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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



The first open war on Galileo's astronomical 

 innovations was declared by monkish ignorance. 

 The irregular-regular monastic militia of papacy 

 were the first to beat the "drum ecclesiastic," 

 and essay to rally round them the great army of 

 blockheads in a new crusade against light and 

 knowledge. On the fourth Sunday of Advent, 

 1614, Caccini, a Dominican monk, preached a 

 sermon in the church of Santa Maria Novella, at 

 Florence, on the astronomical miracle of Joshua, 

 taking his text from the Vulgate, " Viri Galilcei, 

 quid statis aspicientes in coelum ? " This punning 

 text was followed by a furious sermon against all 

 mathematics, which the preacher declared were 

 an invention of the devil, and against all mathe- 

 maticians, who, he said, should be excluded from 

 all Christian states. Father MarafS, a Dominican 

 friend and admirer of Galileo, immediately wrote 

 to him to express his disgust at this abuse of the 

 pulpit — the more so, he said, as its author was a 

 brother of his own order, and he should have to 

 share the responsibility of all the stupidities 

 (tulte le bestialitd) which might be, and were, com- 

 mitted by thirty or forty thousand monks. 



Father Caccini, instead of being censured or 

 punished, was invited to Rome, as master and 

 bachelor at the convent of Santa Maria della 

 Minerva ; and another brother of the same order, 

 Father Lorini, secretly wrote to the Roman Holy 

 Office, not expressly naming Galileo, but denounc- 

 ing the Galileists, who affirm that the earth moves, 

 and the sun stands still. Father Lorini declares 

 that the Galileists therein assert an opinion visi- 

 bly contrary on all points to Holy Scripture, that 

 they trample under foot the entire philosphy of 

 Aristotle, and vent a thousand impertinences only 

 to show their wit. He concludes by quoting the 

 sermon of Caccini against " the Galilaeans," which 

 was the sure way to get the father summoned as 

 a witness before the Holy Office — as he accord- 

 ingly was, and added a quantity of second and 

 third hand hearsay, the greater part of which was 

 too worthless to find favor even with an Inquisi- 

 torial tribunal, and the rest irrelevant to the 

 charges in course of collection against Galileo by 

 the underground agencies of the Holy Office at 

 Rome. 



M. Henri Martin here abruptly asks, " What 

 was it these cardinals of the Inquisition really 

 meant ? " Maffeo Barberino, Del Monte, Bellar- 

 mine, were well-wishers to Galileo personally. 

 They meant, in a word, to spare the man, while 

 stifling the system. This was not, however, what 

 Galileo wanted, or would willingly submit to. In 

 letters to Monsignor Dini, he avowed that the 



earth's double movement was for him, as it had 

 been for Copernicus, a serious and positive doc- 

 trine, not a mere hypothesis, which might be re- 

 garded as false or indifferent. In a justification 

 of himself, drawn up by Galileo at the period be- 

 fore us, not for publicity, but for communication 

 " to some wise and just persons," he asks : 



" What could be expected to be the conse- 

 quence of an authoritative condemnation of the 

 Copernican system ? Such a condemnation would 

 not convince men of learning and science, who do 

 not feel themselves at liberty to believe the con- 

 trary of those truths of Nature which observation 

 and experiment enable them, in a manner, to see 

 with their eyes, and touch with their hands. It 

 would, therefore, be necessary to prohibit all study 

 whatever of astronomical science — that is to say, 

 all study of those works of Nature in which the 

 power and wisdom of God display themselves with 

 most magnificence." 



It has been assumed in some quarters, and 

 the assumption is indorsed by M. Martin, that 

 Galileo's second visit to Rome (at the close of 

 1615) was not quite voluntary, as had been his 

 first in 1611. According to these reports, he had 

 been secretly summoned to present himself before 

 the Inquisition. Galileo's own account, given to 

 the Inquisitors themselves in 1633, as well as in 

 all his letters to his friends, was, that this second 

 visit, like his first, was made by him entirely of 

 his own accord. Now, setting aside for the mo- 

 ment all reliance on Galileo's habitual frankness 

 and veracity, is it credible that he should make a 

 false statement on such a point to his judges, who 

 had immediate means of checking it by referring 

 to the records of their own office ? It is not im- 

 probable, however, that he may have been invited 

 by his friends in the congregation to come to 

 Rome to defend his writings in person against the 

 more serious of the charges which were brought 

 against them. We may here remark that it was 

 always on the provocation and challenge of his 

 assailants, that Galileo meddled at all with theo- 

 logical controversy. What excited their anger 

 was, not that he was heterodox in theology, but 

 that he warned off Theology from ground which 

 was not properly her domain. His counsels to 

 Theology to leave Science unmolested were pre- 

 cisely such as might be addressed, in our own age, 

 by rational believers to irrational zealots. Un- 

 fortunately, the sincere or pretended zealots in 

 the days of Galileo, when Aristotle was cited, 

 with such grotesque audacity, in support of Script- 

 ure, were too strong for the small minority of en- 

 lightened students of Nature, whose religion was 

 scientific, and whose science was religious. 



