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 Paré modern surgery. Such were the occupations and prospect of science at the close of the sixteenth century.

The movement

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 becomes still 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 the decrees of the holy chair against the planetary movement of the earth." This was in 1633, when the report of the sentence of the Inquisition was made known. He also developed Vieta's idea of the application of algebra to geometry, and brought into prominence the mechanical fact, destined to an important application in physical astronomy, that every curvilinear deflection is due to a controlling force. To him, among Europeans, also is to be attributed the true explanation of the rise of water in an exhausted space-"the weight of the water counterbalances that of the air." Napier perfected his great and useful invention of logarithms. Hydraulics was created by Castelli; hydrostatics by Torricelli, who also discovered barometric variations: both were pupils of Galileo. Fabricius ab Aquapendente discovered the valves in the veins; Servetus almost detected the course of the circulation. Harvey completed what Servetus had left unfinished, and described the entire course of the blood; Asellius discovered the lacteals; Van Helmont introduced the theory of vitality into medicine, and made the practice or art thereof consist in regulating by diet the Archeus, whose seat he affirmed to be in the stomach. In strong contrast with this phantasy, Sanctorio laid the foundation of modern physiology by introducing the balance into its inquiries. Pascal, by a decisive experiment, established the doctrines

of the weight and pressure of the air, and published some of the most philosophical treatises of the age: "his Provincial Letters did more than any thing to ruin the name of the Jesuits." The contagion spread to the lawyers: in 1672 appeared Puffendorf's work on the "Law of Nature and Nations." The phlogistic theory, introduced by Beccher and perfected by Stahl, created chemistry, in contradistinction to the Arabian alchemy. Otto Guericke invented the air-pump, Boyle improved it; Hooke, among many other discoveries, determined the essential conditions of combustion. Far above all contemporaries in mathematical learning and experimental skill, Newton was already turning his attention to the "reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light," and introducing the idea of attractions into physics. Ray led the way to comparative anatomy in his synopsis of quadrupeds; Swammerdam improved the art of dissection, applying it to the general history of insects; Lister published his synopsis of shells; Tournefort and Malpighi devoted themselves to botany; Grew discovered the sexes of plants; Brown the quinary arrangement of flowers. Geology began to break loose from the trammels of theology, and Burnet's Sacred theory of the Earth could not maintain its ground against more critical investigations. The Arabian doctrine of the movement of the crust of the earth began to find supporters. Lister ascertained the continuity of strata over great distances; Woodward improved mineralogy; the great mathematician, Leibnitz, the rival of Newton, propounded the doctrine of the gradual cooling of the globe, the descent of its strata by fracture, the deposit of sedimentary rocks, and their induration. Among physicians, Willis devoted himself to the study of the brain, traced the course of the nerves and classified them, and introduced the doctrine of the localization of functions in the brain. Malpighi and Lewenhoeck applied the microscope as an aid to anatomy; the latter discovered spermatozoa. Graaf studied the function of the generative organs; Borelli attempted the application of mathematics to muscular movement; Duverney wrote on the sense of hearing, Mayow on respiration; Ruysch perfected the art of injec tion, and improved minute anatomy.

But it is in vain to go on. The remainder of these pages would be consumed in an attempt to record the names of the cultivators of science, every year increasing in number, and to do justice to their works. From the darkness that had for so many ages enveloped it, the human mind at last emerged into light. The intellectual motes were dancing in the sunbeam, and making it visible in every direction.

Despairing thus to do justice to individual philosophers and individual discoveries, there is, however, Institution of one most important event to which I must scientific prominently allude. It is the foundation of societies. learned societies. Imitating the examples of the Academia Secretorum Naturæ, instituted at Naples, 1560, by Baptista Porta, and of the Lyncean Academy, founded 1603 by Prince Frederic Cesi at Rome for the promotion of natural philosophy, the Accademia del Cimento was established at Florence, 1637; the Royal Society of London, 1645; and the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, 1666.

philosophy.

Arrived at the close of the description of this first great victory of scientific truth over authority and Review of antradition, it is well for us to pause and look thropocentric back on the progress of man from the erroneous inferences of his social infancy to the true conclusions of his maturity-from anthropocentric ideas, which in all nations and parts of the world have ever been the same, to the discovery of his true position and insignificance in the universe.

