Of the Belation of Tradition to Faluetiology, 273 



character, strongly convinced himself, and urged on still more 

 by the conviction which he produced among his disciples, and 

 thus he became impatient for the triumph of truth. This 

 judgment of him has recently been delivered by various inde- 

 pendent authorities, and has undoubtedly considerable founda- 

 tion.* As to the question whether authority in matters of na- 

 tural science were habitually claimed by the authorities of the 

 Church of Rome, I have to allow that I cannot produce in- 

 stances which establish such a habit. We, who have been ac- 

 customed to have daily before our eyes the Monition which the 

 Romish editors of Newton thought it necessary to prefix — 

 Ccetertim latis a summo Pontifice contra telluris motum Decretis^ 

 nos ohsequi profitemur — were not likely to conjecture that this 

 was a solitary instance of the interposition of the Papal au- 

 thority on such subjects. But although it would be easy to 

 find declarations of heresy delivered by Romish Universities, 

 and writers of great authority, against tenets belonging to the 

 natural sciences, I am not aware that any other case can be 

 adduced in which the Church or the Pope can be shewn to have 

 pronounced such a sentence. I am well contented to acknow- 

 ledge this ; for I should be far more gratified by finding my- 

 self compelled to hold up the seventeenth century as a model 

 for the nineteenth in this respect, than by having to sow en- 

 mity between the admirers of the past and the present through 

 any disparaging contrast.f 



With respect to the attempt made in my History to cha^- 



* Besides the Dublin Review, I may quote the Edinhiirgh Review, which 1 

 suppose will not be thought likely to have a bias in favour of the exercise 

 of ecclesiastical authority in matters of science ; though certainly there is a 

 puerility in the critic's phraseology which does not add to the weight of his 

 judgment. " Galileo contrived to surround the truth with every variety 

 of obstruction. The tide of loiowledge, which had hitherto advanced in peace, 

 ho crested with angry breakers, and he involved in its surf both his friends 

 and his foes." — Ed. Rev., No. cxxiii. p. 126. 



t I may add that the most candid of the adherents of the Church of Borne 

 condemn the assumption of authority in matters of science made, in this one 

 instance at least, by the ecclesiastical tribunals. The author of the Ages of 

 Faith (Book viii. p. 248), says, " A Congregation, it is to be lamented, de- 

 clared the new system to be opposed to Scripture, and therefore heretical,*' 



