CURIOSITIES OF SCIENCE.
Introductory.
SCIENCE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.
In every province of human knowledge where we now possess a careful and coherent interpretation of nature, men began by attempting in bold flights to leap from obvious facts to the highest point of generality—to some wide and simple principle which after-ages had to reject. Thus, from the facts that all bodies are hot or cold, moist or dry, they leapt at once to the doctrine that the world is constituted of four elements—earth, air, fire, water; from the fact that the heavenly bodies circle the sky in courses which occur again and again, they at once asserted that they move in exact circles, with an exactly uniform motion; from the fact that heavy bodies fall through the air somewhat faster than light ones, it was assumed that all bodies fall quickly or slowly exactly in proportion to their weight; from the fact that the magnet attracts iron, and that this force of attraction is capable of increase, it was inferred that a perfect magnet would have an irresistible force of attraction, and that the magnetic pole of the earth would draw the nails out of a ship’s bottom which came near it; from the fact that some of the finest quartz crystals are found among the snows of the Alps, it was inferred that the crystallisation of gems is the result of intense and long-continued cold: and so on in innumerable instances. Such anticipations as these constituted the basis of almost all the science of the ancient world; for such principles being so assumed, consequences were drawn from them with great ingenuity, and systems of such deductions stood in the place of science.—Edinburgh Review, No. 216.
SCIENCE AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.
The earliest science of a decidedly English school is due, for the most part, to the University of Oxford, and specially to Merton College,—a foundation of which Wood remarks, that there was no other for two centuries, either in Oxford or Paris, which could at all come near it in the cultivation of the sciences. But he goes on to say that large chests full of the writers of this college were allowed to remain untouched by their successors for fear of the magic which was supposed to be contained in them. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to trace the liberalising effect of scientific study upon the University in general, and Merton College in particular; and it must be remembered that to the cultivation of the mind at Oxford we owe almost all the literary celebrity of the middle ages. In this period the University of Cambridge appears to have acquired no scientific distinction. Taking as a test the acquisition of celebrity on the continent, we find that Bacon, Sacrobosco, Greathead, Estwood, &c. were all of Oxford. The latter University had its morning of splendour while Cambridge was comparatively unknown; it had also its noonday, illustrated by such men as Briggs, Wren, Wallis, Halley, and Bradley.
The age of science at Cambridge may be said to have begun with Francis Bacon; and but that we think much of the difference between him and his celebrated namesake lies more in time and circumstances than in talents or feelings, we would rather date from 1600 with the former than from 1250 with the latter. Praise or blame on either side is out of the question, seeing that the earlier foundation of Oxford, and its superiority in pecuniary means, rendered all that took place highly probable; and we are in a great measure indebted for the liberty of writing our thoughts, to the cultivation of the liberalising sciences at Oxford in the dark ages.
With regard to the University of Cambridge, for a long time there hardly existed the materials of any proper instruction, even to the extent of pointing out what books should be read by a student desirous of cultivating astronomy.