94 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. pt. iir. 



Galileo rose from his knees it is said that he stamped his 

 foot and whispered to a friend : ^ E pur si muove^ (' Never- 

 theless 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 permission. 

 He went on with his studies, and made many useful obser- 

 vations ; but in the year 1636 his sight began to fail, and he 

 soon became totally blind. At this time he wrote to an 

 acquaintance these touching words : * Alas ! your dear friend 

 and servant has become totally and irreparably blind. These 

 heavens, this earth, this universe, which by wonderful obser- 

 vation I had enlarged a thousand times beyond the belief 

 of past ages, are henceforth shrunk into the narrow space I 

 myself occupy. So it pleases God, it shall therefore please 

 me also.' He died January 28, 1642, in his seventy-eighth 

 year ; having accomplished his work. In spite of all oppo- 

 sition, his discoveries had firmly established the truth of the 

 Copernican system of the universe. 



Chief Works consulted. — Brewster's 'Martyrs of Science ;' Drink- 

 waters * Life of Galileo ; ' Herschel's * Astronomy ; ' Whewell's 

 ' Inductive Sciences ; ' * Enclyclopoedia Britannica, ' art. 'Astronomy;' 

 Baden Powell's *Hist. of Natural Philosophy;' Ganot's 'Physics,' 

 edited by Atkinson. 



