integrity still command a hearing from nations and 

 their rulers. It matters not for us whether Columbus 

 ever knew that he had discovered a new continent. 

 His work was to teach that neither hydra, chimera 

 nor abyss neither divine injunction nor infernal 

 machination was in the way of men visiting every 

 part of the globe, and that the problem of conquering 

 the world reduced itself to one of sails and rigging, 

 hull and compass. The better part of Copernicus was 

 to direct man to a viewpoint whence he should see that 

 the heavens were of like matter with the earth. All 

 this done, the acorn was planted from which the oak 

 of our civilization should spring. The mad quest for 

 gold which followed the discovery of Columbus, the 

 questionings which absorbed the attention of the 

 learned, the indignation excited by the' seeming 

 vagaries of a Parcelsus, the fear and trembling lest 

 the strange doctrine of Copernicus should undermine 

 the faith of centuries, were all helps to the germina- 

 tion of the seed stimuli to thought which urged it 

 on to explore the new fields opened up to its occupa- 

 tion. This given, all that has since followed came out 

 in regular order of development, and need be here 

 considered only in those phases having a special rela- 

 tion to the purpose of our present meeting. 



So slow was the growth at first that the sixteenth 

 century may scarcely have recognized the inauguration 

 of a new era. Torricelli and Benedetti were of the third 

 generation after Leonardo, and Galileo, the first to make 

 a substantial advance upon his theory, was born more 

 than a century after him. Only two or three men 

 appeared in a generation who, working alone, could 



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