188 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 



ranks plowed by unseen and resistless missiles. One of the finest 

 armies that France ever raised was that day beaten with the 

 most fearful slaughter on record. The use of artillery was the 

 fatal blow to ancient chivalry ; for it rendered useless the brute 

 courage of hand to hand conflicts, and made the issue of battles 

 to depend on the element of numbers and guns. 



A hundred years later (1450), in the German town of Mentz, 

 three humble artists,* with the utmost precautions for secrecy, 

 were working at the mystic art of book making. The unwieldy 

 but neatly printed folios which they issued were the superstitious 

 wonder of Christendom. Indeed the pious Parisians burned 

 their first consignment of books as the work of witchcraft. But 

 no art was ever more eagerly seized upon by the nations of 

 Europe than was that of printing. This was a second and a 

 greater blow dealt at the institutions of the dark ages ; for it 

 carried knowledge to the fireside of the lowly hamlet, and enabled 

 the people to form a public opinion, which is the greatest coun- 

 terpoise of bigotry and oppression. 



The fifteenth century, the terminating period of the dark 

 ages, closed with the announcement of a series of most splendid 

 geographical discoveries. The Portuguese had boldly pushed 

 out into the Atlantic and added to their charts the outlying 

 islands. Columbus from over the western ocean brought the 

 tidings that he had found the golden Indies. Yasco de Gama 

 crept around the stormy cape of Africa and reached the Indies 

 of an opposite hemisphere. 



The opening up of new worlds at the same time opened up 

 new spheres of thought and judgment. The bursting of the 

 boundaries of the old-world geography had much to do with the 

 overthrow of the old-world boundaries of creed and opinion. 

 Within twenty years the heroes of the Reformation were storm- 

 ing the hoary castles of Romanism. Erasmus was hurling his 

 satire against monastic ignorance and grimace. Martin Luther 

 was launching his denunciations against the trafic of indulgences. 

 And immediately came Calvin and John Knox to sweep up and 

 clean out the rubbish of Popery. 



* Johann Gutenberg, Johaun Faust, and Peter Schoffer. 



