Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/342

BAA and passed afterwards a part of his life at Basil. His published works are—"Epistola medica de aquarum distillatarum facultatibus;" Antwerp, 1536, in 8vo. "Velitatio medica cum Arnoldo Nootsio, qua docetur non paucis abuti nos vulgo medicamentis simplicibus, ut capillo veneris, xylaloe, xylobalsamo, spolio;" Antwerp, 1532, in 8vo. He also published translations from the Greek into the Latin of the two following works—"Sancti Basilii oratio de agendis Deo gratiis et in Julittam martyrem;" and "De medicamentis paratu facilibus," of Galen.  BAARSDORP or BAERSDORP,, physician and chamberlain of Charles V., was born at Baarsdorp in Zealand, and died in 1565. He left a work entitled "Methodus universæ artis medicæ," after Galen; Bruges, 1538, in fol.  BAASHA, king of Israel, son of Ahijah, usurped the kingdom after slaying Nadab, the son of Jeroboam. (1 Kings xv.)  BAART or BAARDT,, a Dutch physician and poet of the seventeenth century. His "Friesch borre Practica" is compared by his countrymen to the Georgics of Virgil.  BAAZ,, a Swedish writer, died in 1650. He was governor of the palace at Stockholm. His "Oratio de geminis germanis sororibus, sobrietate et castitate" was published at Upsal in 1629.  BAB,, an Armenian theologian, who died about the end of the ninth century. He left the following manuscripts—"A Commentary on the four Gospels;" "Explanation of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans;" "Chronology of Ecclesiastical History," from the birth of Jesus Christ until the time of the author.  BABA, a Turkish impostor, who lived in the first half of the thirteenth century. His followers adopted as their confession of faith, "There is but one God, and Baba is his deputy."  BABA,, a Persian poet of some celebrity, born at Abiverd in the Khorassan, lived in the fourteenth century. His verses, which are not without merit, are still repeated by his countrymen. <section end="342H" /> <section begin="342I" />BABA-ALI, the first independent dey of Algiers, died in 1718. He was elected in 1710 in the place of Ibrahim, who was swept from power by a revolution. Baba-Ali, not long afterwards, threw off the yoke of the Turkish pashas, arrested the pasha who had wished to prevent his election, and sent him to Constantinople. Thither also he dispatched an ambassador, with orders to declare that Algiers had no longer any need of a pasha, as the dey was perfectly competent, without such supervision, to perform all the functions of government. His demand was conceded, and, from that day, Baba governed the Algerine territory until his death.—G. M. <section end="342I" /> <section begin="342J" />BABA-LAL, the leader of a peculiar sect, named Bâbâ-Lâlis, was born at Malwa about the beginning of the seventeenth century. He left a great number of verses on religious subjects. <section end="342J" /> <section begin="342Zcontin" />* BABBAGE,, born in 1790; one of the ablest mathematicians and most philosophic thinkers now in England. Mr. Babbage's early career while at Trinity College, Cambridge, was distinguished by his efforts, in association with Sir John Herschel and Mr. Peacock, now dean of Ely, to introduce into their university, and among the scientific men of this country generally, a knowledge of the refined analytic methods which had so long prevailed over the continent. Much that is valuable and characteristic in the structure of the mind of Englishmen has sprung out of the insular nature of their home: that a great many drawbacks have accompanied these undoubted advantages, is well illustrated by the fact, that while the calculus of Leibnitz had in France been carried to a high perfection—in reference especially to the facility of its applications—and had branched out in many important directions, we continued satisfied in this country with the clumsy algorithm of fluxions, and with geometrical methods which had not then acquired any generality, and that rarely overpassed the cramped domain of the ancient synthesis. The youthful triumvirate just named, made a successful inroad on these prejudices and predilections. In the first place, they translated or rather edited the smaller treatise on the calculus, by Lacroix,—edited we say, for, partly because of the admirable notes, and partly through the merit of Sir John Herschel's appendix on Finite Differences, the English work greatly surpassed the French original. They next accomplished, also in conjunction, another important victory—the publication of a solution of exercises on all parts of the infinitesimal calculus—a volume which, notwithstanding more recent works with a similar aim, remains of greatest value to the student. To the volume now referred to, Mr. Babbage contributed an independent essay on a subject at that time quite new, viz., the solution of Functional Equations—betraying, thus early, an inclination which has remained with him through life, towards the study of the calculus of forms, or of operations in themselves; i.e., of operations independently of the nature of the quantities operated upon. Something of this predilection may be traced in Mr. Babbage's essays on Porisms. It afterwards guided him to a remarkable proposal, as yet not adequately realized, viz., the proposal of a notation of mechanical actions; but it shines most clearly through what, with justice, we may consider his crowning scientific effort—the invention and partial construction of his famous calculating engine. The possibility of constructing a piece of mechanism capable of performing certain operations on numbers, is by no means new; it was thought of by Pascal and other geometers, and very recently it has been reduced to practice by M. Thomas of Colmar, and those excellent Swedes the MM. Schentz; but neither before nor since has any scheme so gigantic as that of Mr. Babbage been anywhere imagined. His achievements were twofold;—he constructed a Difference Engine, and he planned and demonstrated the practicability of an Analytical Engine. As the facts connected with this whole subject are of great interest, and bear, as will be seen below, on a just appreciation of Mr. Babbage's character and life, we insert, contrary to our wont, an account of these two unparalleled enterprises, extracted from Professor Nichol's "Cyclopædia of the Physical Sciences:" "In the first place, Mr. Babbage perfected a difference engine of very comprehensive powers. It is well known to the mathematician, that any series—be the relation uniting its terms as complex as it may—will, in the end, yield a certain order of differences that shall be 0. The complicacy of the relationship merely affects the order of those differences which becomes 0—the more complex the relationship, the higher that order. Now, Mr. Babbage's enterprise was this,—he undertook to construct an engine capable of managing a series so complex, that the differences of its terms do not reach zero until we ascend to the seventh order: or, in analytical language, he undertook to manage the integral, defined by the equation Δ7 φ.z = 0. And this holds when φ.z contains no power of a variable higher than the sixth; or, when,

