the decrees of
the holy chair against the planetary movement of the earth." This was in
1633, when the report of the sentence of the Inquisition was made known.
He also developed Vieta's idea of the application of algebra to
geometry, and brought into prominence the mechanical fact, destined to
an important application in physical astronomy, that every curvilinear
deflection is due to a controlling force. To him, among Europeans, also
is to be attributed the true explanation of the rise of water in an
exhausted space--"the weight of the water counter-balances that of the
air." Napier perfected his great and useful invention of logarithms.
Hydraulics was created by Castelli; hydrostatics by Torricelli, who also
discovered barometric variations: both were pupils of Galileo. Fabricius
ab Aquapendente discovered the valves in the veins; Servetus almost
detected the course of the circulation. Harvey completed what Servetus
had left unfinished, and described the entire course of the blood;
Asellius discovered the lacteals; Van Helmont introduced the theory of
vitality into medicine, and made the practice or art thereof consist in
regulating by diet the Archeus, whose seat he affirmed to be in the
stomach. In strong contrast with this phantasy, Sanctorio laid the
foundation of modern physiology by introducing the balance into its
inquiries. Pascal, by a decisive experiment, established the doctrines
of the weight and pressure of the air, and published some of the most
philosophical treatises of the age: "his Provincial Letters did more
than any thing to ruin the name of the Jesuits." The contagion spread to
the lawyers: in 1672 appeared Puffendorf's work on the "Law of Nature
and Nations." The phlogistic theory, introduced by Beccher and perfected
by Stahl, created chemistry, in contradistinction to the Arabian
alchemy. Otto Guericke invented the air-pump, Boyle improved it. Hooke,
among many other discoveries, determined the essential conditions of
combustion. Far above all contemporaries in mathematical learning and
experimental skill, Newton was already turning his attention to the
"reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light," and
introducing the idea of attractions into physics. Ray led the way to
comparative anatomy in his synopsis of quadrupeds; Swammerdam improved
the art of dissection, applying it to the general history of insects;
Lister published his synopsis of shells; Tournefort and Malpighi devoted
th