48 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
hear it. ‘The die is cast, the book is written to be read either 
now or by posterity, I care not which, I may well wait a cen- 
tury for a reader since God has waited more than five thousand 
years for an observer.’’ 
We must not suppose that these great events, so interest- 
ing to us, were equally so to all of the learned world of those 
days. ‘There was a conservative clinging to old ideas which 
made progress difficult, no matter how illogical and absurd 
some of those old notions were. When a new planet was sup- 
posed to have been discovered, especially some of the asteroids, 
the sturdy followers of Ptolomey declared with much vehe- 
mence that as there were but seven openings in our head, two 
ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and a mouth, so there could not 
possibly be more than seven planets in the heavens. 
Galileo, in his earlier years fully believee and taught the 
doctrines of Ptolomey, (the earthis the centre and does not 
move )—but as a sincere enquirer after truth, he while yet 
young changed his mind and adopted the system of Copernicus. 
From Jensen of Holland he learned that an instrument could 
be constructed whick would bring distant objects quite near. 
He was not long in constructing the telescope. By means of 
this instrument the greatest of all additions to the outfit of the 
astronomer, he discovered the satellites of Jupiter and awakened 
the ire and fierce opposition of the old school. Another dis- 
covery went far to confirm the teachings of Copernicus. The 
Ptolomaist had argued that if Venus revolved about the sun as 
Copernicus had taught, then she would undergo the same 
changes as the moon. The Copernicans admitted that the 
argument was correct, but there was no way of proving it as 
the distance of the planet from the human eye rendered it im- 
possible of proof by observation. | When however Galileo 
turned his new instrument toward the planet at her proper 
place in her orbit for such an observation, lo! there she was in 
crescent shape, a miniature new moon! The Copernicans were 
triumphant. Here was an event which ranks among the chief- 
est. It confirmed invention as an aid to mathematics, and to 
ordinary observation. ‘The eye had done much, but the tele- 
scope and the eye were to do much more. 
