DKsrlMITIO GLOBI INTELLECTUALS. 275 



had snivelled in overcoming the divorce which had so 

 -epa rated astronomy from philosophy. 1 



( >t' the similar attempt made by D'Amico I know 

 no more than what is mentioned by Spirit! in his 

 >tini. 



The Ptolemaic system being thus treated as a mere 

 hypothesis by the followers of Aristotle, for of course 

 the astronomers who accepted Purbach's theory of solid 

 orbs must have regarded it as a reality, it was natural 

 that IJacon should have thought that what we now call 

 physical astronomy, that is the causal explanation of 

 the phenomena, ought to be studied independently of 

 this system. Whatever it had accomplished might be 

 a- well done without it. Spirals and dragons would be 

 found sufficient to represent the phenomena, if the per- 

 verse love of simplicity which had led the mathemati- 

 cians to confine themselves to circles and combinations 

 of circles was once got rid of. Galileo's view of this 

 matter is however undoubtedly the true one, " Le linee 

 irregolari son quelle che, non avendo determinazion ve- 

 runa sono infinite e casuali, e percio indefinibili, ne di 

 esse si puo in conseguenza dimostrar proprieta alcuna, 

 ne in somma saperne nulla ; sicche il voler dire, il tale 

 accidente accade merce di una linea irregolare, e il 

 medesimo die dire io non so perche ei si accagia." 2 



l>a<-on was not the first who proposed to sweep away 

 from astronomy the mathematical constructions by 

 which it seemed to be encumbered. We find in Lu- 

 cretius nearly the same views as those of Bacon. The 



Hami'iius. [Carmin. lib. ii. f. 30. FA. Lutet. per Nicol Divitem.] 

 It i> rrm.-irkaljle that Delambre declares that he cannot see why Fracasto- 

 riu> -liniild have thought his own system better than the old one. The 

 is p.Tf'.M tly obvious if we consider the matter in connection with the 

 history of philosophy. 

 2 Saggiatore, ii. p. 187. 



