GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 129 



good reasons, no doubt; but there were also bad 

 reasons alleged, and, as we have seen, Galileo, with 

 all his great ability and mechanical knowledge so far 

 beyond his age, could yet damage his cause with 

 unsound arguments. 



Such being the case, amidst the whirlpool of good 

 and bad arguments that drawn from the tides being 

 by no means the only one of the latter class it is 

 not astonishing that even able and intelligent men 

 were misled. 



The antipathy to adopting a new system of the 

 universe a system which demolished many cherished 

 ideas and traditional opinions was overwhelmingly 

 strong ; the reasons uncertain, or, at least, incon- 

 clusive. The discoveries of Galileo had, no doubt, 

 overthrown the system of Ptolemy, but they had not 

 established that of Copernicus, so long as there re- 

 mained what may be called the tentative theory of 

 Tycho Brahe, who was one of the greatest observers of 

 his day. Though he did not unravel the true cause 

 of the motions of the heavenly bodies, and went, in 

 fact, in a wrong direction, we must never forget the 

 important services he rendered to science. He was 

 the first to employ refraction as a correction to the 

 apparent positions of the celestial bodies ; his col- 

 lection of instruments, on which he had expended the 

 whole of his private fortune, was the finest that had 

 ever yet been seen ; and, in fact, his observations, 

 utilised by others, had a great share in leading to the 



