SCIENCE.
Exactly at the era when the great European race was dismembered, the
Latin tongue was disused. This had formerly been the universal tie
between dissimilar tribes, and when it was sundered by such men as
Dantè, who rose to stamp the seal of their genius upon the idiom of
the common people, science soared sublimely amid the new growth of
national languages, and became the supreme and most universally uniting
bond. When Italy had gradually become nationalized as one Italy,
Spain as one Spain, Germany as one Germany, France as one France, and
Britain as one Great Britain; and when that still mightier process of
civilization, the Reformation, had supervened, ecclesiastical union was
destroyed, and then it was that enlarged invention came to the rescue
and supplied the conservative influence which was most in demand.
Increased ardor in the pursuit of knowledge led to wider and more
frequent intercommunications, both mental and physical, while these in
turn were encouraged and protected by the improved polity of aspiring
states. A new voice even more cosmopolitic than cotemporaneous creeds
broke upon the roused and exulting peoples saying, "One is your master,
Thought, and all ye are brethren!" Sciences lead most directly, and
with greatest efficiency to general views; and, above all, natural law,
that science which treats of inherent and universal rights, arose and
was cultivated with propitious zeal. The dawn was begun, and the noon
was not far off when in central Europe a great proficient in universal
history could say: "The barriers are broken, which severed states and
nations in hostile egotism. One cosmopolitic bond unites at present all
thinking minds, and all the light of this century may now freely fall
upon a new Galileo or Erasmus."
From the sixth to the fourteenth century the science of government, as
laid down by Justinian, was illustrated by the labors and comments of
numerous celebrated jurisconsults. The Byzantine legislation yielded on
two essential points to the influence of Christianity. The institution
of marriage, which in the Code and Pandects was only directed by
motives of policy, assumed, in 911, a legal religious character; and
domestic slavery disappeared gradually, to be replaced by serfdom. A
charter was even granted to the serfs by the emperor Emanuel Comnenus
in 1143. Irnerius, at the beginning of the twelfth century, opened the
first law-school in his native city, Bologna, and thenceforth that
science absorbed republican intellects, and led to a clearer defining
of civil rights. A passion for this study possessed even the gentler
sex; as in the case of Novella Andrea da Bologna, who was competent to
fill the professor's chair, during her father's absence, and delivered
eloquent lectures on arid law. Sybil-like, she took care to screen
her lovely face behind a curtain, "lest her beauty should turn those
giddy young heads she was appointed to edify and enlighten." Modeled
after this pattern, law-schools spread widely, and the study of the
Lombard and Tuscan municipal constitutions eventually roused the
European communities to break the bonds of feudalism. The principle of
personal and political freedom so indelibly rooted in each individual
consciousness respecting the equal rights of the whole human race, is
by no means the discovery of recent times. At the darkest hour of the
middle period of history this idea of "humanity" in no mean degree
existed and began to act slowly but continuously in realizing a vast
brotherhood in the midst of our race, a unit impelled by the purpose of
attaining one particular object, namely, the free development of all
the latent powers of man, and the full enjoyment of all his rights.
In this department, as in all the rest, Florence was the seat of
supreme mental power during the age of Leo X.; she fostered the genius
which spread widely in beauty and might. In the fifteenth century, an
ancient and authentic copy of the Justinian constitutions was captured
at Pisa, and given by Lorenzo de Medici to the custody of Politiano,
the most distinguished mediæval professor of legal science. He
corrected numerous manuscripts, supervised the publication of repeated
editions, and prepared the way for all the great improvements which,
in his profession, have since been made. Politiano and Lorenzo, as they
together took daily exercise on horseback, were wont to converse on
their morning studies, and this was characteristic of the intellectual
life of that age and city. The vivifying light which began to pour on a
hemisphere was especially concentrated on the Tuscan capital, and all
the sciences simultaneously awoke from torpor under the invigorating
beams. Like a sheltered garden in the opening of spring, Florence
re-echoed with the earliest sounds of returning energy in every walk of
scientific invention. The absurdities of astrology were exposed, and
legitimate deduction was substituted in the place of conjecture and
fraud. Antonio Squarcialupi excelled all his predecessors in music,
and Francesco Berlinghieri greatly facilitated the study of geography.
Lorenzo de Medici himself gave especial attention to the science of
medicine, and caused the most eminent professors to prosecute their
researches under the auspices of his name and bounty. Paolo Toscanelli
erected his celebrated Gnomen near the Platonic academy; and Lorenzo
da Volpaja constructed for his princely namesake a clock, or piece of
mechanism, which not only marked the hours of the day, but the motions
of the sun and of the planets, the eclipses, the signs of the zodiac,
and the whole revolutions of the heavens.
The study of scientific progress requires us again to notice the
wonderful use which Providence makes of the three original elements
of post-diluvian humanity in the execution of infinite designs. The
Arabians were a Shemitic race, raised into power in near neighborhood
to the heritage of Ham, and were the contributors of numerous
mental stores which were happily adapted yet further to augment the
superiority of Japhet. These children of Ishmael existed at a gloomy
period, and performed a most important work. They drew from the last
living sources of Grecian wisdom, and directed numerous new tributaries
into the great central current of civilization.
