NOTES. CX1X. 



(K* 5 ) p. 329. See Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 35 and 48; English translation, 

 Vol. i. p. 37, Note 16. 



(S 06 ) p. 329. Sir David Brewster, in Berghaus and Johnson's Physical 

 Atlas, 1847. Part vii. p. 5 (Polarisation of the Atmosphere). 



(^T) p. 329. On Grimaldi's and Hooke's attempt to explain the polari- 

 sation (?) of soap-bubbles by the interference of the rays of light, see Arago, 

 in the Annuaire for 1831, p. 164 (Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 53). 



(5 08 ) p. 330. Brewster, Life of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 17. The year 

 1660 has been assumed for the date of the invention of the method of fluxions, 

 which, according to the official explanations of the Committee of the Royal 

 Society of London, April 24, 1712, is "one and the same with the differen- 

 tial method, excepting the name and mode of notation." For the whole, 

 unhappy contest with Leibnitz on the subject of priority, in which, extra- 

 ordinary to say, accusations against Newton's veracity were even interspersed, 

 see Brewster, pp. 189 218. That all colours are contained in white light 

 was already maintained by De la Chambre, in his work entitled " La Lumiere" 

 (Paris, 1657), and by Isaac Vossius, who was afterwards a Canon at Windsor, 

 in a remarkable memoir, entitled " De Lucis natura et proprietate" (Amstelod. 

 1662), for the communication of which I was indebted two years ago to M. 

 Arago, at Paris. This memoir is treated of by Brandes in the new edition of 

 Gehler's physikalischen Worterbuch, Bd. iv. (1827), S. 43, and very circum- 

 stantially by Wilde, in his Gesch. der Optik, Th. i. (1838), S. 223, 228, and 

 317). Isaac Vossius, however, regarded sulphur, which forms, according to 

 him, a component part of all bodies, as the fundamental substance of all 

 colours (cap. 25, p. 60). In Vossii Responsum ad objecta Joh. de Bruyn, 

 Professoris Trajectini, et Petri Petiti, 1663, it is said, p. 69 Nee lumen 

 ullum est absque calore, nee calor ullus absque lumine. Lux, sonus, anima (!) 

 odor, vis magnetica, quamvis incorporea, sunt tamen aliquid (De Lucis Nat. 

 cap. 13, p. 29). 



(5 09 ) p. 331. Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 427 and 429, Bd. ii. S. 482, Anm. 92, 

 Engl. trans. Vol. i. Notes 141 and 144, Vol. ii. Note 432. 



( 51 ) p. 331. Lord Bacon, whose comprehensive and, generally speaking, 

 free and methodical views were unfortunately accompanied by very limited 

 mathematical and physical knowledge, even for the period at which he lived, 

 therefore did Gilbert the greater injustice. "Bacon showed his inferior 

 aptitude for physical research in rejecting the Copernican doctrine which 

 William Gilbert adopted (Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 

 Vol. ii. p. 378.) 



