156 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



not met with any great success, and the last word of 

 science on the subject is that the cause of gravitation 

 remains undiscovered. 



But if the attempt to trace the ultimate cause of 

 the law of gravitation has been a failure, the proof of 

 its operation in the physical universe has been a mar- 

 vellous success, and that not only in the present day, 

 when difficulties have been removed and fresh evidence 

 has been added, but, to a certain extent, even in 

 Newton's own time, and especially here in his own 

 country. Indeed, we cannot suppress a feeling of 

 admiration when we contemplate the revolution in 

 astronomy brought about by this quiet, unobtrusive 

 man, who is said to have spent thirty-five years of his 

 long life within the walls of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, of which he was a Fellow, and who, though 

 twice elected to represent the University in Parlia- 

 ment, never opened his lips in the House of Commons. 

 I may, perhaps, be here permitted to insert a passage 

 from a work to which I have previously alluded, 

 Whewell's fi History of the Inductive Sciences," 

 well worth quoting both for its eloquence and its 

 truth. After recountiDg, with some detail, the cir- 

 cumstances of this great epoch in astronomical know- 

 ledge, he proceeds : 



Such, then, is the great Newtonian induction of universal 

 gravitation, and such its history. It is indisputably and incom- 

 parably the greatest scientific discovery ever made, whether we 

 look at the advance which it involved, the extent of the truth dis- 

 closed, or the fundamental and satisfactory nature of this truth. 

 As to the first point, we may observe that any one of the five steps 



