84 



SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 



PT. III. 



Most people now would say that Bruno was right, but the 

 judges of the Inquisition did not think so, and were so 

 alarmed at his opinions that they condemned him to death. 

 In the year 1600, just after the century closed, Bruno was 

 burnt at the stake in Rome as an atheist, partly because he 

 insisted on repeating that the earth is not the centre of the 

 universe, and that there may be other inhabited worlds be- 

 sides ours. 



Chief Works consulted. — Whewell's * Inductive Sciences ;' Brewster's 

 'Optics;' Brewster's 'Martyrs of Science,' 1874; 'Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica,' art. * Astronomy ; ' Drinkwater's ' Life of Galileo ; * 

 Rossiter's 'Mechanics,' 1873; Cuvier, * Histoire de Sciences Natu- 

 relles ; ' Baden Powell's ' Natural Philosophy.' 



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