THE NEW COSMOLOGY 



We quote first the introduction just referred to, in 

 which appeal is made directly to the pope. 



11 1 can well believe, most holy father, that certain 

 people, when they hear of my attributing motion to 

 the earth in these books of mine, will at once declare 

 that such an opinion ought to be rejected. Now, my 

 own theories do not please me so much as not to con- 

 sider what others may judge of them. Accordingly, 

 when I began to reflect upon what those persons who 

 accept the stability of the earth, as confirmed by the 

 opinion of many centuries, would say when I claimed 

 that the earth moves, I hesitated for a long time as to 

 whether I should publish that which I have written to 

 demonstrate its motion, or whether it would not be 

 better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans, who 

 used to hand down the secrets of philosophy to their 

 relatives and friends only in oral form. As I well 

 considered all this, I was almost impelled to put the 

 finished work wholly aside, through the scorn I had 

 reason to anticipate on account of the newness and 

 apparent contrariness to reason of my theory. 



"My friends, however, dissuaded me from such a 

 course and admonished me that I ought to publish my 

 book, which had lain concealed in my possession not 

 only nine years, but already into four times the ninth 

 year. Not a few other distinguished and very learned 

 men asked me to do the same thing, and told me that 

 I ought not, on account of my anxiety, to delay any 

 longer in consecrating my work to the general service 

 of mathematicians. 



" But your holiness will perhaps not so much wonder 



57 



