CH. XL GALILEO IN ROME. 91 



heavens. They therefore sent for Galileo, in the year 1616, 

 and threatened to punish him unless he would promise to 

 hold his tongue about this new theory. Galileo, however, 

 would not be silent ; surrounded by his little circle of admir- 

 ing pupils, he could not refrain from spreading wherever he 

 went the grand facts he had discovered and the truths they 

 taught. He was impatient that the world should not see as 

 clearly as he did how glorious the universe is when rightly 

 understood, and he often spoke and wrote sharply and sar- 

 castically of those who would not listen to the truth. 



At last, in 1632, he wrote a book called 'The System 

 of the World of Galileo Galilei,' in which he clearly proved 

 the truth of the Copernican theory, and alluded very angrily 

 to the attempt which the Inquisition had made to force him 

 to be silent. This book convinced many people, but at the 

 same time it roused the anger of the judges of the Inquisition. 

 They summoned Galileo (then an old man seventy years of 

 age) to appear again before them ; and this time they made 

 him kneel, clothed in the sackcloth of a penitent, and swear 

 with his hands upon the Gospels that * it was not true that 

 the earth moved round the sun, and that he would never 

 again in words or writing spread this damnable heresy.' It 

 is very sad to think that Galileo should thus swear to what 

 he knew was a lie ; but it is still more sad that men holding 

 their power in the name of God should force him to choose 

 between telling a lie or being put to torture or to death as 

 Giordano Bruno had been. When Galileo rose from his 

 knees it is said that he stamped his foot and whispered to 

 a friend : ' E pur si muove' (' Nevertheless it does move'). 



After a time he was allowed to go back to his own 

 home, but never again to leave it without the Pope's per- 

 mission. He went on with his studies, and made many 

 useful observations ; but in the year 1636 his sight began to 



