Beacon Lights of History, Volume 03, part 2 | Page 5

him a personal God is everything Defects of his system Calvin
an aristocrat His intellectual qualities His prodigious labors His severe
characteristics His vast influence His immortal fame
LORD BACON.
THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
Lord Bacon as portrayed by Macaulay His great defects of character
Contrast made between the man and the philosopher Bacon's youth and
accomplishments Enters Parliament Seeks office At the height of
fortune and fame His misfortunes Consideration of charges against him
His counterbalancing merits The exaltation by Macaulay of material
life Bacon made its exponent But the aims of Bacon were higher The
true spirit of his philosophy Deductive philosophies His new method
Bacon's Works Relations of his philosophy Material science and
knowledge Comparison of knowledge with wisdom
GALILEO.
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES.
A brilliant portent The greatness of the sixteenth century Artists,
scholars, reformers, religious defenders Maritime discoveries Literary,
ecclesiastical, political achievements Youth of Galileo His early
discoveries Genius for mathematics Professor at Pisa Ridicules the old
philosophers; invents the thermometer Compared with Kepler Galileo
teaches the doctrines of Copernicus. Gives offence by his railleries and
mockeries. Theology and science Astronomical knowledge of the
Ancients Utilization of science Construction of the first telescope
Galileo's reward His successive discoveries His enemies High scientific
rank in Europe Hostility of the Church Galileo summoned before the
Inquisition; his condemnation and admonition His new offences

Summoned before a council of Cardinals His humiliation His
recantations Consideration of his position Greatness of mind rather
than character His confinement at Arceti Opposition to science His
melancholy old age and blindness Visited by John Milton; comparison
of the two, when blind Consequence of Galileo's discoveries Later
results Vastness of the universe Grandeur of astronomical science

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.
DANTE.
A.D. 1265-1321.
RISE OF MODERN POETRY.
The first great genius who aroused his country from the torpor of the
Middle Ages was a poet. Poetry, then, was the first influence which
elevated the human mind amid the miseries of a gloomy period, if we
may except the schools of philosophy which flourished in the rising
universities. But poetry probably preceded all other forms of culture in
Europe, even as it preceded philosophy and art in Greece. The gay
Provencal singers were harbingers of Dante, even as unknown poets
prepared the way for Homer. And as Homer was the creator of Grecian
literature, so Dante, by his immortal comedy, gave the first great
impulse to Italian thought. Hence poets are great benefactors, and we
will not let them die in our memories or hearts. We crown them, when
alive, with laurels and praises; and when they die, we erect monuments
to their honor. They are dear to us, since their writings give perpetual
pleasure, and appeal to our loftiest sentiments. They appeal not merely
to consecrated ideas and feelings, but they strive to conform to the
principles of immortal art. Every great poet is as much an artist as the
sculptor or the painter: and art survives learning itself. Varro, the most
learned of the Romans, is forgotten, when Virgil is familiar to every
school-boy. Cicero himself would not have been immortal, if his essays
and orations had not conformed to the principles of art. Even an
historian who would live must be an artist, like Voltaire or Macaulay.
A cumbrous, or heavy, or pedantic historian will never be read, even if
his learning be praised by all the critics of Germany.
Poets are the great artists of language. They even create languages, like
Homer and Shakspeare. They are the ornaments of literature. But they
are more than ornaments. They are the sages whose sayings are

treasured up and valued and quoted from age to age, because of the
inspiration which is given to them,--an insight into the mysteries of the
soul and the secrets of life. A good song is never lost; a good poem is
never buried, like a system of philosophy, but has an inherent vitality,
like the melodies of the son of Jesse. Real poetry is something, too,
beyond elaborate versification, which is one of the literary fashions,
and passes away like other fashions unless, redeemed by something
that arouses the soul, and elevates it, and appeals to the consciousness
of universal humanity. It is the poets who make revelations, like
prophets and sages of old; it is they who invest history with interest;
like Shakspeare and Racine, and preserve what is most vital and
valuable in it. They even adorn philosophy, like Lucretius, when he
speculated on the systems of the Ionian philosophers. They certainly
impress powerfully on the mind the truths of theology, as Watts and
Cowper and Wesley did in their noble lyrics. So that the most rapt and
imaginative of men, if artists, utilize the whole realm of knowledge,
and diffuse it, and perpetuate it in artistic forms. But