MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. 



resolved by his predecessors, constructed an immense table, upon which were 

 marked with great precision the equinoxes and the solstices. 



In Spain, as in Portugal, where the adventurous spirit of the nation 

 favoured long sea voyages and expeditious to the East and West Indies, the 

 exact sciences contributed to the progress of navigation, especially in regard 

 to hydrography and astronomy. A Portuguese Jew, Abraham ben Samuel 

 Zacuth, published at Lisbon a perpetual almanac, which was afterwards 



Fig. 72. German Astronomer and Cosmographist. Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the 



Sixteenth Century, hy J. Amman. 



completed and perfected by Alfonso of Cordova, a Seville physician, who also 

 published some excellent astronomical tables. 



England and Germany (Fig. 72) were not behindhand in this forward 

 movement of science ; but the savants of these two countries belonged more 

 or less to the sceptical school which brought about the Reformation, and 

 found means in all their works, however excellent from a scientific point of 

 view, a pretext or an opportunity for attacking the Catholic religion. It 

 might have been supposed that mathematics were offensive weapons placed in 

 the hands of blind sectaries of heresy. At the same time it would be unjust 