φ.z = a + b x + c x² × d x³ + c x⁴ + f x⁵ + g x⁶.

An immense range of nautical and astronomical tables lies within the limits now defined; but, still further, while an engine with such capabilities commanded everything within its grasp, accurately and completely, it also tabulated approximately, or between intervals of greater or less extent, any series whatsoever that could be treated by the method of differences. The student will readily see that the hope to succeed in such an enterprise, how novel soever it appeared, was not chimerical; it rested on this only, that an engine could be made capable of performing at command all operations of addition. The chasm between the idea and the realization of it, is in this case vast indeed; but we believe it has been universally conceded, that all difficulties had yielded to the genius of Mr. Babbage. Secondly, During the construction of the difference engine, Mr. Babbage's views enlarged—probably through his growing familiarity with the capabilities of machinery; and a new and much more gigantic conception arose before him in perfect definiteness. If an engine could be constructed to perform, at command, the process of addition, no reason seemed to exist why one might not perform the whole of the elementary changes to which quantity can be subject, viz., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. "But all changes that can be produced on quantity, or any development to which quantity can be subject, are mere combinations of these: so that an engine capable of performing these, might become an instrument to execute any development whatever. And such an instrument is the proposed analytical engine. Without stopping to describe the machinery, we shall take it as a fact accepted everywhere, that Mr. Babbage devised the means of executing directly all elementary operations. And the next requisite was, that he should be able to cause his engine perform all these, according to any special order; or, what is the same thing, to develop any function whatsoever, whose law of development is ascertained and fixed. To obtain a clear conception of the mode in which he realized this object, it is necessary that the reader have in his mind a distinction, already of vast value in analytical science, and exemplified everywhere in our industrial mechanisms—the <section end="342Zcontin" />