sein de leur ville.’ Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 359.
198
‘Dès qu'il ne s'agit plus d'un parti politique, il concéda, comme à la Rochelle, la liberté de conscience et la faculté de prêche.’ Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 381. Compare Smedley's Hist. of the Reformed Religion in France, vol. iii. p. 201, with Mémoires de Richelieu, vol. iv. p. 484.
199
The Edict of Nismes, in 1629, an important document, will be found in Quick's Synodicon, vol. i. pp. xcvi.–ciii., and in Benoist, Hist. de l'Edit de Nantes, vol. ii. appendix, pp. 92–98; and a commentary on it in Bazin, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. iii. pp. 36–38. M. Bazin, unfortunately for the reputation of this otherwise valuable work, never quotes his authorities.
200
In 1633, their own historian says: ‘les Réformez ne faisoient plus de party.’ Benoist, Hist. de l'Edit de Nantes, vol. ii. p. 532. Compare Sir Thomas Hanmer's account of France in 1648, in Bunbury's Correspond. of Hanmer, p. 309, Lond. 1838.
201
Thomas (Eloge, in Œuvres de Descartes, vol. i. p. 32) says, ‘cet instrument, c'est Descartes qui l'a créé; c'est l'application de l'algèbre à la géométrie.’ And this, in the highest sense, is strictly true; for although Vieta and two or three others in the sixteenth century had anticipated this step, we owe entirely to Descartes the magnificent discovery of the possibility of applying algebra to the geometry of curves, he being undoubtedly the first who expressed them by algebraic equations. See Montucla, Hist. des Mathémat. vol. i. pp. 704, 705, vol. ii. p. 120, vol. iii. p. 64.
202
The statements of Huygens and of Isaac Vossius to the effect that Descartes had seen the papers of Snell before publishing his discovery, are unsupported by any direct evidence; at least none of the historians of science, so far as I am aware, have brought forward any. So strong, however, is the disposition of mankind at large to depreciate great men, and so general is the desire to convict them of plagiarism, that this charge, improbable in itself, and only resting on the testimony of two envious rivals, has been not only revived by modern writers, but has been, even in our own time, spoken of as a well-established and notorious fact! The flimsy basis of this accusation is clearly exposed by M. Bordas Demoulin, in his valuable work Le Cartesianisme, Paris, 1843, vol. ii. pp. 9–12; while, on the other side of the question, I refer with regret to Sir D. Brewster on the Progress of Optics, Second Report of British Association, pp. 309, 310; and to Whewell's Hist. of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 379, 502, 503.
203
See the interesting remarks of Sprengel (Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. pp. 271, 272), and Œuvres de Descartes, vol. iv. pp. 371 seq. What makes this the more observable is this: that the study of the crystalline lens was neglected long after the death of Descartes, and no attempt made for more than a hundred years to complete his views by ascertaining its intimate structure. Indeed, it is said (Thomson's Animal Chemistry, p. 512) that the crystalline lens and the two humours were first analyzed in 1802. Compare Simon's Animal Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. 419–421; Henle, Traité d'Anatomie, vol. i. p. 357; Lepelletier, Physiologie Médicale, vol. iii. p. 160; Mayo's Human Physiol., p. 279; Blainville, Physiol. comparée, vol. iii. pp. 325–328; none of whom refer to any analysis earlier than the nineteenth century. I notice this partly as a contribution to the history of our knowledge, and partly as proving how slow men have been in following Descartes, and in completing his views; for, as M. Blanville justly observes, the chemical laws of the lens must be understood, before we can exhaustively generalize the optical laws of its refraction; so that, in fact, the researches of Berzelius on the eye are complemental to those of Descartes. The theory of the limitation of the crystalline lens according to the descending scale of the animal kingdom, and the connexion between its development and a general increase of sensuous perception, seem to have been little studied; but Dr. Grant (Comparative Anatomy, p. 252) thinks that the lens exists in some of the rotifera; while in regard to its origin, I find a curious statement in Müller's Physiology, vol. i. p. 450, that after its removal in mammals, it has been reproduced by its matrix, the capsule. (If this can be relied on, it will tell against the suggestion of Schwann, who supposes, in his Microscopical Researches, 1847, pp. 87, 88, that its mode of life is vegetable, and that it is not ‘a secretion of its capsule’). As to its probable existence in the hydrozoa, see Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, 1855, p. 96, ‘regarded either as a crystalline lens, or an otolithe;’ and as to its embryonic development, see Burdach, Traité de Physiologie, vol. iii. pp. 435–438.
204
Torricelli first weighed the air in 1643. Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 360; Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 419: but there is a letter from Descartes, written as early as 1631, ‘où il explique le phénomène de la suspension du mercure dans un tuyau fermé par en haut, en l'attribuant au poids de la colonne d'air élevée jusqu'au delà des nues.’ Bordas Demoulin, le Cartésianisme, vol. i. p. 311. And Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. ii. p. 205) says of Descartes, ‘nous avons des preuves que ce philosophe reconnut avant Torricelli la pesanteur de l'air.’ Descartes himself says, that he suggested the subsequent experiment of Pascal. Œuvres de Descartes, vol. x. pp. 344, 351.
205
Dr. Whewell, who has treated Descartes with marked injustice, does nevertheless allow that he is ‘the genuine author of the explanation of the rainbow.’ Hist. of the Induc. Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 380, 384. See also Boyle's Works, vol. iii. p. 189; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, p. 364; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 205; Œuvres de Descartes, vol. i. pp. 47, 48, vol. v. pp. 265–284. On the theory of the rainbow as known in the present century, see Kaemtz, Course of Meteorology, pp. 440–445; and Forbes on Meteorology, pp. 125–130, in Report of British Association for 1840. Compare Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 531; Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. ii. p. 788.
206
The Hebrew notion of the rainbow is well known; and for the ideas of other nations on this subject, see Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. v. pp. 154, 176; Kame's Sketches of the History of Man, vol. iv. p. 252, Edinb. 1788; and Burdache's Physiologie, vol. v. pp. 546, 547, Paris, 1839.
207
Thomas calls him ‘le plus grand géomètre de son siècle.’ Œuvres de Descartes, vol. i. p. 89. Sir W. Hamilton (Discussions on Philosophy, p. 271) says, ‘the greatest mathematician of the age;’ and Montucla can find no one but Plato to compare with him: ‘On ne sauroit donner une idée plus juste de ce qu'a été l'époque de Descartes dans la géométrie ancienne… De même enfin que Platon prépara par sa découverte celles des Archimède, des Apollonius, &c., on peut dire que Descartes a jetté les fondemens de celles qui illustrent aujourd'hui les Newton, les Leibnitz, &c.’ Montucla, Hist. des Mathémat. vol. ii. p. 112.
208
‘Descartes joint encore à ses autres titres, celui d'avoir été un des créateurs de notre langue.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xi. p. 154. Sir James Mackintosh (Dissert. on Ethical Philos. p. 186) has also noticed the influence of Descartes in forming the style of French writers; and I think that M. Cousin has somewhere made a similar remark.
209
Thomas says, ‘Descartes eut aussi la gloire d'être un des premiers anatomistes de son siècle.’ Œuvres de Descartes, vol.
sein de leur ville.’ 