396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



offensive turn, might serve as evidence of the faithfulness of his 

 memory. 



The fact is, that the reason of Galileo's taking up his pen again 

 to treat a forbidden subject was not that he had forgotten the formal 

 prohibition. He might have made answer, with great frankness, that, 

 though he had been ordered to hold his peace, yet he had not been 

 convinced, and that, after so many years of silence, the need of pro- 

 claiming the truth had more power over him than the fear of disobey 

 ing. But it was not for a mind so subtile, nor for a character so wary 

 as that of Galileo, to be tied down to a categorical declaration, and so 

 to shut every portal of escape. He chose rather to use evasions with 

 his judges, to plead extenuating circumstances, to produce the impres 

 sion that he might have misunderstood, but that he had not acted 

 with evil intent and with his eyes open. Even while undergoing the 

 first interrogatory, he was still in hopes of finding in the sovereign 

 pontiff some remnant of friendship, or, at least, of good-will ; and this 

 was another reason why he made an evasive reply, and did not com 

 promise himself by an explicit admission of his offenses. He appears 

 to have believed, at this first session, that it would be possible for him 

 to have a private interview with the holy father. Being questioned 

 as to what had been said to him by Cardinal Bellarmin in 161.6, he 

 replied that some of the details of their conversation he could intrust 

 only to the ear of the sovereign pontiff. This plainly was a request 

 for an interview with Urban. His judges seemed not to understand 

 him, or, if they carried his words to the holy father, they obtained 

 from him no favorable answer ; but, in the course of the trial, it be- 

 came evident that Galileo could expect neither indulgence nor com- 

 miseration from his old friend. 



All of Galileo's answers at the first interrogatory present the same 

 character of ambiguity. On being asked whether, before he begged 

 of Father Riccardi license to print his "Dialogues," he had informed 

 the master of the Sacred Palace of his having previously been for- 

 bidden to treat certain subjects, his reply was that he had not men- 

 tioned that to Father Riccardi, " for he did not think it necessary to 

 do so, having no scruples, nor having supported or defended in his 

 book the opinion of the earth's motion and the stability of the sun." 

 It is not altogether certain that, by thus altering the truth, Galileo 

 chose the best line of defense; probably a little more of frankness 

 would have served him better. He was simply trifling with his judges 

 and taking them for fools, when he tried to make them believe that, 

 in his " Dialogues," his purpose had been to demonstrate the "weak- 

 ness and insufficiency " of Copernicus's arguments. The disguises in 

 which the author clothes his thoughts fail to deceive the thoughtful 

 reader. Throughout the work, the defender of Ptolemy's theory, 

 Simplicio (in whom it has been wrongfully supposed that some of the 

 traits of Urban VIII. may be found), is overthrown by his opponents' 



