ART. IV.-NEWTON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. The History of Physical Astronomy, from the earliest ages to the middle of the 19th Century, comprehending a detailed account of the Establishment of the Theory of Gravitation by Newton, and its Developement by his Successors; with an exposition of the progress of Research on all other subjects of Celestial Physics. By ROBERT GRANг, F.R.A.S.-8vo. London: Baldwin, 1852. "An old tale, and often told," is that of Newton and the Apple, and older yet will it be, and still oftener related, as the ages onward roll, for it tells of the most wonderful, the most universal of nature's laws;-of that which keeps the stars in their courses, and the earth in her orbit; of that which gives alternate day and night, and the sweet seasons' change; of that which holds the mountains in their masses, and fills the depths of the sea, bidding the gentle moon to sleep softly on its waters, and illumining the darkened earth; which brings the projected ball again into the tiny hands of the little child, and maintains the vast solar orb in the centre of his dependant spheres. Although many an apple has fallen to the ground, and many men, women, and children have seen it, by Newton only was its grand teaching discovered; to Newton only it told its wonderful history, and to the utmost verge of time, so long as a single dew-drop's miniature globe is rolled upon a leaf and the inhabitants of earth move in happiness upon her surface, so long will this tale of Newton and the Apple be related to admiring listeners. To him of small mind are the small things of Nature insignificant, speaking but to the outward man, having no voice for the mental ear, no suggestion for the working intellect. Not so to the Philosopher; to him is nothing common or insignificant which bears the stamp of his Maker's hand. The smallest, the meanest of Nature's works, the tiniest blade of grass in the depths of the forest, the smallest of the insect tribes which inhabit its green borders, is in itself a world of wonder and beauty; a work as infinitely beyond his power to create, as to conjecture; beyond his deepest wisdom to plan; obeying laws which, grand in their beautiful simplicity, pervade Nature, and rule in the minutest as well as in the largest of her works." The meanest of creation bringeth in a tribute of the beautiful."**"The patent mark of beauty, its Maker's name imprest. For the great Creator's seal is set on all his works." Wonderfully simple are the laws of Nature; in her there is no waste, no superfluous power; the eye of Omniscience can discern how much will be exactly sufficient, which will be the best possible arrangement, which is capable of an universal application, of becoming a pervading law. Thus we see in all His works a wonderful simplicity and unity, as proceeding from the one mind, the allperfect. One law discovered, is the key to thousands of mysteries, and opens many a hidden treasure, bearing a resemblance through endless forms of variety. "How unlike, the complex works of Mau!" To the devout student of Nature therefore, nothing is trifling; all is deeply significant; the more he acquaints himself with her workings, the more he perceives the universality of her grand laws, the omniscient, omnipotent hand of her Artificer for he, who has watched and traced the mighty agents of Omnipotence in grandest forms, recognises again the same power, in the gauzy wing of the insect glittering in the sunbeam, and in the light thistledown floating on the summer air. He sees that these obey the universal laws equally with the most astounding of nature's effects; parts of the great whole requiring nothing short of omnipotence to uphold them, whispering such wonderful things of their governing laws; whispering to him who can read their occult language. The flight of birds, the waving of every tree branch, the form of each little ripple in the silver sand of the sea, sound, in his intelligent ear, notes (unheard by duller organs) which lead to the full chorus, and chime in with the deep harmonies of the universe. "For Beauty hideth everywhere, that Reason's child may seek her." Amidst the various departments of Art, or Literature, or Science, among the many who follow the study, there has usually been found one who stands pre-eminent; one master-spirit, who surpasses all his fellows in whatever age or country; one brilliant star, which rises to a higher elevation, and shines through the ages, unapproached by any other, defying (as it were) time and space; unequalled previously, unsurpassed subsequently. Such was old Homer, grand in mighty epic, standing alone sublime in solitary grandeur, when all around was dark, and sent forth no ray to light the future ages. Such was the unknown sculptor of the Medicean Venus and the Belvidere Apollo, breathing in marble the sprit of ancient Greece, perfect in execution, models for all imitators. Such was Archimedes, penetrating discerner of the heart of dull matter; framer of machines which shall carry his name of power, to assist all mechanists to the end of time. Such was Hannibal, leveller of mountains, conqueror of obstacles, a proverb for future warriors. Progress of Knowledge. 325 Such was Michael Angelo, animator of the living canvass; grand in design, unrivalled in execution, wonderful in the field of Art. Such was our own Shakespeare, the Poet of the World, none approaching him; the poet of universal nature, touching all subjects, and drawing out their essence with the wand of his genius. Such also was Newton, a glorious genius, reader of hidden mysteries, high in attainments, high in morals. To him, the sun and the moon uttered speech, and the stars spoke an intelligible language. His one mind furnished thought for thousands of thinkers, his discoveries penetrate through time and space, and shed light where darkness was before. One of the earth's greatest was Sir Isaac Newton. 