CHAPTER IV. 



COPPERNICUS. 



" But in this our age, one rara witte (seeing the continuall errors 

 that from time to time more and more continually, have been dis- 

 covered, besides the infinite absurdities in their Theoricks, which 

 they have been forced to admit that would not confesse any Mobilitie 

 in the ball of the Earth) hath by long studye, paynfull practise, 

 and rare invention delivered a new Theorick or Model of the world, 

 shewing that the Earth resteth not in the Center of the whole world 

 or globe of elements, which encircled and enclosed in the Moone's 

 orbit, and together with the whole globe of mortality is carried 

 yearly round about the Sunne, which like a king in the middest of 

 all, rayneth and giveth laws of motion to all the rest, sphaerically 

 dispersing his glorious beames of light through all this sacred 

 coelestiall Temple." 



THOMAS DIGGES, 1590. 



70. THE growing interest in astronomy shewn by the 

 work of such men as Regiomontanus was one of the early 

 results in the region of science of the great movement of 

 thought to different aspects of which are given the names 

 of Revival of Learning, Renaissance, and Reformation. 

 The movement may be regarded primarily as a general 

 quickening of intelligence and of interest in matters of 

 thought and knowledge. The invention of printing early 

 in the i5th century, the stimulus to the study of the Greek 

 authors, due in part to the scholars who were driven west- 

 wards after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks 

 (1453), and the discovery of America by Columbus in 

 1492, all helped on a movement the beginning of which 

 has to be looked for much earlier. 



Every stimulus to the intelligence naturally brings with it 

 *a tendency towards inquiry into opinions received through 

 tradition and based on some great authority. The effective 



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