250 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF 



the correspondence with the learned Florentine Toscanelli 

 ( 385 ). All that Columbus knew of Greek and Roman 

 writers, all the passages of Aristotle, Strabo, and Seneca, on 

 the nearness of Eastern Asia to the pillars of Hercules, 

 which, as his son Don Fernando tells us, were what princi- 

 pally incited his father to the discovery of Indian lands, 

 (autoridad de los escritores para mover al Almirante a' 

 descubrir las Indias) were derived by the Admiral from the 

 writings of Alliacus. Columbus carried these writings 

 with him on his voyages ; for, in a letter written to the 

 Spanish monarchs in October 1498 from Hayti, he translates 

 word for word a passage from the Cardinal's treatise, " de 

 quantitate terrse habitabilis," by which he had been pro- 

 foundly impressed. He probably did not know that Alliacus 

 Iiad on his part transcribed word for word from another earlier 

 book, Roger Bacon's Opus Majus. ( 386 ) Singular period, 

 when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and Averroes 

 (Avenryz), Esdras and Seneca, on the small extent of the 

 ocean compared with the magnitude of continental land, 

 afforded to monarchs guarantees for the safety and expedi- 

 ency of costly enterprises ! 



I have noticed the appearance, at the close of the 

 thirteenth century, of a decided predilection for the study 

 of the powers or forces of nature, and of a progressively 

 increasing philosophical tendency in the form assumed by that 

 study, in its establishment on a scientific experimental 

 basis. It still remains to give a brief description of the 

 influence which, from the end of the fourteenth century, the 

 awakening attention to classical literature exercised on the 

 deepest springs of the intellectual life of nations, and thus 

 upon the general contemplation of the Universe. The 