Arabia is the most westerly of the three peninsulas of southern Asia,
a position remarkably favorable to political influence and commercial
enterprise. The Mohammedans were an energetic and intelligent people,
whose ancestors led a nomadic life for more than a thousand years;
but from the middle of the ninth century they rose rapidly in the
appreciation and extension of ennobling science. The same race who,
two centuries before, had fearfully ravaged the great conservatory of
learning at Alexandria, themselves became the most ardent admirers of
the muses, and were unequaled proficients in the very studies they had
previously, in their bigoted fury, so nearly annihilated. They garnered
Greek manuscripts with the greatest assiduity, and became sufficiently
masters of their import, to set a proper estimate on these valuable
relics of ancient knowledge.
To the Arabian mathematicians, we are indebted for most valuable
improvements in arithmetic, if not in fact for its invention. They
also transmitted to Europe the knowledge of algebra; and rendered
still more important service to geometrical science, by preserving
many works of the ancients, which, but for them, had been inevitably
lost. The elements of Euclid, with other valuable treatises, were all
transmitted to posterity by their means. The Arabian mathematicians
of the middle ages were the first to apply to trigonometry the method
of calculation which is now generally adopted. Astronomy, optics,
and mechanics were cultivated with no less success; and to the Arabs
especially must be accredited the origin of chemistry, that science
which has been productive of so many invaluable results. This gave them
a better acquaintance with nature than the Greeks or the Romans ever
possessed, and was applied by them most usefully to all the necessary
arts of life. "Alchemy" is an Arabic term, denoting a knowledge of
the substance or composition of a thing. The transmutation of common
metals into gold and silver, and the discovery of a universal medicine,
were futile pursuits; but they led to the method of preparing alcohol,
aqua-fortis, volatile alkali, vitriolic acid, and many other chemical
compounds, which might have remained much longer unknown but for the
persevering labors and patient experiments of the mediæval alchemists.
History records many laudable efforts on the part of the Arabians
in cultivating the natural sciences. Abou-al-Ryan-Byrouny, who died
in the year 941, traveled forty years for the purpose of studying
mineralogy; and his treatise on the knowledge of precious stones, is
a rich collection of facts and observations. Aben-al-Beïthar, who
devoted himself with equal zeal to the study of botany, traversed all
the mountains and plains of Europe, in search of plants. He afterward
explored the burning wastes of Africa, for the purpose of describing
such vegetables as can support the fervid heat of that climate;
and finally passed into the remote countries of Asia. The animals,
vegetables, and fossils common to the three great portions of earth
then known, underwent his personal inspection; and he returned to his
native West loaded with the spoils of the South and East.
Nor were the arts cultivated with less success, or less enriched by the
progress of natural philosophy. A great number of inventions which, at
the present day, add to the comforts of life, are due to the Arabians.
Paper is an Arabic production. It had long, indeed, been made from silk
in China, but Joseph Amrou carried the process of paper-making to his
native city, Mecca, A. D. 649, and caused cotton to be employed in the
manufacture of it first in the year 706. Gunpowder was known to the
Arabians at least a century before it appeared in European history;
and the compass also was known to them in the eleventh century. From
the ninth to the fourteenth century, a brilliant light was spread by
literature and science over the vast countries which had submitted
to the yoke of Islamism. But the boundless regions where that power
once reigned, and still continues supreme, are at present dead to
the interests of science. Deserts of burning sand now drift where
once stood their academies, libraries, and universities; while savage
corsairs spread terror over the seas, once smiling with commerce,
science, and art. Throughout that immense territory, more than twice as
large as Europe, which was formerly subjected to the power of Islamism,
and enriched by its skill, nothing in our day is found but ignorance,
slavery, debauchery and death.
Herein we have a striking illustration of the wonder-working of
Providence. At a time when the nations of Europe were sunk in
comparative barbarism, the Arabians were the depositaries of science
and learning; when the Christian states were in infancy, the fair
flower of Islamism was in full bloom. Nevertheless, the sap of the
Mohammedan civilization was void of that vitality and of those
principles which alone insure eternal progress, therefore was it
requisite that the whole system should be transferred and exhausted on
a more productive field, in order to secure the desired end.
