GALILEO. 351 



texts of Joshua and the Psalms were like assumptions of authority. 

 In all that follows it must not be forgotten that Galileo had the free 

 choice of leaving the scriptural interpretations alone and of confining 

 himself to science and to philosophical considerations of a general 

 nature. He chose to enter the lists, and there is every reason to believe 

 that he felt sure of winning. 



Galileo's case recalls that of Eoger Bacon, nearly four centuries 

 earlier. The science of both these men of genius was, in the main and 

 essentially, illuminating and correct. It was, for both of them, 

 opposed by ignorant men who feared that which they could not under- 

 stand. Both of them went out of the province in which alone they had 

 authorit} r , to enter another in which their contemporaries and fellows 

 were at least as well able to judge as they. Both of them overbore and 

 offended their colleagues by harshness. When they were brought to 

 trial those very colleagues were, in turn, accusers, jurors and judges. 

 A like fate befell both. 



The history of Jordano Bruno does not fall within the scope of this 

 article and need be considered only so far as it affected the contempo- 

 raries of Galileo, and Galileo himself. The following paragraphs from 

 Draper's ' Intellectual Development of Europe ' give the views of a 

 writer who is inclined to present Bruno's history in the most favorable 

 light. The foot notes are my own. 



Against the opposition it had to encounter, the heliocentric theory made 

 its way slowly at first. Among those who did adopt it were some whose con- 

 nection served rather to retard its progress, because of the ultraism of their 

 views, or the doubtfulness of their social position. Such was Bruno, who 

 contributed largely to its introduction into England, and who was the author 

 of a work on the Plurality of Worlds, and of the conception that every star is 

 a sun, having opaque planets revolving about it — a conception to which the 

 Copernican system suggestively leads. Bruno was born (1550) seven years 

 after the death of Copernicus. He became a Dominican, but, like so many other 

 thoughful men of the times, was led into heresy on the doctrine of transub- 

 stantiation.* Not concealing his opinions he was persecuted, fled, and led a 

 vagabond life in foreign countries,! testifying that wherever he went he found 

 scepticism under the polish of hypocrisy, and that he fought not against the 

 belief of men, but against their pretended belief. For teaching the rotation of 

 the earth he had to flee to Switzerland, and thence to England, where, at 

 Oxford, he gave lectures on Cosmology. Driven from England, France and 

 Germany in succession, he ventured in his extremity to return to Italy, and 

 was arrested in Venice where he was kept in prison in the Piombi for six years 

 without books, or paper, or friends. Meantime the Inquisition demanded him 

 as having written heretical works. He was therefore surrendered to Rome, and, 



* Bruno was twice disciplined for ' open and avowed ' heresy during the 

 thirteen years of his cloister life (1563-1576). He denied the personality of 

 Christ for one thing. 



t Toulouse, Paris (1579 and 1585), Oxford (1583), Wittenburg (1587), 

 Prague (1588), Helmstadt (1589), Frankfort (1590), Marburg (1586), Venice 

 (1592), Rome (1593). These dates correct some errors of the text. 



