A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

292 Ch. 8 • The New Philosophy Of Science

calculations. He could not explain why there was no constant wind from
the east, which might be expected based on the assumption that the earth
moved in that direction around the sun. Copernicus sometimes sought to
answer his own doubts by turning to the teachings of the ancients and.did
not completely abandon the system of celestial spheres postulated by
Ptolemy. Copernicus also continued to accept the notion that the spheri­
cal universe was finite, and that it perhaps was limited by the stars fixed in
the heavens.

The Universal Laws of the Human Body

As scientists began to chart movements in the heavens, some scholars now

began to question old assumptions about the human body. They contended

that it is subject to the same universal laws that govern celestial and terres­

trial motion. The Renaissance had generated interest in human anatomy.

Most assumptions about how the body works had been passed down for

centuries from the ancient world. Galen (129-c. 210), a Greek contempo­

rary of Ptolemy, was the first person to develop theories about medicine

based on scientific experiments. He carried out a number of experiments

Dissecting a cadaver at the University of Montpellier, 1363.