The Arabians were the aggressive conservators of talent rather than
the productive agents of genius; and it must be confessed that they
neither had the presentiment, nor have been direct harbingers of any
of the great inventions which have placed modern society so far above
the ancients. They greatly aggregated and improved the details of
knowledge, but discovered none of the fundamental solutions which have
totally changed the scientific world. At the needful moment, a new
system came suddenly into existence, and spread rapidly from the Indus
to the Tagus, under the victorious crescent. Apparently indigenous
in every clime, its monuments arose in India, along the northern
coast of Africa, and among the Moors in Spain. At Bagdad and Cairo,
Jerusalem and Cordova, Arabian taste and skill flourished in all their
magnificence. It is said that no nation of Asia, Africa, or Europe,
either ancient or modern, has possessed a code of rural regulations
more wise, just, and perfect, than that of the Arabians in Spain;
nor has any nation ever been elevated by the wisdom of its laws, the
intelligence, activity, and industry of its inhabitants, to a higher
pitch of agricultural prosperity. Agriculture was studied by them with
that perfect knowledge of the climate, the soil, and the growth of
plants and animals, which can alone reduce empirical experience into
a science. Nor were the arts cultivated with less success, or less
enriched by the progress of natural philosophy. What remains of so
much glory? Probably not ten persons living are in a situation to take
advantage of the manuscript treasures which are inclosed in the library
of the Escurial. Of the prodigious literary riches of the Arabians,
what still exist are in the hands of their enemies, in the convents of
the monks, or in the royal collections of the West. The instant they
had brought forward all the wealth of the East, and planted it where
by a fruitful amalgamation great and wide benefits could be produced,
then Charles Martel, the _hammer_, heading the progressive progeny
of Japhet, broke down the might of Shem, and repelled his offspring
forever toward the sombre domain and fortunes of Ham.
In this connection, we should consider the use which Providence made
of Feudalism, that great military organization of the middle ages.
It pre-eminently conduced to greater centralization and unity among
civilizing powers. After having destroyed the majesty and influence
of the Germanic and imperial royalty which Pepin and Charlemagne had
revived over the ruins of the Roman world, it rapidly declined and
gave place ultimately to popular liberty. "Feudality," says Guizot,
"has been a first step out of barbarism--the passage from barbarism
to civilization: the most marked character of barbarism is the
independence of the individual--the predominance of individualism; in
this state every man acts as he pleases, at his own risk and peril.
The ascendancy of the individual will and the struggle of individual
forces, such is the great fact of barbarian society. This fact was
limited and opposed by the establishment of the feudal system of
government. The influence alone of territorial and hereditary property
rendered the individual will more fixed and less ordered; barbarism
ceased to be wandering; and was followed by a first step, a surpassing
step toward civilization."
Feudalism engendered new institutions, and they entered deeply into
the spirit of progress. Such were, for example, the Court of Peers
and the Establishments of St. Louis, wherein the first trial was made
toward a uniform legislation for the whole nation. The Crusades form
also a conspicuous feature in the political activity of the Japhetic
nations during the middle ages. The great movement that induced western
Europe to rush to the East had, by no means, the expected results; yet
its consequences became numerous and beneficial. Oppressing Shem was
repulsed in a new direction, and great wealth of science was attained
through his avaricious and violent hands. Thus the turbulent energy of
the military classes, which threatened the progress of civilization,
was exhausted in a distant land; and at the same time the different
races of Europe were made to know each other better, and to banish
all mental hostility, by uniting in one uniform devotion to a lofty
design. Another great consequence of the Crusades was the change of
territorial property, the sale of the estates of the nobles, and their
division among a great number of smaller proprietors. Hence the feudal
aristocracy was weakened, and the lower orders arose with acquired
immunities, ennobled by the spirit of independence, and protected by
municipal laws.
To excel in arms, not in arts, was the ambition of the crusading
knights; and if they gazed for a while with stupid amazement upon the
classic treasures of the East, it was only to calculate the vastness
of their booty, and to collect force for the campaign. Blind frenzy
often characterized the instruments, but infinite wisdom was in the
purpose which governed them. The Crusades contributed to the stability
of governments, the organization of institutions, the cultivation of
arts, the emancipation of thought, and the enlargement of the various
realms of science. Had they not accomplished the needful preparation,
under the guidance of Providence, the influx of literature into Europe
consequent upon the fall of Constantinople would have been worse
than in vain. It was, therefore, wisely ordained that these romantic
expeditions should not be occasions for the acquisition of knowledge
which would transcend the capacities of its agents; but of preparatory
changes fitted to facilitate the adaptation and profitable application
of eastern elements, when, on the vast expanse of the West, the full
time should arrive for them to be completely introduced. The Crusades
tended to confirm and extend pre-existing impressions; to import
rather than to originate knowledge. For any considerable proficiency
in literature or art, unknown to pilgrims in the East, we search in
vain previous to the fifteenth century; but, as we have seen, their
importations of scientific elements were neither few nor small. If the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the age of the Crusades, the
following two were not less the age of improvement growing out of the
conflicts in Palestine. They were perpetuated as the popular watchword
of chivalry and theme of romance, till Tasso embodied the thrilling
annals in his immortal poem, which even in his age ceased not to glow
in the common mind. Nor was the fourteenth century in the least a
vacuum between the Crusades and the revival of literature and science;
it was but slightly productive in original material, but its spirit was
permeating, and formed a necessary link between cause and effect, be
the connection however remote. Such is the golden thread which extends
through all the web of passing events, leading on to the accomplishment
of one grand design. In like manner, minstrels formed an integrant
part of the Crusade retinue, by whose happy interposition a more than
imaginary union was formed between martial exploits and poetical
conceptions. Thenceforth the recollection of those enthusiastic
adventures summoned up a train of highly romantic associations, by
which the ideal world was greatly enlarged and peopled with new orders
of captivating creatures, capable of an endless series of fruitful
suggestions. Furthermore, the occupation of the eastern empire was
productive of much advantage to the mental culture of the West.
