92 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



countless stars which composed the luminous band 

 known as the Milky Way. Nought occurred to 

 disturb his observations till, in a work on the Solar 

 Spots, he explained the movements of the earth and 

 of the heavenly bodies according to Copernicus. On 

 the appearance of that book the authorities contented 

 themselves with a caution to the author. But action 

 followed his supplemental Dialogue on the Coperni- 

 can and Ptolemaic Systems. Through that conven- 

 ient medium which the title implies, Galileo makes 

 the defender of the Copernican theory an easy victor, 

 and for this he was brought before the Inquisition 

 in 1633. After a tedious trial, and threats of " rigor- 

 ous personal examination," a euphemism for " tor- 

 ture," he was, despite the plea too specious to de- 

 ceive that he had merely put the pros and cons as 

 between the rival theories, condemned to abjure all 

 that he had taught. There is a story, probably ficti- 

 tious, since it was first told in 1789, that when the 

 old man rose from his knees, he muttered his convic- 

 tion that the earth moves, in the words " e pur si 

 muove." As a sample of the arguments used by 

 the ecclesiastics when they substituted, as rare ex- 

 ception, the pen for the faggot, the reasoning ad- 

 vanced by one Sizzi against the existence of Jupiter's 

 moons, may be cited. " There are seven windows 

 given to animals in the domicile of the head, through 

 which the air is admitted to the tabernacle of the 

 body, viz.: two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and one 

 mouth. So, in the heavens, as in -a macrocosm, or 



