180 DESCARTES' DISCOURSE ON METHOD rv 



motion of the earth was a defiance to all three, 

 and Physical Science threw down her glove l>y 

 the hand of Galileo. 



It is not pleasant to think of the immediate 

 result of the combat; to see the champion of 

 science, old, worn, and on his knees before the 

 Cardinal Inquisitor, signing his name to what he 

 knew to be a lie. And, no doubt, the Cardinals 

 rubbed their hands as they thought how well 

 they had silenced and discredited their adversary. 

 But two hundred years have passed, and however 

 feeble or faulty her soldiers, Physical Science sits 

 crowned and enthroned as one of the legitimate 

 rulers of the world of thought. Charity children 

 would be ashamed not to know that the earth 

 moves ; while the Schoolmen are forgotten ; and 

 the Cardinals well, the Cardinals are at the 

 (Ecumenical Council, still at their old business 

 of trying to stop the movement of the world. 



As a ship, which having lain becalmed with 

 every stitch of canvas set, bounds away before the 

 breeze which springs up astern, so the mind of 

 Descartes, poised in equilibrium of doubt, not only 

 yielded to the full force of the impulse towards 

 physical science and physical ways of thought, 

 given by his great contemporaries, Galileo and 

 Harvey, but shot beyond them; and anticipated 

 by bold speculation, the conclusions, which could 

 only be placed upon a secure foundation by the 

 labours of generations of workers. 



