Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/606

592 from which bishop Percy amply helped himself in constructing his "Reliques;" so that to Pepys and John Selden we really owe much of that great revolution in taste and poetry which we ascribe almost exclusively to Percy. Another memorialist of this period was Sir William Temple, a man who, like Evelyn, maintained a high moral status, and was held in great esteem for his philosophical essays. In Scotland Sir George Mackenzie stood conspicuous for his "Institution of the Laws of Scotland," and not less for various works of taste, as his "Aretina; or, the Serious Romance;" his "Religio Stoici; or, the Virtuoso," &c. Burnet, the author of "The Theory of the Earth," also lived now, but may be mentioned with his namesake the bishop, who belongs more properly to the reign of William and Wary.

The church at this period possessed great and eloquent men—Tillotson, Sherlock, Barrow, South, Stillingfleet, and others. Their sermons remain as great storehouses of religious argument and enunciation. They were nearly all of the Arminian school. Barrow was, besides, one of the ablest geometricians that have appeared.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

During the period now under review a great step in the progress of science was made by the foundation of the Royal Society. The honour of originating this famous society belongs to a Mr. Theodore Haak, a German, but resident in London. Through his suggestions a number of scientific gentlemen, including Dr. Goddard, a physician in Wood Street, but also a preparer of lenses for telescopes; Dr. Wallis, the great mathematician; Dr. Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester; Drs. Ent, Gisson, and Merrit, and Mr. Samuel Foster, professor of astronomy in Gresham college. They commenced their meetings in 1645, which used to be held at one of their houses, or in Gresham college, or at apartments in Cheapside. Though some of these gentlemen were removed by promotion, others continued to join it, as Boyle, Evelyn, Wren—afterwards Sir Christopher. In 1662 a royal charter was obtained, and in the following year additional privileges were granted under a second charter. The first president was lord Brouncker, and the first council consisted of Mr.—afterwards lord—Brereton, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir Robert Moray, Sir William Petty, Sir Paul Neile, Messrs. Boyle, Slingsbey, Christopher and Matthew Wren, Balle, Areskine, Oldenburg, Henshaw, and Dudley Palmer, and Mrs. Wilkins, Wallis, Timothy Clarke, and Ent. Balle was the first treasurer, and Wilkins and Oldenburg the first secretaries. The society was pledged not to meddle with questions of theology or state, and their chief subjects of notice were the physical sciences, anatomy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, navigation, statistics, chemistry, magnetism, mechanics, and kindred topics. In the spring of the second year the society numbered a hundred and fifteen members; amongst them, besides many noblemen and gentlemen of distinction, we find the names of Aubrey, Dr. Barrow, Dryden, Cowley, Waller, and Spratt, afterwards bishop of Rochester. The society commenced its publication of its transactions in 1665, which became a record of the progress of physical and mathematical science for a long series of years.

During the short period over which the present review ranges—namely, from the restoration in 1660 to the revolution in 1688, that is, only twenty-eight years—some of the greatest discoveries in science were made which have occurred in the history of the world; namely, the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Dr. William Harvey, the construction of the tables of logarithms by Napier, improved by Briggs; the invention of fluxions by Newton, and the calculus of fluxions, or the differential calculus, by Leibnitz; the discovery of the perfected theory of gravitation, by Newton; the foundation of modern astronomy, by Flamstead, and the construction of a steam-engine by the marquis of Worcester, originally suggested by Solomon de Cans, a Frenchman.

Napier published his tables of logarithms in 1614, under the title of "Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptia," and in the same or the following year he and his friend, Henry Briggs, gave them their improved, and, as it proved, perfect form, for from that time to the present they have been found to admit of no further improvement. They came from the hands of their author and his assisting friend perfect. The principle of their construction Napier did not declare; but this important revelation was made by Briggs and Napier's son in a publication in 1619 called "Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Constructio; una cum Annotationibus aliquot Dootissimi D. Henrici Briggii." By these tables Napier superseded the long and laborious arithmetical operations which all great calculators had previously to undergo, and which the most simple trigonometrical operations demanded. Without this wonderful aid even Newton could not have lived to accomplish the great principles that he drew from and established for ever upon the material accumulated by prior mathematicians. He in fact furnished by these tables a scale by which not only the advantages which he proposed of shortening arithmetical and trigonometrical labour were effected, but which enabled men to go infinitely farther, and enabled his successors to weigh the atmosphere and take the altitudes of mountains, compute the lengths and areas of all curves, and to introduce a calculus by which the most unexpected results should be reached. "By reducing to a few days the labour of many months," says Laplace, "it doubles, as it were, the life of an astronomer, besides freeing him from the errors and disgust inseparable from long calculations."

We are not, however, to suppose that Napier was the first who had a perception of the nature of logarithms. In almost all grand discoveries the man of genius stands upon the shoulders of preceding geniuses to reach that culminating point which brings out the full discovery. In very early ages it was known that if the terms of an arithmetical and geometrical series were placed in juxtaposition, the multiplication, division, involution, and evolution of the latter would answer to and might actually be affected by a corresponding addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of the former. Archimedes employed this principle in his "Arcnarius," a treatise on the number of the sands. Stifel, in his "Arithmetica Integra," published at Nurnberg in 1644, exhibits a still clearer notion of the use of this principle; but the merit of Napier was this—that whilst those who preceded him could only apply the principle to certain numbers, he discovered the means of applying it to all, and