He, more than any other
modern poet, takes them from reality, whether in nature or human life,
and uses them never as mere ornament, but in order to give the reader
the fullest and most adequate sense of his meaning. It is in astronomy
that he appears chiefly as a scientific specialist, though it must not
be forgotten that many astronomical allusions in his great poem, which
now appear to us learned, must then have been intelligible to the
general reader. Dante, learning apart, appeals to a popular knowledge
of the heavens, which the Italians of his day, from the mere fact that
they were a nautical people, had in common with the ancients. This
knowledge of the rising and setting of the constellations has been
rendered superfluous to the modern world by calendars and clocks, and
with it has gone whatever interest in astronomy the people may once
have had. Nowadays, with our schools and handbooks, every child knows--
what Dante did not know--that the earth moves round the sun; but the
interest once taken in the subject itself has given place, except in
the case of astronomical specialists, to the most absolute
indifference.
The pseudo-science which dealt with the stars proves nothing against
the inductive spirit of the Italians of that day. That spirit was but
crossed, and at times overcome, by the passionate desire to penetrate
the future.
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