1 64 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



day, pre-eminent in astronomy, in mechanics, in 

 mathematics. To his honour also be it added, that 

 his religious faith, and his respect for the Church and 

 her authority, so far as we can judge, never failed. 

 Whatever his defects may have been want of pru- 

 dence, want of candour, want of consideration for 

 others we can easily perceive that he would never 

 have been willingly drawn into any controversy 

 intended to provoke antagonism between Eeligion 

 and Science. 



In the present age, unhappily, there have been 

 men who have taken the other course, and have 

 contributed their share towards exciting antagonism, 

 heedless of the consequences. Some have done this 

 unwittingly, arguing on the side of religion, but 

 without a proper supply of sound scientific infor- 

 mation ; others, on the opposite side, have shown 

 so bitterly hostile a spirit to Revelation, if not 

 even to Natural Religion, as to render it more than 

 ever difficult to re-establish that concord between 

 the two studies, that of the supernatural and that 

 of the physical, which should never have been 

 interrupted. 



This, however, is so wide a subject that I must 

 not be led into it. Yet I may briefly remark 

 that two of the greatest lights of the Catholic 

 Church, men whose teaching and whose writings have 

 exercised an undying influence, have both, either by 

 words explicitly, or implicitly by their example, 



