106 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



books of that tremendous universal genius Leonardo 

 da Vinci are transcribed and given to the world. 

 Leonardo may have meant to collect and systematize 

 his notes, and publish them as books. If so, he never 

 lived to carry out his intention. Hence his power 

 as a philosopher and a man of science has hitherto 

 been overshadowed by his fame as an artist. 



Leonardo was the natural Sv>n of Ser Piero da Vinci, 

 a lawyer of great vigour and some eminence, and was 

 born at Vinci, between Florence and Pisa, in 1452. 

 His mother was a peasant girl named Catarina. He 

 was educated by his father, entered successively the 

 service of the courts of Florence, Milan and Rome, 

 and died in 1519 in France, the servant and friend 

 of Francis I. In early life he showed the remarkable 

 qualities which have impressed both contemporaries 

 and after ages as placing him in a class apart from 

 the rest of mankind. Beauty of person and charm 

 of manner did but adorn and increase the power of 

 mind and force of character which took all knowledge 

 for its study and all art for its expression. A. painter, 

 sculptor, engineer, architect, physicist, biologist and 

 philosopher was Leonardo, and in each supreme. 

 Perhaps no man in the history of the world shows such 

 a record. His performance, extraordinary as it was, 

 must be reckoned as small compared with the ground 

 he opened up, the grasp of fundamental principles he 

 displayed, and the insight with which he seized the 

 true method of investigation in each branch of enquiry. 

 If Petrarch was the harbinger of the literary Renais- 

 sance, in spirit Leonardo was in advance of it in other 

 departments. He was not a scholastic, and neither 

 was he a blind follower of classical authority, as were 



