592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the astronomer Scheiner, who had also discovered the spots and 

 proposed a safe explanation of them, to allow the new discovery 

 to be known there. At the College of Douay and the University 

 of Louvain this discovery was expressly placed under the ban, 

 and this became the general rule among the Catholic universities 

 and colleges of Europe. The Spanish universities were especially 

 intolerant of this and similar ideas, and up to a recent period they 

 were strictly forbidden in the most imx3ortant university of all — 

 that of Salamanca.'* 



Such are the consequences of placing the instruction of men's 

 minds in the hands of those mainly absorbed in saving men's 

 souls. Nothing could be more in accordance with the idea re- 

 cently put forth by sundry ecclesiastics, Catholic and Protestant, 

 that the Church alone is empowered to promulgate scientific truth 

 or direct university instruction. But science gained the victory 

 here also. Observations of the solar spots were reported not only 

 from Galileo, in Italy, but from Fabricius, in Holland. Father 

 Scheiner then endeavored to make the usual compromise between 

 theology and science. He promulgated a pseudo-scientific theory, 

 which only provoked derision. 



The war became more and more bitter. The Dominican father, 

 Caccini, preached a sermon from the text, " Ye men of Galilee, 

 why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this wretched pun 

 upon the great astronomer's name ushered in sharper weapons ; 

 for, before Caccini ends, he insists that " geometry is of the devil," 

 and that " mathematicians should be banished as the authors of 

 all heresies." The church, authorities gave Caccini promotion. 



Father Lorini proved that Galileo's doctrine was not only 

 heretical but " atheistic," and besought the Inquisition to inter- 

 vene. The Bishop of Fiesole screamed in rage against the Coper- 

 nican system, publicly insulted Galileo, and denounced him to the 

 grand duke. The Archbishop of Pisa secretly sought to entrap 

 Galileo and deliver him to the Inquisition at Rome. The Arch- 

 bishop of Florence solemnly condemned the new doctrines as un- 

 scriptural ; and Paul V, while petting Galileo, and invitmg him as 

 the greatest astronomer of the world to visit Rome, was secretly 

 moving the Archbishop of Pisa to pick up evidence against the 

 astronomer. 



But by far the most terrible champion who appeared against 

 the new astronomy was Cardinal Bellarmin, one of the greatest 

 theologians the world has known. He was earnest, sincere, and 

 learned, but insisted on making science conform to Scripture. 

 The weapons which men of Bellarmin's stamp used were purely 

 theological. They held up before the world the dreadful conse- 



* See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii. 



