GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 121 



to the Copernican theory even in Galileo's time ; 

 and after Kepler's celebrated laws had been published, 

 far more strongly still than before. Of course, as 

 Dr. Ward points out, there may be other reasons of 

 so cogent a nature as to outweigh scientific proba- 

 bility ; but that is not now the question : he denies 

 even the existence of this latter at the period we are 

 treating of; and on this point he was evidently 

 misinformed. 



It is said that the Cardinals of the Index or 

 Inquisition consulted some astronomers before for- 

 mulating their decrees, and this is likely enough ; as 

 there is odium medicum in these days, there was 

 doubtless odium astronomicum in those days. 



And we may easily imagine how the philosophers 

 who believed in the infallibility of Aristotle looked 

 with horror and perhaps contempt on the School of 

 Galileo. If people once persuade themselves that 

 physical science is to be learnt merely from tradition, 

 or from d priori arguments, they will naturally have 

 an antipathy to the discoveries made by actual 

 observation and experiment. If men such as these 

 were called in to advise the Cardinals, we may well 

 admit it as a mitigating circumstance, forbidding us 

 to pass a severe judgment on the conduct of the 

 ecclesiastical tribunals. It is no part of my con- 

 tention, and indeed the very reverse, to lay excessive 

 blame on the Congregations of the Index and Inqui- 

 sition ; but neither, on the other hand, do I understand 

 why we should give them our unqualified approval. 



