History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume II Part 12

In the play of the "Shepherds" there is provision for green cheese and Halton ale, a suitable recruitment after their long journey to the birthplace of our Saviour. "Payd to the players for rehearsal: imprimis, to G.o.d, ii_s._ viii_d._; to Pilate his wife, ii_s._; item, for keeping fyer at h.e.l.l's mouth, iii_d._" A strict attention to chronology is not exacted; Herod swears by Mohammed, and promises one of his councillors to make him pope. Noah's wife, who, it appears, was a termagant, swears by the Virgin Mary that she will not go into the ark, and, indeed, is only constrained so to do by a sound cudgelling administered by the patriarch, the rustic justice of the audience being particularly directed to the point that such a flogging should not be given with a stick thicker than her husband's thumb. The sentiment of modesty seems not to have been very exacting, since in the play of "the Fall of Man"

Adam and Eve appear entirely naked; one of the chief incidents is the adjustment of the fig-leaves. Many such circ.u.mstances might be related, impressing us perhaps with an idea of the obscenity and profanity of the times. But this would scarcely be a just conclusion. As the social state improved, we begin to find objections raised by the more thoughtful ecclesiastics, who refused to lend the holy vestments for such purposes, and at last succeeded in excluding these exhibitions from consecrated places. After dwindling down by degrees, these plays lingered in the booths at fairs or on market-days, the Church having resigned them to the guilds of different trades, and these, in the end, giving them up to the mountebank. And so they died. Their history is the outward and visible sign of a popular intellectual condition in process of pa.s.sing away.

[Sidenote: Moral plays, their character.] The mystery and miracle plays were succeeded by the moral play. It has been thought by some, who have studied the history of the English theatre, that these plays were the result of the Reformation, with the activity of which movement their popularity was coincident. But perhaps the reader who is impressed with the principle of that definite order of social advancement so frequently referred to in this book, will agree with me that this relation of cause and effect can hardly be sustained, and that devotional exercises and popular recreations are in common affected by antecedent conditions. Of the moral play, a very characteristic example still remains under the t.i.tle of "Everyman," It often delineates personification and allegory with very considerable power. This short phase of our theatrical career deserves a far closer attention than it has. .h.i.therto obtained, for it has left an indelible impression on our literature. I think that it is to this, in its declining days, that we are indebted for much of the machinery of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." Whoever will compare that work with such plays as "Everyman" and "l.u.s.ty Juventus," cannot fail to be struck with their resemblances. Such personages as "Good Council,"

"Abominable Living," "Hypocrasie," in the play, are of the same family as those in the Progress. The stout Protestantism of both is at once edifying and amusing. An utter contempt for "holy stocks and holy stones, holy clouts and holy bones," as the play has it, animates them all. And it can hardly be doubted that the immortal tinker, in the carnal days when he played at tipcat and romped with the girls on the village green at Elstow, indulged himself in the edification of witnessing these dramatic representations.

[Sidenote: Real plays, Shakespeare.] As to the pa.s.sage from this dramatic phase to the real, in which the character and actions of man are portrayed, to the exclusion or with the subordination of the supernatural, it is only necessary to allude with brevity--indeed, it is only necessary to recall one name, and that one name is Shakespeare. He stands, in his relations to English literature, in the same position that the great Greek sculptors stood with respect to ancient art, embodying conceptions of humanity in its various attributes with indescribable skill, and with an exquisite agreement to nature.

[Sidenote: The pulpit and the stage.] Not without significance is it that we find mystery in the pulpit and mystery on the stage. They appertain to social infancy. Such dramas as those I have alluded to, and many others that, if s.p.a.ce had permitted, might have been quoted, were in unison with the times. The abbeys were boasting of such treasures as the French hood of the Virgin, "her smocke or s.h.i.+fte," the manger in which Christ was laid, the spear which pierced his side, the crown of thorns. The transition from this to the following stage is not without its political attendants, the prohibition of interludes containing anything against the Church of Rome, the royal proclamation against preaching out of one's own brain, the appearance of the Puritan upon the national stage, an increasing acerbity of habit and sanctimoniousness of demeanour.

