those made by Newton himself,--laws which connect the mean distance of
the planets from the sun with the times of their revolutions; laws which
show that the orbits of planets are elliptical, not circular; and that
the areas described by lines drawn from the moving planet to the sun are
proportionable to the times employed in the motion. What an infinity of
calculation, in the infancy of science,--before the invention of
logarithms,--was necessary to arrive at these truths! What fertility of
invention was displayed in all his hypotheses; what patience in working
them out; what magnanimity in discarding those which were not true! What
power of guessing, even to hit upon theories which could be established
by elaborate calculations,--all from the primary thought, the grand
axiom, which Kepler was the first to propose, that there must be some
numerical or geometrical relations among the times, distances, and
velocities of the revolving bodies of the solar system! It would seem
that although his science was deductive, he invoked the aid of induction
also: a great original genius, yet modest like Newton; a man who avoided
hostilities, yet given to the most boundless enthusiasm on the subjects
to which he devoted his life. How intense his raptures! "Nothing holds
me," he writes, on discovering his great laws; "I will indulge in my
sacred fury. I will boast of the golden vessels I have stolen from the
Egyptians. If you forgive me, I rejoice. If you are angry, it is all the
same to me. The die is cast; the book is written,--to be read either
now, or by posterity, I care not which. It may well wait a century for a
reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."

We do not see this sublime repose in the attitude of Galileo,--this
falling back on his own conscious greatness, willing to let things take
their natural course; but rather, on the other hand, an impatience under
contradiction, a vehement scorn of adversaries, and an intellectual
arrogance that gave offence, and impeded his career, and injured his
fame. No matter how great a man may be, his intellectual pride is always
offensive; and when united with sarcasm and mockery it will make bitter
enemies, who will pull him down.

Galileo, on his transfer to Padua, began to teach the doctrines of
Copernicus,--a much greater genius than he, and yet one who provoked no
enmities, although he made the greatest revolution in astronomical
knowledge that any man ever m