the accu- 

 mulation of notes which he had made in following out hU system of 

 invariably recording everything which appeared to him worthy of 

 notice ; a plan which, commenced, as wo have seen, in childhood, he 

 continued without intermission to the last years of his life. The 

 following ore his principal works : 



His chief political production, ' Versuch Schweizerischer Oedichte,' 

 was published anonymously at Berne ; afterwards two more editions 

 of it were printed there, and four at Gottingen. Three editions of a 

 French translation were also published. From 1750 to 1760 be van 

 engaged in publishing, in 19 vola. 4to, a number of the moat select 

 disputations and theses in anatomy, surgery, and medicine; and 

 from 1757 to 1766 his ' Elementa Physiologuo Carports Huinani,' 

 undoubtedly the greatest work on medical science which the 18th 

 century produced. It contains every fact and every doctrine of 

 physiology at that time known, and is written in such a style of 

 elegance and classical beauty that it is still a model for writers on the 

 same subject. It appeared in 8 vols. 4to from 1757 to 1706, and u 

 posthumous 'Auctarium ' was published in 1782 in four -ito fasciculi. 

 From 1774 to the time of his death he was engaged in publishing part 

 of hi* ' Bibliothectc Anatomise, Chirurgiau, Mediciuco Practicae, Botaui- 

 em, et Histories NaturalU,' which form altogether 10 vols. 4 to, of which 

 the publication was completed posthumously. They are composed 

 principally of abstracts of the writings of all the most esteemed 

 authors on each subject, so as to form a complete history of the 

 doctrines of each science. His ' Icones Anatomical, ' which were 

 published from 1743 to 1756, contain most accurate and well-engraved 

 representations of the principal organs of the body, especially of tho 

 arteries. The greater part of his contributions to the various scientific 

 transactions, and of his shorter works, were collected in his ' Opera 

 Minor*,' in 3 vols. 4to, from 1762 to 1768. The most valuable of the 

 papers contained in them are those on the Development of the Chick, 

 on the Formation of the Heart and the Bones, on the Circulation, and 

 on the Eye. 



(l*u Ltbtn tit* Harm ton Halltr, von J. O. Ximmermann, 1 vol. 8vo, 

 1755; Senebier, Eloyt dt Holler, Geneva, 1778; Hiitoin de la M(dtcinc, 

 par K. Sprengel.) 



HALLEK, JOH ANN, a distinguished German sculptor, was born 

 at Innsbruck in 1792. lie studied in the Academy of Munich, and in 

 his third year obtained the prize in sculpture, for a statue of ' Theseus 

 raising the Hock to discover the Sandals of bis Father.' lie studied 

 *<imc time at llome, and on his return executed many works in 

 Munich for Ludwig of Bavaria, both whilst as prince and king ; the 

 principal of which are the model* of the sculptures for the pediment 

 of th* Ulyptothek, representing ' 1'ullas Ergnne' (Kpydrn, the 'worker'), 

 from a design by Wagner; the six colossal statues of the niches in the 

 front of the same building, namely, Heplucstus, Prometheus, Deodalus, 

 Phidias, Pericles, and Hadrian ; and the ' Caryatides ' of tho royal box 



of th* great theatre at Munich ; beside* a basto-rilievo in the interior 

 of th* Ulyptothek after a design by Cornelius, representing the ' Fall 

 of tha GianU ;' and many busts of eminent men, some of a oolotaal 

 sice. He executed the bust of William III. of England for the 

 Walhalls, He died in 1820, aged only thirty three. 



HALl.KY, EDMUND, wa* born October 21), 1656, at Haggerston, 

 near London, at a country-house belonging to his father, who was a 

 soap-boiler in Winchester-street, London. He was educated at St. 

 Paul's School, under the care of Dr. Uale, and was pUoed at Queen'* 

 College, Oxford, in 1673, being then possessed of much erudition for 

 his age, and a strong turn for observation, as appear* by his having 

 discovered for himself before he left school the alteration in the varia- 

 tion of the magneti-j nee lie. At the university, being well supplied 

 with instruments by his fat'aer, ho began to apply himself to astronomy, 

 and before he reached the age of twenty he had given (in the ' 1'lnl. 

