122 SECTION PHYSICS. 



measure, in the enjoyment, let us hope, of the Divine Essence, the in- 

 comprehensible moments of eternity." 



I think it is useless to occupy your time in further comments ; the 

 facts and evidence are clear, and you have moreover before your eyes 

 the design for the application of the pendulum to clocks. You must 

 not be surprised therefore if, without wishing to quarrel with the 

 Dutch, fully recognising as I do Huygens's merits, I maintain and hope 

 that all impartial thinkers will agree with me that Galileo must be 

 considered the inventor of the system for the application of the pen- 

 dulum for regulating the time of clocks, as he was likewise the author 

 of many other useful discoveries. 



And who knows how many others might not have sprung from that 

 energetic and fruitful mind had his more mature years been less 

 oppressed by bodily and mental cares, had the war carried on against 

 him by the ignorant been less implacable ? 



He expired in the arms of his friends, Torricelli and Viviani, and 

 returned immortalized in God that gigantic intelligence that had ani- 

 mated him. .Let us venerate in him the father of modern philosophy, 

 the leader of true progress, the redeemer of science. 



In the meantime the number of the followers of his doctrines went 

 on increasing every day. In Pisa, Castelli who had been called to 

 Rome by Urban VIII., while Galileo was yet living there was suc- 

 ceeded by Niccolo Aggiunti del Borgo San Sepolcro, a man distin- 

 guished in geometry and physical science. To him are due many 

 important observations on the resistance encountered by the pendulum 

 moving in various liquids or in the air ; and the discovery of the 

 ascent of liquids in capillary tubes, which was applied by him to 

 explain various phenomena, such as the ascent of chyle in the milky 

 veins, the nutriment of plants, the preservation of flowers in moisture, 

 the method of feeding peculiar to certain small animals, the rapid rise 

 of water in sponges and wood, and the sperical shape of drops of water, 

 attributed by him to what he called the occult motion of water, and 

 which, from the general character of his works, may be set down as 

 merely molecular affinity. 



At Rome, Castelli, following in the footsteps of his great master, 

 established the laws of hydrodynamics, explained the phenomena de- 

 pending on the duration of luminous impressions on the retina ; the 



