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Some cannon-balls also for the first time fell close to where Napoleon was stationed; the enemy seemed to be approaching; Borelli insisted, and the emperor promised his young guard. But, scarcely had it advanced a few paces, when he himself called out to it to halt. The Count de Lobau, however, made it advance by degrees, under pretence of dressing the line.
He says: 'Therefore we must be allowed to render to the genius of Borelli the justice which is due to him, and only claim for ourselves the merit of having furnished the experimental demonstration of a truth already suspected. In fact, all subsequent studies on this subject concur in making Borelli the first investigator who illustrated the purely mechanical theory of the action of a bird's wings.
Borelli sets out very definitely the mechanism of flight, in such fashion that he who runs may read. His reference to 'the use of a large vessel, etc., concerns the suggestion made by Francesco Lana, who antedated Borelli's publication of De Motu Animalium by some ten years with his suggestion for an 'aerial ship, as he called it.
At other times we walked in the Pare Borelli or on the Corniche. A novel feature in our life was the frequent visits to the theatre with our friends. It was most remarkable that my husband should take such a sudden fancy to the Opera; he could not account for it himself, except by noticing that "he felt at home in it."
On such foundations as his age afforded Borelli built solidly and well, so that he ranks as one of the greatest if not actually the greatest of the investigators into this subject before the age of steam.
In the intermingling of forces there is no deterioration; each produces its own specific effect. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, through the works of Borelli, Hooke, and Huyghens, it had become plain that circular motions could be accounted for by the laws of Galileo.
This, he declares, is a purely mechanical process due to heat and pressure, the wonderful effects of which may be seen in Papin's recently invented 'digester. That the stomach is fully able to comminute the food may be proved by the following calculation. Borelli estimates the power of the flexors of the thumb at 3720 pounds, their average weight being 122 grains.
Having such a founder as the brilliant Italian Borelli, it was given a sufficient impetus by his writings to carry it some distance before it finally collapsed. Some of the exaggerated mathematical calculations of Borelli himself are worth noting.
He was author of a long list of scientific essays, two of which only are responsible for his fame, viz., Theorice Medicaearum Planetarum, published in Florence, and the better known posthumous De Motu Animalium. The first of these two is an astronomical study in which Borelli gives evidence of an instinctive knowledge of gravitation, though no definite expression is given of this.
Borelli was a versatile genius. Born in 1608, he was practically contemporary with Francesco Lana, and there is evidence that he either knew or was in correspondence with many prominent members of the Royal Society of Great Britain, more especially with John Collins, Dr Wallis, and Henry Oldenburgh, the then Secretary of the Society.
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