4 



ture, logic, and metaphysics ; Dr. Arbuthnot was to have taken charge 

 of his medical education and have brought him to Holland and Ger- 

 many to study medicine ; while Swift was to have written his travels. 

 Gulliver's Travels were produced as a separate work by Swift in conse- 

 quence of the troubles at the close of the reign of Queen Anne, which 

 scattered this remarkable triumvirate. The travels that were origin- 

 ally intended to illustrate the life and memoirs of Scriblerus appeared 

 under the name of, and are known to you all as, Gulliver's Travels. 



The accession of George I not only destroyed the prospect of the 

 world seeing the memoirs and travels of Martinus Scriblerus, but it 

 also lost for England the credit of producing a great work on 

 Animal Mechanics. It can be shown from several passages in his 

 writings, that Dr. Arbuthnot, who was himself a most skilful geo- 

 meter and a most expert anatomist, had conceived the project of 

 uniting these sister sciences of anatomy and geometry in one great 

 science, and so creating a new field for discovery, for thought, 

 and for research. His appointment as court-physician to George I 

 withdrew him, I regret to say, from the ranks of science; and England 

 lost, by his appointment to that office, the opportunity of producing a 

 great work on Animal Mechanics. It was reserved for an Italian, 

 Alphonso Borelli, one of the greatest men that modern times have pro- 

 duced, to lay the foundations of this most remarkable science. Alphonso 

 Borelli taught mathematics in the university of Naples at the close of 

 the seventeenth century. He was also professor of anatomy in this 

 same university ; and his book shows that the union of anatomy 

 and geometry had the honour of being approved by the Pope, and 

 pronounced to contain nothing dangerous to faith or morals. He 

 produced his remarkable book on Animal Mechanics, which he 

 entitled De motu animalium, in the year 1680 ; but he died before this 

 book was produced, and he died also, unfortuna.tely, without knowing 

 what our distinguished countryman. Sir Isaac Newton, had discovered 

 of the laws of the composition of forces. The result is that, although 

 his book De motu animalium carries in every part traces of his brilliant 

 genius, it is full of mistakes arising from the false notions on mechanics 

 which were inevitable in the case of a person not acquainted with the 

 composition of forces discovered by Newton. But it remains in its 

 present state, with all its defects and errors, I say without hesitation, 

 the only book that can be called a systematic scientific treatise on 

 Animal Mechanics. 



In later times an attempt was made by two remarkable Germans, 

 who were brothers, Edouard and Wilhelm Weber, professors of anatomy 

 and mathematics in the universities of Gottingen and of Leipsic. From 

 conversing together, these two men came to the conclusion that, if mathe- 

 matics or geometry and anatomy could be brought into contact, the result 



