92 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



Copernicanism to be a probable hypothesis on purely 

 scientific grounds, and more than this, the then- 

 existing state of astronomical knowledge would not 

 have justified him in saying : that he left to the 

 ecclesiastical authorities henceforth the entire ques- 

 tion of reconciling the theory with Holy Scripture, 

 and that he would not in future teach it even as a 

 hypothesis, or publish any work so teaching it, 

 without permission. A statement of this nature, 

 coupled with an apology for any indiscretion con- 

 nected with the publication of the Dialogue, might 

 have availed him better than the line he adopted, 

 and would at least have had the merit of candour. 



A few words may here be added on the scientific 

 character of Galileo ; in this respect he was, with 

 the exception of Kepler, the first man of his age. 



He has the credit of being the discoverer of the 

 first law of motion ; but whether he fully realised 

 this all-important law, or whether it was one of 

 those happy guesses which we sometimes find to 

 have been made by men who are the precursors of 

 great discoverers, but who do not perceive the full 

 scope and the ultimate bearing of the truths on 

 which they have lighted, I need not here discuss. 

 He did, however, state the law in a Dialogue on 

 mechanics, published in 1638, in these words: 



" I imagine a movable body projected in a hori- 

 zontal plane, all impediments [to motion] being 

 removed ; it is then manifest from what has been 

 said more fully elsewhere, that its (the body's) motion 



