112 



PATRIOTISM VERSUS SCIENCE. 



teachers originated a controversy which lasted for upwards 

 of fifty years. The Academy of Sciences of Paris pro- 

 nounced, not unnaturally, in favour of the opinion of their 

 colleague, though it was far from having the authority of 



FIG. 26. Sir Isaac Newton. 



Dominique Cassini, father of Jacques, and, still less, that 

 of the illustrious President of the Royal Society of London. 

 But patriotic ardour supplemented the weakness of their 

 arguments. The flattened spheroid and Newton's law were 

 rejected by France, because they were an English inven- 

 tion. Undoubtedly, no one openly acknowledged so paltry 



