50 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



experience was insufficient to prove conclusively 

 the motion of the Earth, but that it adapted itself 

 equally to either theory; he hoped also to produce 

 many observations unknown to antiquity. In the 

 second place, the celestial phenomena would be 

 examined, by which the Copernican hypothesis would 

 be so reinforced as if it ought to come out of the 

 contest absolutely victorious. In the third place he 

 would propound his theory about the tides: "proporro 

 una fantasia ingegnosa," he says. He had long been 

 of opinion that the unknown problem of the tides would 

 receive some light on the assumption of the Earth's 

 motion. Other persons had adopted his statement on 

 this point as if it had been their own ; he therefore 

 thought it desirable to expound it himself. He hints, 

 too, that the willingness to admit the stability of the 

 Earth, and to take the contrary side solely for 

 mathematical caprice, is partly based on piety, 

 religion, the knowledge of the Divine omnipotence, 

 and the consciousness of human weakness. 



He had thought it well to cast these thoughts 

 into the form of a dialogue, which gave a certain 

 amount of freedom to digressions. 



He then introduces the personages who sustain 

 the discussion, and who are supposed to meet at 

 Venice at the palace of one of their number, Sagredo 

 by name. 



This preface, if one may judge by internal evi- 

 dence, was probably the joint composition of Galileo 

 and Father Eiccardi, the former having written the 



