THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 393 



To publish this thought was dangerous indeed, and for more than 

 thirty years it hay shitnbering in the minds of Kopernik and the friends 

 to Avhom he had privately intrusted it. 



At last he prepares his great work on the " Revolution of the Heav- 

 enly Bodies," and dedicates it to the pope himself. He next seeks a 

 place of publication. He dares not send it to Rome, for there are the 

 rulers of the older Church ready to seize it. He dares not send it to 

 Wittenberg, for there are the leaders of Protestantism no less hostile. 

 He therefore intrusts it to Osiander, of Nurembercr.* 



But, at the last moment, the courage of Osiander failed him. He 

 dared not launch the new thought boldly. He writes a groveling 

 preface ; endeavors to excuse Kopernik for his novel idea. He inserts 

 the apologetic lie that Kopernik propounds the doctrine of the move- 

 ment of the earth, not as a fact, but as an hypothesis. He declares that 

 it is lawful for an astronomer to indulge his imagination, and that this 

 is what Kopernik has done. 



Thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of scientific 

 truths a truth not less ennobling to religion than to science forced, 

 in coming into the world, to sneak and crawl.^ 



On the 24th of May, 1543, the newly-printed book first arrived at 

 the house of Kopernik. It was put into his hands ; but he was on his 

 death-bed. A few hours later he was beyond the reach of those mis- 

 taken, conscientious men, whose consciences would have blotted his 

 reputation, and perhaps have destroyed his life. 



Yet not wholly beyond their reach. Even death could not be 

 trusted to shield him. There seems to have been fear of vengeance 

 upon his corpse, for on his tombstone was placed no record of his 

 life-long labors, no mention of his great discovery. There were 

 graven upon it affecting words, which may be thus simply trans- 

 admitting that De Cusa and Widmanstadt sustained this idea and received honors from 

 their respective popes, shows that, when the Church gave it serious consideration, it was 

 condemned. There is nothing in this view unreasonable. It would be a parallel case to 

 that of Leo X., at first inclined toward Luther and the others, in their " squabbles with 

 the begging friars," and afterward forced to oppose them. 



' For dangers at Wittenberg, see Lange, " Geschichte des Materialismus," vol. i., 

 p. 217. 



2 Osiander, in a letter to Copernicus, dated April 20, 1541, had endeavored to recon- 

 cile him to such a procedure, and ends by saying, " Sic enim placidiores reddideris peripa- 

 theticos et theologos quos contradicturos metuis." See Apologia Tychonis in " Kepleri 

 Opera Omnia," Frisch's edition, vol. i., p. 246. Kepler holds Osiander entirely respon- 

 sible for this preface. Bertrand, in his " Fondateurs de I'Astronomie Modei-ne," gives its 

 text, and thinks it possible that Copernicus may have yielded " in pure condescension 

 toward his disciple." But this idea is utterly at variance with expressions in Coperni- 

 cus's own dedicatory letter to the pope, which follows the preface. For a good sum- 

 mary of the argument, see Figuier, " Savants de la Renaissance," pp. 378, 379. See also, 

 citation from Gassendi's life of Copernicus, in Flammarion, "Vie de Copernic," p. 124. 

 Mr. John Fiske, accurate as he usually is, in his recent "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," 

 appears to have fallen into the error of supposing that Copernicus, and not Osiander, is 

 responsible for the preface. 



