英语考试复习3

The authority of science vs. the authority of the Church

The period of history which is commonly called “modern”has a mental outlook which differs from that of the medieval period in many ways. Of these, two are the most important: the diminishing authority of the Church and the increasing authority of science…

The autority of science, which is recognized by most philosophers of the modern epoch, is a very different thing from the authority of the Church, since it is intellectual, not governmental. No penalties fall upon those who reject it; no prudential arguments in fluence those who accept it. It prevails solely by its intrinsic appeal to reason. It is, moreover, a piecemeal and partial authority; it does not, like the body of Catholic dogma, lay down a complete system, convering human morality, human hopes, and the past and future history of the universe. It pronunces only on whatever, at the time, appears to have been scientifically ascertained, which is a small island in an ocean of nescience. There is yet another difference from ecclesiastical authority, which declares its pronouncements to be absolutely certain and eternally unalterable: the pronouncements of science are made tentatively, on a basis of probability, and are regarded as liable to modification.This produces a temper of

mind very different from that of the medieval dogmatist.

The renaissance created an atmosphere in which individual genius could flourish.

Outside the sphere of morals, the Renaissance had great merits. In architectures, painting, and poetry, it has remained renowned. It produced very great men, such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli. It liberated educated men from the narrowness of medieval culture, and, even while still a slave to the worship of antiquilty, it made scholars aware that a variety of opinions had been held by reputable authorities on almost every subject. By reviving the kownledge of the Greek world, it created a mental atmosphere in which it was again possible to rival Hellenic achievements, and in which indvidual genius could flourish with a freedom unknown since the time of Alexander. The political conditions of the Renaissance favoured individual development, but were unstable; the instability and the individualism were closely connected, as in ancient Greece.

Copernicus and modern science

Copernicus was a Polish ecclesiastic, of unimpeachable orthodoxy. In his youth he traveled in Italy, and absorbed something of the Renaissance. In 1500 he had a lectureship or professorship of mathematics in Rome, but in 1503 he returned to his native land, where he was a canon of Frauenburg. Much of his time seems to have been spent in combating the Germans and reforming the currency, but his leisure was devoted to astronomy. He came early to believe that the sun is at the centre of the universe, and that the earth has a twofold motion: a diurnal rotation, and an annual revoulution about the sun. Fear of ecclesiastical censure led him to delay publication of his views though he allowed them to become known. His chief work, De Revolutionibus Orbium caelestium, was pubished in the year of his death(1543), with a preface by his friend Osiander saying that the heliocentric theory was only put forward as a hypothesis. It is uncertain how far Copericus sanctioned this statements in the body of the book. The book is dedicated to the Pope, and escaped official condemnation until the time of Galileo. The Church in the lifetime of Copernicus was more liberal than it became after the Council of Trent, the Jesuits, and the revived Inquisition had done their work.

The men who founded modern science had two merits