THE PATH OF EVOLUTION. 



Century it was demonstrated mathematically to be 

 a fact, and was so held by those best competent to 

 know. The Church, whether Catholic or Protestant, 

 refused acceptance to its demonstration ; ignored it, 

 or treated it as a heresy. In the Seventeenth Cen- 

 tury Giordano Bruno was burned to death for main- 

 taining the doctrine ; and Galileo for the same cause 

 was imprisoned and forced to recant. 



4th. Until the time of Descartes, the minds of 

 men, even without reference to the Church, were 

 under the guidance of authority. What Aristotle 

 taught was what others sought to know. Descartes 

 threw away all old learning, and tried to think for 

 himself. Better think wrongly than think only 

 because others so thought. 



5th. Science as yet was not. Chemistry was Al- 

 chemy, and Astronomy was Astrology. All reasoning 

 was deductive only. Lord Bacon first taught that ex- 

 periments and observations should be made, and their 

 results would lead to the axiom, or absolute truth, 

 sought for. He dignified the search into the phenom- 

 ena of nature, which before him had been thought 

 ignoble and debasing. 



Sir Isaac Newton gave the first great demonstration 

 of the value of this idea of science. His discoveries, 

 not his theories, gave new light to light itself, and 



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