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ROBERT HOOKE. 427 



time who labor to the same end is the more difficult prob- 

 em. True, the reward rightfully belongs to him who ad- 

 vances to the goal, and not to the finger-posts which stand 

 still, though pointing the way; that it is the last step 

 which counts, and should count, if it happens to carry one 

 over the border of the promised land. But, on the other 

 hand, the steep path of discovery is never occupied only 

 by finger-posts and a single inspired wayfarer continually 

 shouting "Excelsior." It is always a ladder crowded with 

 a struggling throng, sometimes pushing, sometimes carry- 

 ing one another upward; and the prize is often grasped by 

 the fortunate climber who, from the vantage of other men's 

 shoulders, first perceives it to be within his reach. For 

 each "mute inglorious Milton " the world has held scores 

 of mute inglorious Gilberts and Galileos, with the differ- 

 ence that the unsung songs never helped to the singing of 

 those that were sung, while the stooping backs of such 

 lifelong plodders as penurious, embittered, disease-racked 

 Robert Hooke 1 have over and over again made sturdy 

 treads upon which others of far less merit have scrambled 

 upward to fame and fortune. 



I know of no prototype for Hooke, unless it be Leonardo 

 da Vinci, and the similarity here exists only in the re- 

 markable fecundity of invention which each displayed, 

 due regard being had to the differences in the epochs in 

 which they lived. Hooke illustrates the dictum of Froude 

 as perfectly as Isaac Newton does that of Emerson. To 

 Hooke no one would concede inspiration; to Newton few 

 would deny it. Hooke was the natural complement of 

 yle. Matters ethical concerned him not at all; of spirit- 

 lality he had none, and deductive reasoning had little 

 place in his mind; but he devised and made the air-pump 

 with which Boyle discovered his law. He began to con- 



1 See Waller: The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke. London, 

 1705. Durham: Phil. Bxp'ts. and Obs'ns. of the late Dr. R. Hooke. Lon- 

 don, 1726. Bib. Britaunica, article, Hooke. Also Hooke's papers in 

 'nil. Trans. 



