PHYSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. 12.0

subject of electricity, and made many new experimentson its developement by excitation in different substances.The declination, or deviation of the needle from thetrue north, was observed by Sebastian Chabot, and thedip by William Norman before this period.

Though not, perhaps, directly concerned in physicalscience, yet, as a vigorous opponent of the Aristoteliansystem, which placed such formidable obstacles in theway of the advance of experimental enquiry, we mayhere notice the labours of the celebrated Peter Ramus ,who was born in 1502, and subsequently became aprofessor of philosophy in the university of Paris. Inthis situation he strenuously contended against thescholastic dogmas which placed such pernicious re-straints on the energies of the human mind, and sogrievously impeded the progress of truth. Such con-duct, of course, drew down upon him the hostility ofthe heads of the university; and before a tribunal,which they obtained to be appointed under royal autho-rity, he was tried and condemned. His enemies appearto have exulted in their triumph ; but his friends weresufficiently influential to Obtain for him another profes-sorship ; and his powerful eloquence seems to havebeen again employed with great effect in opposing theAristotelian tenets. The unsettled state of the country,however, greatly interfered with all philosophical pur-suits ; and Ramus , after many sufferings, perished inthe massacre of St. Bartholomew , 1571.

Jerome Fracastor , about 1540, published a treatise“ De Stellis,” iff which he distinctly refers to the prin-ciple of the resolution of motion ; observing, that bo-dies, having a tendency to fall straight to the centre ofthe earth, when thrown transversely to that directiontake ah intermediate course.

We have seen, in a former section, that the leverwas the only one of the mechanical powers whose theorywas perfectly established by the ancients. The equili-brium of bodies, consequently, could only be successfully

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