I 



THE RENAISSANCE 115 



to issue an edition with the authorized corrections, 

 it remained prohibited for over two hundred years, 

 for it was not till 1822 that the sun received the formal 

 sanction of the Papal authorities to become the centre 

 of the planetary system. 



In the year 1822 the Roman Church at last removed 

 the works of Copernicus from the Index of prohibited 

 books and permitted instruction in the heliocentric 

 theory. Nevertheless, the Papal bulls by which it is 

 forbidden to believe in the motion of the earth still 

 remained in force, thus creating an extraordinary 

 predicament in the scientific beliefs of the devout 

 Roman Catholic. 



It is very unfortunate for the historian of the pro- 

 gress of science and of the human mind, that the 

 Roman Index is far from containing a complete cata- 

 logue of works deemed at various periods to be in- 

 consistent with Catholic orthodoxy. It has thus lost 

 a great deal of the importance and interest that 

 otherwise it might have possessed, for the student 

 of the development of thought. 



The system of Copernicus taught men to look on 



the world in a new light. Instead of floating at the 



centre of the Universe, the earth sank 



to the lowlier place of one among the 



planets. Such a change does not necessarily involve 



the dethronement of man from his proud position 



as the summit of creation, but it certainly suggests 



doubts of that belief. 



Thus, besides destroying that Ptolemaic system 

 which had been incorporated as a necessary part of 

 his scheme by Thomas Aquinas, Copernican astro- 



