THE UNIVEESE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 



who had been sent as ambassadors to the Mogul princes, 

 circulated amongst those nations of south-western Europe 

 who were most disposed to distant commerce and inter- 

 course, and most eagerly desirous of discovering a shorter 

 route to the Spice Islands. The fulfilment of the wishes 

 which all these causes contributed to excite was in the most 

 important degree facilitated towards the close of the 15th 

 century, by advances in the art of navigation, the gradual 

 improvement of nautical instruments, magnetical as well as 

 astronomical ; and finally, by the introduction of new me- 

 thods of determining the ship's place, and by the more 

 general use of the ephemerides of the sun and moon pre- 

 pared by Regiomontanus. 



Without entering into details in the history of the 

 sciences which do not belong to the present work, we must 

 cite among those who had prepared the way for the epoch of 

 Columbus and Gama, three great names, Albertus Magnus, 

 Roger Bacon, and Yincent of Beauvais. I have given these 

 three in the order of time, but the name of most importance, 

 and which belongs to the most comprehensive genius, is 

 unquestionably that of Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk of 

 Hchester, who studied in Oxford and in Paris. All three 

 were in advance of their age, and acted powerfully upon it. 

 In the long and for the most part unfruitful contests of 

 dialectic speculations, and of the logical dogmatism of a 

 philosophy which has been designated by the vague and 

 equivocal term of scholastic, we cannot overlook the advan- 

 tage derived from what might be called the after -action of 

 the influence of the Arabians. The peculiarity of their 

 national character described in the preceding section, and 

 their attachment to the contemplation and study of nature, 



