Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/688

670 eminent for the invention of mechanical agencies by which the external conditions of human life have been revolutionized than the seventeenth for the production of those momentous "aids to sense" the telescope, microscope, barometer, and thermometer—by which an indefinite series of new worlds have been annexed to the domain of human intelligence. In the abstract region of mathematics, the performances of the epoch under consideration are equally remarkable. By the invention of logarithms, calculation was hardly less expedited than communication has been in our time by the discovery of the electric telegraph; while the differential and integral calculus, through the enormous increase of power conferred by it, might not inappropriately be termed the steam-engine of the intellect. Yet, notwithstanding the utilitarian character of the prevalent philosophy, inventions of practical utility remained comparatively rare; and no advance, corresponding in any degree with that accomplished in science, was made in the comforts and conveniences of every-day life. Thus, by a singular irony, a generation which sought in its experiments "fruit," found "light"; while our own age, which, with the dying Goethe, demands "more light," has received, instead, "fruit" not always sweet to the taste.

To Englishmen the seventeenth century is rendered of peculiar interest by the circumstance that, during its course, the center of scientific progress was shifted, through the overwhelming force of genius, from the Continent to this island. When it opened, our countrymen were in the position of disciples; when it closed, they were recognized as the teachers of Europe. The advance made in the interval was enormous. In 1600 Tycho Brahe was still inculcating at Prague the geocentric theory of the universe; Galileo was expounding the "sphere" on Ptolemaic principles; Harvey was listening at Padua—the "Quartier Latin of Venice," as M. Renan has called it—to the cloudy conjectures of Fabricius as to the purpose served by the valves in the veins. In 1700 the "Principia" had been for thirteen years the common property of mankind; Newton was acknowledged as the arbiter of science by the greater part of the civilized world; the principles of mechanics were settled on the same footing on which they stand to-day; and the last cavil against the innovation of the Folkestone physician had long ago been forgotten. We propose, in the following pages, to sketch in its broader outlines the movement of thought which led to such great results, and to devote some brief attention to a man whose career was the most conspicuous failure of the century, and who, aspiring to play the part of the Octavius, was condemned to that of the Antony of science.

Dr. Robert Hooke not only was unable to "command success," but we doubt whether he could have conscientiously asserted that he deserved it. He was original, diligent, and ingenious; but he wanted