[Footnote 4: _Ibidem._]



THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION.


By its interference, religion can inspire science, and again science by
its interference can purify religion. The most beautiful spectacle in
human society is a priest contributing to science and a scientist
contributing to religion. The one-sided man is always an imperfect man;
and an imperfect man as a teacher of perfection is a dangerous teacher
for young generations.

Two Slavs, Nicolaus Copernicus, from Thorn, and Ruggiero Boscovich, from
Ragusa, both Roman Catholic priests, were at the same time both ardent
scientists. Copernicus postulated the heliocentric planetary system instead
of the geocentric. This happened soon after Columbus made a great
revolution in geographical science by discovering America. Some people
thought the end of the Church had come after Copernicus' discovery that the
sun and not the earth is the centre of the world. But Copernicus not only
did not think so, but continued quietly in his vocation as a priest and
dedicated his famous work to Pope Paul III.

Ruggiero Boscovich was not such a great discoverer as Copernicus; still he
was one of the most distinguished scientific and philosophic minds in the
eighteenth century. In his "Theoria philosophiæ naturalis," he tried to
prove that bodies are composed not of a continuous material substance but
rather of innumerable point-like structures or particles which are without
any extension or divisibility. These elements are endowed with a repulsive