THE BELFAST ADDKESS. 153 



he 



simply meant to affirm men's differences to be so 

 great, that what was subjectively true to the one might 

 be subjectively untrue to the other. The great Sophist 

 never meant to play fast and loose with the truth by 

 saying that one of two opposite assertions, made by the 

 same individual, could possibly escape being a lie. It 

 was not ' sophistry,' but the dread of theologic ven- 

 geance, that generated this double dealing with convic- 

 tion ; and it is astonishing to notice what lengths were 

 allowed to men who were adroit in the use of artifices 

 of this kind. 



Towards the close of the stationary period a word- 

 weariness, if I may so express it, took more and more 

 possession of men's minds. Christendom had become 

 sick of the School Philosophy and its verbal wastes, 

 which led to no issue, but left the intellect in everlasting 

 haze. Here and there was heard the voice of one impa- 

 tiently crying in the wilderness, * Not unto Aristotle, not 

 unto subtle hypothesis, not unto church, Bible, or blind 

 tradition, must we turn for a knowledge of the universe, 

 but to the direct investigation of nature by observation 

 and experiment.' In 1543 the epoch-marking work of 

 Copernicus on the paths of the heavenly bodies appeared. 

 The total crash of Aristotle's closed universe, with the 

 earth at its centre, followed as a consequence, and 

 6 The earth moves ! ' became a kind of watchword among 

 intellectual freemen. Copernicus was Canon of the 

 church of Frauenburg in the diocese of Ermeland. For 

 three-and-thirty years he had withdrawn himself from 

 the world, and devoted himself to the consolidation of 

 his great scheme of the solar system. He made its 

 blocks eternal ; and even to those who feared it, and 

 desired its overthrow, it was so obviously strong, that 

 they refrained for a time from meddling with it. In 

 the last year of the life of Copernicus his book appeared : 



