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Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), L. (search)
f the invention about the same date is Metius, who was a glass-cutter, and casually observed the effect of a concave and convex lens held in line in the hands. The three latter claimants had their supporters as the authors of the invention. Descartes, who lived near the time, supported the claims of Metius. Borelli, about 1650, examined the question, and decided in favor of Jansen and Lippersheim. Porta is said to have hastened his death, which happened in 1615, by the fatigue and anxietyiderable extent of view. He afterward added two more glasses, which reversed the image and brought it to the natural position. Rheita was the first to employ the combination of three lenses, the terrestrial telescope. Suellius of Leyden, Descartes (1596 – 1650), and Leibnitz (1646 – 1716) stated the doctrine of refraction more or less fully; and Grimaldi, an Italian painter, demonstrated the ellipticity of the sun's image after refraction through a prism; Newton (1642 – 1727) determined <
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), M. (search)
nown in early times to the Chinese, Japanese, Assyrians, and Egyptians, and more lately among the Greeks and Romans. The use of lenses for microscopes long preceded their application to telescopes. Sir David Brewster exhibited one in 1852 which was made of rock crystal, and was found among the ruins of Nineveh. The refractive power of glass was known to Ptolemy, who gives a table of the deviation luminous rays experience when passing through glass under different angles of incidence. Descartes discovered the law that the amount of this refraction is proportional to the sine of the angle of incidence, and from that time date all great discoveries in optics. Glass balls, called burning spheres, were sold in Athens before the Christian era. Their magnifying power was mentioned by the Roman philosopher Seneca, and by Porta of Naples in his Magia Naturalis, published in 1590. Alhazen, A. D. 1100, was the first to correct the popular error as to the nature of vision, showing th
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), T. (search)
lco, hearing of the principle of the new wonder, constructed one in 1509, magnifying four times, a second magnifying seven times, and then one magnifying thirty-two times. It is only fair to give another account, for which we are indebted to Descartes, who lived at about the time when the invention was made public, and had a right to know whereof he affirmed. He says it was made by James Metius, and was due to a fortunate accident. James was a glass-cutter, and had a brother who was a proftance, by the respective hands. Fortunately he tried the experiment with a concave and convex glass, which gave the wonderful effect now so familiar. They were fitted in a wooden tube, and made the first telescope ever used in the world, says Descartes. The inventor was a suspicious character, and tried to keep the invention secret even on his deathbed. But his brother and some few others had seen it, and were able to follow the track, which they opened to the world, and which was followed
Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 1, Colonial and Revolutionary Literature: Early National Literature: Part I (ed. Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950.), Chapter 5: philosophers and divines, 1720-1789 (search)
part and parcel of his training in letters. Educated at New Haven at a time when the old lights framed the policy of the college, Johnson, as he says in his autobiography, after many scruples and an intolerable uneasiness of mind went over to that excellent church, the Church of England. This change, which necessitated a public disavowal of his former faith, was due in large measure to browsing in forbidden fields. Before Johnson's graduation, some of the speculations and discoveries of Descartes, Boyle, Locke, and Newton had been heard in the Connecticut colony. But the young men were cautioned against these authors, as well as against a new philosophy which was attracting attention in England. The reason given was that the new thought would corrupt the pure religion of the country and bring in another system of divinity. It was characteristic of Johnson, brought up in the darkened chambers of Calvinism, to attempt to obtain a glimpse into the brighter world outside. He had
Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 1, Colonial and Revolutionary Literature: Early National Literature: Part I (ed. Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950.), Index. (search)
, 209, 303-304 Defence of the Constitution of government of the United States of America, 147 Defence of the letter from a Gentleman at Halifax, etc., A, 128 Defoe, 91, 93, 109, I10, 115, i16 Deformed, the, 230 De Jure Naturae et Gentium, 53 Dekker, Thomas, 230 De l'amerique et des Americains, 188 De Lancey, Susan Augusta, 294 Della Crusca, 178, 179 Democracy Unveiled, etc., 175 Demosthenes, 202 Denham, John, 163 Dennie, Joseph, 180, 234-236, 237, 244 Descartes, 81 Description of New England, a, 16 Descriptive poems (McKinnon), 163 Deserted Farm House, the, 181 Deserted village, the, 163 De Tocqueville, 190 Dial, the, 340-342, 343 Dialogue between Franklin and the gout, the, 101 Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio, etc., 95 Dialogue concerning the present state of affairs in Pennsylvania, 106 Dialogue on free will and Providence, 68 Dickens, 207, 279 Dickenson, G. K., 223 Dickinson (or Dickenson), Jonath
Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3, Chapter 38: repeal of the Missouri Compromise.—reply to Butler and Mason.—the Republican Party.—address on Granville Sharp.—friendly correspondence.—1853-1854. (search)
idea of the vicious circle in which society was supposed to have moved, proceeding to a certain stage and then falling back, and did not see its sure and irresistible march. Bacon, per haps, in saying that moderns stand on the shoulders of the ancients, suggested the whole thought. But there are several writers of France who seem to me to have struck the subject to the quick, more even than Vico, though down to the time of Condorcet no one had considered it at length. I might begin with Descartes, though I forget now the title of the work. There is also a chapter of Pascal in his Pensees, suppressed in the early editions for a century, which is very pregnant. The discussion in France at the close of the seventeenth century on the comparative merits of the ancients and the moderns struck out some things bearing on this subject, in the writings of Perrault and also of Fontenelle. As a student of Vico, you are doubtless acquainted with the work of his admirer, Cataldo Jannalli,—Ce
Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3, Chapter 41: search for health.—journey to Europe.—continued disability.—1857-1858. (search)
ners of state; saw the writing and marks of Ludovico Sforza made during his gloomy imprisonment; was filled with detestation of the government that kept such cells; as a ruin this chateau is one of the finest in Europe; here also is the tomb of Agnes Sorel. my landlord here was a simple man, who had seen few strangers; he told me that there was not a single Man cook in Lochoes with its five thousand inhabitants. Drove through a fertile country to La Haye, and visited the chamber in which Descartes was born. my visit here seemed to excite attention; lost the train I had intended to take at Les Ormes; waited there in a park till evening, when I went on to Poitiers. May 30. This is an old place. Early in the morning visited its cathedral, its ancient churches, and its library; at eleven o'clock took the train for Bordeaux, passing Angouleme; also Contras, the scene of Henry IV.'s battles, and St. Emilion. In the evening went for a little while to the magnificent theatre. May 3
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays, A charge with Prince Rupert. (search)
all for those who (as he said) printed malicious and lying pamphlets against him almost every morning, in which he found himself saluted as a nest of perfidious vipers, a night-flying dragon prince, a flapdragon, a caterpillar, a spider, and a butterbox. He was the King's own nephew,--great-grandson of William the Silent, and son of that Elizabeth Stuart from whom all the modern royal family of England descends. His sister was the renowned Princess Palatine, the one favorite pupil of Descartes, and the chosen friend of Leibnitz, Malebranche, and William Penn. From early childhood he was trained to war; we find him at fourteen pronounced by his tutors fit to command an army,--at fifteen, bearing away the palm in one of the last of the tournaments,--at sixteen, fighting beside the young Turenne in the Low Countries,--at nineteen, heading the advanced guard in the army of the Prince of Orange,and at twenty-three we find him appearing in England, the day before the royal standard w
George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition., Chapter 9: (search)
gotry; when England was gasping under the despotism of intolerance almost half a century before William Penn became an American proprietary; and two years before Descartes founded modern philosophy on the method of free reflection,—Roger Williams asserted the great doctrine of intellectual liberty. It became his glory to found a sation. She had imbibed them in Europe; and it is a singular fact, though easy of explanation, that, in the very year 1637 in which she was arraigned at Boston, Descartes, like herself a refugee from his country, like herself a prophetic harbinger of the spirit of the coming age, established philosophic liberty on the method of free reflection. Both asserted that the conscious judgment of the mind is the highest authority to itself. Descartes did but promulgate, under the philosophic form of free reflection, the same truth which Anne Hutchinson, with the fanaticism of impassioned conviction, avowed under the form of inward revelations. The true tendenc
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition., Colonial history. (search)
r, said he one day to the poet Waller, I must talk to these people in their own style. Did the passion for political equality blaze up in the breasts of the yeomanry, who constituted his bravest troops, it was checked by the terrors of a military execution. The Scotch Presbyterians could not be cajoled; he resolved to bow their pride; and did it in the only way in which it could be done, by wielding against their bigotry the great conception of the age, the doctrine of Roger Williams and Descartes, freedom of conscience. Approbation, said he, as I believe, with sincerity of conviction, is an act of conveniency, not of necessity. Does a man speak foolishly? suffer him gladly, for ye are wise. Does he speak erroneously? stop such a man's mouth with sound words, that cannot be gainsaid. Does he speak truly? rejoice in the truth. Thurloe, i. 161 To win the royalists, he obtained an act of amnesty, a pledge of future favor to such of them as would submit. He courted the nation
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