[170] Adrian Metius (1571-1635) was professor of medicine at the University of Franeker. His work was, however, in the domain of astronomy, and in this domain he published several treatises.
[171] The first edition was entitled: The Discovery of a World in the Moone. Or, a Discourse Tending to prove that 'tis probable there may be another habitable World in that Planet. 1638, 8vo. The fourth edition appeared in 1684. John Wilkins (1614-1672) was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford; master of Trinity, Cambridge; and, later, Bishop of Chester. He was influential in founding the Royal Society.
[172] The first edition was entitled: C. Hugenii Κοσμοθεωρος, sive de Terris coelestibus, earumque ornatu, conjecturae, The Hague, 1698, 4to. There were several editions. It was also translated into French (1718), and there was another English edition (1722). Huyghens (1629-1695) was one of the best mathematical physicists of his time.
[173] It is hardly necessary to say that science has made enormous advance in the chemistry of the universe since these words were written.
[174] William Whewell (1794-1866) is best known through his History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840).
[175] Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), the celebrated Scotch preacher. These discourses were delivered while he was minister in a large parish in the poorest part of Glasgow, and in them he attempted to bring science into harmony with the Bible. He was afterwards professor of moral philosophy at St. Andrew's (1823-28), and professor of theology at Edinburgh (1828). He became the leader of a schism from the Scotch Presbyterian Church,—the Free Church.
[176] That is, in Robert Watt's (1774-1819) Bibliotheca Britannica (posthumous, 1824). Nor is it given in the Dictionary of National Biography.
[177] The late Greek satirist and poet, c. 120-c. 200 A.D.
[178] François Rabelais (c. 1490-1553) the humorist who created Pantagruel (1533) and Gargantua (1532). His work as a physician and as editor of the works of Galen and Hippocrates is less popularly known.
[179] Francis Godwin (1562-1633) bishop of Llandaff and Hereford. Besides some valuable historical works he wrote The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speed Messenger of London, 1638.