LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1841.
G. S. TULLIS, PRINTER, CUPAR.
My Lord,
In submitting this volume to the public under your Lordship’sauspices, I avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me ofexpressing the deep sense which I entertain of the friendship andkindness with which your Lordship has so long honoured me.
Although in these days, when Science constitutes the power and wealth ofnations, and encircles the domestic hearth with its most substantialcomforts, there is no risk of its votaries being either persecuted orneglected, yet the countenance of those to whom[vi]Providence has given rank and station will ever be one of the mostpowerful incitements to scientific enterprise, as well as one of itsmost legitimate rewards. Next to the satisfaction of cultivatingScience, and thus laying up the only earthly treasure which we can carryalong with us into a better state, is that of having encouraged andassisted others in the same beneficent labours. That your Lordship maylong continue to enjoy these sources of happiness is the earnest prayerof,
My Lord,
Your Lordship’s
Most faithful and obedient servant,
DAVID BREWSTER.
St Leonards, St Andrews,
October 12, 1840.
LIFE OF GALILEO.
Peculiar interest attached to his Life—His Birth—His earlystudies—His passion for Mathematics—His work on theHydrostatic Balance—Appointed Lecturer on Mathematics atPisa—His antipathy to the Philosophy of Aristotle—Hiscontentions with the Aristotelians—Chosen Professor of Mathematicsin Padua—Adopts the Copernican system, but still teaches thePtolemaic doctrine—His alarming illness—He observes the newStar in 1604—His Magnetical experiments,
Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, invites Galileo to Pisa—Galileovisits Venice in 1609, where he first hears of the Telescope—Heinvents and constructs one, which excites a greatsensation—Discovers Mountains in the Moon, and Forty Stars in thePleiades—Discovers ...