Introd^lctory. 1 7 



This artistic revolution, the changed aspect of church 

 and oratory, must have reacted on and intensified the 

 very movement which that change expressed. But if a 

 mere modification in the architecture of cities had a ten- 

 dency to modify men's minds, how much stronger must 

 have been the effect of changed views as to the archi- 

 tecture of the universe (terrestrial and cosmical) induced 

 by geographical, physical, and astronomical discovery ! 



The discovery of the New World has already been 

 adverted to, and certainly no augmentation of knowledge 

 in our own day not even the revelations of spectrum 

 analysis can have had an effect nearly so startling. 

 Yet even the shock of this geographical revelation must 

 have been inferior in degree to that imparted by the 

 uplifting of the solid earth from its foundations, and the 

 casting of it forth from its proud physical supremacy to 

 wander through space, a globe relatively insignificant, 

 effects which must have seemed to ensue in the minds 

 of men when they first accepted heliocentric astronomy 



Yet later, when the full current of physical discovery 

 had set in, and the disciples of Descartes and Bacon by 

 diligent investigations and happily devised experiments 

 were daily adding to the accumulated store of accurate 

 knowledge in biology, in chemistry, and physics, the pas- 

 sionate pursuit of natural science grew by what it fed 

 upon, and investigations which were begun, as alchemy 

 and astrology, with utilitarian views only, were con- 



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