THE COPERNICAN DOCTRINE. 267 



to the other, and thus properly directed, the genius of 

 Gilbert moved forward in the path of new discovery, 

 perhaps as nearly in a right line as any fallible human 

 effort can so proceed. 



In 1543, the year of his death, Nicolas Copernicus ven- 

 tured "merely as an hypothesis for their better explana- 

 tion" to publish the cosmical discoveries which he had 

 made thirty-five years earlier. It did not become a Polish 

 Catholic canon and prebendary to do more than cautiously 

 suggest, even at the eleventh hour, a theory which would 

 have been perilous to advance at an earlier time. Yet, 

 the hypothesis of the earth's revolution about the sun was 

 no new one. Among the ancient philosophers Heraclides 

 of Ponticus, Ecphantus, Nicetas of Syracuse, and chiefly 

 Philolaus, had all affirmed it, and it had found its first 

 modern support during the fifteenth century at the hands 

 of Cardinal de Cusa, who asserted, without qualification, 

 "jam nobis manifestum terram in veritate moveri," al- 

 though he offered no more proof of the fact than did his 

 predecessors. Copernicus, however, took "the liberty of 

 trying whether on the supposition of the earth's motion it 

 was possible to find better explanations than the ancient 

 ones of the revolutions of the celestial orbs," and con- 

 cluded that "if the motions of the other planets be com- 

 pared with the revolution of the earth, not only their 

 phenomena follow from their suppositions, but also that 

 the several orbs and the whole system are so connected in 

 order and magnitude that no one part can be transposed 

 without disturbing the rest and introducing confusion into 

 the universe." 



This doctrine was brought into England by Giordano 

 Bruno of Nola, one of the last martyrs of philosophy, 

 whose statue, erected within late years, marks the spot in 

 the Eternal city where his too aggressive wit was expiated 

 under the all-embracing name of heresy. In 1583, he held 

 public disputations with Oxford doctors, and subsequently 

 formulated his metaphysics in his treatises. From Bruno 



