Page:A History of Mathematics (1893).djvu/176

 religious strifes; they concentrated their ability upon secular matters, and acquired, in the sixteenth century, a literature which is immortalised by the genius of Shakespeare and Spenser. This great literary age in England was followed by a great scientific age. At the close of the sixteenth century, the shackles of ecclesiastical authority were thrown off by France. The ascension of Henry IV. to the throne was followed in 1598 by the Edict of Nantes, granting freedom of worship to the Huguenots, and thereby terminating religious wars. The genius of the French nation now began to blossom. Cardinal Richelieu, during the reign of Louis XIII., pursued the broad policy of not favouring the opinions of any sect, but of promoting the interests of the nation. His age was remarkable for the progress of knowledge. It produced that great secular literature, the counterpart of which was found in England in the sixteenth century. The seventeenth century was made illustrious also by the great French mathematicians, Roberval, Descartes, Desargues, Fermat, and Pascal.

More gloomy is the picture in Germany. The great changes which revolutionised the world in the sixteenth century, and which led England to national greatness, led Germany to degradation. The first effects of the Reformation there were salutary. At the close of the fifteenth and during the sixteenth century, Germany had been conspicuous for her scientific pursuits. She had been the leader in astronomy and trigonometry. Algebra also, excepting for the discoveries in cubic equations, was, before the time of Vieta, in a more advanced state there than elsewhere. But at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the sun of science began to rise in France, it set in Germany. Theologic disputes and religious strife ensued. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) proved ruinous. The German empire was shattered, and became a mere lax confederation of petty despotisms.