sting
illustration of the futility of propounding even a correct hypothesis
before the time is ripe to receive it--particularly if the hypothesis is
not fully fortified by reasoning based on experiment or observation.

The man who was destined to put forward the theory of the earth's motion
in a way to command attention was born in 1473, at the village of Thorn,
in eastern Prussia. His name was Nicholas Copernicus. There is no more
famous name in the entire annals of science than this, yet posterity has
never been able fully to establish the lineage of the famous expositor
of the true doctrine of the solar system. The city of Thorn lies in
a province of that border territory which was then under control of
Poland, but which subsequently became a part of Prussia. It is claimed
that the aspects of the city were essentially German, and it is admitted
that the mother of Copernicus belonged to that race. The nationality of
the father is more in doubt, but it is urged that Copernicus used German
as his mother-tongue. His great work was, of course, written in Latin,
according to the custom of the time; but it is said that, when not
employing that language, he always wrote in German. The disputed
nationality of Copernicus strongly suggests that he came of a mixed
racial lineage, and we are reminded again of the influences of those
ethnical minglings to which we have previously more than once referred.
The acknowledged centres of civilization towards the close of the
fifteenth century were Italy and Spain. Therefore, the birthplace of
Copernicus lay almost at the confines of civilization, reminding us of
that earlier period when Greece was the centre of culture, but when the
great Greek thinkers were born in Asia Minor and in Italy.

As a young man, Copernicus made his way to Vienna to study medicine,
and subsequently he journeyed into Italy and remained there many years,
About the year 1500 he held the chair of mathematics in a college
at Rome. Subsequently he returned to his native land and passed his
remaining years there, dying at Domkerr, in Frauenburg, East Prussia, in
the year 1543.

It would appear that Copernicus conceived the idea of the heliocentric
system of the universe while he was a comparatively young man, since
in the introduction to his great work, which he addressed to Pope Paul
III., he states that he has pondered his system not merely nine years,
in accordance with the maxim of Horace, but well into the fo