Remarks upon two late ingenious discourses.... By Dr. Henry More.[242]
London, 1676, 8vo.
In 1673 and 1675, Matthew Hale,[243] then Chief Justice, published two
tracts, an "Essay touching Gravitation," and "Difficiles Nugae" on the
Torricellian experiment. Here are the answers by the learned and voluminous
Henry More. The whole would be useful to any one engaged in research about
ante-Newtonian notions of gravitation.
Observations touching the principles of natural motions; and especially
touching rarefaction and condensation.... By the author of _Difficiles
Nugae_. London, 1677, 8vo.
This is another tract of Chief Justice Hale, published the year after his
death. The reader will remember that _motion_, in old philosophy, meant any
change from state to state: what we now describe as _motion_ was _local
motion_. This is a very philosophical book, about _flux_ and _materia
prima_, _virtus activa_ and _essentialis_, and other fundamentals. I think
Stephen Hales, the author of the "Vegetable Statics," has the writings of
the Chief Justice sometimes attributed to him, which is very puny justice
indeed.[244] Matthew Hale died in 1676, and from his devotion to science it
probably arose that his famous _Pleas of the Crown_[245] and other law
works did not appear until after his death. One of his {124} contemporaries
was the astronomer Thomas Street, whose _Caroline Tables_[246] were several
times printed: another contemporary was his brother judge, Sir Thomas
Street.[247] But of the astronomer absolutely nothing is known: it is very
unlikely that he and the judge were the same person, but there is not a bit
of positive evidence either for or against, so far as can be ascertained.
Halley[248]--no less a person--published two editions of the _Caroline
Tables_, no doubt after the death of the author: strange indeed that
neither Halley nor any one else should leave evidence that Street was born
or died.
Matthew Hale gave rise to an instance of the lengths a lawyer will go when
before a jury who cannot detect him. Sir Samuel Shepherd,[249] the Attorney
General, in opening Hone's[250] first trial, calls him "one who was the
most learned man that ever adorned the Bench, the most even man that ever
blessed domestic life, the _most eminent man that ever advanced the
progress of science_, and one of the [very moderate] best and most purely
religious men that ever lived."
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