394 E VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . 



A quotation from one Sizzi, a learned astronom- 

 ical authority of the time, will serve to exhibit the 

 puerile character of some of the reasons adduced in 

 favor of the old system and against the new. Ga- 

 lileo having, by the aid of his telescope, discovered 

 the satellites of Jupiter, Sizzi argued against the 

 existence of such bodies as follows: "There are 

 seven windows given to animals in the domicile of 

 the head, through which the air is admitted to the 

 tabernacle of the body, viz., two nostrils, two eyes, 

 two ears and one mouth. So, in the heavens, as in 

 a macrocosm, or great world, there are two favora- 

 ble stars, Jupiter and Venus; two unpropitious, Mars 

 and Saturn ; two luminaries, the sun and moon, and 

 Mercury alone undecided and indifferent. From 

 these and many other phenomena of nature, which 

 it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the 

 number of planets is necessarily seven. Moreover, 

 the satellites are invisible to the naked eye, and 

 therefore, can exercise no influence over the earth, 

 and would, of course, be useless; and therefore do 

 not exist." 



Such things appear to us childish and absurd in 

 the extreme ; but after all they are but a fair sample 

 of the reasons which were offered by many of the 

 astronomers and philosophers of the time, against 

 the innovations and scientific heresies of Copernicus 

 and Galileo. When one calls to mind what extrava- 

 gant errors have been defended in the name of Aris- 

 totelian philosophy, and what untold mischief a priori 

 reasoning has effected in the domain of experimental 

 science ; when we understand the temper of mind of 



