The Life of Sir Isaac Newton Author:David Brewster Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: completed more than one telescope of considerable size; Mr. Raraage, of Aberdeen, has executed reflectors rivalling almost those of Slough;—and Lord Oxmantown, a... more »n Irish nobleman of high promise, is now engaged on an instrument of great size. But what avail the enthusiasm and the efforts of individual minds in the intellectual rivalry of nations ? ' When the proud science of England pines in obscurity, blighted by the absence of the royal favour, and of the nation's sympathy;—when its chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured;—how can it sustain the conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign lands T CHAPTER IV. He delivers a Course of. Optical Lectures at Cambridge—Is elected Fellow of the Royal Society—He communicates to them his Discoveries on the different Refrangibility and Nature of Light—Popular Account of them—They involve him in various Controversies—His Dispute with Pardies—Linus—Lucas—Dr. Hooke and Mr. Huygens—The Influence of these Disputes on the Mind of Newton. Although Newton delivered a course of lectures on optics in the University of Cambridge in the years 1669, 1670, and 1671, containing his principal discoveries relative to the different refrangibility of light, yet it is a singular circumstance, that these discoveries should not have become public through the conversation or correspondence of his pupils. The Royal Society had acquired no knowledge of them till the beginning of 1672, and his reputation in that body was founded chiefly on his reflecting telescope. On the 23d December, 1671, the celebrated Dr. Seth Ward, Lord Bishop of Sarum, who was the author of several able works on astronomy, and had filled the astronomical chair at Oxford, proposed Mr. Newton as a Fellow of the Royal Society. The satisfaction which he derived from thi...« less