KVOLUTION OK TllK SCIKNTIFK" I N V KS'I'IO A'l'OK. 'J2'.) 



of kiiowlcdii'c taken at that time, that instead of elaiiniuii' credit for 

 hriiiiiiiii:' to light great ti'iitlis Ixd'oiv iinkiiowii he made a lahored 

 attempt to show that after all there was nothing really lu'w in his 

 ^ystem. which he claimed to date from Pythagoras and Philolaus. 

 In this connection it is curious that he makes no mention of Aris- 

 tarchus, who, I think, will \)(\ regarded by conservative histoi'ians 

 as his only demonstrated predecessor. To the hold of the older ideas 

 u[)on his mind we nnist attribute the fact that in constructing his 

 system he took great pains to make as little change as possible in 

 ancient conce})tions. 



Luther, the greatest tliought stirrer of them all, practically of the 

 same generation with Copernicus, Leonardo, and Columbus, does not, 

 come in as a scientifi(t investigator, l)ut as the great loosener of chains 

 which had so fettered the intellect of men that they dared not think 

 otherwise than as the authorities thought. 



Almost coeval with the advent of these intellects was the invention 

 of printing witli moval)le type. (lutenl)ei'g was born during the lirst 

 decade of the century, and his associates and others credited with 

 the invention not many years afterwards. If we accept the principle 

 on which T am basing my argument, that we should assign the first 

 place to the l)irth of those psychic agencies which started men on new 

 lines of thought, then surely was the fifteenth the wonderful century. 



Let us not forget that, in assigning the actors then born to their 

 ])laces, we are not narrating history, but studying a special phase 

 of evolution. It matters not for us that no university invited Leo- 

 nardo to its halls, and that his science was xalued by his contempo- 

 raries only as an adjunct to the art of engineering. The great fact 

 still is that he was the first of mankind to propound laws of motion. 

 It is not for anything in Luther's doctrines that he finds a ])lace in 

 our scheme. Xo matter for us Avhether they were sound or nor. 

 \Miat he did toward the evolution of the scientific investigator was 

 to show by his example that a man might cpiestion the best-estab- 

 lished and most venerable authority and still live, still i)reserve his 

 intellectual integrity, still connnand a hearing from nations and 

 their I'ulers. It matters not for us whether Columbus ever knew 

 that he had discovered a new continent. His work was to teach 

 that neither hydra, chimera, nor abyss — neither divine injunction nor 

 infei-na! machination — was in the way of men visiting every part of 

 the glol)e, and that the i)r<)blem of concpiering the world reduced itself 

 to one of sails and rigging, hull and compass. The better part of 

 ('ojiernicus was to direct man to a view |)()int whence he should see 

 that the heavens were of like matter with the earth. All this done, 

 the acorn was planted from which the oak of our civilization should 

 Hpring. The mad quest for gold which followed the discovery of 

 Columbus, the (juestionings which absorbed the attention of (he 



