Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/257

Rh  "Nataro and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, 'Let Newton be,' and all was light."

No doubt the road upon which he traveled had been long in preparation by other men. The exact observations of Tycho Brahe, coupled with the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, had already broken down the authority of Aristotle and weakened that of the Church. But, though the conceptions of the universe were thus broadened, mankind had not yet rid themselves of the idea that the powers of the universe were still regulated by spirits or special providences. Even Kepler moved the planets by spirits, and it took some time to knock these celestial steersmen on the head. Descartes, who really did so much by his writings to force the conclusion that the planetary movements should be dealt with as an ordinary problem in mechanics, looked upon the universe as a machine, the wheels of which were kept in motion by the unceasing exercise of a divine power. Yet such theories were only an attempt to regulate the universe by celestial intelligences like our own, and by standards within our reach. It required the discovery of an all-pervading law, universal throughout all space, to enlarge the thoughts of men, and one which, while it widened the conceptions of the universe, reduced the earth and solar system to true dimensions. It is by the investigation of the finite on all sides that we obtain a higher conception of the infinite:

 "Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten, Geh nur im Endlichen nach alien Seiten."

Ecclesiastical authority had been already undermined by earnest inquirers such as Wycliffe and Huss before Luther shook the pillars of the Vatican. They were removers of abuses, but were confined within the circles of their own beliefs. Newton's discovery cast men's minds into an entirely new mold, and leveled many barriers to human progress. This intellectual result was vastly more important than the practical advantages of the discovery. It is true that navigation and commerce mightily benefited by our better knowledge of the motions of the heavenly bodies. Still, these benefits to humanity are incomparably loss in the history of progress than the expansion of the human intellect which followed the withdrawal of the cramps that confined it. Truth was now able to discard authority, and marched forward without hindrance. Before this point was reached, Bruno had been burned, Galileo had abjured, and both Copernicus and Descartes had kept back their writings for fear of offending the Church.

The recent acceptance of evolution in biology has had a like effect in producing a far profounder intellectual change in human thought than any mere impulse of industrial development. Already its application to sociology and education is recognized, but that is of less import to human progress than the broadening of our views of Nature.

Abstract discovery in science is then the true foundation upon