hemy
also sheltered astronomy and the germs of chemistry. Whether for this,
or for some better reason, the founders of the schools of the Middle
Ages included astronomy, along with geometry, arithmetic, and music,
as one of the four branches of advanced education; and, in this
respect, it is only just to them to observe that they were far in
advance of those who sit in their seats. The school men considered no
one to be properly educated unless he were acquainted with, at any
rate, one branch of physical science. We have not, even yet, reached
that stage of enlightenment.

[Sidenote: Further advance after Renaissance.]

In the early decades of the seventeenth century, the men of the
Renaissance could show that they had already put out to good interest
the treasure bequeathed to them by the Greeks. They had produced the
astronomical system of Copernicus, with Kepler's great additions; the
astronomical discoveries and the physical investigations of Galileo;
the mechanics of Stevinus and the 'De Magnete' of Gilbert; the anatomy
of the great French and Italian schools and the physiology of Harvey.
In Italy, which had succeeded Greece in the hegemony of the scientific
world, the Accademia dei Lyncei and sundry other such associations for
the investigation of nature, the models of all subsequent academies
and scientific societies, had been founded, while the literary skill
and biting wit of Galileo had made the great scientific questions of
the day not only intelligible, but attractive, to the general public.

[Sidenote: Francis Bacon.]

In our own country, Francis Bacon, had essayed to sum up the past of
physical science, and to indicate the path which it must follow if its
great destinies were to be fulfilled. And though the attempt was just
such a magnificent failure as might have been expected from a man of
great endowments, who was so singularly devoid of scientific insight
that he could not understand the value of the work already achieved by
the true instaurators of physical science; yet the majestic eloquence
and the fervid vaticinations of one who was conspicuous alike by the
greatness of his rise and the depth of his fall, drew the attention of
all the world to the 'new birth of Time.'

[Sidenote: The defect of his method.]

But it is not easy to discover satisfactory evidence that the 'Novum
Organum' had any direct beneficial influence on the advancement of
natural knowledge. No delusion is greater than the