CHAPTER III.
THE MIDDLE AGES.
"The lamp burns low, and through the casement bars
Grey morning glimmers feebly."
55. About fourteen centuries elapsed between the publication of the Almagest and the death of Coppernicus (1543), a date which is in astronomy a convenient landmark on the boundary between the Middle Ages and the modern world. In this period, nearly twice as long as that which separated Thales from Ptolemy, almost four times as long as that which has now elapsed since the death of Coppernicus, no astronomical discovery of first-rate importance was made. There were some important advances in mathematics, and the art of observation was improved; but theoretical astronomy made scarcely any progress, and in some respects even went backward, the current doctrines, if in some points slightly more correct than those of Ptolemy, being less intelligently held.
In the Western World we have already seen that there was little to record for nearly five centuries after Ptolemy. After that time ensued an almost total blank, and several more centuries elapsed before there was any appreciable revival of the interest once felt in astronomy.
56. Meanwhile a remarkable development of science had taken place in the East during the 7th century. The descendants of the wild Arabs who had carried the banner of Mahomet over so large a part of the Roman empire, as well as over lands lying farther east, soon began to feel the influence of the civilisation of the peoples whom they had subjugated, and Bagdad, which in the 8th century became
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