204 Transactions of the American Institute. 



Columbus is tlie next warrior. The world has heard of his battles ; 

 how the Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal ; how, at the Junta 

 of Salamanca, the theologians overwhelmed him with quotations from 

 the Psalms, from St. Paul and from St. Augustine. But in 1519 

 comes a great victory. Magalhaens makes his great voyages. He 

 has proved the earth to be round ; for in these voyages and others he 

 has virtually circumnavigated it. He has proved the doctrine of the 

 antipodes, for he has seen the men of the antipodes. But even this 

 does not end the war. Many earnest and good men oppose the doc- 

 trine for two hundred years longer. Then the French astronomers 

 make their measurements of degress in equatorial and polar regions, 

 and add to other proofs that of the lengthened pendulum. When 

 this was done ; when the deductions of science were seen to be estab- 

 lished by ^he simple test of measurement, beautifully, perfectly ; then, 

 and then only, this war of twelve centuries ended. 



And now what was the result of this war ? The efforts of Eusebius 

 and Lactantius to deaden scientific modes of thought, the efforts of 

 Augustine to combat it, the efforts of Cosmas to stop it by dogmatism, 

 the efforts of Boniface, and Zachary, and others to stop it by force, 

 conscientious as they all were, had resulted in what ? Simply in forc- 

 ing into many noble minds that most unfortunate conviction that 

 science and religion ai-e enemies — simply in drawing away from reli- 

 gion hosts of the best men in all those centuries. The result was 

 wholly bad. No optimism can change that verdict. On the other 

 hand what was gained by the warriors of science for religion ? Simply 

 a far more ennobling conception of the world, and a far truer concep- 

 tion, and more devout reliance upon Him who made and sustained it. 

 Which is the more consistent with a great, true religion, the cosmo- 

 graphy of Cosmas or that of Isaac Xewton ? 



Astronomy. 

 Tlie next great battles to which I ask your attention, were fought 

 on a question relating to 1\\q position of the earth among the heavenly 

 bodies. The struggle regarding geography, which I have already pre- 

 sented, was entangled with this. Often, on the same field, the battle 

 was fought for both ; but I separate them that we may see each more 

 clearly. On one side, the great body of conscientious religious men 

 planted themselves firmly on the Geocentric doctrine — the doctrine 

 that the earth is the center, and that the sun and planets revolve 

 about it. The doctrine was old and of the highest respectability. 



