ON LIGHT. 3JI 



markable discovery which introduced the term POLARIZ- 

 ATION into optical language. " We find," says he, " that 

 light acquires properties which are relative only to the 

 sides of the ray which are the same for the north and 

 south sides of the ray" (/.<?., of a vertical ray), "using the 

 points of the compass for description's sake only, and 

 which are different when we go from the north and south 

 to the east and west sides of the ray." The polarization 

 of light has in fact been an integral part of the science of 

 optics (wanting only a name to designate it) ever since 

 this suggestion of Newton, who derived it from the con- 

 templation of one of what Bacon calls " instantiae luci- 

 ferse," luminiferous instances, exhibiting the property or 

 " nature searched after " " in an eminent manner," or in 

 its clearest or most manifest form ; and who described 

 with the utmost clearness and precision the phaenomenon 

 in which its manifestation consisted in the special case 

 before him.* We shall, therefore, approach the subject 

 from Newton's point of view, choosing for our illustration 

 the very phaenomenon which led him to the singular 

 conclusion embodied in his query. 



* The same phenomenon is described, and with no less clear- 

 ness and precision, by Huyghens, in his admirable work, "Traite* 

 de la lumiere," published in 1690, fourteen years before the Optics 

 of Newton and from that epoch, or from 1678, when that treatise 

 was communicated to the French Academy, must date the discovery 

 of the polarization of light as a fact. Huyghens, moreover, correctly 

 attributed it to a peculiarity impressed on the vibrations of the 

 ethereal medium. But the picturesque phrase of Newton embodies 

 the idea in a form easily apprehended, while it seems to have floated 

 rather vaguely before the mind of his great predecessor, not so much 

 as a general attribute, but us a specialty limited to the case in 

 question. 



