516 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



period under review, were Wilhelm Jacob s'Gravesande 

 and Peter Van Musschenbroeck. To them is due the in- 

 troduction of experimental philosophy and the Newtonian 

 doctrines into the country, and the establishment of sys- 

 tematic study of these subjects in the University of L,eyden. 



s'Gravesande was rather a mathematician than a physi- 

 cist, and Van Musschenbroeck, 1 who was originally his 

 pupil and protege, became, under his guidance, a remark- 

 ably able teacher and experimentalist rather than an in- 

 vestigator. As an instructor, it may be said without 

 exaggeration, that kings vied with one another for the 

 possession of him. He held the chair of philosophy in the 

 University of Duisberg; then in that of Utrecht. From the 

 latter Denmark sought to entice him to Copenhagen, the 

 English king to Gottiugen, and the king of Spain vainly 

 offered the tempting salary of 20,000 florins per year. The 

 simple request of his native town proved more potent than 

 all these allurements, and he left Utrecht to succeed Wit- 

 tich as professor of philosophy in the L,eyden University, 

 where he remained for the rest of his life, adding to the 

 number of his multifarious physical treatises, and attract- 

 ing crowds of students from all over Europe, despite the 

 dazzling inducements to abandon his chosen field held out 

 by the king of Prussia and the empress of Russia. One 

 recognizes something characteristically Dutch in the solid- 

 ity of attainments and persistent fixity of purpose which 

 Van Musschenbroeck above all else possessed, just as some- 

 thing typically French is apparent in the dazzling abilities 

 and captivating style of the Abbe Nollet, whose celebrity 

 at that time, in France at least, even exceeded that of the 

 Leyden professor. 



Jean Antoine Nollet was an abbe of the ancien regime, 

 not even ordained a priest, but assuming a minor order, 

 and with it the ecclesiastical garb and name of abbe, as 

 many another brilliant man had done, not for the sake of 

 the vocation, but for social distinction and security of posi- 



1 Nouv. Biographic Generate, 37. 



