cises: even after this last degree, post tot naufragia, pericula, and examina, (as the old statute book expresses it,) he was under the necessity of preaching a Latin sermon, and of holding an annual disputation in the schools "on some dubious and subtile question," if he resided in the University. In the last body of statutes given to the university by Queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1570, the principal alterations therein made relate only to discipline; none are observable in those connected with the studies of the youth, and very few with those of superior standing. The disputations in the Sophs Schools were arranged almost after the same manner in which they now exist, and a Moderator Scholæ, together with two Examiners of the Questionists, was appointed; but a more correct idea may be formed of the method of study pursued at this period, from an extract taken out of a scarce work published at Cambridge, in the year 1769, from a vellum MS. intitled "a projecte contayninge the state, order, and manner of government of the University of Cambridge, as now it is to be seen in the three and fortieth yeare of the Raigne of our Most Gracious and Soveraigne Lady Queen Elizabeth." After a full account of all the officers of the University, we come to the article of "Lecturers for the instruction of the younger sort of scholars, as namely, One Rethoricke To read the precepts of Rethoricke in one of the common scholes, in such sorte as is fit for younge scholers at their first coming to the University. To teach the use of Logicke by publique One Logic readeing in the scholes unto such as are of the 2nd and 3rd years continuance. Reader. One Philosophie One Mathematical To read a Philosophie Lecture, either of morale, politique, or natural philosophie, unto the Sophisters and Bacchelers of Arte, thereunto resorting by statute. To read the arte of Arithmeticke, of Geometrie, of Cosmograpie, or of Astronomy, in such sort as is fit for his auditory, being also of Sophisters and Bacchelers of Arte." These four lecturers still exist under the title of Barnaby Lecturers, whose office was no sinecure in the times of which we are treating, although it has now lapsed into the official duties of the college tutor. Similar instructions to those above quoted are given for the direction of Readers in Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Civil Law, and Medicine, instituted by King Henry VIII., and who are called "Lecturers for the increase of knowlege in the more ancient students," as well as the Divinity Reader, and an University Preacher, who is ordered "to preache at Paule's Cross, and at other places thereunto named and appointed:" both of these offices were founded by Lady Margaret, mother of King Henry VII. Although an evident improvement had now taken place in academical studies and discipline, and although the pursuits of science were, in a great measure, detached from that scholastic method which had so long held reason in chains, still there was too much time and labor expended in subtile questions and vain disputations, held more for the sake of confuting an antagonist and the gratification of literary vanity, than for the promotion of real knowlege. The greatest philosophers, and the highest characters of the age, frequently indulged in the exercises of this palæstra to a most preposterous extent; instigated no doubt by the applauses which were so lavishly poured on victorious combatants by admiring contemporaries. Haddon, in a letter to Dr. Cox, speaking of a public disputation held by Sir Thomas Smith at a Cambridge commencement, bursts out into the following rapturous exclamations: "Had he (Dr. Cox) been there, he would have heard another Socrates; that he caught the forward disputants, as it were, in a net with his questions; and that he concluded the most profound cases of philosophy with great gravity and deep knowlege." At length a higher order of philosophy arose, and the dogmas of the Divine Doctors, and of the Irrefragable Doctors, soon vanished into air. The great Bacon commenced his academical career about the end of the sixteenth century; his intellect instantly discovered all the imperfections of the reigning Aristotelian system of philosophy, together with their causes; nor did his comprehensive mind rest till he had effected that change which placed knowlege on the firmest foundations. At a very early age, this extraordinary man was heard to say "that his exceptions against that great philosopher (Aristotle) were founded not on the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but on the unfruitfulness of the ways, being a philosophy only for disputations and contentions, but barren in the production of works for the benefit of the life of man." It was, however, easier for the genius of a Bacon to discover the errors of a system, than to remove the prejudices of its supporters; yet the power of truth, as must ever be the case, gradually prevailed; and about the middle of the seven teenth century the dogmas of the Aristotelian school gave way to the force of Inductive Philosophy. The brightness, however, of this philosophy became again obscured for a time by an undue partiality which the system of Descartes, and his disciple Rohault, obtained; a system, which, although it corrected some errors, and amended some imperfections, rather dazzled the imagination by subtle hypotheses, than convinced the judgment by careful observation; which, admitting nothing to be true which was not evident, and referring that evidence to inward sensation, established principles dangerous equally to philosophy and religion. Its brilliant but fallacious doctrines held a most distinguished place in the schools of Europe, until Newton took up, extended and confirmed that more sober and sound method of philosophizing which Bacon had introduced. This immortal man removed at last the crazy superstructure of science from the weak foundation of hypothesis, and raised a more substantial edifice on the solid basis of experiment. Admitting nothing as a principle which could not be established by observation and experience, he drew his propositions from phænomena, and rendered them general by induction, entertaining no hypothesis at all except for the purpose of submitting it to experiment. The way had been paved for this great change at Cambridge by the establishment of the Lucasian Professorship, A. D. 1663, the chair of which, as we have seen, was first dignified by the occupation of Barrow. This great man was on all points opposed to the dogmas of the scholastics. Instead of considering, like them, that the soul was the only place of ideas, and that thought had no communication with bodily organs, he entertained and openly avowed that opinion which the illustrious Locke expanded into his admirable essay, viz. that all our ideas flow into the mind through the various inlets of the senses. Eorum enim, qui communiter apparent, effectuum notitia atque historia ultro otiosis et quasi nolentibus se ingerunt, per apertas sensuum fenestras ad anima sedem penetrantes, &c.* And as he opposed the fallacious subleties of logic, so did he endeavor to clear mathematical knowlege from the rubbish with which it had been long encumbered, and to form it into a system fit for the instruction of youth: to this end he published very early in his career improved editions of Euclid's Elements and Data; then his own excellent Lectures on Optics and Geometry; next an edition of the works of Archimedes and some other ancient mathematicians; and in 1683 the world at large was presented with those admirable Mathematical Lectures which he had delivered in the schools as Lucasian Professor,+ and from which the era of mathematical science in Cambridge may be said to commence.! Opuscula, p. 34. In the years 1664, 1665, 1667. The splendid discoveries indeed of Newton obscured the merits of his predecessors, as the blaze of the rising sun extinguishes the glimmering of the stars. From him therefore we are accustomed to date the commencement of our mathematical system at Cambridge. But as it has been erroneously supposed that the Newtonian doctrines made their way more rapidly in other places than in that which gave them birth, it may be worth while to give a little consideration to this point. It is not indeed to be supposed that they could be immediately adopted by the great mass of stu. dents; yet they were most sedulously propagated by persons qualified to judge of their merits; being illustrated and explained in very |