270 Of the lielatioii of Tradition to Palcetiology. 



strict rules of candour, moderation, and prudence. Intention- 

 ally to make their supposed discoveries a means of discrediting, 

 contradicting, or slighting the sacred Scriptures, or the autho- 

 rity of religion, is in them unpardonable. As men who make 

 the science of Truth the business of their lives, and are per- 

 suaded of her genuine superiority, and certain of her ultimate 

 triumph, they are peculiarly bound to urge her claims in a 

 calm and temperate spirit ; not forgetting there are other kinds 

 of truth besides that which they peculiarly study. They may 

 properly reject authority in matters of science ; but they are 

 to leave it its proper office in matters of religion. I may here 

 again quote Kepler's expressions : " In Theology we balance 

 authorities, in Philosophy we weigh reasons. A holy man was 

 Lactantius who denied that the earth was round ; a holy man 

 was Augustin, who granted the rotundity, but denied the anti- 

 podes ; a holy thing to me is the Inquisition, which allows the 

 sraallness of the earth, but denies its motion ; but more holy 

 to me is Truth ; and hence I prove, from philosophy, that the 

 earth is round, and inhabited on every side, of small size, and 

 in motion among the stars, — and this I do with no disrespect 

 to the Doctors." I the more willingly quote such a passage 

 from Kepler, because the entire ingenuousness and sincere 

 piety of his character does not allow us to suspect in him any- 

 thing of hypocrisy or latent irony. That similar professions of 

 respect may be made ironically, we have a noted example in 

 the celebrated Introduction to Galileo's Dialogue on the Coper- 

 iiican System ; probably the part which was most offensive to 

 the authorities. " Some years ago," he begins, " a wholesome 

 edict was promulgated at Rome, whicli, in order to check the 

 perilous scandals of the present age, imposed silence upon the 

 Pythagorean opinion of the mobility of the earth. There were 

 not wanting," he proceeds, " persons who rashly asserted that 

 this decree was the result, not of a judicious inquiry, but of 

 passion ill-informed ; and complaints were heard that coun- 

 sellors, utterly unacquainted with astronomical observation, 

 ought not to be allowed, with their sudden prohibitions, to clip 

 the wings of speculative intellects. At the hearing of rash la- 

 mentations like these^ my zeal could not Iceep silence.'''' And he 



