GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 169 



one before the invention of the telescope, that is, 

 up to the time of Galileo ; the intermediate one, 

 when the telescope was hi use but the law of 

 universal gravitation as yet unknown from Galileo 

 until the publication of the " Principia " of Newton ; 

 and the modern one, from Newton downwards. 

 During the first period it seemed highly probable to 

 the whole world, with the exception of a few gifted 

 intellects, that this Earth was the centre of the 

 Universe, arid that all the heavenly bodies revolved 

 round it; during the second period, when the tele- 

 scope had shed a light so powerful and so brilliant 

 upon astronomical research that men could not 

 absolutely close their eyes to it even if they wished, 

 the balance of probability passed into the opposite 

 scale, and the more intelligent men of science guessed 

 at the truth, however indistinctly. But some elements 

 of uncertainty remained ; and this circumstance, taken 

 in connection with the irrelevant arguments so much 

 in vogue at that time, must in all fairness be allowed 

 as an excuse for the many good men, ecclesiastics 

 and others, who opposed the Coper nicari doctrine. 

 After the great step made by Newton it was no 

 longer a question of balancing probabilities, for the 

 weights were almost all transferred to one scale, 

 and the probabilities of the truth of the Heliocentric 

 System (to give it for once its accurate name) 

 became overwhelming. The subsequent investigations 

 of Bradley and others have gone further still, and 



