COPERNICUS. 131 



like these. What was the attitude of man towards everything not 

 himself before the day of Copernicus? towards things divine, things 

 spiritual, things natural ? What is his view of the world now ? The 

 changes are so fundamental, extensive and bewildering as not to be 

 described, much less estimated, except by a long series of separate steps, 

 each one opening new worlds in religion, philosophy, science, art, 

 technics. To name them all would be to summarize the entire history 

 of human progress for three hundred and fifty years. In the long 

 stairway of ascent Copernicus established the foundation stone. 

 Tycho, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Kant, Laplace, Herschel, Darwin 

 (to speak only of men of science) each laid successive steps upon it. 

 Until the first was firmly laid no building, no advance, was possible. 

 We stand to-day in a high place of vantage won for us by the master 

 builders of more than three centuries. Without Copernicus their work 

 would have been in vain. The modern world is erected upon founda- 

 tions that he laid. 



