A NEW ASTRONOMY 225 



'When we consider merely the vast dimensions of the celestial 

 sphere in comparison with the littleness of our earth . . . and then 

 think of the speed of the motion by which a whole revolution of the 

 heavens must be accomplished in one day, I cannot persuade myself 

 that the heavens turn while the earth stands fast.' 



Adducing not merely the sun spots themselves, but their rapid 

 variation, he insists that the universe is not rigid and permanent, 

 but constantly changing or, as science has more and more em- 

 phasized since his day, passing through consecutive, related 

 phases or evolving. 



1 1 can listen only with the greatest repugnance when the quality 

 of unchangeability is held up as something preeminent and complete 

 in contrast to variability. I hold the earth for most distinguished 

 exactly on account of the transformations which take place upon it.' 



He begins to see the fallacy of the objections that if the earth 

 rotated, a body dropped from a masthead would be left behind 

 by the ship and that movable objects could be thrown off centrif- 

 ugally at the equator. As positive arguments in support of the 

 Copernican system, he urges particularly the retrogressions and 

 other irregularities of the planets, and also the tides. 



Of the famous controversy of Galileo with the Inquisition, it 

 may here suffice to quote the judgment of the court (see Appen- 

 dix) : 



'The proposition that the sun is in the centre of the world and 

 immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false and formally 

 heretical ; because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scriptures/ etc. 



and a passage from the biographer already cited at so much 

 length : 



For over fifty years he was the knight militant of science, and 

 almost alone did successful battle with the hosts of Churchmen and 

 Aristotelians who attacked him on all sides one man against a 

 world of bigotry and ignorance. If then, . . . once, and only once, 

 when face to face with the terrors of the Inquisition, he, like Peter, 

 denied his Master, no honest man, knowing all the circumstances, 

 will be in a hurry to blame him. 

 



