52 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



were, and still are, called ; he does not know much 

 of geometry or arithmetic, and so is at no small 

 disadvantage when arguing with Salviati, but he 

 is far from being a mere fool. Our author, in his 

 preface, introduces Salviati and Sagredo the former 

 a Florentine, the latter a Venetian as real per- 

 sonages, deceased friends of his own, though this 

 may be a mere conventional form of expression ; 

 but he expressly states that Simplicio is not the 

 true name of the " buon Peripatetico." 



The friends are supposed to meet in the palace of 

 Sagredo, at Venice, as before stated. 



The first day's dialogue deals with a good deal 

 of what one may term preliminary matter : that 

 bodies have three dimensions and no more ; that 

 circular motion is the most perfect and the most 

 natural ; showing by this that Galileo had not at 

 that time arrived at a true comprehension of the 

 first law of motion, as we now hold it. The motion 

 of weights on an inclined plane finds also a place 

 in the discussion ; and so does what we now term 

 the law of accelerating force, which Galileo had 

 grasped so well as to be able to explain how the 

 velocity increases by infinitely small steps gradually, 

 and not, as it were, by sudden jumps. 



Much of the matter disputed on as, for example, 

 whether the heavenly bodies being incorruptible differ 

 in that respect from the Earth, liable as it is to 

 corruption and decay which seems to us either 

 erroneous in conception or irrelevant to the question 



