sm.--External in the Policy of Rome.--The Counter-Reformation.
--Inquisition.--Jesuits.--Secession of the great Critics.--Culmination
of the Reformation in America.--Emergence of Individual Liberty of
Thought._

CHAPTER VII.

DIGRESSION ON THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND AT THE END OF THE AGE OF FAITH.

RESULTS PRODUCED BY THE AGE OF FAITH.

_Condition of England at the Suppression of the Monasteries._

_Condition of England at the close of the seventeenth
Century.--Locomotion, Literature, Libraries.--Social and private Life
of the Laity and Clergy.--Brutality in the Administration of
Law.--Profligacy of Literature.--The Theatre, its three
Phases.--Miracle, Moral, and Real Plays._

_Estimate of the Advance made in the Age of Faith.--Comparison with that
already made in the Age of Reason._

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON.

REJECTION OF AUTHORITY AND TRADITION, AND ADOPTION OF SCIENTIFIC
TRUTH.--DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE POSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE UNIVERSE.

_Ecclesiastical Attempt to enforce the_ GEOCENTRIC DOCTRINE _that the
Earth is the Centre of the Universe, and the most important Body in it_.

_The_ HELIOCENTRIC DOCTRINE _that the Sun is the Centre of the Solar
System, and the Earth a small Planet, comes gradually into Prominence_.

_Struggle between the Ecclesiastical and Astronomical Parties.--Activity
of the Inquisition.--Burning of_ BRUNO.--_Imprisonment of_ GALILEO.

INVENTION OF THE TELESCOPE.--_Complete Overthrow of the Ecclesiastical
Idea.--Rise of Physical Astronomy._--NEWTON.--_Rapid and resistless
Development of all Branches of Natural Philosophy._

_Final Establishment of the Doctrine that the Universe is under the
Dominion of mathematical, and, therefore, necessary Laws._

_Progress of Man from Anthropocentric Ideas to the Discovery of his true
Position and Insignificance in the Universe._

CHAPTER IX.

THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON--(_Continued_).

HISTORY OF THE EARTH.--HER SUCCESSIVE CHANGES IN THE COURSE OF TIME.

_Oriental and Occidental Doctrines respecting the Earth in
Time.--Gradual Weakening of the latter by astronomical Facts, and the
Rise of Scientific Geology._

_Impersonal Manner in which the Problem was eventually solved, chiefly
through Facts connected with Heat._

_Proofs of limitless Duration from inorganic Facts.--Igneous and Aqueous
Rocks._

_Proofs of the same from organic Facts.--Successive Creations and
Extinctions of living Forms, and their contemp