84 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



alleged offence, he was shipwrecked on the coast of 

 Zante, and died of exhaustion. 



While the heretical character and tendencies of 

 discoveries in astronomy and anatomy awoke active 

 opposition from the Church, the work of men of the 

 type of Gesner, the eminent Swiss naturalist, and of 

 Caesalpino, professor of botany at Padua, passed 

 unquestioned. No dogma was endangered by the 

 classification of plants and animals. But when a 

 couple of generations after the death of Copernicus 

 had passed, the Inquisition found a second victim in 

 the famous Galileo, who was born at Pisa in 1564. 

 After spending some years in mechanical and mathe- 

 matical pursuits, he began a series of observations in 

 confirmation of the Copernican theory, of the truth 

 of which he had been convinced in early life. With 

 the aid of a rude telescope, made by his own hands, 

 he discovered the satellites of Jupiter ; the moon- 

 like phases of Venus and Mars ; mountains and 

 valleys in the moon ; spots on the sun's disk ; and 

 the countless stars which compose the luminous band 

 known as the Milky Way. Nought occurred to 

 disturb his observations till, in a work on the Solar 

 SpotSy he explained the movements of the earth and 

 of the heavenly bodies according to Copernicus. On 

 the appearance of that book the authorities con- 

 tented themselves with a caution to the author. But 

 action followed his supplemental Dialogue on the 

 Copernican and Ptolemaic Systems. Through that 

 convenient medium which the title 'implies, Galileo 

 makes the defender of the Copernican theory an 

 easy victor, and for this he was brought before the 

 Inquisition in 1633. After a tedious trial, and 



