CHAPTER X 



A NEW ASTRONOMY AND THE BEGINNINGS OF 

 MODERN NATURAL SCIENCE 



The breeze from the shores of Hellas cleared the heavy scholastic 

 atmosphere. Scholasticism was succeeded by Humanism, by the 

 acceptance of this world as a fair and goodly place given to man to 

 enjoy and to make the best of. In Italy the reaction became so great 

 that it seemed destined to put paganism once more in the place of 

 Christianity; and though it produced lasting monuments in art and 

 poetry, the earnestness was wanting which in Germany brought about 

 the revival of science, and later on the rebellion against spiritual 

 tyranny. . . . Astronomy profited more than any other science by 

 this revival of learning, and about the middle of the fifteenth century 

 the first of the long series of German astronomers arose who paved the 

 way for Copernicus and Kepler, though not one of them deserves to 

 be called a precursor of these heroes. Dreyer. 



The silent work of the great Regiomontanus in his chamber at 

 Nuremberg computed the ephemerides which made possible the 

 discovery of America by Columbus. Rudio. 



The extension of the geographical field of view over the whole 

 earth and the release of thought and feeling from the restrictions of 

 the Middle Ages mark a division of etyual importance with the fall 

 of the ancient world a thousand years earlier. Dannemann. 



Science begins to dawn, but only to dawn, when a Copernicus, 

 and after him a Kepler or a Galileo, sets to work on these raw materials, 

 and sifts from them their essence. She bursts into full daylight only 

 when a Newton extracts the quintessence. There has been as yet 

 but one Newton ; there have not been very many Keplers. Tait. 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY. With the end of the fifteenth 

 century and the beginning of the sixteenth opens one of the most 

 marvellous chapters in all history ; viz. the Discovery of the New 

 World, fat about the same time further explorations of the old 

 world attained equal extent and interest. We have referred above 

 (p. 174) to the Discovery of the East by the Crusaders, and now 



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