Leonardo da Vinci. First in the order of time in the constellation of genius that then appeared, he was inferior to none of them in native ability, and those that came after him owe much of their success to the influence he exerted upon every channel of thought, every development of artistic feeling, and even the perfection of the mechanic arts of his own and subsequent ages. History hardly furnishes us another such strange combination of mental and physical endowments of the most opposite and, as deemed by many, of the most contradictory nature. Reduced to the test of ordinary genius, he sets all laws of criticism at defiance.

The powers of this great man so far surpassed the ordinary standard of human genius that he cannot be judged of by the common data by which it is usual to estimate the capacity of the human mind. He was a phenomenon that overstepped the bounds in every department of knowledge which limited the researches of his predecessors; and whether he is to be regarded for his accomplishments or his vast attainments, whether as the philosopher or the painter who made a new era in the arts of design, he equally surprises our judgment and enlarges our sphere of comprehension.*

Such was the dawn of modern art when Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendor that distanced all former excellence; made up of all the elements that constitute genius, favored by education and circumstances, all eye, all ear, all grasp; painter, poet, sculptor, anatomist, architect, engineer, chemist, machinist, musician, man of science, and sometimes empiric, he laid hold of every beauty in the enchanted circle, but without exclusive attachment to one, he dismissed each in her turn.†

His researches were by no means of a cursory kind. He brought to his labor a mind of the keenest analysis. He shrank from no investigation, however arduous; and under the influence of his catalytic touch, every science seemed to crystalize into definite form. He left no science unexamined, and no art unpracticed. In each he reached a degree of excellence that would have satisfied any ordinary genius to have attained in one alone. Thus in philosophy we are accustomed to look upon Lord Bacon as the great reorganizer of our modes of reasoning, and as the first who had the courage to dispute the claims of the dogmatic school that had for so long a period paralyzed all efforts toward progress in the human mind. We may give to our English philosopher all due praise for the part + Fuseli.

* De Quincy.

he acted in restoring reason to her legitimate sphere, but the brightness of his fame does not require that we should give to him any of the credit that justly belongs to others. The rebellion against authority had existed in an unorganized form for a long time before he wrote his "Novum Organum." A guerilla warfare against the established modes of thinking had been carried on in Italy at least for more than a century, under the leadership of Da Vinci. While Bacon was pursuing his studies in Italy, he perceived the importance of the transformation that was going on; and as Garibaldi is to-day carrying on a civil revolution, so Bacon marshaled into a revolution the hosts of philosophy that had for so long a time been in rebellion. A century before him Leonardo da Vinci had practiced in all his investigations the exact principles of the Baconian philosophy, had defended them in his discussions with the scholastics of his day, and had recorded his views in his various works.

None of the writings of Leonardo da Vinci were published till more than a century after his death; and, indeed, the most remarkable of them are still in manuscript. But as he was born in

1452, we may presume his mind to have been in full expansion before 1490. His treatise on painting is known as a very early disquisition on the rules of the art. But his greatest literary distinction is derived from those short fragments of his unpublished writings that appeared not many years since; and which, according, at least, to the common estimate of the age in which he lived, are more like the revelations of physical truth vouchsafed to a single mind than the superstructure of its reasoning upon any established basis. The discoveries which made Galileo, and Kepler, and Maestlin, and Maurolycus, and Castelli, and other names illustrious, the system of Copernicus, and the very theories of recent geologists, are anticipated by Da Vinci within the compass of a few pages, not, perhaps, in the most precise language, or on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us with something like the awe of preternatural knowledge. In an age of so much dogmatism he first laid down the grand principle of Bacon, that experiment and observation must be the guides to the just theory in the investigation of nature.*

But let us quote from Da Vinci's own words. We will premise by saying that most of his writings are still in manuscript, and these he wrote in the manner of the present Persians, or of the printed Hebrew, from left to right on the page. It is supposed that he did so to prevent their being used by other

* Hallam.

persons before he had arranged them into formal treatises, as he had intended to do, but was prevented by the civil wars and invasions to which Lombardy was subject during the reign of the house of the Sforzas. This manner of writing makes his notes very difficult to decipher, but also serves to identify them. Nearly all that he has left on record is in the form of concise apothegms. On the subject of the true method of reasoning he says:

Experience is the true interpreter of the works of nature. She never deceives us. It is our judgment that sometimes deceives itself, because it expects effects which experience refuses. We must consult experience to understand the variation of circumstances with reference to the general laws we have deduced, for it is this that furnishes true laws. But you ask me, "Of what use are these laws?" I answer, that they direct us in the researches of nature and in the operations of art. They prevent us from abusing ourselves and others by promising results that we shall not be able to attain.