We are placed in a world surrounded with illusions. The daily events of our life and the objects before us tend equally to deceive us. If we cast our eyes on the earth, it seems to be made only to minister to our pleasures or our wants. If we direct our attention to the The sky sky, that blue and crystalline dome, the edges apparent of which rest on the flat land or the sea-a glacial vault, which Empedocles thought was frozen air, and the fathers of the Church the lowest of the seven concentric strata of heavens-we find a thousand reasons for believing that whatever it covers was intended by some Good Being for our use. Of the various living

nature of.

things placed with us beneath it, all are of an inferior grade when compared with ourselves, and all seem intended for us. The conclusions at which we thus arrive are strengthened by a principle of vanity implanted in our hearts, unceasingly suggesting to us that this pleasant abode must have been prepared for our reception, and furnished and ornamented expressly for our use.

Anthropocentric ideas of God.

But reflexion teaches us that we came not hither of ourselves, and that doubtless the same Good Being who prepared this delightful abode brought us as tenants into it. From the fact of our own existence, we are insensibly and inevitably led to infer the existence of God; from the favourable circumstances in which our lot is cast, we gather evidences of His goodness; and in the energy which natural phenomena often display, we see the tokens of His power. What other explanation can we give of tempests in the sea or lightning in the heavens? Moreover, it is only during a part of our timeour waking hours-that we are brought into relation with these material things; for the rest, when we are asleep, a state in which we spend more than a third part of our life, we are introduced to other scenery, other beings, Of the world another world. From these we gather that there are agents of an intangible and more ethereal mould, perhaps of the nature of Him who brought us here, perhaps His subordinates and messengers. Whence do they issue and whither do they go? Is there not beyond the sky above us a region to which our imperfect vision cannot penetrate, but which may be accessible to them from the peaks of elevated mountains, or to be reached only with wings? And thus we picture to ourselves a heaven shut off from earth, with all its sins and cares, by the untroubled and impenetrable_sky-a place of light and repose, its pavement illuminated by the sun and countless other shining bodies-a place of peace, but also a place of power.

and heaven.

and hell.

Still more, a thousand facts of our life teach us that we are Of evil beings exposed to influences of an evil nature as well as to those that are good. How often, in our dreams, does it happen that we are terror-stricken by the approach of hideous forms, faces of fearful appearance,

from which we vainly struggle to escape. Is it not natural for us to attribute the evil we see in the world to these as the good to those? and, since we can not conceive of the existence of beings without assigning them a place, where shall we find for these malignant spirits a habitation? Is it not in the dark region beneath the ground, far away from the realms of light-a region from which, through the volcano, smoke and burning sulphur are cast into this upper world-a place of everlasting fire and darkness, whose portals are in caves and solitudes of unutterable gloom?

Placed thus on the boundary between such opposing powers, man is the sport of circumstances, sus- of man, the tained by beings who seek his happiness, and supernatural. tempted by those who desire his destruction. Is it at all surprising that, guided by such obvious thoughts and simple reasonings, he becomes superstitious? that he sees in every shadow a spirit, and peoples every solitary place with invisibles? that he casts a longing look to the good beings who can protect him, seeking to invoke their aid by entreaties, and to propitiate their help by free-will sacrifices of things that are pleasant and valuable? Open to such influences himself, why should he not believe in the efficacy of prayer? His conscious superiority lends force to his suspicion that he is a worthy object for the opposing powers to contend for, a conclusion verified by the inward strifes he feels, as well as by the trials of life to which he is exposed.

His immor

But dreams at night, and sometimes visions by day, serve to enforce the conclusion that life is not limited to our transitory continuance here, but tality and future life. endures hereafter. How often at night do we see the well-known forms of those who have been dead a long time appearing before us with surprising vividness, and hear their almost forgotten voices? These are admonitions full of the most solemn suggestions, profoundly indicating to us that the dead still continue to exist, and that what has happened to them must also happen to us, and we too are destined for immortality. Perhaps involuntarily we associate these conclusions with others, expecting that in a future life good men will enjoy the