The Life of Galileo Galilei

With Illustrations of the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy and Life of Kepler

The Life of Galileo Galilei
With Illustrations of the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy and Life of Kepler

This edition features
• illustrations
• linked Footnotes

Excerpt
Chapter I. Introduction.
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...