GALILEO. 345 



covered a satellite to Saturn — thus raising the number of celestial 

 bodies to twelve — he looked no more, ' because twelve was universally 

 admitted to be a perfect number. 5 There were six planets and six 

 satellites and he ventured to predict that no more would be discovered. 

 Huyghens died in the year 1695. He was the foremost man of science 

 on the continent of Europe. 



In 1610 Galileo had seen Saturn ' tricorporate ' — in December, 

 1612, he writes: 



Looking on Saturn I found it solitary without the assistance of its ac- 

 customed stars and, in short, perfectly round and defined like Jupiter; and such 

 it still remains. Now, what can be said of so strange a metamorphosis? Are 

 the two smaller stars consumed like the spots on the Sun ? Have they suddenly 

 vanished and fled? or has Saturn devoured his own children? or was the 

 appearance indeed fraud and illusion, with which the glasses have for so long 

 time mocked me, and so many others who have so often observed with me? 

 Now, perhaps, the time is come to revive the withering hopes of those who, 

 guided by more profound contemplations, have followed all the fallacies of 

 the new observations, and recognized their impossibilities. I cannot resolve 

 what to say in a juncture so strange, so new and so unexpected. The short- 

 ness of the time, the unexampled occurrence, the weakness of my intellect, and 

 the terror of being mistaken, have greatly confounded me. 



The explanation of the disappearance of the ansae of Saturn's ring was 

 not given until 1656 (by Huyghens). Galileo's telescope was not suf- 

 ficiently perfect and he died without solving what was a mere riddle 

 to him. 



The spots on the sun were first seen by Galileo, though they were 

 first described by others (Fabritius, Schemer). In April, 1611, Gali- 

 leo exhibited them at Kome to an audience of notabilities. His own 

 observations had convinced him, he says, that the spots were real; that 

 they were not fixed at one part of the solar globe; that they had mo- 

 tions; he sees no reason to doubt that they are attached to the surface 

 of the sun; he believes that they form at the sun's surface, are dissi- 

 pated and may reappear. By August, 1612, he made other observa- 

 tions which confirmed his earlier conjectures. Their motions prove 

 that the sun is spherical and that it turns on an axis. He notes also 

 that the spots all lie within certain special zones of latitude. He ob- 

 serves the sun by projection — by receiving its image on a sheet of card- 

 board. Certain large spots can be seen by the naked eye, but by an 

 inveterate prejudice that the heavenly bodies are incorruptible, they 

 have not been remarked; to the shame of astronomers, he says, such 

 appearances have previously been taken for Mercury in transit over the 

 solar disc. 



Galileo's discoveries were received with incredulity by the wisest 

 men of Italy. The warm-hearted Kepler (April, 1610) was the first 

 to recognize ' the divinity of his genius.' Little by little they made 



VOL. LXVI. — 23. 



