124 HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



The claims of theology to pronounce with authority on any matter 

 within the region of science seem to us to be at once and for ever set 

 aside by the result in this case. The immediate consequence, how- 

 ever, was apparently a blow to science. The documents we have given 

 above were directed to be publicly read in the churches and the uni- 

 versities. 



Galileo, in conformity to the terms of his sentence, was sent to the 

 prison of the Inquisition, but after four days he was released, and al- 

 lowed to reside again at the palace of the Tuscan ambassador, until the 

 place to which he should be consigned had been settled. In July he 

 was sent to the palace of Archbishop Piccolomini, at Sienna, who was 

 one of his best friends, and here he was under no other restraint than 

 remaining within the precincts of the palace. In December in the 

 same year he was allowed to re-enter his own house at Arcetri, near 

 Florence, and here probably he might have returned sooner had not 

 the plague been raging at Florence. He here continued, however, to 

 be placed under restrictions, not even being permitted to visit Florence 

 until after an interval of five years, and even then he was prohibited 

 from leaving his house there and from receiving any of his friends. 

 The misfortunes of the venerable philosopher were not yet at an end, 

 for, in consequence of an incurable affection of the cornea, he lost the 

 sight of both his eyes, and in the year 1637 became totally blind. 

 How severe a deprivation is the loss of sight to any man ! and how 

 much more must it have been to Galileo ! Father Castelli, his friend 

 and pupil, thus laments the calamity/" "The noblest eye is darkened 

 which nature ever made ; an eye so privileged and gifted with such 

 rare qualities that it may with truth be said to have seen more than 

 the eyes of all who are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all who 

 are to come." The Inquisition, after this, appear to have relaxed the 

 seventy of their restrictions, and he was allowed free intercourse with 

 his friends. Many distinguished strangers also visited him. Milton 

 mentions in one of his prose works that, while in Italy, he saw Galileo, 

 but he gives no details. No reader of " Paradise Lost " will have failed 

 to notice numerous allusions to the great discoveries of this time con- 

 tained in that sublime poem. Galileo's mind continued to be intent 

 on scientific problems almost to the day of his death, which occurred 

 on the 8th of January, 1642, when he was in the seventy-eighth year 

 of his age. 



Galileo's personal character and private virtues secured for him 

 during his lifetime the warm attachment of many friends, while his 

 scientific character, and the number and importance of his discoveries, 

 have won the admiration of all investigators of nature. In person 

 Galileo was about the middle size, square-built, well-proportioned, and 

 of a fair complexion. His countenance usually wore a cheerful and 

 animated expression, and though his temper was irritable, his anger 

 was soon past and the occasion of it quickly forgotten. He was re- 