 Trans.') a memoir on the problem of Kepler, had invented a method 

 of constructing the phases of a solar eclipse, and ha 1 made many 

 observations, particularly of Jupiter and Saturn, the results of which 

 wo shall presently see. Finding however that nothing could be done 

 in planetary astronomy without more correct tables of the stars, and 

 relying upon FUaistead and llevelius for the amelioration of the 

 northern catalogues, he determine 1, with his father's consent and 

 assistance, to appropriate to himself the task of foraiing a catalogue 

 of the southern hemisphere. Furnished with a recommendation from 

 Charles II. to the East India Company, he set sail for St. Heleua in 

 November 1673, and remained there two years. His ' Catologus Stel- 

 laruui Austnilium,' published in 1679, was the result of this % voyage, 

 and contains, besides the positions of 350 stars, some other points of 

 interest, particularly an observation of the transit of Mercury over the 

 sun's disc, and a hint that such observations might be employed to 

 determine the sun's parallax (afterwords so successfully carried into 

 effect with the planet Venus). He also notices the increased curvature 

 of the moon's orbit when in quadratures, which was afterwards ex- 

 plained by Newton. In his voyage out he had observed the fact that 

 the oscillations of a pendulum increase in duration ai the instrument 

 approaches the equator. 



At his return from St. Helena the king granted him a mandamus to 

 the University of Oxford for the degree of Master of Arts, and hu w*a 

 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. This body sent him to Danzig 

 in 1679 to judge of the observations of Hevelius, who maintained the 

 superior accuracy of instruments with simple eights, in opposition to 

 Hook, who advocated the use of the telescope. Halley was a man of 

 rapid movements : in November 1678 he returned from St. Heleua ; 

 in May 1679 he set out for Danzig, having in the interval published 

 his catalogue, and procured his Oxford degree, and admission to the 

 lioyal Society. He returned from Danzig in July, and remained at 

 home till the end of 1630, at which time he set out on a continental 

 tour, accompanied by his schoolfellow Mr. Nelson, since well known 

 as the author of a work on the Feasts and Fasts. In December, bciug 

 on the road to Paris, he saw the celebrated comet of 1680 in it* return 

 from perihelion, being the first who perceived it since it was lost iu 

 the preceding month. This body he observed with Cossini at Paris, 

 and the observations thus mode are remarkable as forming part of the 

 foundation upon which Newton, in the ' Principm,' verified his deduc- 

 tion of a comet's orbit from the theory of gravitation. He returned to 

 England at tho end of 1031, and in 1082 married the daughter of Mr. 

 Tooke, auditor of the Exchequer, with whom he lived fifty-five years. 

 He resided at Islington till 1696, and in 16S3 published his tiieory of 

 j the Variation of the Magnet, followed by other papers iu subsequent 

 years, containing ingenious speculations, now forgotten. His astro- 

 nomical occupations during this period consisted chiefly of lunar 

 observations and comparisons. He was strongly of opinion that the 

 moon would, when sufficiently known, furnish the means of finding 

 the longitude, and at this period it seems that he had formed the idea 

 of observing that body through a whole revolution of the nodes. His 

 observations (1682-84) are published in Street's ' Astronomia Carolina,' 

 He was interrupted however by the state of his father's affairs, which 

 1 had suffjrcd by the great fire. 



Among other objects of speculation he had considered the law of 

 attraction, which he imagined must be as the inverse square of tho 

 distance. Having applied in vain to Hook and Wren for assistance in 

 the mathematical part of the problem (himself being more of a mathe- 

 matician than cither), he heard of Newton, and paid him a visit at 

 Cambridge. Finding all he wanted among the papers of his new friend, 

 he never rested until he bad persuaded Newton to publish the ' Prin- 

 oipia,' of which he superintended the printing, and supplied the well- 

 known copy of Latin verses which stand at the beginning. In 1691 

 he was a candidate for the Savilian professorship, which he lost, 

 according to Winston, on account of his avowed unbelief of the bible. 

 This rests on the authority of Whiston, and of an anecdote to be found 

 in Sir David Brewster's Life of Newton ; and yet it is certain that he 

 afterwards was appointed to the same professorship, and as he then 

 odtiined the degree of Doctor of Law, which required no sui 

 tiou to articles, it may bo presumed his opinions, if known, were not 

 considered to be a disqualification. Flamstec J, if wo remember rightly, 

 speaks of bis opinions on this matter as things of common notoriety. 

 In 1696 he was appointed comptroller of the mint at Chester, where 

 he resided two yean. 