Persecuted scholars sought refuge and employment beyond the Alps, where
they repaid the hospitality they received with such wisdom as they
possessed.
The Saracenic conquests in Spain brought in vast stores of oriental
knowledge, and frequent intercourse with that land, and with Palestine,
for devotional or commercial purposes, tended greatly to increase
the treasure, and a taste for its enjoyment. But Arabian literature
was a forced plant in Europe, and was as transient in its bloom as
it was unnatural in its maturity. Some traces of a more substantial
cultivation, however, were yet extant within the walls of Bagdad, and
thence the crusaders secured whatever could be advantageously employed.
But the fire of inventive genius, expressed in literary and scientific
research, which once characterized the Arabians, had passed away; the
seeds of preliminary culture had been sown, and their mission ended
with the predestined work of their hands. The arts and sciences of the
Arabians were as unique as their authors; too practical to be elegant,
and too fanciful for ordinary use. To their skill in medicine, and the
exactness of arithmetic, they added the vagueness of the talisman and
horoscope. Astronomy was lost in astrology, chemistry in alchymy, and
medicine in empiricism. But amid the darkness of their errors dwelt
gleams of scientific light superior to any the world had yet seen. The
principal utility lay in the fact that these dim intimations prompted
western Europe to break through habitual associations in matters
of taste and knowledge, and rendered her the instrument of her own
intellectual resuscitation, by exciting an ardor in mental pursuits
hitherto unknown.
The crusades happily exhausted the military spirit of Europe, and
prepared the way for advancement in the arts of peace. This done, the
decline of the feudal system was hastened by the necessity of meeting
the enormous expenses thereby incurred. Many baronial estates were
consequently sold, and thus by degrees were abolished those impediments
which had long been adverse to all the varied forms of culture by
which the afflictions of man are mitigated, or his toils abridged.
The great evil which then required to be abolished had given strength
to a greater good that was to succeed; the commerce which was mainly
created to carry supplies to the crusaders, was ready, on the decline
of martial renown, to go still further in search of a new world, or
to hold mercantile speculations with the remotest regions of the old.
Consequent upon the facilities and refinements of navigation, followed
all those arts of utility and convenience by which the productions
of nature are applied or improved. The arts of weaving and dyeing,
the perfection of paper and the press, as well as gunpowder and the
compass, were the results of quickened industry and enlarged commerce.
All great civilizing powers then attained a simultaneous and distinct
culmination over a new field and under brighter auspices, when each
department of progressive pursuit, the commercial, the literary, and
the military, was furnished, at the fall of the feudal system, with its
own peculiar instrument of invincible conquest.
Bearing in mind that Charles Martel, Peter the Hermit, Richard of the
Lion Heart, and John Sobieski, with their mighty co-agents in the great
preparatory work above described, all arose on the western edge of the
field and age we are now exploring, let us proceed briefly to notice
the still grander developments which followed thereupon.
The westward track on high was determined by the early astronomers of
Egypt. Thales, the father of Greek astronomy, made great advances upon
the speculations he derived from the Egyptians, and expounded them in
his own country. A scholar of his was the first person who pointed out
the obliquity of the circle in which the sun moves among the stars,
and thus "opened the gate of nature." Certainly he who had a clear
view of that path in the celestial sphere, made that first step which
led to all the rest. But when Greek science fell with Ptolemy, there
was apparently no further advance till the rise of Copernicus. During
this interval of thirteen hundred and fifty years, as before stated,
the principal cultivators of astronomical science were the Arabians,
who won their attainments from the Greeks whom they conquered, and
from whom the conquerors of western Europe again received back their
treasure when the love of science and the capacity for its use had
been sufficiently awakened in their minds. In mechanics, also, no
marked advancement was made from Archimedes till the time of Galileo
and Stevinus. The same was true of hydrostatics, the fundamental
problems of which were solved by the same great teacher, whose
principles remained unpursued till the age of Leo X. began to give
perfection to the true Archimedean form of science. As early as Euclid,
mathematicians drew their conclusions respecting light and vision by
the aid of geometry; as, for instance, the convergence of rays which
fall on a concave speculum. But, down to a late period, the learned
maintained that seeing is exercised by rays proceeding from the eye,
not to it; so little was the real truth of optical science understood.
In this respect, as in most others, it was attempted to explain the
kind of causation in which scientific action originates, rather than to
define the laws by which the process is controlled.
