128 Science Religion and Reality 



grounds, which indeed the book immediately encountered. Yet, 

 in fact, when we come to examine the work, the actual changes 

 that he introduces are not as great as we might expect. It is true 

 that he makes the earth move round the sun. He retains, however, 

 the ancient theory of the uniform circular motion of the heavenly 

 bodies, nor does he make any attempt to treat the fixed stars as 

 other than placed at a uniform distance from the centre of the 

 universe, which thus remains spherical and finite. It is only in 

 the bold speculations of Giordano Bruno, suggested, it is true, by 

 the work of Copernicus, that we meet with a limitless universe. 

 The Copernican hypothesis is intimately bound up with the 

 relations of religion and science in the century which followed. 



Vesalius was in almost every respect a contrast to Copernicus. 

 Young, ardent, and combative, his life's work was well-nigh com- 

 plete at twenty-eight, and its effective and creative part was packed 

 into the four years that preceded the publication of his " Fabric of 

 the Human Body" in 1543. The contents of that great work 

 were delivered in the form of lecture-demonstrations to crowded 

 audiences. It contains an enormous number of first-hand observa- 

 tions, accumulated while working under the most extreme pressure. 

 The work at one stroke placed the investigation of the structure of 

 the human body in the position of a science in the modern acceptance 

 of that term. But vigorous and fearless in the demonstration of 

 observed fact, Vesalius becomes timid and ineffective in the dis- 

 cussion of theory. Vesalius did not hesitate to attack the accuracy 

 of the anatomical observations of Galen. The physiology of 

 Galen, however, occupied in the mind of the age somewhat the 

 same position as the physics of Aristotle, and Vesalius left the 

 physiology of Galen even more intact than Copernicus left the 

 physics of Aristotle. 



A word must be said of the background of Vesalius, which 

 presents a great contrast to that of Copernicus. If Copernicus 

 represents the learned side of Renaissance activity, Vesalius repre- 

 sents its artistic side, and in this relation his work is of peculiar 

 interest. Labouring as an anatomist and as an artist in that age, he 

 could not help thinking always of the end to which man was made. 

 Despite his occasional revolt from Galen as an observer, he was yet 

 steeped in the Galenic teleology. But, with an artist's mind and 

 eye, Vesalius transmuted that age-old, moss-grown scheme into 

 something higher and nobler. For him man is a work of art. 



