Life of Galileo Galilei

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The knowledge which we at present possess of the phenomena of nature and of their connection has not by any means been regularly progressive,as we might have expected, from the time when they first drew the attention of mankind. Without entering into the question touching the scientific acquirements of eastern nations at a remote period, it is certain that some among the early Greeks were in possession of several truths, however acquired, connected with the economy of the universe, which were afterwards suffered to fall into neglect and oblivion. But the philosophers of the old school appear in general to have confined themselves at the best to observations; very few traces remain of their having instituted experiments, properly so called. This putting of nature to the torture, as Bacon calls it, has occasioned the principal part of modern philosophical discoveries. The experimentalist may so order his examination of nature as to vary at pleasure the circumstances in which it is made, often to discard accidents which complicate the general appearances, and at once to bring any theory which he may form to a decisive test. The province of the mere observer is necessarily limited: the power of selection among the phenomena to be presented is in great measure denied to him, and he may consider himself fortunate if they are such as to lead him readily to a knowledge of the laws which they follow.<br><br>Perhaps to this imperfection of method it maybe attributed lhat natural philosophy continued to be stationary, or even to decline, during a long series of ages, until little more than two centuries ago. Within this comparatively short period it has rapidly reached a degree of perfection so different from its former degraded state, that we can hardly institute any comparison between the two. Before that epoch, a.few insulated facts, such as might first happen<br>to be noticed, often inaccurately observed and always too hastily generalized, were foun