In the darkest period of human history, astronomy was the Ararat
of human reason; but it became especially the support and rallying
point of the scientific world, when intellect at large was astir to
investigate the new wonders which rose to view with the effulgent
noon of the middle age. Alphonso, king of Castile, in the year 1252,
corrected the astronomical tables of Ptolemy; and Copernicus, of
Thorn, revived the true solar system, about 1530. Tycho Brahe and
Longomontanus brought forward opposing systems, but which were soon
rejected. Kepler, soon after, gave the first analysis of planetary
motions, and discovered those laws on which rests the theory of
universal gravitation. Galileo advocated the Copernican system; and by
the aid of one of the first telescopes, discovered the satellites of
Jupiter. Hygens discovered Saturn's ring, and fourth satellite; and
four others were soon after noticed by Cassini. Thus was the great
secret of the sidereal universe read, its movements comprehended,
and the glories thereof proclaimed, while emancipated and sublimated
thought, from the loftiest throne of observation began forever to soar
aloft.
As a ray of light became the conductor of mind upward into infinite
space, so a bit of gray stone projected the invisible bridge which
spans from continent to continent, and makes the path over trackless
oceans plain as a broad highway. The properties of this wonderful
mineral were not unknown to the ancients, who, Pliny says, gave the
name "Magnet" to the rock near Magnesia, in Asia Minor; and the poet
Hesiod also makes use of the term "magnet stone." The compass was
employed twelve hundred and fifty years before the time of Ptolemy, in
the construction of the magnetic carriage of the emperor Tsing-wang;
but the Greeks and Romans were completely ignorant of the needle's
pointing toward the north, and never used it for the purpose of
navigation. Before the third crusade, the knowledge of the use of
the compass for land purposes had been obtained from the East, and
by the year 1269 it was common in Europe. But as the time approached
when God would advance, by mightier strides than before, the work of
civilization, he discovered the nations one to another, through the
agency of a tiny instrument, then first made to vibrate on the broadest
sublunary element, and the throne of grandest power. The discovery of
the polarity of the magnet, and the birth of scientific navigation
resulting therefrom, was as simple as it was providential. Some curious
persons were amusing themselves by making swim in a basin of water a
loadstone suspended on a piece of cork. When left at liberty, they
observed it point to the north. The discovery of that fact soon changed
the aspect of the whole world. This invention, which is claimed by the
Neapolitans to have been made by one of their citizens about the year
1302, and by the Venetians as having been introduced by them from the
East, about 1260, led to the discovery of the New World by Columbus
in 1492. When the mariner's compass was needed, it was produced,
and from the most western port of the Old World, mind shot outward
forever! Like the relation between the earth's axis and the auspicious
star which attracts the eye of the wanderer, and shows the North in
the densest wilderness or on the widest waste, so from eternity the
magnetic influence had reference to the business of navigation, and
the true application of this arrived at the destined moment, when, in
connection with correlative events, in like manner prepared, it would
produce the greatest good. After eastern talent had proved the form of
earth, western genius discovered the vastness of oceanic wealth. The
Pillars of Hercules were passed by the great adventurers at sea in the
fifteenth century, and trophies were won richer by far than ever graced
the triumphs of an Alexander on shore. The works of creation were
doubled, and every kingdom forced its treasures upon man's intellect,
along with the strongest inducements to improve recent sciences
as well as ancient literatures, for the widest and most beneficent
practical ends.
The style of working with Providence is, to attain some grand result,
compatibly with ten thousand remote and subordinate interests. One yet
higher and more comprehensive instrumentality was requisite to garner
all the past, ennoble the present, and enrich the future, and at the
fitting moment for its appearance and use, the press stood revealed.
Though the Chinese never carried the art of writing to its legitimate
development in the creation of a perfect phonetic alphabet, they yet
preceded all other nations in the discovery of a mode of rapidly
multiplying writings by means of printing, which was first practiced by
Fung-taou as early as four centuries before its invention in Europe.
Beyond that first step the old East never advanced; there each page
of a book is still printed from an entire block cut for the occasion,
having no idea of the new western system of movable types. What
astrology was to astronomy, alchemy to chemistry, and the search for
the universal panacea to the system of scientific medicine, the crude
process of block-printing was to the perfected press. Engraved wooden
plates were re-invented by Coster, at Harlaem, as early as 1430; but
the great invention of typography is accredited to Guttenberg, who was
assisted by Schoeffer and Faust. This occurred in 1440; and stereotype
printing, from cast metallic plates, is due to Vander-Mey, of Holland,
who first matured it about 1690.
