his History of the persecutions of the Bohemian Church, the latter of which was not published till 1648.
But most of his attention was given to the composition of his treatise on physics. This work, which appeared at Leipzig in 1633,[1] is a most curious publication, and, as Comenius always based his didactic laws on the operations of nature and on the fundamental principles that underlie the constitution of the universe, it is on this account worthy of special attention.
The scope of the work will be best illustrated by the headings of the individual chapters, twelve in number.
1. Sketch of the creation of the world.
2. Of the invisible principles of the world.
3. Of motions.
4. Of the qualities of things.
5. Of the changes of things.
6. Of the elements.
7. Of vapours.
8. Of concrete substances.
9. Of plants.
10. Of animals.
11. Of man.
12. Of angels.
In writing a Christian Cosmogony, Comenius was to a large extent following precedent. Valesius, Lambartus, Levinus, Oscalus, Kasmannus, and his own tutor Alsted had done so before him, and had made the same effort to combine the desire for scientific progress on inductive lines and the belief that the truth on every subject, scientific or otherwise, is to be found in the Scriptures.
For the production of works of this kind the curious conflict of ideas at the close of the sixteenth century was responsible. The spirit of free inquiry introduced by the reformed religion had to a large extent overthrown the authority of Aristotle, but the Christian philosophers of the
- ↑ ‘Physicæ ad lumen divinum reformatæ synopsis philodidactorum et theodidactorum censuræ exposita.’
