CHAPTER VI.
"Dans la Science nous sommes tous disciples de Galilée."—Trouessart.
"Bacon pointed out at a distance the road to true philosophy: Galileo both pointed it out to others, and made himself considerable advances in it."—David Hume.
113. To the generation which succeeded Tycho belonged two of the best known of all astronomers, Galilei and Kepler. Although they were nearly contemporaries, Galilei having been born seven years earlier than Kepler, and surviving him by twelve years, their methods of work and their contributions to astronomy were so different in character, and their influence on one another so slight, that it is convenient to make some departure from strict chronological order, and to devote this chapter exclusively to Galilei, leaving Kepler to the next.
Galileo Galilei was born in 1564, at Pisa, at that time in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, on the day of Michel Angelo's death and in the year of Shakespeare's birth. His father, Vincenzo, was an impoverished member of a good Florentine family, and was distinguished by his skill in music and mathematics. Galileo's talents shewed themselves early, and although it was originally intended that he should earn his living by trade, Vincenzo was wise enough to see that his son's ability and tastes rendered him much more fit for a professional career, and accordingly he sent him in 1581 to study medicine at the University of Pisa. Here his unusual gifts soon made him conspicuous, and he became noted in particular for his unwillingness to accept without question the dogmatic statements of his teachers, which were based not on direct
