LITTLE ten all of these scientific wiseacres to commit them- 

 JOURNEYS selves, he invited them, with all their students, to the 

 Leaning Tower. Then he proved by ocular demon- 

 strations that they were positively wrong. 

 It is very beautiful to teach Truth, but error should 

 not be corrected with too much eclat. If the love of 

 Truth, alone, was the guiding impulse of Galileo, he 

 might have secretly explained his theory to one of the 

 wiseacres, and this wiseacre could have casually de- 

 monstrated it, so all the rest could have said, "That is 

 what we always knew and taught." 

 Instead of this, Galileo compelled the entire faculty to 

 back water and dine on fricasseed crow. They got 

 even by calling him "a scientifico bastardino," and at 

 his next lecture, he was roundly hissed. Soon after he 

 was bluntly informed that his office was to teach the 

 young, and not undo the old. 



And that is the way the troubles of Galileo began. 

 He might then have apologized, and slipped back into 

 peace and obscurity, and later been tucked in by kind 

 oblivion. But he had tasted blood, and the rabies of 

 setting the scientific world straight, for its own good, 

 was upon him. 



That he was wrong in correcting his elders, he would 

 not for a moment admit ; and he was even guilty of say- 

 ing, "Antiquity cannot sanctify that which is wrong 

 in reason and false in principle." 



Soon after he committed another forepaugh by showing 

 that a wonderful boat invented by Giovanni de Medici 

 for fighting hostile ships, would not work, since there 

 44 



