Here comes in a proof that the antagonisin
between theological and scientific methods is not confined to
Christianity; for this statement brought upon Aristarchus the
charge of blasphemy, and drew after it a cloud of prejudice which
hid the truth for six hundred years. Not until the fifth century of
our era did it timidly appear in the thoughts of Martianus Capella:
then it was again lost to sight for a thousand years, until in the
fifteenth century, distorted and imperfect, it appeared in the
writings of Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa.
But in the shade cast by the vast system which had grown from the
minds of the great theologians and from the heart of the great poet
there had come to this truth neither bloom nor fruitage.
Quietly, however, the soil was receiving enrichment and the air
warmth. The processes of mathematics were constantly improved, the
heavenly bodies were steadily observed, and at length appeared, far
from the centres of thought, on the borders of Poland, a plain,
simple-minded scholar, who first fairly uttered to the modern world
the truth--now so commonplace, then so astounding--that the sun and
planets do not revolve about the earth, but that the earth and
planets revolve about the sun: this man was Nicholas Copernicus.
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