ADDRESS. 27 
of the world to put us in a position which will enable England to keep 
ahead or even on a level with foreign nations as regards knowledge and 
its applications to the utilities of life. Take the example of any man of 
learning, and see how soon the direct consequences resulting from his 
learning disappear in the life of a nation, while the discoveries of a man 
of science remain productive amid all the shocks of empire. As I am in 
Aberdeen I remember that the learned Dutchman Erasmus was intro- 
duced to England by the encouragement which he received from Hector 
Boece, the Principal of King’s College in this University. Yet even in 
the case of Erasmus—who taught Greek at Cambridge and did so much 
for the revival of classical literature as well as in the promotion of spiritual 
freedom—how little has civilisation to ascribe to him in comparison with 
the discoveries of two other Cambridge men, Newton and Cavendish. 
The discoveries of Newton will influence the destinies of mankind to the 
end of the world. When he established the laws by which the motions 
of the great masses of matter in the universe are governed, he con- 
ferred an incalculable benefit upon the intellectual development of the 
human race. No great discovery flashes upon the world at once, and 
therefore Pope’s lines on Newton are only a poetic fancy :— 
Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night, 
God said, ‘ Let Newton be,’ and all was light. 
No doubt the road upon which he travelled had been long in preparation 
_ by other men. The exact observations of Tycho Brahe, coupled with the 
discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, had already broken down 
the authority of Aristotle and weakened that of the Church. But though 
the conceptions of the universe were thus broadened, mankind had not 
yet rid themselves of the idea that the powers of the universe were still 
regulated by spirits or special providences. Even Kepler moved the 
planets by spirits, and it took some time to knock these celestial steers- 
men on the head. Descartes, who really did so much by his writings to 
force the conclusion that the planetary movements should be dealt with 
as an ordinary problem in mechanics, looked upon the universe as a 
_ machine, the wheels of which were kept in motion by the unceasing 
_ exercise of a divine power. Yet such theories were only an attempt to 
regulate the universe by celestial intelligences like our own, and by 
standards within our reach. It required the discovery of anall-pervading 
law, universal throughout all space, to enlarge the thoughts of men, and 
one which, while it widened the conceptions of the universe, reduced the 
earth and solar system to true dimensions. It is by the investigation of 
the finite on all sides that we obtain a higher conception of the infinite— 
Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten, 
Geh nur im Endlichen nach allen Seiten. 
Ecclesiastical authority had been already undermined by earnest inquirers 
such as Wycliffe and Huss before Luther shook the pillars of the Vatican. 
