302 THE COMING OF MAN 



kind! What wonderful things men have been able 

 to do and to learn because he showed them how to 

 see into space! 



Did you ever look through an opera glass or a spy- 

 glass and see how near it seems to bring a distant 

 object? Perhaps you have had the good fortune to 

 look through a telescope at the moon, and to have 

 seen some of the mountains and valleys that Galileo 

 first saw upon its surface and told the world about. 

 There are much larger telescopes now, and they bring 

 those distant orbs much nearer to us than the small 

 telescope of Galileo could; nevertheless, he showed 

 us the way to see beyond the world we live in, and to 

 see under standingly. 



By studying the sun and the planets he was con- 

 vinced that Copernicus was right in saying that the 

 sun was the center and the earth moved around it, 

 and he boldly proclaimed this in his teaching. For 

 daring to state, and for trying to prove, this new 

 truth, so different from what was generally believed, 

 Galileo was persecuted and put in prison. But his 

 statement was true, and in time everybody believed it. 

 Those people who opposed Galileo could not stop 

 the progress of knowledge, for all their trying. 

 ''Truth is mighty and shall prevail," and the truth 

 about the revolution of the earth around the sun did 

 prevail. What Copernicus discovered and Galileo 

 proved with his telescope is now taught to boys and 

 girls in the schools of all civilized countries. 



There is one more of these searchers after truth 

 who discovered a great law of our universe and whose 

 name is associated with that of Copernicus and 



