82 HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENCE 



the final overthrow of this false view of astronomy. Leone 

 Battista Alberti (1404-1472), an earlier contemporary, had 

 for his motto "Men can do all things if they will." His 

 interest in science together with his proficiency in physics 

 and mathematics greatly aided the forward movement of 

 enlightenment which so aroused his enthusiasm. Modern ex- 

 perimental science begins with Galileo in the sixteenth 

 century. But the services of the humanists, and of the 

 workers and thinkers from Peter of Apono to Leonardo da 

 Vinci, were an essential part in the development from the 

 supernaturalism, still dominant in the thirteenth century, 

 to the established rationalism of sixteenth and seventeenth 

 century science. 



The scientific methods of observation and comparison 

 were first applied by the Renaissance in the field of literary 

 and historical criticism. They appear in Petrarch and others 

 of the humanists who applied the principles of textual criti- 

 cism to historical documents. 7 This spirit of literary criticism 

 was not without importance for the Reformation, although 

 the later Protestant orthodoxy was not well disposed toward 

 the extension of critical study. The publication of the work 

 of Copernicus in 1543 was the climax in this development of 

 observational and descriptive science. The older geo-centric 

 theory of Ptolemy, promulgated in Alexandria during the 

 second century of the Christian Era, had become an in- 

 tegral part of Christian theology. The Copernican system 

 proposed what was literally a new universe. The story of 

 the controversy which was thus precipitated is familiar to 

 all. We have alluded to its significance in a previous section. 



The Renaissance did more than extend the scientific 

 methods of observation and comparison. Its claim to be the 

 period in which modern science became established is based 



7 The case of Laurentius Valla may be cited in illustration. "At the request 

 of King Alfonso of Naples he subjected the so-called Donation of Constantine 

 to the tests of the new criticism and showed its historical impossibility to the 

 conviction of the world, thus depriving the papacy of one source of argument 

 in support of its pretensions." Adams, G. B., loc. dt. 



