CH. xi. GALILEO IN ROME. 93 



Bruno to be burnt alive, became uneasy that Galileo should 

 teach so many ne\v things, and especially that he should 

 prove that our earth was not the centre of everything, but a 

 mere speck among the numberless stars and planets in the 

 heavens. They therefore sent for Galileo, in the year 1616, 

 and threatened to punish him unless he would promise to 

 hold his tongue about this new theory. Galileo, however, 

 would not be silent ; surrounded by his little circle of admir- 

 ing pupils, he could not refrain from spreading wherever he 

 went the grand facts he had discovered and the truths they 

 taught. He was impatient that the world should not see as 

 clearly as he did how glorious the universe is when rightly 

 understood, and he often spoke and wrote sharply and sar- 

 castically of those who would not listen to truth. 



At last, in 1632, he wrote a book called 'The System of 

 the World of Galileo Galilei,' in which he clearly proved the 

 truth of the Copernican theory, and alluded very angrily to 

 the attempt which the Inquisition had made to force him to 

 be silent. This book convinced many people, but at the 

 same time it roused the anger of the judges of the Inquisi- 

 tion. They summoned Galileo (then an old man seventy 

 years of age) to appear again before them ; and this time 

 they made him kneel, clothed in the sackcloth of a penitent, 

 and swear with his hands upon the Gospels that ' it was not 

 true that the earth moved round the sun, and that he would 

 never again in words or writing spread this damnable 

 heresy.' It is very sad to think that Galileo should thus 

 swear to what he knew was a lie ; but it is still more sad 

 that men holding their power in the name of God should 

 force him to choose between telling a lie or being put to 

 torture or to death as Giordano Bruno had been. When 



