THE GENESIS OF THE LAW OF GRAVITY 327 



announced to an astonished public. Some of the discoveries, such as 

 those relating to Saturn and Venus, were of such an astonishing and 

 revolutionary nature that Galileo first published them in the form of 

 anagrams. The one announcing the phases of Venus, when deciphered, 

 reads as follows : " Cynthiae Figuras ^mulatur Mater Amonun." 

 Freely translated : " Venus emulates the phases of the moon.'' The 

 immediate result of Galileo's brilliant work was to convince all un- 

 biased minds of the truth and to array the church in solid phalanx 

 against both him and his system. Of Galileo personally we have not 

 time to speak — suffice it to say that he was made to suffer most cruelly 

 for his beliefs. 



In the year he died (1642) was bom — on Christmas Day — the man 



who was destined to establish forever the truths for which so many had 

 toiled and suffered before him. 



We have tried to follow one of the lines of succession leading up to 

 Xewton, giving, as it were, his pedigree upon the side of astronomy. It 

 is a noble line: Pythagoras, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Co- 

 pernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, with many lesser names unmentioned. 

 There is another line of succession to be traced, and to this I invite 

 your attention for a brief moment — for I have kept you all too long 

 from the main theme of the paper. 



In the study of mechanics as in the study of astronomy we must 

 begin with the Greeks. Thus, we find Aristotle attempting to teach 

 the law of falling bodies, and also giving the reason why heavy bodies 