With peculiar facility we may, therefore, through an examination of the state of the drama, determine national mental condition. The same may be done by a like examination of the state of the pulpit. Whoever will take the trouble to compare the results cannot fail to observe how remarkably they correspond.

Such was the state of the literature of amus.e.m.e.nt; as to political literature, even at the close of the period we are considering, it could not be expected to flourish after the judges had declared that no man could publish political news except he had been duly authorized by the crown. [Sidenote: Newspapers and coffee-houses.] Newspapers were, however, beginning to be periodically issued, and, if occasion called for it, broadsides, as they were termed were added. In addition, newsletters were written by enterprising individuals in the metropolis, and sent to rich persons who subscribed for them; they then circulated from family to family, and doubtless enjoyed a privilege which has not descended to their printed contemporary, the newspaper, of never becoming stale. Their authors compiled them from materials picked up in the gossip of the coffee-houses. The coffee-houses, in a non-reading community, were quite an important political as well as social inst.i.tution. They were of every kind, prelatical, popish, Puritan, scientific, literary, Whig, Tory. Whatever a man's notions might be, he could find in London, in a double sense, a coffee-house to his taste. In towns of considerable importance the literary demand was insignificant; thus it is said that the father of Dr. Johnson, the lexicographer, peddled books from town to town, and was accustomed to open a stall in Birmingham on market-days, and it is added that this supply of literature was equal to the demand.

[Sidenote: Liberty of the press slowly secured.] The liberty of the press has been of slow growth. Scarcely had printing been invented when it was found necessary everywhere to place it under some restraint, as was, for instance, done by Rome in her "Index Expurgatorius" of prohibited books, and the putting of printers who had offended under the ban; the action of the University of Paris, alluded to in this volume, p. 198, was essentially of the same kind. In England, at first, the press was subjected to the common law; the crown judges themselves determined the offence, and could punish the offender with fine, imprisonment, or even death. Within the last century this power of determination has been taken from them, and a jury must decide, not only on the fact, but also on the character of the publication, whether libellous, seditious, or otherwise offensive. [Sidenote: Its present condition.] The press thus came to be a reflector of public opinion, casting light back upon the public; yet as with other reflectors, a portion of the illuminating power is lost. The restraints under which it is laid are due, not so much to the fear that liberty will degenerate into license, for public opinion would soon correct that; they are rather connected with the necessities of the social state.

[Sidenote: Contrast between progress in the ages of Faith and Reason.]

Whoever will examine the condition of England at successive periods during her pa.s.sage through the Age of Faith will see how slow was her progress, and will, perhaps, be surprised to find at its close how small was her advance. The ideas that had served her for so many centuries as a guide had rather obstructed than facilitated her way. But whoever will consider what she has done since she fairly entered on her Age of Reason will remark a wonderful contrast. There has not been a progress in physical conditions only--a securing of better food, better clothing, better shelter, swifter locomotion, the procurement of individual happiness, an extension of the term of life. There has been a great moral advancement. Such atrocities as those mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs are now impossible, and so unlike our own manners that doubtless we read of them at first with incredulity, and with difficulty are brought to believe that these are the things our ancestors did. What a difference between the dilatoriness of the past, its objectless exertions, its unsatisfactory end, and the energy, and well-directed intentions of the present age, which have already yielded results like the prodigies of romance.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON.

REJECTION OF AUTHORITY AND TRADITION, AND ADOPTION OF SCIENTIFIC TRUTH.--DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE POSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE UNIVERSE.

_Ecclesiastical Attempt to enforce the_ GEOCENTRIC DOCTRINE _that the Earth is the Centre of the Universe, and the most important Body in it._

_The_ HELIOCENTRIC DOCTRINE _that the Sun is the Centre of the Solar System, and the Earth a small Planet, comes gradually into Prominence._

_Struggle between the Ecclesiastical and Astronomical Parties.--Activity of the Inquisition.--Burning of_ BRUNO.--_Imprisonment of_ GALILEO.