In the study of those sciences that pertain to mathematics, those who do not consult nature, but their authorities, are not the children of nature; I would say that they are not even her grandchildren; she alone is the instructor of true genius.

My plan is first to cite experience, and to show afterward why bodies follow this law. This is the true method to observe in investigating the phenomena of nature. It is very true that nature commences with reason and ends with experience; but it is necessary that we should take just the opposite course. As I have said before, we should commence with experience, and strive by that means to attain to the reason.

Could anything possibly be more Baconian? And how shall we sufficiently admire the genius that so clearly discerned the errors of the philosophers of his day, and the boldness of him who had the courage to oppose the sacred "authority" of the scholastics? Thus the true history of philosophy shows us that the ancient dogmatic school had lost its power in Italy under the leadership of Da Vinci, while Des Cartes simply attacked the fleeing enemy, and after him, Bacon's chief glory consists in clothing the august image of the incoming dynasty in so attractive a garb as to enlist the affections of all considerate men of science.

Leonardo also carried his sound philosophy into the fields of practical science. For the following remarkable extracts we are indebted to Venturi, in his "Essai sur les

ouvrages physico-mathématiques de Léonard de Vinci, Paris, 1797," and to Di Libri, in his "Hist. des Sci. Mathém. en Italie."

He wrote largely on mechanical science and on hydraulics. He anticipated Galileo in asserting, in 1499, that the time of descent of a body down an inclined plane is the same as though it passed along its vertical height. He gave a correct statement of the proportionate forces exerted by a cord acting obliquely and supporting a weight on a lever, distinguishing between real and potential levers. He states that a body descends along the arc of a circle in less time than down its chord. In speaking of the descent of bodies, he assumes the rotation of the earth, stating that a body falling from a high elevation has a compound motion in consequence of the earth's revolution. Among other things, he explained the laws of friction previous to Amontons. He describes the principles of virtual velocities, and the influence of the center of gravity on bodies at rest and in motion. In optics, he describes the camera obscura before Porter, and the form of the sun's image when its rays enter a darkened chamber through an angular orifice, before Maurolycos. He writes most philosophically on aerial perspective, [and linear also,] describes the nature of colored shadows, the duration of visual impressions on the retina, and other optical phenomena which we do not meet with in Vittellion; and lastly, Leonardo described the principles of the motions of liquids, in his treatise on hydraulics, even more clearly than Castelli, who lived in the next generation and is regarded usually as the founder of that science. "We must place Da Vinci at the head of those in modern times who have investigated the physico-mathematical sciences and the true method of study."*

Leonardo constructed some of the largest aqueducts of ancient or modern times, was architect of many of the noblest edifices in Italy (a treatise on architecture is among his works;) he introduced a number of important changes in gunnery and fortifications, and invented cranes, derricks, and other mechanical contrivances, as the progress of the works under his charge showed their necessity. He paid particular attention to anatomy, and filled several folio volumes with his drawings and

* Di Libri.

accompanying notes. One of these volumes is now in the possession of the British Academy. In the year 1746 Dr. John Hunter, the first great light in English anatomy, remarked, on seeing this volume, then in the library of George the Third, that "he saw with astonishment that Leonardo was a deep student in this science, and was at that time the best anatomist in the world." There are fac-simile engravings of these drawings, with the notes on the side of the plates, in the Astor library. Their scientific accuracy is surprising, and their spirited, artistic finish is in marked contrast to what we see in many if not all of the best works even of the present day.

Having a passionate fondness for music, both vocal and instrumental, he learned early in life to play the guitar. He soon threw it aside as too easy of execution and as too limited in its power, and took up the harp. So rapid was his mastery over this instrument, so beautiful in its effects, yet so difficult to play upon, that, accompanying it with his own rich, clear voice, he improvised both words and music. Lomazzo says that "he was the first musician of his day." He invented a new kind of viola, and also introduced some improvements in the construction of the harp. Most of the poetry he composed was of the ballad form, and but few specimens of it have been handed down, unless they exist in his as yet undeciphered manuscripts.

In modeling and sculpture, Leonardo was unsurpassed by any who had preceded him in modern times. His chief works are San Tommaso in Florence, a horse in Venice; some exquisite statues, modeled by him, but cast in bronze by Rustici for the Church of St. John in Venice; an alto relievo model of St. Jerome in a grotto, represented as old and much worn by prayer; besides a large variety of heads modeled in clay from time to time, of which "even those executed in his youth seemed to come from the hand of a master."

But all these attainments were secondary to his character and fame as a painter. To art he made all his investigations and labors subservient, and it is in this that his genius shines in its fullest brilliancy. Very early in life he adopted the most rigid habit of copying every object he met with in nature with perfect accuracy. His minuteness of finish, and at the same time his perfect harmony in the composition of his pieces, would suit exactly the most enthusiastic pre-Raphaelite