GALILEO AND THE OPTIC TUBE 203 



Sometimes in our haste we condemn men like Bacon because 

 they could not see the new truth, despite all the proofs that 

 Galileo brought to bear. We judge Bacon for his vain boasting, 

 not for his ignorance, or lack of comprehension ; for is it so 

 clear that if it could all be brought to us afresh, untrained to 

 an unreasoned acceptance of such ideas from the thoughtless 

 days of childhood, we should find them so easy and convincing, 

 even now ? We may venture not. The world has little changed. 



Still, the arguments brought against the new doctrines were 

 for the most part sorry stuff. There is one preserved to a luck- 

 less fate which illustrates the mush and muddle which even 

 then could pass for argument. No sketch of the period could 

 well be without it ; we may have it here. It is an extract from 

 the pen of Francesco Sizzi, a Florentine astronomer, who exposes 

 the absurdity of Galileo's discoveries thus : 



" There are seven windows in the head, two nostrils, two 

 eyes, two ears, and a mouth ; so in the heavens are there two 

 favourable stars^two unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury 

 alone undecided and indifferent. From which and many other 

 similar phenomena of nature, such as the seven metals, &c., 

 which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number 

 of planets is necessarily seven. 



" Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the naked eye, and 

 therefore can have no influence on the earth, and therefore 

 would be useless, and therefore do not exist. 



" Besides, the Jews and other ancient nations, as well as 

 modern Europeans, have adopted the division of the week into 

 seven days, and have named them from the seven planets : 

 now if we increase the number of planets the whole system 

 falls to the ground." 



Crumbling, falling, is this old system, to carry down in its 

 fall all that is bound up with it ; but it has time, strength, to 

 deal out through the arm of its upholders one last shameful 

 blow. 



The establishment of the phases of Venus gave to the Cop- 

 pernican system that plausible air of reality which comes from 

 successful prediction, from the verification of any truth which 

 follows as a necessary consequence of a theoretical view. When 

 by deduction from a broadly generalised system of facts we may 

 reach out into the unknown to foretell that which is as yet 



