398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



whole thing was denounced as impossible and impious. It was ar- 

 gued that the Bible clearly showed by all applicable types, that there 

 could be only seven planets ; that this was proved by the seven gold- 

 en candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven-branched candlestick 

 of the Tabernacle, and by the seven churches of Asia/ 



In a letter to his friend Renieri, Galileo gives a sketch of the deal- 

 ings of the Inquisition with him. He says : " The Father Commissary, 

 Lancio, was zealous to have me make amends for the scandal I had 

 caused in sustaining the idea of the movement of the earth. To all 

 my mathematical and other reasons he responded nothing but the 

 words of Scripture, ' Terra autem in ceternuni stat.^ " ^ 



It was declared that the doctrine was proved false by the standing 

 still of the sun for Joshua ; by the declarations that " the foundations 

 of the earth are fixed so firm that they cannot be moved," and that 

 the sun " runneth about from one end of heaven to the other." ^ 



The Dominican fiither, Caccini, preached a sermon from the text, 

 "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this 

 wretched pun was the first of a series of sharper weapons, for before 

 Caccini finishes he insists that "geometry is of the devil," and that 

 " mathematicians should be banished as the authors of all heresies." * 



For the final assault, the park of heavy artillery was at last wheeled 

 into place. You see it on all the scientific battle-fields. It consists 

 of general denunciation, and Father Melchior Inchofcr, of the Jesuits, 

 brought his artillery to bear well on Galileo with this declaration : 

 that the opinion of the earth's motion is, of all heresies, the most 

 abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous ; that the immo- 

 bility of the earth is thrice sacred ; that argument against the immor- 

 tality of the soul, the Creator, the incarnation, etc., should be tolerated 

 sooner than an argument to prove that the earth moves. ^ 



In vain did Galileo try to prove the existence of satellites by show- 

 ing them to the doubters through his telescope. They either declared 

 it impious to look, or, if they did see them, denounced them as illu- 

 sions from the devil. Good Father Clavius declared that "to see 

 satellites of Jupiter, men had to make an instrument which would 

 create them." * 



with the heliocentric doctrine. As to its effects on Bacon, see Jevons, "Principles of 

 Science," vol. ii., p. 298. 



' For argument drawn from the candlestick and seven churches, see Delambre. 



2 For Galileo's letter to Renieri, see Cantu, " Hist. Universelle," Paris, 1856, xv., p. 

 477, note. 



^ Cantu, " Histoire Universelle," vol. xv., p. 478. 



'' For Caccini's attack, see Delambre, " Hist, de I'Astron.," disc. preHm., p. xxii., also 

 Libri, " Hist, des Sciences Math.," vol. iv., p. 232. 



5 See Inchofer's " Tractatus Syllepticus," cited in Galileo's letter to Deodati, July 28, 

 1634. 



Libri, vol. iv., p. 211. De Morgan, "Paradoxes," p. 26, for account of Father 

 Clavius. It is interesting to know that Clavius, in his last years, acknowledged that 

 " the whole system of the heavens is broken down, and must be mended." 



