NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 149 



they should be published. In 1850, after various delays on vari- 

 ous pretexts, the long-expected publication appeared. The per- 

 sonage charged with presenting them to the world was Monsignor 

 Marini. This ecclesiastic was of a kind which has too often 

 afflicted both the Church and the world at large. Despite the 

 solemn promise of the papal court, the wily Marini became the 

 instrument of the Roman authorities in evading the promise. By 

 suppressing a document here, and interpolating a statement there, 

 he managed to give plausible standing-ground for nearly every 

 important sophistry ever broached to save the infallibility of the 

 Church and destroy the reputation of Galileo. He it was who 

 supported the idea that Galileo was " condemned, not for heresy, 

 but for contumacy," and various other assertions as groundless. 



The first effect of Monsignor Marini's book seemed useful in 

 covering the retreat of the Church apologists. Aided by him, 

 such vigorous writers as Ward were able to throw up temporary 

 intrenchments between the Roman authorities and the indigna- 

 tion of the world. 



But some time later came an investigator very different from 

 Monsignor Marini. This was a Frenchman, M. L'Epinois. Like 

 Marini, L'Epinois was devoted to the Church ; but, unlike Marini, 

 he could not lie. Havrhg obtained access in 1867 to the Galileo 

 documents at the Vatican, he published fully several of the most 

 important, without suppression or piously-fraudulent manipula- 

 tion. This made all the intrenchments based upon Marini's 

 statements untenable. Another retreat had to be made. 



And now came the most desperate effort of all. The apolo- 

 getic army, reviving an idea which the popes and Church had 

 spurned for centuries, declared that the popes as popes had never 

 condemned the doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo ; that they 

 had condemned them as men simply ; that therefore the Church 

 had never been committed to them ; that the condemnation was 

 made by the cardinals of the Inquisition and Index ; and that the 

 Pope had evidently been restrained by interposition of Providence 

 from signing their condemnation. Nothing could show the des- 

 peration of the retreating party better than jugglery like this. 

 The facts are, that in the official account of the condemnation by 

 Bellarmin, in 1616, he declares distinctly that he makes this con- 

 demnation " in the name of his Holiness the Pope." * 



Again, from Pope Urban downward, among the Church au- 

 thorities of the seventeenth century, the decision was always 

 acknowledged to be made by the Pope and the Church. Urban 

 VIII spoke of that of 1616 as made by Pope Paul V and the 

 Church, and of that of 1633 as made by himself and the Church. 



* See the citation from the Vatican manuscript given in Gebler, p. T8. 



