from the mind of Cardinal de Cusa; but the chill of dogmatism was still over the earth, and up to the beginning of the sixteenth century there had come to this great truth neither bloom nor fruitage.[1]
Quietly, however, the soil was receiving enrichment, and the air warmth. The processes of mathematics were constantly improved, the heavenly bodies were steadily though silently observed, and at length appeared, afar off from the centres of thought, on the borders of Poland, a plain, simple-minded scholar, who first fairly uttered to the world the truth, now so commonplace, then so astounding, that the sun and planets do not revolve about the earth, but that the earth and planets revolve about the sun, and that man was Nicholas Kopernik.[2]
Kopernik had been a professor at Rome, but, as this truth grew within him, he seemed to feel that at Rome he was no longer safe.[3]
- ↑ For general statement of De Cusa's work, see Draper, "Intellectual Development of Europe," p. 512. For skillful use of De Cusa's view in order to mitigate censure upon the Church for its treatment of Copernicus's discovery, see an article in the Catholic World, for January, 1869. For a very exact statement, in a spirit of judicial fairness, see Whewell, "History of the Inductive Sciences," p. 275 and pp. 379, 380. In the latter, Whewell cites the exact words of De Cusa in the "De Docta Ignorantia," and sums up in these words: "This train of thought might be a preparation for the reception of the Copernican system; but it is very different from the doctrine that the sun is the centre of the planetary system." In the previous passage, Whewell says that De Cusa "propounded the doctrine of the motion of the earth, more, however, as a paradox than as a reality. We cannot consider this as any distinct anticipation of a profound and consistent view of the truth."
- ↑ For improvement of mathematical processes, see Draper, "Intellectual Development of Europe," 513. In looking at this and other admirable summaries, one feels that Prof. Tyndall was not altogether right in lamenting, in his farewell address at New York, that Dr. Draper has devoted so much of his time to historical studies.
- ↑ Copernicus's danger at Rome. The Catholic World for January, 1869, cites a recent speech of the Archbishop of Mechlin before the University of Louvain, to the effect that Copernicus defended his theory, at Rome, in 1500, before two thousand scholars; also, that another professor taught the system in 1528, and was made Apostolic Notary by Clement VIII. All this, even if the doctrines taught were identical with those of Copernicus, as finally developed, which idea Whewell seems utterly to disprove, avails nothing against the overwhelming testimony that Copernicus felt himself in danger—testimony which the after-history of the Copernican theory renders invincible. The very title of Fromundus's book, already cited, published within a few miles of the archbishop's own cathedral, and sanctioned expressly by the theological Faculty of that same University of Louvain in 1630, utterly refutes the archbishop's idea that the Church was inclined to treat Copernicus kindly. The title is as follows:
"Anti-Aristarchus | Sive | Orbis-Terræ | Immobilis | In quo decretum S. Congregationis S. R. E. | Cardinalium | I C C. XVI adversus Pytha | gorico-Copernicanos editum defenditur | Antwerpiæ MDCXXXI."
L'Epinois, "Galilée," Paris, 1867, lays stress, p. 14, on the broaching of the doctrine by De Cusa, in 1435, and by Widmanstadt, in 1533, and their kind treatment by Eugenius IV. and Clement VII, but this is absolutely worthless in denying the papal policy afterward. Lange, "Geschichte des Materialismus," vol. i., pp. 217, 218, while
of India, see Whewell, vol. i., p. 277. Also, Whitney, "Oriental and Linguistic Studies," New York, 1874. "Essay on the Lunar Zodiac," p. 345.
