154 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



it is said that the old man received a copy of it a few 

 days before his death, and then departed in peace. 



The Italian philosopher, Giordano Bruno, was one 

 of the earliest converts to the new astronomy. Taking 

 Lucretius as his exemplar, he revived the notion of the 

 infinity of worlds ; and, combining with it the doctrine 

 of Copernicus, reached the sublime generalisation that 

 the fixed stars are suns, scattered numberless through 

 space, and accompanied by satellites, which bear the 

 same relation to them that .our earth does to our sun, 

 or our moon to our earth. This was an expansion of 

 transcendent import ; but Bruno came closer than this 

 to our present line of thought. Struck with the problem 

 of the generation and maintenance of organisms, and 

 duly pondering it, he came to the conclusion that 

 Nature, in her productions, does not imitate the technic 

 of man. Her process is one of unravelling and unfolding. 

 The infinity of forms under which matter appears was 

 not imposed upon it by an external artificer ; by its own 

 intrinsic force and virtue it brings these forms forth. 

 Matter is not the mere naked, empty capacity which 

 philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal 

 mother, who brings forth all things as the fruit of her 

 own womb. 



This outspoken man was originally a Dominican 

 monk. He was accused of heresy and had to fly, 

 seeking refuge in Geneva, Paris, England, and Germany. 

 In 1592 he fell into the hands of the Inquisition at 

 Venice. He was imprisoned for many years, tried, 

 degraded, excommunicated, and handed over to the 

 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 



