THE ARREST OF INQUIRY. g, 



great world, there are two favourable stars, Jupiter 

 and Venus; two unpropitious. Mars and Saturn; 

 two luminaries, the sun and moon, and Mercury 

 alone undecided and indifferent. From these and 

 many other phenomena of Nature, which it were 

 tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of 

 planets is necessarily seven. Moreover, the satel- 

 lites are invisible to the naked eye, and, therefore, 

 can exercise no influence over the earth, and would, 

 of course, be useless; and, therefore, do not exist." 

 In this brief summary of the attitude of the 

 Church toward science, it is not possible, and if it 

 were so, it is not needful, to refer in detail to the 

 contributions of the more speculative philosophers, 

 who, although they made no discoveries, advocated 

 those methods of research and directions of inquiry 

 which made the discoveries possible. Among these 

 a prominent name is that of Lord Bacon, whose 

 system of philosophy, known as the Inductive, pro- 

 ceeds from the collection, examination and compari- 

 son of any group of connected facts to the relation 

 of them to some general principle. The universal 

 is thus explained by the particular. But the inductive 

 method was no invention of Bacon's; wherever ob- 

 servation or testing of a thing preceded speculation 

 about it, as with his greater namesake, there the 

 Baconian system had its application. Lord Bacon, 

 moreover, undervalued Greek science; he argued 

 against the Copernican theory; and either knew 

 nothing of, or ignored, Harvey's momentous discov- 



