GALILEI GALL. 



347 



preponderance of arguments in favour of Coper- 

 nicus. With tills immortal work, in which the 

 greatest elegance and accuracy of style is united 

 with the clearest and most concise statements, 

 Galileo went to Rome, in 1630, and succeeded in 

 obtaining the privilege to print it. Having obtained 

 the same permission in Florence, he published it 

 there in 1(532 Dialogo di Galileo Galilei, dove ne' 

 Congressi di quattro Giomate si discorre de' due 

 mussimi Sistemi, Tolemaico et Copernicano. Scarce- 

 ly had it appeared, when it was attacked by the 

 disciples of Aristotle, and most violently of all by 

 Scipione Chiaramonti, teacher of philosophy at Pisa. 

 Urban VIII., who, when a private man, had been 

 the friend and admirer of Galileo, now became his 

 severest persecutor. The monks had persuaded 

 him that Galileo, in the person of Simplicio, had 

 intended to ridicule his folly in suffering so offensive 

 a book to be printed. It was no difficult task for his 

 adversaries to inflict upon Galileo the severest treat- 

 ment, especially as his patron, Cosmo II., was dead, 

 and the government at Florence was in the feeble 

 hands of the young Ferdinand II. A congregation 

 of cardinals, monks, and mathematicians, all sworn 

 enemies of Galileo, examined his work, condemned 

 it as highly dangerous, and summoned him before the 

 tribunal of the inquisition. The veteran philosopher 

 was compelled to go to Rome in the winter of 1633, 

 languished some months in the prisons of the inquisi- 

 tion, and was finally condemned to renounce, in 

 presence of an assembly of ignorant monks, kneeling 

 before them, with his hand upon the Gospel, the 

 great truths he had maintained. Corde sincere et 

 fide nonficta, abjuro, maledicoet detestor supradictos 

 error es et hereses, was the formula which he was 

 compelled to pronounce. At the moment when he 

 arose, indignant at having sworn in violation of his 

 firm conviction, he exclaimed, stamping his foot, E 

 pur si muove (and yet it moves !) This happened 

 June 23, 1633. Upon this, he was sentenced to the 

 dungeons of the inquisition for an indefinite time, 

 and every week, for three years, was to repeat the 

 seven penitential psalms of David. His Dialogo was 

 prohibited, and his system condemned as contrary to 

 the Bible. His judges were merciful enough to com- 

 mute his sentence of imprisonment to banishment to 

 the episcopal palace at Sienna, and, soon after, to 

 the parish of Arceti, not far from Florence. 



He employed his last years here principally in the 

 study of mechanics and projectiles. The results are 

 found in two important works on the laws of motion, 

 the foundation of the present system of physics and 

 astronomy. At the same time, he tried to make use 

 of Jupiter's satellites for the calculation of longitudes ; 

 and though he brought nothing to perfection in this 

 branch, lie was the first who reflected systematically 

 on such a method of fixing geographical longitudes. 

 He was, at this time, afflicted with a disease in his 

 eyes, one of which was wholly blind, and the other 

 almost useless, when, in 1637, he discovered the 

 libration (q. v.) of the moon. Blindness, deafness, 

 want of sleep, and pain in his limbs, united to imbitter 

 the last years of Galileo's life. Still his mind was 

 active. " In my darkness," he writes in 1638, " I 

 muse now upon this object of nature, and now upon 

 that, and find it impossible to soothe my restless 

 head, however much I wish it. This perpetual 

 action of mind deprives me almost wholly of sleep." 

 He died 1612 (the year Newton was born), January 

 8, aged seventy-eight, expiring with a slowly-con- 

 suming fever, in the arms of his youngest and most 

 attached scholar, Vincenzo Viviani. His relics were 

 deposited in the church of Sta. Croce, at Florence, 

 where a splendid monument was erected to him near 

 tluit of Michael Angelo, in 1737. 



Galileo was of diminutive size, but strong and 

 healthy. His countenance was agreeable; his con- 

 versation, lively. He loved music, drawing, and 

 poetry. He knew Ariosto by heart ; and, in one of 

 his works, first printed in 1793 (Considerazioni al 

 Tasso), the product of his leisure hours, he betrays 

 his predilection for Tasso, though he often blamed 

 him severely. He had few books. " The best 

 book," he said, " is nature." His style is lively, 

 natural, and fluent. A complete edition of his 

 works, in 13 vols., appeared at Milan, 1803. His 

 life was written by Jagemann History of Galilei 

 (Weimar, 1783). His true character may be learned 

 from Nelli's Vita e Commercio Litterario di Galilei. 

 2 vols. (Florence, 1821). 



GALL, JOHN JOSEPH ; the founder of modern 

 phrenology, was born, in 1758, in Tiefenbrunn, in 

 the kingdom of Wurtemberg, where his father was a 

 shop-keeper. He studied medicine, and lived at 

 Vienna as a physician, where he made himself 

 known to advantage by his Philosophical and 

 Medical Inquiries respecting Nature and Art, in 

 Relation to the Diseased and Healthy State of Men 

 (2 parts, Vienna, 1791). He attracted more atten- 

 tion by his Anatomical and Physiological Inquiries 

 respecting the Brain and Nerves, on account of the 

 many new discoveries and psychological remarks it 

 contained. These discoveries were soon widely cir- 

 culated. Gall had already remarked at school, that 

 some boys, who excelled him, in spite of his efforts, 

 in committing things to memory, were distinguished 

 by large eyes. He remarked the same peculiarity 

 afterwards in great actors. Thence he inferred that 

 the talent (the organ) of memory must reside in this 

 part of the head. He afterwards rejected the idea, 

 but again resumed it, that certain talents actually 

 depend on the formation of certain parts of the head. 

 He afterwards undertook to collect skulls, carefully 

 comparing the prominences common to all, and 

 those which distinguish them from each other. He 

 compared also the skulls of beasts, studied the habits 

 of beasts and men, the formation of their bodies and 

 brain, and thus arrived by degrees to assign the par- 

 ticular locations of twenty organs, or as many dif- 

 ferent seats of the most prominent operations of the 

 mind. (See Phrenology.) Gall did not at first com- 

 mit his doctrines to writing, but delivered them 

 verbally, in his travels through the great cities and 

 universities of Germany. He then laboured some 

 years in company with his friend doctor Spurzheim, 

 at Paris, where he delivered lectures, with more or 

 less success, and continued to reside there as a 

 practising physician. His principal merits are his 

 advancement of our knowledge in regard to the 

 anatomy of the brain. He has proved, what before 

 was only conjectured, that the brain begins in the 

 spinal marrow, from thence developes itself in the 

 shape of a net, and divides itself into the great and 

 the small brain (cerebrum and cerebellum). With 

 Spurzlieim, Gall published, at Paris, in 1810, in 

 quarto, Anatomie et Physiologic du Systeme Nerveux 

 en general, et du Cerveau en particulier. Against 

 the many objections that were made to his views, 

 particularly by the Parisian scholars, he defended 

 himself in his work, Des Dispositions Innees de 

 VAme et de V Esprit, ou du Materialisme , &c. (Paris, 

 1812). Spurzheim also published, in London, a work 

 upon his own and Gall's discoveries, which met with 

 severe criticism. A new edition, in six volumes, 

 of Gall's Organologie, ou Exposition des Instincts, 

 des Penchans, &c., et du Siege de leurs Organs, was 

 published at Paris, 1823 5. Doctor GaU died iu 

 the year 1828. 



GALL, in the animal economy; the same with 

 bile. (q. v.) 