INVENTION OF THE TELESCOPE.--_Complete Overthrow of the Ecclesiastical Idea.--Rise of Physical Astronomy._--NEWTON.--_Rapid and resistless Development of all Branches of Natural Philosophy._

_Final Establishment of the Doctrine that the Universe is under the Dominion of mathematical, and, therefore, necessary Laws._

_Progress of Man from the Anthropocentric Ideas to the Discovery of his true Position and Insignificance in the Universe._

[Sidenote: An astronomical problem.] The Age of Reason in Europe was ushered in by an astronomical controversy.

Is the earth the greatest and most n.o.ble body in the universe, around which, as an immovable centre, the sun, and the various planets, and stars revolve, ministering by their light and other qualities to the wants and pleasures of man, or is it an insignificant orb--a mere point--submissively revolving, among a crowd of compeers and superiors, around a central sun? The former of these views was authoritatively a.s.serted by the Church; the latter, timidly suggested by a few thoughtful and religious men at first, in the end gathered strength, and carried the day.

[Sidenote: Its important consequences.] Behind this physical question--a mere scientific problem--lay something of the utmost importance--the position of man in the universe. The conflict broke out upon an ostensible issue, but every one saw what was the real point in the dispute.

[Sidenote: Treatment of the Age of Reason.] In the history of the Age of Reason in Europe, which is to fill the remaining pages of this book, I am constrained to commence with this astronomical controversy, and have therefore been led by that circ.u.mstance to complete the survey of the entire period from the same, that is, the scientific point of view. Many different modes of treating it spontaneously present themselves; but so vast are the subjects to be brought under consideration, so numerous their connexions, and so limited the s.p.a.ce at my disposal, that I must give the preference to one which, with sufficient copiousness, offers also precision. Whoever will examine the progress of European intellectual advancement thus far manifested will find that it has concerned itself with three great questions: 1. The ascertainment of the position of the earth in the universe; 2. The history of the earth in time; 3. The position of man among living beings. Under this last is ranged all that he has done in scientific discovery, and all those inventions which are the characteristics of the present industrial age.

What am I? Where am I? we may imagine to have been the first exclamations of the first man awakening to conscious existence. Here, in our Age of Reason, we have been dealing with the same thoughts. They are the same which, as we have seen, occupied Greek intellectual life.

[Sidenote: Roman astronomical ideas.] When Halley's comet appeared in 1456, it was described by those who saw it as an object of "unheard-of magnitude;" its tail, which shook down "diseases, pestilence, and war"

upon earth, reached over a third part of the heavens. It was considered as connected with the progress of Mohammed II., who had just then taken Constantinople. It struck terror into all people. From his seat, invisible to it, in Italy, the sovereign pontiff, Calixtus III., issued his ecclesiastical fulminations; but the comet in the heavens, like the sultan on the earth, pursued its course undeterred. In vain were all the bells in Europe ordered to be rung to scare it away; in vain was it anathematized; in vain were prayers put up in all directions to stop it.

True to its time, it punctually returns from the abysses of s.p.a.ce, uninfluenced by anything save agencies of a material kind. A signal lesson for the meditations of every religious man.

[Sidenote: More correct ideas among some of the clergy.] Among the clergy there were, however, some who had more correct cosmic ideas than those of Calixtus. A century before Copernicus, Cardinal de Cusa had partially adopted the heliocentric theory, as taught in the old times by Philolaus, Pythagoras, and Archimedes. He ascribed to the earth a globular form, rotation on its axis, and a movement in s.p.a.ce; he believed that it moves round the sun, and both together round the pole of the universe.

[Sidenote: The geocentric and heliocentric theories.] By geocentric theory is meant that doctrine which a.s.serts the earth to be the immovable centre of the universe; by heliocentric theory that which demonstrates the sun to be the centre of our planetary system, implying, as a necessary influence, that the earth is a very small and subordinate body revolving round the sun.

