THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN SCIENCE 75 



Within the period covered by the foregoing table the 

 universe was literally made anew. For the primitive ideas 

 regarding geography and astronomy, surviving since the 

 dawn of history about the shores of the Mediterranean and 

 essentially like those of savage peoples the world over, were 

 cast aside. Only the establishment of the evolutionary 

 theory during the nineteenth century can compare with the 

 revolution in human thinking thus produced. But evolution 

 made its way in a more tolerant age when freedom had been 

 won and its story is less dramatic. As one writer says, 

 "There came, one after the other, five of the greatest men 

 our race has produced Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Des- 

 cartes, and Newton and when their work was done the old 

 theological conception of the Universe was gone. 'The 

 spacious firmament on high' 'the crystalline spheres' 

 the Almighty enthroned upon ' the circle of the heavens, ' and 

 with his own hands, or with angels as his agents, keeping sun, 

 moon and planets in motion for the benefit of the earth, 

 opening and closing the 'windows of heaven,' letting down 

 upon the earth the 'waters above the firmament, ' setting his 

 bow in the cloud, hanging out ' signs and wonders, ' hurling 

 comets, 'casting forth lightnings' to scare the wicked, and 

 'shaking the earth' in his wrath: all this had disappeared. " 3 

 And with its disappearance came the knowledge of a new 

 heaven and a new earth. Truth had begun to triumph over 

 ignorance. An age of Science was replacing an age of 

 Superstition. 



GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC AND RATIONALISTIC KNOWLEDGE 



The appearance of individuals of genius and the occurrence 

 of events of revolutionary import are indicative of the dawn 

 of a new age. It was so with the Renaissance. The great 

 Italian national poet, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is in 



3 White, A. D., "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology,'' 

 Vol. I, p. 15. 