The time had come when men were required to comprehend the ancients,
in order to go beyond them; and at the needful crisis, printing was
given to disseminate all precious originals throughout the world, in
copies innumerable. Had the gift been bestowed at an earlier period, it
would have been disregarded or forgotten, from the want of materials
on which to be employed; and had it been much longer postponed, it is
probable that many works of the highest order, and most desirable to
be multiplied, would have been totally lost. Coincident with this most
conservative invention, was the destruction of the Roman empire in the
East. In the year 1453, Constantinople was captured by the Turks, and
the encouragement which had been shown to literature and science at
Florence, induced many learned Greeks to seek shelter and employment
in that city. Thus, the progressive races were favored with multiplied
facilities for gathering and diffusing those floods of scientific
illumination vouchsafed to deliver from the fantasies that had hitherto
peopled the world--from the prejudices that had held the human mind
in thrall. When Guttenberg raised the first proof-sheet from movable
types, the Mosaic record--"God said, let there be light, and light
was"--flashed upon earth and heaven with unprecedented glory, and that
light of intellect must shoot outward, upward, and abroad forever! It
was not a lucky accident, but the golden fruit of omniscient design, an
invention made with a perfect consciousness of its power and object,
to congregate once isolated inquirers and teachers beneath one temple,
wherein divine aspirations might unite and crown with success all the
scattered and divided efforts for extending the empire of love and
science over the whole civilized earth.
On the banks of the same river Rhine, where printing first attained a
practical use in the hands of a soldier, the discovery of gunpowder was
made by a priest. Its properties were obscurely known long before the
crusades, but are said to have been first traced in their real nature
by Berthold Schwartz, and were made known in 1336, ten years before
cannon appeared in the field of Crecy. Small arms were unknown until
nearly two centuries afterward, and were first used by the Spaniards,
about the year 1521. Fortified with this new power, Cortez, with a
handful of soldiers, was able to conquer the natives of Mexico, the
most civilized and powerful of all the nations then on this western
continent. From the hour when the blundering monk was blown up by his
own experiment, gross physical strength was surrendered to expert
military science; and gunpowder has increasingly exalted intellect in
the conduct of war, not less than in the triumphs of peace.
The history of civilization is written in the triumphs which are won
by scientific invention over the physical laws of nature, and over the
mental infirmities of inferior human tribes. These multiply at points
in space, and periods of time, most happily adapted to promote the
progress and welfare of mankind. The manufacture of glass windows,
chimneys, clocks, paper, the mariner's compass, fire-arms, watches, and
saw-mills, with the process of printing with movable types, and the use
of the telescope, comprise nearly all the inventions of importance
which were made during the lapse of twelve centuries; all the best of
which appeared near the close of the mediæval period, and were not a
little indebted to information obtained from Mohammedans through the
crusades. In the gradual development of human destiny occur flourishing
periods, when numerous men of genius are clustered together with mutual
dependence, and in a narrow space. For instance, Tycho, the founder of
the new measuring system of astronomy, Kepler, Galileo, and Lord Bacon
of Verulam, were cotemporaries; and all of them, except the first,
lived to see the works of Descartes and Fermat. The true celestial
system was discovered by Copernicus in the same year in which Columbus
died, fourteen years after the grandest mundane discovery was made. The
sudden appearance and disappearance of three new stars which occurred
in 1572, 1600, and 1604, excited the wonder of vast assemblies of
people, all over Europe, while humble artizans, in an obscure corner
thereof, were constructing an instrument which should at once calm
their fears and excite the most absorbing astonishment. The telescope
was discovered in Holland, in 1608, and two years after the immortal
Florentine astronomer began to shine prominently above all other
leaders of sublime science. Galileo was the Huss of mediæval progress,
if it be not better to call him the Columbus. The day of predestined
freedom rose over his cradle, and his life-struggle struck the hour.
His hand kindled brighter lamps in the great temple of knowledge, and,
sublime priest of true evangelism as he was, it was fitting that his
place and mission were so central, when he held aloft supremest light.
We love to read the history of his mighty spirit, and contemplate the
serene old man, blinded by gazing at stars, bereaved of his pious
daughter, dragged to the dungeon of the Inquisition, and there visited
by the future secretary of the English Commonwealth. In his own great
maxim, that "we can not teach truth to another, we can only help him to
find it," is contained the germ of all true wisdom, and the foundation
of those future inductions which were to underlie a new age and
revolutionize the world.
Sir Isaac Newton was born the same year Galileo died; and while we
do not forget that Florence was the great centre of science, as of
literature and art during the age of Leo X., let us glance more
particularly at this point to the results which so constantly tended
toward the western extreme.
We have already alluded to many of the developments which illuminated
the night of ignorance, broke the yoke of superstition, gave to doubt
a salutary force, and redoubled the acute delights of scientific
investigation. The wonders of remote hemispheres were simultaneously
unfolded, when Columbus and Vasco de Gama, at one stroke, overthrew
the old geological and geographical systems. Before the close of
the sixteenth century few of the mysteries of nature were left
unvailed, and all that remained for posterity was the work of enlarged
classification, and the perfection of each separate science. The
progress made was, in fact, immense. As the botanic gardens, at that
time planted in the new Italian universities, were fragrant with a
thousand exotics, unknown to antiquity, so the softest fabrics, and
most delicious fruits, recalled to memory the concurrent events of
Providence, which for a long time made Venice and Genoa the emporia
of mediæval traffic. Every luxury of the old world, which commerce
converted into a comfort for the new, is a memento of the discoveries
which guided navigation in the remotest seas, and carried European
adventurers so far as to make the treasures of the entire globe our
own. The science of political economy was also the offspring of that
increased commercial activity which has so much affected the character
of nations as to render new combinations of philosophy necessary for
their direction. We only need allude to the fact that the free cities
of Italy were compelled to yield the leadership in commerce to freer
Holland, and that the sceptre of the seas was finally won by England;
and that the first published theory of political economy was given to
the world in Raleigh's essay, which Quesnoy long after attempted in
vain to refute.
