BRUNO 177 



coined the latter name becomes its hearty advocate ; he ex- 

 pounds the evidence in its favour with sobriety and force. 



But it is evident that the new scheme of the world took hold 

 slowly. When Galileo gets into correspondence with Kepler, 

 at the close of the century, he tells his new-found friend that 

 he " has long been a convinced Coppernican " evidence enough 

 that there are very few who are. The greatest observing 

 astronomer after Coppernicus, and the greatest scientific figure 

 in Europe, Tycho Brahe, sets his face against the new doctrine. 

 It is Tycho's accurate and admirable observations which guide 

 Kepler's hands in the perfectioning of the Coppernican ideas ; 

 yet he will remain unconvinced so long as he lives. So will 

 the other great figure of the time, Lord Bacon, even though 

 he lives long enough to know of all of Galileo's discoveries ; and 

 the heavy, peasant mind of Luther, in daily active combats 

 with the devil, could see in Coppernicus only " an upstart 

 astrologer," " a fool who wishes to overturn the whole science 

 of astronomy." ^ " Does not the sacred Scripture tell us that 

 Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth ? " 

 Even Leonardo da Vinci, as myriad-minded a genius as ever 

 lived upon this earth, born nine years after the De Revolutionibus 

 had come from the press, pioneer in half-a-dozen sciences, 

 interested enough in astronomy to figure out that the dim figure 

 of the whole moon seen with the new moon is due to earth- 

 shine, still does not enter the lists in its defence. 



One strange and haunting figure there was who caught up the 

 new doctrine with the impassioned ardour of an apostle, who 

 bore it through Europe like a torch, and until its flames were to 

 turn and light the faggots of his own pyre. This was Bruno, 

 monk of Nola, last of the great martyrs of the Inquisition. He 

 must have heard the message early, for even as a young acolyte 

 in the cloister, he had turned back his monkish cowl to bear the 

 message to his kind. " At the door of the soul of youth sounded 

 Coppernicus' imperative word," he writes in after years ; the 

 thrill of the youthful impress stirs him still. The reading of 

 the book was epochal in his life ; he feels as if he had been 

 suddenly freed from chains. The truth which he now may see, 

 which he may almost grasp with his hands, had seemed to him 

 hitherto hid as with a veil. He seizes upon the new teaching 

 as if it responded to something in his innermost soul. By a 

 flash of genius his vision ranges beyond that of Coppernicus 



