122 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



I feel that the opinion I have expressed above, and 

 which might otherwise be considered by some persons 

 as presumptuous towards the ecclesiastical authorities, 

 receives great confirmation, and at the same time 

 what is tantamount to an acquittal from all dis- 

 respect to the Church and her authority, by the 

 following extract which I give from the article 

 entitled, " Dr. Mivart on Faith and Science," published 

 in the October number of The Dublin Review (1887), 

 by the Bishop of Newport and Menevia, the Right 

 Rev. J. C. Hedley. Not only does the high cha- 

 racter of the author, both as a theologian and a 

 man of scientific knowledge, give a sanction to all 

 that is contained in the article, but the Review in 

 which it appears, having for its proprietor another 

 Bishop and an able ecclesiastic for its acting editor, 

 carries with it a stamp of Catholic authority such 

 as few periodicals possess. After some other remarks 

 the Bishop of Newport proceeds thus : 



I do not by any means wish to deny that the case of Galileo has 

 had an important effect on the action of Church authorities. It 

 seems quite clear that it has made them more cautious in pro- 

 nouncing on the interpretation of Scripture when the sacred text 

 speaks of natural phenomena. The reason of this is not so 

 much the fact that science has proved authority wrong in one 

 case, as because that case, taking it with all its circumstances, was 

 one the like of which can never happen again. The Galilean 

 controversy marked the close of a period and the opening of a 

 new one. The heliocentric view was the first step in modern 

 scientific expression. Before the days of Galileo men spoke of 

 what they saw with the naked eye, and on the surface of things ; 

 thenceforth they were to use the telescope and the microscope ; 

 they investigated the bowels of the earth and the distances of the 



