

ON INSTRUMENTS FROM ITAL Y. 117 



conscious of itself could possibly throw down to Ignorance. Endea- 

 vours have been made to ascertain whether Galileo underwent 

 torture ; in truth, there is reason to believe that he did, although not a 

 word ever escaped from him on the subject of his treatment. He was 

 held back, perhaps, by the threats and oaths, by means of which the 

 Inquisition knew how to secure the silence of its victims. He was 

 allowed, it is true, as a high favour, to have the Villa di Arcetri for a 

 prison ; but the state of his health after his condemnation, and the 

 indignity with which he was treated, up to the time of his death, by 

 the Court of Rome, lead one to believe that those barbarians must have 

 vented their insolent wrath even on the body of so great a martyr for 

 progress. But who can picture the heart-rending anguish inflicted on 

 him when he was obliged to recant that which was the fruit of the 

 great labours of his whole life ? and he, who had risen higher than any 

 one in the comprehension of Truth and of God, was forced to bow his 

 head to a power the direct denial of the Divine Essence which, in 

 order to rule more absolutely over the ignorant, has been compelled 

 to have recourse to the monstrous Proclamation of Infallibility ! 



Pardon me if I have needlessly digressed from the duty entrusted to 

 me of speaking only of what appertains to the instruments exhibited 

 here ; but in speaking of Galileo my inclination to discuss his merits 

 in enthusiastic language is very strong indeed. Hence I will omit 

 mentioning the principal thoughts contained in the Dialogues on the 

 great system and the new sciences, and shall briefly relate what regards 

 the application of the pendulum to clocks. 



Galileo's observation on the oscillations of the lamp in the Duomo 

 of Pisa is known ; from that moment he thought of availing himself of 

 the pendulum to determine the number of beatings in the pulse of a 

 sick person ; being then obliged, against his inclination, to occupy him- 

 self with medicine. Some time afterwards, reflecting on the means of 

 obtaining in astronomy a more perfect measurer of time in order to 

 determine longitudes with certainty, he returned with greater diligence 

 to the subject. On the occasion of his offering his method for finding 

 longitudes to the States-General of Holland, he wrote to Lorenzo 

 Realio, under date of the 5th of June, 1637, as follows : " I come now to 

 the second contrivance to increase to a vast extent the accuracy of 

 astronomical observations. I am alluding to my time-measurer of 



