the altar of a false religion; the first revelation of the
infinite to man, the first authoritative declaration that the universe
is governed by law; the first science that gave the lie direct to the
cosmogony of barbarism; and because it is the sublimest victory that
reason has achieved.

In speaking of astronomy I have confined myself to the discoveries made
since the revival of learning. Long ago, on the banks of the Ganges,
ages before Copernicus lived, Aryabhatta taught that the earth is a
sphere and revolves on its own axis. This, however, does not detract
from the glory of the great German. The discovery of the Hindoo had
been lost in the midnight of Europe--in the age of faith--and
Copernicus was as much a discoverer as though Aryabhatta had never
lived.

In this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and
to point out the particular evidence furnished by each to establish the
dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of Descartes, the
first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or
who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the
phenomena of the universe to the same law; of Montaigne, one of the
heroes of common sense; of Galvani, whose experiments gave the
telegraph to the world; of Voltaire, who contributed more than any
other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance;
of August Comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still
touches the stars; of Guttenberg, Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, all
soldiers of science in the grand army of the dead kings.

The glory of science is that it is freeing the soul-breaking the mental
manacles--getting the brain out of bondage--giving courage to
thought--filling the world with mercy, justice and joy.

Science found agriculture plowing with a stick--reaping with a
sickle--commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the
inconstant winds--a world without books--without schools--man denying
the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of
instruments of torture--in building inquisitions and cathedrals. It
found the land filled with malicious monks--with persecuting
Protestants, and the burners of men. It found a world full of fear,
ignorance upon its knees; credulity the greatest virtue; women treated
like beasts, of burden; cruelty the only means of reformation. It
found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read
t