ii THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 85 



threats of f rigorous personal examination/ a 

 euphemism for ' torture,' he was, despite the plea 

 too specious to deceive that he had merely put 

 the pros and cons as between the rival theories, con- 

 demned to abjure all that he had taught There is 

 a story, probably fictitious, since it was first told in 

 1789, that when the old man rose from his knees, 

 he muttered his conviction that the earth moves, in 

 the words ' e pur si muove.' As a sample of the 

 arguments used by the ecclesiastics when they 

 substituted, as rare exception, the pen for the faggot, 

 the reasoning advanced by one Sizzi against the 

 existence of Jupiter's moons, may be cited. * 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 favourable 

 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.' 



In this brief summary of the attitude of the 

 Church towards science, it is not possible, and if it 

 were so, it is not needful, to refer in detail to the 

 contributions of the more speculative philosophers, 

 who, although they made no discoveries, advocated 



