Here might I end, were it not that the same kind of struggle as went on fiercely in the seventeenth century is still smouldering even now. Not in astronomy indeed, as then; nor yet in geology, as some fifty years ago; but in biology mainly—perhaps in other subjects. I myself have heard Charles Darwin spoken of as an atheist and an infidel, the theory of evolution assailed as unscriptural, and the doctrine of the ascent of man from a lower state of being, as opposed to the fall of man from some higher condition, denied as impious and un-Christian.
Men will not learn by the past; still they brandish their feeble weapons against the truths of Nature, as if assertions one way or another could alter fact, or make the thing other than it really is. As Galileo said before his spirit was broken, "In these and other positions certainly no man doubts but His Holiness the Pope hath always an absolute power of admitting or condemning them; but it is not in the power of any creature to make them to be true or false, or otherwise than of their own nature and in fact they are."
I know nothing of the views of any here present; but I have met educated persons who, while they might laugh at the men who refused to look through a telescope lest they should learn something they did not like, yet also themselves commit the very same folly. I have met persons who utterly refuse to listen to any view concerning the origin of man other than that of a perfect primæval pair in a garden, and I am constrained to say this much: Take heed lest some prophet, after having excited your indignation at the follies and bigotry of a bygone generation, does not turn upon you with the sentence, "Thou art the man."
SUMMARY OF FACTS FOR LECTURE VI
Science before Newton
Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, Physician to Queen Elizabeth, was an excellent experimenter, and made many discoveries in magnetism and electricity. He was contemporary with Tycho Brahé, and lived from 1540 to 1603.
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, 1561–1626, though a brilliant writer, is not specially important as regards science. He was not a scientific man, and his rules for making discoveries, or methods of induction, have never been consciously, nor often indeed unconsciously, followed by discoverers. They are not in fact practical rules at all, though they were so intended. His really strong doctrines are that phenomena must be studied direct, and that variations in the ordinary course of nature must be induced by aid of experiment; but he lacked the scientific instinct for pursuing these great truths into detail and special cases. He sneered at the work and methods of both Gilbert and Galileo, and rejected the Copernican theory as absurd. His literary gifts have conferred on him an artificially high scientific reputation, especially in England; at the same time his writings undoubtedly helped to make popular the idea of there being new methods for investigating Nature, and, by insisting on the necessity for freedom from preconceived ideas and opinions, they did much to release men from the bondage of Aristotelian authority and scholastic tradition.
The greatest name between Galileo and Newton is that of Descartes.