CH. X. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 81 



step had been made when men learned to examine for them- 

 selves, and were no longer content merely to repeat like 

 parrots what the Greeks had handed down to them. Coper- 

 nicus had shown in astronomy, Vesalius in anatomy, and 

 Galileo in mechanics, that it was no longer enough to quote 

 passages from Ptolemy, Galen, and Aristotle; but men 

 must take the trouble to examine the works of nature for 

 themselves, if they wished really to understand the laws of 

 the Great Creator. 



This, in itself, was a great advance ; but beyond this 

 Copernicus, by his new system, had opened the way for 

 grand astronomical discoveries, which you will see followed 

 quickly in the next century, and Tycho, by his long and 

 patient observations, had stored up facts for the use of those 

 who came after him. In the same way Vesalius in anatomy, 

 and Gesner and Caesalpinus in natural history, had laid a 

 foundation for the regular study of living beings, and had 

 roughly sketched out a plan of classification. In the subject 

 of light, Porta had invented the camera obscura, and ex- 

 plained the principle upon which it acts ; and in doing this 

 had made important discoveries about the action of light 

 upon our eye, and the use of lenses, or convex and con- 

 cave glasses, in magnifying objects. Lastly, Galileo had 

 discovered the principle of the pendulum and the rate of 

 falling bodies, and was now on the brink of the discovery 

 of the telescope and all the wonders which it has revealed. 



Meanwhile the sixteenth century closed with one very 

 sad event, which must be mentioned here. Giordano 

 Bruno, a Dominican friar, who was lorn about the year 

 1550, at Nola in Italy, was one of the first people who 

 openly taught that the Copernican system was true. He 

 ought to be peculiarly interesting to us, because he was the 

 first person to teach in England that the earth moves round 



