418 HISTORY OF FORMAL ASTRONOMY. 



Sect. 4. The Copernican System opposed on 

 Theological Grounds. 



THE doctrine of the Earth's motion round the Sun, 

 when it was asserted and promulgated by Coper- 

 nicus, soon after 1500, excited no visible alarm 

 among the theologians of his own time. Indeed, it 

 was received with favour by the most intelligent 

 ecclesiastics ; and lectures in support of the helio- 

 centric doctrine were delivered in the ecclesiastical 

 colleges. But the assertion and confirmation of 

 this doctrine by Galileo, about a century later, 

 excited a storm of controversy, and was visited with 

 severe condemnation. Galileo's own behaviour 

 appears to have provoked the interference of the 

 ecclesiastical authorities ; but there must have been 

 a great change in the temper of the times to make 

 it possible for his adversaries to bring down the 

 sentence of the Inquisition upon opinions which 

 had been so long current without giving any serious 

 offense (Q). 



The heliocentric doctrine had for a century 

 been making its way into the minds of thoughtful 

 men, on the general ground of its simplicity and 

 symmetry. Galileo appears to have thought that 

 now, when these original recommendations of the 

 system had been reinforced by his own discoveries 

 and reasonings, it ought to be universally acknow- 

 ledged as a truth and a reality. And when argu- 

 ments against the fixity of the sun and the motion 



