GALILEO. 71 



to his virtues and piety.' ' We have observed in him not only literary 

 distinction, but also the love of religion and all the good qualities 

 worthy of the papal favor.' 



Galileo was again at the very summit of prosperity. He thought 

 it safe, on his return to Florence, to write a reply to an Italian ad- 

 vocate, Ingoli, in which he defends the Copernican theory. In the 

 first place he shows that he formerly defended it because of its inherent 

 probability. He proves that he had not defended an idea improbable 

 or unreasonable in itself. Again he desires to show the Protestant 

 Copernicans in Germany that the heliocentric doctrine had not been 

 rejected in Italy from ignorance of its great probability, but from 

 reverence for Holy Scripture, zeal for religion and our holy faith. 



II Saggiatore had been well received. Why might he not go further 

 under the favor of the Pope? All reports from Rome were favorable. 

 And indeed he had heard (December, 1625) that the Pope had listened 

 to several passages from this last pamphlet and had highly approved 

 them. If he had gone so far, why then might he not go still farther? 

 On the surface of affairs there was no apparent reason. Up to this 

 time Galileo had preserved the forms fully. He professed not to hold 

 Copernican doctrines. Not holding them, how could his writings be 

 taken as teaching or defending them? The Pope, his friend, had not 

 disapproved his previous writings. Galileo misinterpreted this as a 

 sign of his toleration of the doctrines. It is now apparent that the 

 Pope's whole course was consistent. He desired to give Galileo every 

 liberty, but was sternly set against any teachings that would diminish 

 the authority of the Church. From first to last he was unconvinced 

 of the scientific truth of the Copernican opinion. He had personally 

 befriended and honored Galileo. He looked for a grateful acknowl- 

 edgment in return. Galileo had been denounced by his enemies, but 

 they were overawed, and would certainly take up no quarrel in which 

 he was not flagrantly disobedient to the prohibition of 1616. II Sag- 

 giatore had been a brilliant success. He now set about arranging 

 another work — the Dialogues on the two principal systems of the 

 World — parts of which had been in hand for some years. 



This is the place to record Galileo's share in the invention of the 

 microscope. While he was in Eome (1624) a complicated microscope 

 was shown to him that had been invented by Drebbel, a Dutchman. 

 Galileo simplified and greatly improved it. His relation to the in- 

 vention of the telescope and of the microscope is the same. The first 

 ideas came from others; Galileo put them into practical forms. The 

 real inventor of the microscope is not Drebbel, but Zacharias Jansen, a 

 spectacle maker of Middleburg who made the first instruments in the 

 last years of the sixteenth century, before the telescope was invented, 

 therefore. 



