THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF ITALY. 107 



amount to more than that. Competition increases from year to 

 year, and profits tend downward all the time ; consequently, it 

 takes more talent and energy to make fortunes now than it did a 

 few years ago. It is not so easy for a laborer to become a boss as 

 it formerly was ; and as the chances for rising to bosshood grow 

 less, the hatred of bosses increases. This is a symptom of discon- 

 tent, and an evidence of the unreasonableness of the philosophy 

 which is at the bottom of the schemes for relief. Capital must be 

 paid, skill must be paid, and, if they are each paid but two per 

 cent of the accruing profits, one per cent only remains for labor to 

 get as its share, and this to the laborer whose wages are one dol- 

 lar a day would amount to but three dollars a year. That is 

 something, to be sure, but as a means of elevating the laboring 

 classes is of no account. 



THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF ITALY. 



By Dr. W. C. CAHALL. 



TO Italy, more than to any other country, belongs the Renais- 

 sance. The soil was particularly favorable. Upon the fall 

 of the Byzantine Empire its rich treasures of Greek manuscripts 

 found their way from Constantinople to western Europe. The 

 fleets of Venice brought the greater part of them to Italy, where 

 they found liberal purchasers. The Greek scholars, finding their 

 vocation destroyed in Constantinople by the Turks, flocked to 

 Italy to teach and translate. The awakening mind of Italy viewed 

 with eager delight this new world in literature. The eternal 

 freshness and beauty of Homer and Plato, and the marvelous 

 knowledge of Nature displayed by Hippocrates and Aristotle, 

 when read in these full transcriptions of their writings, came 

 with the force of a revelation to those accustomed to garbled ex- 

 tracts, loaded down with scholastic commentaries and absurd 

 elucidations. The study of the classics became a passion of the 

 few, and then the fashion of the many. In every city and large 

 town of Italy academies were formed for the critical study of the 

 manuscripts. 



George Eliot, in her historical romance Romola, furnishes us 

 with a very interesting account of the proceedings of the Platonic 

 Academy of Florence, then under the patronage of the Medici. 

 Not only pure literature and philosophy but scientific inquiry 

 gained an impetus from these societies. Under the direction of 

 such men as Alberti, Da Vinci, Toscanelli, and Da Porta, Nature 

 came to be questioned in the proper scientific spirit. 



Hitherto the scholastics would have had Nature to conform 

 with man and not man conform with Nature, To these teachers 



