Note 22 — PREFATORY NOTE.

For general statement of De Cusa's work, see Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 512. For skillful use of De Cusa's view in order to mitigate censure upon the Church for its treatment of Copernicus's discovery, see an article in the Catholic World for January, 1869. For a very exact statement, in a spirit of judicial fairness, see Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, p. 275 and pp. 379, 380. In the latter, Whewell cites the exact words of De Cusa in the De Docta Ignorantia, and sums up in these words: "This train of thought might be a preparation for the reception of the Copernican system; but it is very different from the doctrine that the sun is the centre of the planetary system." In the previous passage, Whewell says that De Cusa "propounded the doctrine of the motion of the earth, more, however, as a paradox than as a reality. We cannot consider this as any distinct anticipation of a profound and consistent view of the truth." For Aristotle's views and their elaboration by St. Thomas Aquinas, see the treatise De Cœlo et Mundo. It is curious to see how even such a biographer of St. Thomas as Archbishop Vaughan slurs over the angelic doctor's errors. See Vaughan's Life and Labors of St. Thomas of Aquin, pp. 459, 460.