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Though never intended as a representation of the actual motions of the heavenly bodies, it maintained its ground until the era of Kepler and Newton, when the heliocentric doctrine, and that of elliptic motions, were incontestably established. Even Newton himself, in the 37th proposition of the third book of the "Principia," availed himself of its aid.

Harvey had shown the circulation of the blood; Gilbert had shown that the earth was a magnet; Descartes, taught by Gilbert's magnet, with its vortex, spiral, and polarity, had filled Europe with the leading thought of vortical motion, as the secret of nature. Newton, in the year in which Swedenborg was born, published the "Principia," and established the universal gravity.

In theoretical science, it apprehends and sanctions the major propositions, the first and highest principia of demonstrations: in practical dealings, it estimates the minor propositions of the syllogism, the possibilities of the situation, and the ultimate action required.

Literature is a large word; it may mean everything written with letters or printed in a book. Euclid's Elements and Newton's Principia are thus literature. All knowledge that reaches us through books is literature. But by literature Professor Huxley means belles lettres.

The doctrine of causation, under consideration, annihilates one of the clearest and most fundamental distinctions ever made in philosophy; the distinction between action and passion, between mind and matter. Matter is passive, mind is active. The very first law of motion laid down in the Principia, a work so much admired by M. Comte and Mr.

And if Shakespeare himself had written the Novum Organum or the Principia, we should not have had Hamlet and Lear as we now know them. There is no compensation between philosophy and poetry. No profundity, no learning, can give beauty to verses which lack the divine fire. If George Eliot's fame has to be based solely on her great powers and endowments, her art would not be worth much.

The great man was too busy writing for thousands to talk long with a single individual about his discoveries of light and color and his proofs of the moon ever falling toward the earth. Not even to his best friends could the astronomer unfold through conversation what he gives us in his "Principia." When an American author called upon Carlyle he found him in a very peevish mood.

This English People, which has spread itself over all lands and seas, and achieved such works in the ages, which has done America, India, the Lancashire Cotton-trade, Bromwicham Iron-trade, Newton's Principia, Shakspeare's Dramas, and the British Constitution, the apex of all its intelligences and mighty instincts and dumb longings: it is I? William Conqueror's big gifts, and Edward's and Elizabeth's; Oliver's lightning soul, noble as Sinai and the thunders of the Lord: these are mine, I begin to perceive, to a certain extent.

As for beauty, combined with wit, Francezka Capello led all the ladies, but there were other gifted ones. Even Madame du Châtelet, in spite of her everlasting algebra and Newton's Principia, was not an ill-looking woman. Madame Villars and Madame Fontange were charming.

So many men have referred to the Principia as showing the motions of the heavenly bodies, who never read, or indeed could read, a page of that immortal work. But no man ever did open it who could read it and find himself disappointed in any one particular; the whole demonstration is perfect; not a link is wanting; nothing is assumed. How different the case here!