NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 587 



hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or 

 to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth 

 moves ; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor 

 the sun revolves. . . . Now, it is a want of honesty and decency 

 to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. 

 It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by 

 God and to acquiesce in it." Melanchthon then cites passages 

 from the Psalms and from Ecclesiastes, which he declares assert 

 positively and clearly that the earth stands fast, and that the sun 

 moves around it, and adds eight other proofs of his proposition 

 that " the earth can be nowhere if not in the center of the uni- 

 verse," So earnest does this mildest of the Reformers become, 

 that he suggests severe measures to restrain such impious teach- 

 ings as those of Copernicus.* 



While Lutheranism was thus condemning the theory of the 

 earth's movement, other branches of the Protestant Church did 

 not remain behind. Calvin himself took the lead, in his Com- 

 mentary on Genesis, by condemning all who asserted that the 

 earth is not at the center of the universe. " Who," he said, " will 

 venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the 

 Holy Spirit ? " Turretin, Calvin's famous successor, even after 

 Kepler and ISTewton had virtually completed the theory of Coper- 

 nicus and Galileo, put forth his compendium of theology, in 

 which he proved, from a multitude of scriptural texts, that the 

 heavens, sun, and moon move about the earth, which stands still 

 in the center. In England we see similar theological efforts, even 

 after they had become evidently hopeless. Hutchison's Moses' 

 Principia, Dr. Samuel Pikes's Sacred Philosophy, the writings of 

 Bishop Home, Bishop Horsely, and President Forbes contain 

 most earnest attacks upon the ideas of Newton ; such attacks being 

 based upon Scripture. Dr. John Owen, so famous in the annals 

 of Puritanism, declared the Copernican system a " delusive and 

 arbitrary hypothesis, contrary to Scripture " ; and even John Wes- 

 ley declared the new ideas to tend toward " infidelity." \ 



And Protestant peoples were not a whit behind Catholic in fol- 

 lowing out such teachings. The people of Elbing made them- 



* See the Walsch edition of Luther's works, 1743, p. 2260; also the Tischreden; also 

 Melanchthon's Initia DoctrinaB Physicae. This treatise is cited under a mistalccn title by the 

 Catholic World, September, 1870. The correct title is as given above ; it will be found in 

 the Corpus Reformatorum, ed. Bretschneider, Halle, 1846. (For the above passage see vol. 

 xiii, pp. 216, 217; also, Madler, vol. 1, p. 176; also, Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, 

 vol. i, p. 217; also, Prowe, Ueber die Abhangigkeit des Copernicus, Thorn, 1865, p. 4 . 

 also note, pp. 5, 6, where text is given in full.) 



f On the Teachings of Protestantism as regards the Copernican theory, see citations in 

 Canon Farrar's History of Interpretation, preface, xviii ; also, Rev. Dr. Shiekls, of Prince- 

 ton, The Final Philosophy, pp. 60, 61. 



