590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



On this new champion, Galileo, the whole war was at last 

 concentrated. His discoveries had clearly taken the Copernican 

 theory out of the list of hypotheses, and had placed it hefore the 

 world as a truth. Against him, then, the war was long and bit- 

 ter. The supporters of what was called "sound learning" de- 

 clared his discoveries deceptions and his announcements blas- 

 phemy. Semi-scientific professors, endeavoring to curry favor 

 with the Church, attacked him with sham science ; earnest preach- 

 ers attacked him with perverted Scripture ; theologians, inquisi- 

 tors, congregations of cardinals, and at last two popes dealt with 

 him, and, as was supposed, silenced his impious doctrine forever.* 



I shall present this warfare at some length because, so far as 

 I can find, no careful summary of it has been given in our lan- 

 guage, since the whole history was placed in a new light by the 

 revelations of the trial documents in the Vatican Library, hon- 

 estly published for the first time by M. L'Epinois, in 18G7, and 

 since that by Gebler, Berti, Favaro, and others. 



The first important attack on Galileo began in 1610, when he 

 announced that his telescope had revealed the moons of the planet 

 Jupiter. The enemy saw that this took the Copernican theory out 

 of the realm of hypothesis, and they gave battle immediately. 

 They denounced both his method and its results as absurd and 

 impious. As to his method, professors bred in the " safe science " 

 favored by the Church argued that the only way of studying the 

 universe was by comparing texts of Scripture ; and, as to his re- 

 sults, they insisted, first, that Aristotle knew nothing of these new 

 revelations ; and, next, that the Bible showed by all applicable 

 types that there could be only seven planets ; that this was proven 

 by the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven- 

 branched candlestick of the tabernacle, and by the seven churches 

 of Asia ; that from Galileo's doctrine consequences must logically 

 result destructive to Christian truth : bishops and priests therefore 

 warned their flocks, and multitudes of the faithful besought the 

 Inquisition to deal speedily and sharply with the heretic, f 



I'Astronomie Moderne, discours pr^liminaire, p. xiv ; also Laplace, Systeme du Monde, 

 vol. i, p. 326 ; and for more -areful statements, Keplcri Opera Omni, edit. Frisch., tome 

 ii, p. 464. For Copornieus's prophecy, see Cantu, Histoirc Universelle, vol. xv, p. 473 

 (Cantu is an eminent Eoman Catholic). 



* A very curious example of this sham science employed by theologians is seen in the 

 argument, frequently used at that time, that, if the earth really moved, a stone falling 

 from a height would fall back of the point immediately below its point of starting. This 

 is used by Fromundus with great effect. It appears never to have occurred to him to test 

 the matter by dropping a stone from the topmast of a ship ; Benzenburg has experiment- 

 ally demonstrated just such an aberration in falling bodies as is mathematically required 

 by the diurnal motion of the earth. See Jevons, Principles of Science, pp. 388, 389, in 

 one volume, second edition, 1877. 



f See Delambre on the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter as the turning-point with 



