120 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



As early as the middle of the fifteenth century 

 Leonardo recognized in sea-shells as well as in 

 the teeth of marine fishes proofs of ancient sea- 

 levels on what are now the sunmiits of the 

 Apennines. Successive observers in Italy, notably 

 Fracastoro (1483-1553), Fabio Colonna (1567- 

 c. 1645) and Nicolaus Steno (1638-c. 1687), a 

 Danish anatomist, professor in Padua, advanced 

 the still embryonic science of palgeontology and 

 set forth the principle of comparison of fossil 

 w^ith living forms. But these anticipations of some 

 of the well-known modern principles were com- 

 pelled to defer to prevailing religious or tradi- 

 tional beliefs. 



It is difficult to believe that Leonardo da Vinci 

 did not exert a strong influence upon the natural 

 philosophy of his times. Colvin says of him:^ 



History tells of no man gifted in the same degree 

 as Leonardo was at once for art and science. . . . 

 The thirst for knowledge had first been aroused in 

 him by the desire of perfecting the images of beauty 

 and power which it was his business to create. Thence 

 there grew upon him the passion of knowledge for its 

 own sake. In the splendid balance of his nature the 

 Virgilian longing, rerum cognoscere causas, could 

 never indeed wholly silence the call to exercise his ac- 

 tive powers. ... A hundred years before Bacon, 

 say those who can judge best, he showed a firmer 



^Sidney Colvin: Leonardo da Vinci. Enc. Brit., vol. 16, pp. 

 462-3. 



