Part 39 (1/2)

THE NEW METHOD IN THE HANDS OF SUBSEQUENT WORKERS By the middle of the seventeenth century many important advances had been made in many different lines of scientific work In the two centuries between 1450 and 1650, the foundations of modern inning of the period Arabic notation and the early books of Euclid were about all that were taught; at its end the western world had worked out decionoarithms (1614) and conic sections (1637), and was soon to add the calculus (1667-87) Mercator had published the map of the world (1569) which has ever since born his naorian calendar had been introduced (1572) The barometer, thermometer, air-pump, pendulum clock, and the telescope had come into use in the period Alcheer was finding less and less to do as the astronolish Hippocrates, Tho this period laid the foundations of modern medical study, and the anic forases, and the theory of gravitation, were about to be set forth All these advances had beenlabors of Copernicus, the firstof mankind

[Illustration: FIG 119 THE LOSS AND RECOVERY OF THE SCIENCES Each short horizontal line indicates the life-span of a very distinguished scholar in the science Mohalect or ignorance of a science has been indicated by the depth of the shading The great loss to civilization caused by the barbarian inroads and the hostile attitude of the early Church is evident]

Acco a few men in each of the western European countries, an interest in scientific studies such as the world had not witnessed since the days of the Alexandrian Greek

This interest found expression in the organization of scientific societies, wholly outside the universities of the tiling together in sympathetic companionshi+p of these seekers after new truth The most important dates connected with the rise of these societies are:

1603 The Lyncean Society at Roius founded the Natural Science association at Rostock

1645 The Royal Society of London began to meet; constituted in 1660; chartered in 1662

1657 The Academia del Cimento at Florence

1662 The Imperial Academy of Germany

1666 The Academy of Sciences in France

1675 The National Observatory at Greenwich established

After 1650 the advance of science was rapid The spirit of modern inquiry, which in the sixteenth century had animated but a few minds, by the middle of the seventeenth had extended to all the principal countries of Europe

The striking results obtained during the seventeenth century revealed the vast field waiting to be explored, and filled many independent modern-type scholars with an enthusiasm for research in the new dohteenth century the main outlines of most of the modern sciences had been established

LEADING THINKERS OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSITIES During the seventeenth century, and largely during the eighteenth as well, the extreme conservatism of the universities, their continued control by their theological faculties, and their continued devotion to theological controversy and the teachings of state orthodoxy rather than the advancee, served to make of them such inhospitable places for the new scientificworkers with it were found outside the universities This was less true of England than other lands, but was in part true of English universities as well As civil servants, court attaches, pensioners of royalty, or as private citizens ofto the recently foration and a tolerance of ideas then scarcely possible anywhere in the university world

[Illustration: FIG 120 RENe DESCARTES (1596-1650)]

Tycho Brahe and Kepler were pensioners of the Eue Lord Bacon was a lawyer and political leader, and becaland

Descartes, the mathematician and founder of modern philosophy, to e are indebted for conic sections; Napier, inventor of logarithhby, who did the first iland, were all independent scholars The air-puens, the astrono of France Cassini, who explained the motion of Jupiter's satellites, was Astronomer Royal at Paris Halley, who demonstrated the motions of the moon and who first predicted the return of a comet, held a siether laid the foundations of our chee who preferred the study of the new sciences to a life of ease at court Harvey was a physician and delish Hippocrates, was a pensioner of Cromwell and a physician in Westminster The German mathematical scholar, Leibnitz, who jointly with Newton discovered the calculus, scorned a university professorshi+p and reh for a ti most of his mature life held the royal office of Warden of the Mint These are a few notable illustrations of scientific scholars of the first rank who rees and freedom not then to be found within their walls Much these sahteenth century, during which many remarkable advances in all lines of pure science were made By the close of this century the universities had been sufficiently an to find in the and research; during the nineteenth century they becaress and instruction; to-day they are deeply interested in the promotion of scientific research

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1 Show that the rise of scientific inquiry was but anotherspirit which had led to the recovery of the ancient literatures and history

2 What do you understand to be meant by the failure of the Greeks to standardize their observations by instruely to determine the character of a civilization, if one knew only the prevailing ideas and conceptions as to scientific and religiousinvolved in the deduction of L Valla (p 246) and the induction of Copernicus

5 Of which type was the reasoning of Galileo as to Jupiter's satellites?

6 Show that the three ”distees in huress from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries

7 How do you explain the long rejection of the new sciences by the universities?

SELECTED READINGS

In the acco selections are reproduced:

203 Macaulay: Attitude of the Ancients toward Scientific Inquiry

204 Franck: The Credulity of Mediaeval People