results. On the ruins
of its ivy-grown cathedrals, Ecclesiasticism, surprised and blinded by
the breaking day, sat solemnly blinking at the light and life about it,
absorbed in the recollection of the night that had passed, dreaming of
new phantoms and delusions in its wished-for return, and vindictively
striking its talons at any derisive assailant who incautiously
approached too near. I have not space to describe the scientific
activity displayed in all directions; to do it justice would demand
volumes. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, anatomy, medicine, and all the
many branches of human knowledge received an impulse. [Sidenote:
Wonderful development of scientific activity.] Simultaneously with the
great events I have been relating, every one of these branches was
advancing. Vieta made the capital improvement of using letters as
general symbols in algebra, and applied that science to geometry. Tycho,
emulating Hipparchus of old, made a new catalogue of the stars; he
determined that comets are beyond the moon, and that they cut the
crystalline firmament of theology in all directions. Gilbert wrote his
admirable book on the magnet; Gesner led the way to zoology, taking it
up at the point to which the Saracens had continued Aristotle, by the
publication of his work on the history of animals; Belon at the same
time, 1540, was occupied with fishes and birds. Fallopius and
Eustachius, Arantius and Varolius, were immortalizing themselves by
their dissections: the former reminding us of the times of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, when he naively confesses "the Duke of Tuscany was
obliging enough to send living criminals to us, whom we killed and then
dissected." Piccolomini laid the foundations of general anatomy by his
description of cellular tissue. Coiter created pathological anatomy,
Prosper Alpinus diagnosis, Plater the classification of disease, and
Ambrose Pare modern surgery. Such were the occupations and prospect of
science at the close of the sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: The movement becomes still more vigorous.] Scarcely had the
seventeenth opened when it became obvious that the movement, far from
slackening, was gathering force. It was the age of Galileo. Descartes
introduced the theory of an ether and vortices; but, hearing of the
troubles that had befallen Galileo, was on the point of burning his
papers. Several years later, he was restrained from publishing his
"Cosmos" "from a pious desire not to treat irreverently