REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 487 



lization, until the revival of learning in the 15th 

 century, was a long dreary night of ignorance and 

 superstition. The great book of nature, "writ 

 by God's own hand," which speaks a language 

 more instructive than that of men, was exchanged 

 for the mystic jargon of the schools ; and the 

 voice of truth was drowned by the clamour of 

 bigotry. But about this time a new era began 

 to dawn upon the darkened world. By the re- 

 formation of Luther, the foundations of thought 

 were renovated throughout Europe. The inven- 

 tion of gunpowder, the art of printing, and the 

 directive power of the compass, did more to im- 

 prove the condition of mankind, than all the 

 united discoveries of antiquity. For the first time 

 in the history of our race, the true theory of the 

 solar system was established by Copernicus and 

 Kepler. By means of the telescope a highway of 

 communication was opened up with the heavenly 

 bodies by u the starry Galileo," who demonstrated 

 the annual and diurnal motions of the earth ; for 

 which he was denounced as the enemy of religion, 

 and the propagator of false philosophy.* 



For the first time in the history of science, the 

 circulation of the blood was systematically estab- 

 lished by the immortal Harvey, for which he was 



* When summoned before the Inquisition for maintaining the 

 motion of the earth, and required to give his reasons for such a 

 heresy, he was answered by the commissary of the holy office, 

 " Terra autem in eternum stabit, quia terra in eternum stat." 



K K 