Agriculture was greatly improved in England under the early civilizers
of the Anglo-Norman race. Immediately after the conquest, many thousand
husbandmen, from the fertile plains of Flanders and Normandy, obtained
farms, and employed the same methods of cultivation which had proved
so successful in their native country. The ecclesiastics rivaled the
secular ranks in this noble work. It was so much the custom of the
monks to assist in open fields, especially at seed-time, the hay
season, and harvest, that the famous á Becket, even after he was
Archbishop of Canterbury, used to sally out with the inmates of the
convents, and take part with them in all rural occupations. It was
decreed by the General Council of Lateran, that "all presbyters,
clerks, monks, converts, pilgrims, and peasants, when they are engaged
in the labors of husbandry, shall, together with the cattle in their
plows, and the seed which they carry into the field, enjoy perfect
security; and that all who molest and interrupt them, if they do not
desist when they have been admonished, shall be excommunicated."
Nearly all the finest garden-lands in England were redeemed from the
worst natural condition by the sagacious and industrious Benedictine
religionists. The science they applied in cathedral building is
wonderful to the wisest engineers of our own age, and their taste in
landscape-gardening has ever been the best in the world. Their ruined
abbeys stand in the loveliest positions, and all their great churches,
and colleges, unlike the continental, are encompassed by trees, and
exquisitely decorated grounds. Ingulfus, abbot of Croyland, supplies
an early and characteristic instance of this general disposition.
Richard de Rules, director of Deeping, he tells us, being fond of
agriculture, obtained permission to inclose a large portion of marsh,
for the purpose of separate pasture, excluding the Welland by a strong
dike, upon which he erected a town, and rendered those stagnant fens a
garden of Eden. Others followed their example, and divided the marshes
among them; when some converting them to tillage, some reserving them
for meadow, others leaving them in pasture, found a rich soil for every
purpose.
Evelyn records how four kinds of grapes were early brought from
Italy, with a choice species of white figs, and were naturalized in
his vapory clime. The learned Linacre first brought the damask-rose
from the south; and, at the same time, the royal fruit gardens were
enriched with plums of three different kinds. Edward Grindal, afterward
primate at Canterbury, returning from exile, translated thither the
medicinal plant of the tamarisk. The first oranges were grown by the
Carew family, in Surrey; and the cherry orchards of Kent were commenced
about Sittingbourne. British commerce brought the currant-bush from the
island of Zante, and lettuce from Cos. Cherries came from Cerasuntis,
in Pontus; the peach, from Persia; the chestnut from Castagna, a town
of Magnesia; and the damson plum from Damascus. Lucullus, after the
war with Mithridates, introduced cherries from Pontus into Italy, where
they were rapidly propagated, and, twenty-six years afterward, Pliny
relates, the cherry-tree passed over into Britain. Thus a victory
gained by a Roman consul over a remote antagonist, with whom it would
seem that the western isle could not have the remotest interest, was
the real cause of her being ultimately enriched. Such is the law of
providential dealing, and such are the means and the path it pursues.
In 1609, Shakspeare planted his celebrated mulberry-tree, a production
before almost unknown. Since that epoch, vast treasures of literature,
art, and science have accumulated on that soil, but few new germs have
originated there.
Nearly all the roots of England's maturest science run back into
the deepest mediæval night. A worthy associate with Thomas Aquinas,
Albert the Great, and Michael Scot, was the celebrated Roger Bacon,
a native of Somersetshire, who flourished in the thirteenth century.
This Franciscan monk seems to have been a "Phœnix of intellects" in
the fundamental education of the English race, "an old and new library
of all that was good in science." He greatly established and extended
the natural sciences, by means of mathematics, and the production
of phenomena in the way of experiments. To him especially credit is
due, that the influence which he exercised upon the mode of treating
natural studies, was more beneficial and of more lasting effect than
the discoveries themselves which have been attributed to him. Says
Humboldt, "He roused himself to independent thought, and strongly
blamed the blind trust in the authority of the schools: yet he was so
far from neglecting to search into Grecian antiquity, that he prizes
the study of comparative philology, the application of mathematics,
and the 'Scientia Experimentalis,' to which he devotes a particular
section in his great work. One of the popes, Clement IV., defended and
patronized him; but two others, Nicholas II. and IV., accused him of
magic, and cast him into prison, and thus he experienced the reverses
of fortune which have been felt by great men of all times. He was
acquainted with the Optics of Ptolemæus and the Almagest. As he always
calls Hipparchus 'Abraxis,' like the Arabs, we may conclude that he
had only made use of a Latin translation of the Arabic work. Besides
Bacon's chemical investigations respecting combustible and explosive
mixtures, his theoretical optical works upon Perspective, and the
position of the focus in a concave mirror, are the most important."
