144 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 6. 



elasticitJ^ Thus, like Ai-chimedes, he ad- 

 ded to the practical side of science ; indeed, 

 a rude woodcut in one of his discourses, 

 showing a beam built into a stone wall and 

 loaded with a weight at the free end, proves 

 that he had no scorn for common things and 

 gives the key to a long line of subsequent 

 researches. He was also the inventor of 

 the thermometer, the hydi'ostatic balance, 

 and the proportional dividers, all of which 

 instruments are still in use ; and for the 

 edification of those who think the pursuit 

 of his favorite studies leaves no room for the 

 play of the fancy, it should be mentioned 

 that he found time to give popular lectures 

 on the site and dimensions of Dante's 

 Inferno. 



Although it is an axiom of modern phil- 

 osophy that coincidence of events is no ade- 

 quate evidence of their connection, yet there 

 seems to be an innate tendency of the mind 

 to anticipate a relation between nearlj- si- 

 multaneous occurrences and to attach much 

 importance to them when they are historic- 

 ally allied. It is one of the curious coinci- 

 dences in the liistorj^ of the founders of me- 

 chanics that the year of Galileo's death is 

 also the year of Newton's birth. Thus it 

 might seem that Nature took care that 

 G-alileo should have a fitting successor. 



During the interval of nearly a hundred 

 years which elapsed between the epoch of 

 Galileo and the period of Newton's activity, 

 not a few philosophers added to the growth 

 of mechanical science. Most conspicuous 

 among these was Huyghens, who distin- 

 guished himself as a mathematician, astron- 

 omer, mechanician, and physicist. Of his 

 varied and valuable contributions to these 

 departments of knowledge, what would 

 strike the general reader as least worthy of 

 attention was really of the highest import- 

 ance. Nothing is commoner now than the 

 pendulum clock. The town clock and Grand- 

 father's clock are so proverbial that few 

 would suppose that a grand treatise could 



ever have been written about such a com- 

 monplace mechanism. But true it is that 

 Hu3'ghens, taking up Galileo's discoverj'' of 

 the near isochronism of the swinging chande- 

 lier, not oulj' produced a working pendulum 

 clock, but also a great theory of it. The 

 introduction of this instrument for the exact 

 measurement of time made the subsequent 

 progress of astronomj^ possible, while his 

 theorj' of the oscillating pendulum has been 

 justly called the true prelude to Newton's 

 Principia. The laws of vibration indeed 

 play a wonderfully important role in the 

 science of mechanics, and it may be said 

 that he who understands the doctrine of the 

 pendulum in all its phases has in his posses- 

 sion the key to the secrets of nearly every 

 mechanical system from the common clock 

 to the steam engine, and from the steam 

 engine to the solar sj'stem. "Well may we 

 retain the euphonious title of Horologium 

 Oscillatorimn for this important memoir of 

 Huj'ghens. 

 Chaucer — 



" Dau Chaucer, the first -warbler, whose sweet breath 

 Prehided those melodious bursts that fill 

 The spacious times of great Elizabeth 

 With sounds that echo still, ' ' 



has been called the Father of English litera- 

 ture. In a broader sense, because not lim- 

 ited by language, we maj' regard Newiion as 

 the Father of Natural Philosojjhy. 



It was the happj^ lot of Newton to attain 

 these brilliant achievements. First and 

 greatest of these was the well nigh perfect 

 statement of the laws of djaiamics ; the sec- 

 ond was the discoverj' of the law of gravi- 

 tation ; and the third M'as the invention of 

 a calculus required to develop the conse- 

 quences of the other two. As we have 

 seen, however, the laws of matter and mo- 

 tion were not unknown to the predecessors 

 and contemporaries of Newton. Galileo, in 

 fact, discovered the first two, and the third 

 in one form or another was kno-mi to Hooke, 

 Huyghens and others ; but it was the pecu- 



