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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



earth revolve in an orbit round the sun. But, in 

 quoting the opinions of the ancients, he carefully 

 slurs over the heliocentric portion of his scheme 

 with an ambiguous phrase. " Philolaus the 

 Pythagorean," he writes, " attributed to the 

 earth divers motions, and classed it among the 

 stars." Now, the cosmical scheme of Philolaus 

 was in its essence geocentric, since the " Central 

 Fire," round which it made the earth as well as 

 the sun and other luminaries revolve, although 

 not contained within the substance of the earth, 

 was supposed to exist immediately outside it — 

 that is, within the small circle of its daily rota- 

 tion. Next, while alleging in support of his views 

 the opinions of Hicetas, Heraclides, and Ecphan- 

 tus, as well as of Philolaus, Copernicus omits all 

 mention of the only one among the Greeks who 

 attained to a clear conception of the true solar 

 system — Aristarchus of Samos. Nor can it be 

 supposed that he was ignorant of his views, since 

 he quotes from the identical treatise by Plutarch 

 (or some other unknown author), in which the 

 following remarkable passage occurs : " Aristar- 

 chus numbers the sun among the fixed stars, 

 makes the earth move in the solar circle" (the 

 ecliptic), " and says that the shadows fall on it 

 proportionately to its inclinations." ' (A suffi- 

 ciently clear account of the changes of the sea- 

 sons.) Only one explanation occurs to us to ac- 

 count for this marked neglect of so decisive an 

 authority — namely, the faint suspicion of impiety 

 attaching to the name of Aristarchus. Cleanthes 

 the Stoic had imputed it to him as an offense 

 against religion that he had " disturbed the re- 

 pose of Hestia," and the accusation was not with- 

 out success in imposing silence upon the truth. 

 In the sixteenth century, antiquity was still vital, 

 and its reminiscences not ineffective. Copernicus 

 feared lest a second Aristarchus might meet with 

 a second Cleanthes. 



Although the publication of his book was pro- 

 moted by a cardinal (Schonberg), and its dedica- 

 tion accepted by a pope, Copernicus well knew 

 that a great mass of prejudice remained to be 

 overcome before his system could be finally re- 

 ceived as the only rational interpretation of ce- 

 lestial phenomena. And, in fact, astronomers 

 and mathematicians admired it as a beautiful hy- 

 pothesis, but continued to take the " Almagest " 

 for their text-book, .and to make the tables of 

 Alfonso the basis of their calculations ; while Gi- 

 ordano Bruno, although grasping its truth with 

 an intuition of genius, by using it as a weapon 



1 Plutarch, "De Plaeitis Philosophoram," lib. ii., cap. 

 24, quoted by Schiaparelli. Appendix, xl. 



against revealed religion, excited the alarm of 

 the simple, and prepared the tribulations of Gali- 

 leo. 



Although he has no claim to be ranked among 

 the great discoverers in astronomical and mathe- 

 matical science, Giordano Bruno must be placed 

 with Galileo, and before Galileo, in the foremost 

 rank of the champions and martyrs of scientific 

 truth. The comprehensive audacity of his genius 

 seized .at once the bearing of the Copernican sys- 

 tem on the whole range of human thought, no 

 longer concentrated around the destinies of this 

 terrestrial ball, but expanded and expanding into 

 space, and revolving round an orb, which is but 

 one of the luminous centres of the creation. 

 There is nothing in language finer than some of 

 the flashes of eloquence in which Bruno describes 

 the effect of this illumination of his mind. But 

 with his enthusiasm was combined a singular 

 gift of playfulness and humor. Among other 

 miscellaneous topics — the qualities of binaries, 

 the hopeless dullness of the Peripatetics, the 

 Stygian condition of London streets, and the 

 Tartarean manners of London citizens — he dis- 

 cussed the Copernican philosophy in a remark- 

 able and entertaining series of dialogues, called 

 the " Cena de le Ceneri." The scene of this fic- 

 titious Ash - Wednesday supper is laid in "the 

 honored dwelling of the most noble and high- 

 bred Signor Folco Grivello " (Fulke Greville). 

 Time, the spring of 1584 — the twenty-sixth year 

 of Elizabeth — when Bruno was the guest in Lon- 

 don of Mauvissiere, the French embassador, oc- 

 cupying, as he tells us, not without rancor, " a 

 most eminent place under the roof." The pur- 

 pose of the debate was to prove the truth of Co- 

 pernican doctrines to the satisfaction of Greville 

 and his friends, in the teeth of two " mad bar- 

 barians," Drs. Nundinio and Torquato. Eng- 

 land, Bruno informs us, was fertile of such fruit 

 — doctors fit rather to follow the plough than to 

 adduce learned arguments ; proud of refusing to 

 believe what Aristotle was ignorant of, and not 

 ashamed to be ignorant of all that Aristotle knew ; 

 pedants, before whose obstinate and presumptive 

 ignorance, combined with rustic incivility, Job's 

 patience itself must have given way. 



As we read, we cease to wonder that Gior- 

 dano Bruno had to fly from Paris before the ris- 

 ing storm of Peripatetic wrath, and that he spent 

 his life a wanderer on the face of the earth. His 

 sarcasms were too keen to be readily forgiven ; 

 his sneers were too constant to be lightly ig- 

 nored ; his very gratitude carried with it a sting, 

 and his eulogy was dogged by a mocking shade 