It is interesting to contemplate this thoughtful recluse prosecuting
lofty studies in his solitary cell at Oxford. Around him was rising
that greatest of western universities, scarcely one college of which,
according to its historian, Doctor Ingram, can be considered a royal
foundation. Great commoners, architects of their own fortunes, like the
butcher's son, Wolsey, and the poor stone-mason, William of Wykcham,
reared the amplest halls, and educated the mightiest minds. In the
front rank of these great benefactors of science stood Roger Bacon,
greatest of his own age, and projector of nearly all that followed.
His writings contain many curious facts and judicious observations.
From the following statement it would appear that he anticipated his
brother monk on the continent in the discovery of gunpowder: "From
saltpetre and other ingredients," he says, "we are able to form a
fire which will burn to any distance." And again, alluding to its
effects, "a small portion of matter, about the size of the thumb,
properly disposed, will make a tremendous sound and coruscation, by
which cities and armies might be destroyed." One of his biographers
ascribes to him a mechanical contrivance which prepared the way for
the important invention of the air-pump. In his own words, we have the
following anticipations of nearly all the grand inventions which have
more recently changed the condition and aspect of the scientific world:
"I will mention," he says, "things which may be done without the help
of magic, such as indeed magic is unable and incapable of performing;
for a vessel may be so constructed as to make more way with one man
in her, than another vessel well manned. It is possible to make a
chariot which, without any assistance of animals, shall move with the
irresistible force which is ascribed to those scythed chariots in which
the ancients fought. It is possible to make instruments for flying, so
that a man sitting in the middle thereof, and steering with a kind of
rudder, may manage what is contrived to answer the end of wings, so as
to divide and pass through the air. It is no less possible to make a
machine of a very small size, and yet capable of raising or sinking the
greatest weights, which may be of infinite use on certain occasions,
for by the help of such an instrument not above three inches high,
or less, a man may be able to deliver himself and his companions out
of prison, and he and his companions may descend at pleasure. Yea,
instruments may be fabricated by which one man shall draw a thousand
men to him by force and against their will, as also machines which will
enable men to walk without danger at the bottom of seas and rivers."
The above possibilities, as they were suggested in the thirteenth
century, have already in good part been realized, justifying the
prophecies of a man who was before his age, but on the course of its
progress. He beheld the drifting of the great seas of humanity, and
knew not how far they might roll, but he was conscious that forward
they must go. He was the Savonarola of his land and age, the martyr
of science, who possessed his soul in patience, uttered his word, and
waited, knowing that his despised sentence would one day be esteemed
as of the finest gold. Mr. Brande observes, that one of his principal
works "breathes sentiments which would do honor to the most refined
periods of science, and in which many of the advantages likely to be
derived from the mode of investigation insisted upon by his great
successor (Chancellor Bacon) are anticipated." This remark might have
been still more prospective, for the celebrated French experimentalist,
Homberg, availing himself of some hints of chemical combinations
suggested by Roger Bacon, at a much later period, made some important
discoveries in that science.
As soon as printing was perfected on the banks of the Rhine, it was
brought to the banks of the Thames, and, in 1474, the first press in
England was erected by Caxton in Westminster Abbey. Thus the higher
process supervenes upon the inferior which prepared the way, and
supersedes the sources of its own origin and support. In the ancient
Scriptorium of the Abbey, where all literature had been transcribed,
and all science then extant found refuge till more auspicious times,
was carried on an art which was the embodiment of anterior thought, and
the guaranty of a future culture infinitely intensified and enlarged.
As early as 1480, books were printed at St. Albans; and in 1525, there
was a translation of Bœthius printed in the monastery of Tavistock,
by Thomas Richards, monk of the same monastery. That the intercourse
of Caxton with the Abbot of Westminster was on a familiar footing we
learn from his own statement, in 1490: "My Lord Abbott of Westminster
did shew to me late certain evidences written in old English, for to
reduce it to our English now used."
To receive the contributions of the past and reduce them to more
efficient use in the present and for the future, is the mission of
every agent of Providence like Caxton, Roger Bacon, or that gifted
son of St. Albans whose dust lies buried near the venerable Abbey,
where the second press of old England was set at work within the
church, while he thought and wrote without. Francis Bacon was the
complement of Aristotle. Both were adapted to their respective ages,
and were requisite to each other. Had not the great Greek speculated,
the greater Englishman would never have made his demonstrations. The
first developed the general form of all reasoning, and the second
made a specific application of this to the phenomena of matter. But
the deductive mode is only one of the phases of dialectics; and the
Baconians of the present day are much in the same position with regard
to moral science, that the Aristotelians were in with respect to
matter science. A third method was necessitated by the superior worth
of the second, and the nations at large await the man to come who
shall exhaust the whole doctrine of method, and this will doubtless
be consummated in the same direction which scientific excellence has
hitherto pursued.