Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/28

 Vesalius together, and that the younger student traced the optical schemes for the elder, for he had a very fine hand in those days for drawing, which draughts Mr. Hobbes did much commend.'

Through Hobbes, Petty became acquainted in Paris with several of the most brilliant of the English refugees, such as the Marquis of Newcastle and Sir Charles Cavendish, and also with Father Marsin Mersen, the mathematician. Mersen's house was the centre of a distinguished scientific and literary circle, which his genial character held together, notwithstanding the bickerings and quarrels which frequently raged among the members. In that circle all the great ideas were rife, which before the century was over, and notwithstanding the recrudescence of theological strife, were to transform the world in every department of human knowledge. The atmosphere of the time throbbed with scientific discovery, and the mental horizon of man seemed daily to grow wider. In the history of France the period was one of special brilliancy. A Cardinal more Statesman than Churchman ruled the country. The rights of the Calvinists were secured by the privileges, as yet unimpaired, which the Edict of Nantes had granted, and a political alliance existed with Sweden, the greatest Protestant military state of the Continent. Free inquiry in philosophy and science, driven out, like Protestantism, from Spain and Italy, had found a refuge north of the Alps, on an implied understanding that no attack was to be made on the unity of the State, and that the established religion was not to be too openly criticised. It was the time of Gassendi and Descartes in philosophy; of Pascal and St. Cyran in theology; of St. Vincent de Paul in the sphere of practical philanthropy. The French world of science had been deeply stirred by the discoveries in astronomy, physics, and physiology, of Galileo,