GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 107 



men, during the period that the decrees were in 

 force ? The other : What opinion ought we now 

 to form upon the whole transaction, viewing it 

 retrospectively ? 



To begin with the first of these two. I have little 

 doubt as to what ought to have been the conduct of 

 such Catholics viz., implicit obedience to the discipli- 

 nary rules of the Church so long as the superior 

 authorities thought fit to enforce them. Thus no 

 good Catholic could have read the forbidden books, 

 whether by Galileo or by any other author, without 

 obtaining the requisite permission a permission 

 which in these days, at any rate, is given with great 

 readiness to well-educated persons. Still less could 

 a conscientious Catholic publish a work advocating 

 the Copernican theory as the true one, or as most 

 probably the true one. What I think he might have 

 done is to publish a treatise stating any purely 

 astronomical or mathematical arguments which 

 seemed to favour Copernicanism as a hypothesis, 

 and, at the same time, professing his entire sub- 

 mission to the ecclesiastical authorities, and explicitly 

 disclaiming any attempt to meddle with the interpre- 

 tation of Scripture. A protest of some such nature 

 as this was inserted in an edition of the " Principia " 

 which was allowed to be published by two Fathers 

 of the order of Minims, Le Seur and Jacquier, 

 in the year 1742, when the decrees were still in 

 force. 



But the first step, and that the most fitting and 



