THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 155 



Civil power, with the request that he should be treated 

 gently, and 'without the shedding of blood.' This 

 meant that he was to be burnt; and burnt accordingly 

 he was, on February 16, 1600. To escape a similar 

 fate, Galileo, thirty-three years afterwards, abjured 

 upon his knees, with his hands upon the holy Gospels, 

 the heliocentric doctrine, which he knew to be true. 

 After Galileo came Kepler, who from his German 

 home defied the ultramontane power. He traced out 

 from pre-existing observations the laws of planetary 

 motion. Materials were thus prepared for Newton, 

 who bound those empirical laws together by the prin- 

 ciple of gravitation. 



In the seventeenth century Bacon and Descartes, 

 the restorers of philosophy, appeared in succession. 

 Differently educated and endowed, their philosophic 

 tendencies were different. Bacon held fast to Induc- 

 tion, believing firmly in the existence of an external 

 world, and making collected experiences the basis of 

 all knowledge. The mathematical studies of Descartes 

 gave him a basis towards Deduction; and his funda- 

 mental principle was much the same as that of Protag- 

 oras, who made the individual man the measure of all 

 things. 'I think, therefore I am/ said Descartes. 

 Only his own identity was sure to him; and the full 

 development of this system would have led to an ideal- 

 ism, in which the outer world would have been re- 

 solved into a mere phenomenon of consciousness. Gas- 

 sendi, one of Descartes's contemporaries, of whom we 

 shall hear more presently, quickly pointed out that the 

 fact of personal existence would be proved as well by 

 reference to any other act, as to the act of thinking. 

 I eat, therefore I am, or I love, therefore I am, would 

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