IVlAY 19, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



773 



survival of astrology and alchemy, a sur- 

 vival so well recorded in growing litei'ature 

 as to simulate a revival; yet the sense of 

 the reality of things gained strength by 

 exercise in the ceaseless contact with na- 

 ture, while the oft-told magic was relegated 

 to beldams and crones rather than reserved 

 for rulers and high-priests as of old. The 

 Renaissance revealed the influence of these 

 centuries of nature-conquest and nation- 

 planting which made the Europe of his- 

 tory ; and its dawn showed that the seat of 

 highest intellectual activity had slipped in 

 the darkness from the sensuous shores of 

 the eastern Mediterranean to the remote 

 and rugged lands in which the world's 

 richest blood and ripest culture were blent 

 and pent against northern seas. The closest 

 concentration of human strength was in 

 Britain, the uttermost goal of conquest, the 

 last resting-place of the conquerors of con- 

 querors, where Caesar might have wept for 

 worlds like Alexander long before; and 

 here modern science began with Francis 

 Bacon (1561-1626) as expounder. The 

 Britainian Renaissance coming so long 

 after the Mediterranean Naissance may be 

 likened to the ripe-fruiting -of a plant in 

 autumn ; for it followed the vernal blos- 

 soming after a tedious interval of scarce- 

 seen growth. 



With the 'Novum Organum' of Bacon, 

 the last vestige of magic and mysticism fell 

 away from the body of real knowledge ; for 

 not only was the practicality of centuries 

 summed in the new system, but its author 

 saw more clearly than any predecessor the 

 relation between the thinker and his 

 thought, between the human mind and the 

 rest of nature — he perceived that 'Man 



* * * does and understands as much as 

 his observations on the order of nature 



* * * permit him, and neither knows nor 

 is capable of more.' On this and kindred 

 verities he built a foundation for all the 

 sciences, for the unwittingly-wandering 



elders as well as for those yet unborn, even 

 down to anthropology— though this part of 

 the foundation lay unused for three cen- 

 turies. Bacon 's influence on contemporary 

 and later thought was steady, albeit slow- 

 felt ; for his school was a normal by-product 

 of the making of Europe, and he was the 

 exponent of principles themselves the prod- 

 uct of the world's most significant chapter 

 in human development. True, the next 

 epoch was opened by a son of southern 

 shores and a devotee of the oldest science 

 when Galileo (1564-1602) saw the sun- 

 centered order of the solar system ; yet it 

 was left to English Newton (1642-1727) 

 to shape the epoch and systemize all astron- 

 omy by a law of gravitation based on com- 

 monplace observation, while the third epoch 

 of modern science came with Linne (1707- 

 1778), like Bacon and Newton a product 

 of the harsh northland and an exponent of 

 practical experience, who led conscious see- 

 ing down from the stars to the plants and 

 animals of daily knowledge. Of all the 

 world's thinkers Linne would seem second 

 only to Bacon in originality, if that quality 

 be measured by grasp of realities; and 

 while his system was crude, especially in 

 relation to animals, his gift of phytology 

 (or botany) enriched knowledge and 

 opened the way for the rest of the natural 

 sciences. Linne, the Swede, was soon fol- 

 lowed by Hutton, the Scot (1726-1797), 

 with a practical science of the rocks long 

 contested by Werner, the German (1750- 

 1817), under a theory smacking of Alex- 

 andria and Athens; but the sturdy English 

 quarryman, William Smith (1769-1839), 

 successfully si;pported his northern neigh- 

 bor until his countryman, Lyell (1797- 

 1875), came up to make geology a science. 

 The influence of these sons of woodland 

 and wold extended rapidly and widely, 

 rooting readily in the fertile minds of their 

 kinsmen, while the printing-press spread 

 the stimuli;s of their work over all Europe 



