Things not generally Known. 



there was no other for two centuries, either in Oxford or Paris, 

 which could at all come near it in the cultivation of the sci- 

 ences. But he goes on to say that large chests full of the 

 writers of this college were allowed to remain untouched by 

 their successors for fear of the magic which was supposed to be 

 contained in them. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to trace 

 the liberalising effect of scientific study upon the University in 

 general, and Merton College in particular ; and it must be 

 remembered that to the cultivation of the mind at Oxford we 

 owe almost all the literary celebrity of the middle ages. In 

 this period the University of Cambridge appears to have ac- 

 quired no scientific distinction. Taking as a test the acqui- 

 sition of celebrity on the continent, we find that Bacon, Sa- 

 crobosco, Greathead, Estwood, <fcc. were all of Oxford. The 

 latter University had its morning of splendour while Cambridge 

 was comparatively unknown ; it had also its noonday, illus- 

 trated by such men as Briggs, Wren, Wallis, Halley, and 

 Bradley. 



The age of science at Cambridge may be said to have begun 

 with Francis Bacon ; and but that we think much of the dif- 

 ference between him and his celebrated namesake lies more in 

 time and circumstances than in talents or feelings, we would 

 rather date from 1600 with the former than from 1250 with 

 the latter. Praise or blame on either side is out of the ques- 

 tion, seeing that the earlier foundation of Oxford, and its 

 superiority in pecuniary means, rendered all that took place 

 highly probable ; and we are in a great measure indebted for 

 the liberty of writing our thoughts, to the cultivation of the 

 liberalising sciences at Oxford in the dark ages. 



With regard to the University of Cambridge, for a long 

 time there hardly existed the materials of any proper instruc- 

 tion, even to the extent of pointing out what books should be 

 read by a student desirous of cultivating astronomy. 



PLATO'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 



Plato, like Francis Bacon, took a review of the sciences of his time : 

 he enumerates arithmetic and plane geometry, treated as collections 

 of abstract and permanent truths ; solid geometry, which he *' notes 

 as deficient" in his time, although in fact he and his school were in 

 possession of the doctrine of the " five regular solids ;" astronomy, iu 

 which he demands a science which should be elevated above the mere 

 knowledge of phenomena. The visible appearances of the heavens 

 only suggest the problems with which true astronomy deals ; as beau- 

 tiful geometrical diagrams do not prove, but only suggest geometrical 

 propositions. Finally. Plato notices the subject of harmonics, in which 

 he requires a science which shall deal with truths more exact than the 

 ear can establish, as in astronomy he requires truths more exact than 

 the eye can assure us of. 



In a subsequent paper Plato speaks of Dialectic as a still higher 



