CH. IX. SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 63 



CHAPTER IX. 



SCIENCE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 



Rise of Modern Science — Dogmatism of the Middle Ages — Reasons 

 for studying Discoveries in the order of their dates — Copernican 

 theory of the Universe — Copernicus goes back to the System of 

 Aristarchus — Is afraid to publish his Work till quite the end of his 

 Life— Work of Vesalius on Anatomy — He shows that Galen made 

 many mistakes in describing Man's Structure— His Banishment 

 and Death — The value of his Work to Science— Fallopius and 

 Eustachius Anatomists — Gesner's Works on Animals and Plants — 

 He forms a Zoological Cabinet and makes a Botanical Garden — 

 His Natural History of Animals — His classification of Plants ac- 

 cording to their Seeds — His work on Mineralogy — Caesalpinus makes 

 the First System of Plants on Gesner's plan— Explains Dioecious 

 Plants — Chemistry of Paracelsus and Van Helmont, 



We have now arrived at the beginning of Modern Science, 

 when the foundations were laid of that knowledge which we 

 possess to-day. With the exception of some original disco- 

 veries made by the Arabs, learned men during the Dark 

 Ages had spent their time almost entirely in translating and 

 repeating what the Greeks had taught ; till at last they had 

 come to believe that Ptolemy, Galen, and Aristotle had 

 settled most of the scientific questions, and that no one had 

 any right to doubt their decisions. But as Europe became 

 more civilised, and people had time to devote their lives to 

 quiet occupations, first one observer and then another began 

 to see that many grand truths were still undiscovered, and 



