When, at the time of the Renaissance, modern science was born, the first field invaded with success was that of astronomy. Copernicus became convinced that the current theory, called the Ptolemaic, was untenable because it led to insuperable complexities in the interpretation of the observed paths of the heavenly bodies. He was led to suggest that the sun was the actual center of the system and that the earth revolved around it in the {101} course of a year. One can easily imagine the furore such a daring hypothesis aroused. The Copernican theory was scoffed at by learned and ignorant alike, for it upset the whole picture of the world which had been tranquilly accepted from early times, except by such a radical non-conformist as Aristarchus of Samos. To appreciate the intellectual revolution threatened, one has only to read Dante's "Divine Comedy," for Dante journeys from planet to planet and thinks of them as arranged within crystalline spheres revolving slowly about the earth. In the second canto of Paradise, he speaks of the blessed motors who make the holy spheres revolve. These motors are angels of various orders resident in the spheres and transmitting to them the efficacy of the Divine Intelligence. Thus infant science had to challenge the appearance of things to the eye, and a system bound up with the religious view of the world. It is obvious that the old geocentric view of the world, which thought of the earth as the center of the universe, was nothing more than a statement of the apparent relations of the visible heavens to the broad earth which stretches out on either hand as far as eye can see. That this natural view of things was taken up into the religious picture of the universe was the occurrence to be expected. Had it not been and had the priests and prophets enunciated the Copernican theory, there would be reason to suspect a hidden source of revelation. Needless to say such a reversal of the natural sequence never occurs.