66 From the earliest times, the heavenly bodies and their motions have been subjects of interest; contemplated, with different objects, and different enlightenment, according to the degree of civilization of the time and period. Amongst the ancient shepherd kings, and the other Nomadic tribes, the stars were their charts, the sole guides of their wanderings. In Chaldea and old mysterious Egypt, the stars received worship, and " Canopus the beautiful" was wrapped in the fanciful poetry of Eastern imagination. Later in that undefined period, the Middle Ages, when learning, passing away from her ancient throne in the East, was travelling through clouds and darkness, (rendered yet denser by the shadow of Rome) over the lands of Western Europe, when she was enclosed in dungeons, confined in the cells of monks, and never allowed to see the free light of day; never held up in all her integrity to the gaze, the study, the information of the vulgar, but let out in small, niggard, deformed portions, misleading rather than enlightening; then was the glorious study of the stars of Heaven perverted to abject superstition, and degraded. The natural effects of mighty causes were used by designing men to enslave the popular mind; their pure light was turned into darkness, and under the name of Astrology, the movements of the vast orbs of the solar system were interpreted to regulate and predict the petty affairs, the little doings, and mean passions of individual men. And this machinery, dressed in the flowery robes of fancy mingled with superstitious mystery, and charged with the knowledge of the future, (the forbidden lore, so coveted by all the sons of Adam!) was made very attractive to the vulgar, and held in high esteem. Based too on religion (however false) it had great power over men "Power, on an ancient consecrated throne, The human mind, especially the uneducated, undisciplined human mind, that which has no firm, fixed principles of religion or of science, with which to test truth and try the new ideas it receives, is very prone to superstition, " delightedly believes divinities." Man has a certain desire to account for whatever he sees, and to the untutored intellect, in which (in spite of the logical tendency to trace effects to their causes) imagination holds uncontrolled sway, superstition is an easy way of doing so. And jeer at their believers as we may, such a hold have these old astrological superstitions (instilled, in the early, credulous ages of the world) on the general faith, that And even at this day 'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great, And Venus, who brings everything that's fair!" Out of this "double night of ages, and of Rome," Learning began to rise and shake off her shackles-they had been forged with too heavy chains to be longer endured--and at Eisleben, an obscure village of Lower Saxony, in the year A.D. 1483, a young child was born and destined by his parents for the priesthood of Rome, but destined by the beneficent Parent of all for a higher, purer priesthood, the priesthood of the unvarnished truth, the priesthood of the Most Highest; and that child was Martin Luther. Profound in learning, powerful in eloquence, and more powerful still in the divine spirit, which animated him, he struck at the Goliath of superstition, and burst the bonds which fettered the nations, dispersed the heavy clouds of darkness, and opened the way to admit the light of Heaven. Ignorance, attacked in her strongest hold, began to falter, and one by one, other stars ruled in the firmament, dispersing the gloom. But Luther led the way, with his torch kindled at the fountain of light. It is a somewhat curious and a very interesting fact, that this opening through the clouds of darkness, which from Rome, their centre, spread over the whole of Europe, was after this never closed. With the imprisonment of religious truth, and freedom of thought and conscience, was incarcerated all other truth, all other learning, all other mental liberty. After the breach made by Luther in the strong walls of the prison-house, men's minds were, to a certain extent, let free on all other subjects, especially on science. And though it was long before the old bolts of bondage were thoroughly riven; and though men long felt themselves under mental and moral restraint, and civil and religious liberty cost many a revolution and many a pang in struggling into birth, yet the breach once made Astronomical discoveries. 327 was never afterwards closed, and many were the great men and grand the discoveries that followed, and dared to be free. And thus, from the time of Luther, and Copernicus, down to the days of our own Newton, there has not been wanting one to sit upon the throne of glorious Astronomical Science, and carry on the war with ignorance, assailed though most of them were by the many forms of mental and spiritual error. And this interesting fact we shall presently trace, shewing that each great discoverer, or worker, in his turn, did his own part, and laid his own stone, some of larger, some of smaller dimensions, but each equally necessary to the general progress, on the great edifice of Astronomical Science; and that as one paid the debt of nature and was laid in the dust, another rose to fill his place, and carry on the great work. Contemporary (as we before said) with Luther, flourished the celebrated Copernicus, who, breaking through previous false notions (which though unsatisfactory to thinking minds had not as yet been superseded by truer views) dared to put aside all former systems. He studied those of his predecessors, the Egyptian sages, and that of Ptolemy, which place our earth in the centre of the planetary sphere. The more he studied the more he found defective in them; more especially did he doubt the supposed fact of the central position of the earth. The notion of Martianus Capella, who imagined the sun between Mars and the Moon, and Mercury and Venus revolving round him, as their centre; also the speculation of Apollonius Pergacus, which supposed that the earth held the centre of the universe, whilst the moon, and the sun with all his circling planets revolved round the earth, attracted his attention but did not satisfy his reason. And thirty years' study brought him ('spite of all previous Astronomers) to the daring conclusion, that the Sun was stationary, in the centre of the system, and that the earth revolved round him, with the other planets, between the orbits of Venus and Mars. Tender was he of his wonderful discovery, fearful of the rough usage it was likely to meet with, from the hands of bigotry and ignorance; for well he knew as all discoverers have painfully experienced, that "Time consecrates, "And what is grey with age becomes religion." Gently, cautiously, he whispered the result of his thirty years' labors, confiding it to one or two; teaching it by oral lectures, preparing the darkened public for this dawn of a brighter light; and it was not until eleven years afterwards, namely in 1541, that his immortal work on "the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies," was published with his own name. It was well received, being printed at the VOL. I.-NO. II. 14 |