this Book geven
has A Gift to Samuel Mellor
Sir Kenelm dedicates the volume to his son, in a touching and honourable letter dated “Paris the last of August 1644.” “The calamity of this time” (he says) “hath bereft me of the ordinary means of expressing my affection to you; I have been casting about, to find some other way of doing that in such sort, as you may receive most profit by it. Therein I soon pitched upon these Considerations; that Parents owe unto their children, not only material subsistence for their Body, but much more, spiritual contributions to their better part, their Mind.” Accordingly, with perfect gravity and that sombre and Latinized eloquence which was the peculiar gift of his century, he proceeds to expound in nearly 600 dense pages his observations on what we would call nowadays physics and psychology. It would be agreeable enough, if I did not fear to weary you, to copy down some of Sir Kenelm’s delightful shrewd comments. A few of his section headings will serve to give an idea of his matter. For instance:—
The experience of burning glasses, and of soultry gloomy weather, prove light to be fire.
Philosophers ought not to judge of things by the rules of vulgar people.
The reason why the motion of light is not discerned coming towards us, and that there is some real tardity in it.
The true sense of the Maxim, that Nature abhorreth from vacuity.
The loadstone sendeth forth its emanations spherically. Which are of two kinds: and each kind is strongest in that hemisphere, through whose polary parts they issue out.
The reason why sometimes the same object appears through the prism in two places: and in one place more lively, in the other place more dim.
How the vital spirits sent from the brain, do run to the intended part of the body without mistake.