The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other EssaysPark, Roswell
Religion
The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays
Park, Roswell
Bruno, Giordano, 1548-1600; Evil eye; Knights of Malta; Medicine; Mythology; Religion; Students
At about the time when Harvey made known his discovery Bacon was
publishing his views of the laws of transmission and reflection of
sound. Great man as he was, with a keen foresight into the value of
the recent inventions of the compass, gun-powder and printing, he
nevertheless was himself so narrow, in some respects, that he placed
but little value upon the discovery of Copernicus. He, however, paved
the way for one in some respects still greater, namely Isaac Newton,
who, however, had scarcely attained man's stature when Harvey died.
How much we owe to the two great Bacons of history one cannot indicate
in this short résumé. Roger Bacon (1214-1292) seems to have been the
first great thinker along truly scientific lines. He was more than a
mere chemist while, as White says, more than three centuries before
Francis Bacon _advocated_ the experimental method Roger Bacon had
_practised_ it, and in many directions. He did more than anyone else
in the middle ages to direct thought into fruitful paths, and only
now are we finding out how nearly he reached some of the principal
doctrines of modern philosophy and chemistry. Most important of all,
his methods were even greater than his results, and this at a time
when "theological subtilizing" was the only passport to reputation for
scholarship.
It was Avicenna, the Arabian, who perhaps first announced substantially
the modern theory of geology, accounting for changes in the earth's
surface by suggesting a stone-making force, but the presence of fossils
in the rocks had been always a thorn in the sides of the theologians.
It was Leonardo da Vinci, that versatile genius in science and art,
who, previous to Harvey's generation, suggested true notions as to the
origin of fossils, while, in Harvey's time, Bernard Palissy, another
artist, vehemently contended for their correctness. Still, even at
Harvey's death, neither geology nor paleontology had come anywhere near
scientific accuracy.
The _Academia dei Lyncei_, so-called from its seal, which bore the
image of a fox, was founded in Rome in 1603. In France The Academy
of Science was not founded until 1665, in Germany The Society of
Naturalists and Physicians in 1652, and the British Royal Society in
1665.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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