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HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE

whole region ought to resound with new works andfurther advances.” Such was the state of the case inhis day; nor shall we find it much better in latertimes ; for the present it must suffice to remark, that(in regard to Oxford) when the scholastic forms werein a great measure broken up under the reign ofCromwell, the favourable opportunity which was af-forded for establishing a better system in their place,was, as we have seen, not lost by a few ardent friendsof true science : owing, however, to a variety of causes,their partial attempts failed, as far as the universitywas concerned ; and, with the return of the Stuarts,the old system was re-established in all its authority.

Approaches to the Theory of Gravitation.

Boulliaud, as we have observed, introduced the ellipticorbits in his astronomical system. It is not a littleremarkable, that in the same work he should also havebroached an idea respecting gravitation, the connectionof which with the form of the orbit was of coursehidden from him. He remarks, that “ if attraction exist,it will decrease as the square of the distance.” Thescattered elements of the truth were thus being broughttogether from all quarters; but there still was wantingthe master genius to perceive their connection, and tocombine them into a whole.

The influence of gravity was, perhaps, yet more dis-tinctly recognised by Borelli, in his work on “ Jupiter’sSatellites,” in 1666. He here maintains expressly, thatall the planets perform their motions round the sun ac-cording to a general law ; that "the satellites of Jupiter and of Saturn move round their primary planets in thesame manner as the moon does round the earth, andthat they all revolve round the sun, which is the onlysource of any virtue, and that this virtue attaches them,and unites them so that they cannot recede from theircentre of action.”

In the same year, Dr. Ilooke read to the Royal So-