[Sidenote: The geocentric doctrine adopted by the Church.] I have already, in sufficient detail, described how the Roman Church had been constrained by her position to uphold the geocentric doctrine. She had come to regard it as absolutely essential to her system, the intellectual basis of which she held would be sapped if this doctrine should be undermined. Hence it was that such an alarm was shown at the a.s.sertion of the globular form of the earth, and hence the surpa.s.sing importance of the successful voyage of Magellan's s.h.i.+p. That indisputable demonstration of the globular figure was ever a solid support to the scientific party in the portentous approaching conflict.

[Sidenote: Preparations for the heliocentric doctrine.] Preparations had been silently making for a scientific revolution in various directions.

The five memoirs of Cardinal Alliacus "On the Concordance of Astronomy with Theology," show the turn that thought was taking. His "Imago Mundi"

was published in 1460, and is said to have been a favourite work with Columbus. In the very Cathedral of Florence, Toscanelli had constructed his celebrated gnomon, 1468, a sun-ray, auspicious omen! being admitted through a plate of bra.s.s in the lantern of the cupola. John Muller, better known as Regiomonta.n.u.s, had published an abridgment of Ptolemy's "Almagest," 1520. Euclid had been printed with diagrams on copper as long before as 1482, and again in Venice twenty-three years subsequently. The Optics of Vitello had been published 1533. Fernel, physician to Henry II. of France, had even ventured so far, supported by Magellan's voyage, as to measure, 1527, the size of the earth, his method being to observe the height of the pole at Paris, then to proceed northward until its elevation was increased exactly one degree, and to ascertain the distance between the stations by the number of revolutions of his carriage wheel. He concluded that it is 24,480 Italian miles round the globe. The last attempt of the kind had been that of the Khalif Almaimon seven hundred years previously on the sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea, and with nearly the same result. The mathematical sciences were undergoing rapid advancement. Rhaeticus had published his trigonometrical tables; Cardan, Tartaglia, Scipio Ferreo, and Stefel were greatly improving algebra.

[Sidenote: Copernicus, the works of.] The first formal a.s.sertion of the heliocentric theory was made in a timid manner, strikingly ill.u.s.trative of the expected opposition. It was by Copernicus, a Prussian, speaking of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; the year was about 1536. In his preface, addressed to Pope Paul III., whether written by himself, or, as some have affirmed, for him by Andreas Osiander, he complains of the imperfections of the existing system, states that he has sought among ancient writers for a better way, and so had learned the heliocentric doctrine. "Then I too began to meditate on the motion of the earth, and, though it appeared an absurd opinion, yet since I knew that in previous times others had been allowed the privilege of feigning what circles they chose in order to explain the phenomena, I conceived that I might take the liberty of trying whether, on the supposition of the earth's motion, it was possible to find better explanations than the ancient ones of the revolutions of the celestial orbs."

"Having, then, a.s.sumed the motions of the earth, which are hereafter explained, by laborious and long observation I at length found that, if the motions of the other planets be compared with the revolution of the earth, not only their phenomena follow from the suppositions, but also that the several orbs and the whole system are so connected in order and magnitude that no one point can be transposed without disturbing the rest, and introducing confusion into the whole universe."

[Sidenote: Introduction of his system.] The apologetic air with which he thus introduces his doctrine is again remarked in his statement that he had kept his book for thirty-six years, and only now published it at the entreaty of Cardinal Schomberg. The cardinal had begged of him a ma.n.u.script copy. "Though I know that the thoughts of a philosopher do not depend on the judgment of the many, his study being to seek out truth in all things as far as is permitted by G.o.d to human reason, yet, when I considered how absurd my doctrine would appear, I long hesitated whether I should publish my book, or whether it were not better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and others, who delivered their doctrine only by tradition and to friends." [Sidenote: He fears being accused of heresy.] He concludes: "If there be vain babblers who, knowing nothing of mathematics, yet a.s.sume the right of judging on account of some place of Scripture perversely wrested to their purpose, and who blame and attack my undertaking, I heed them not, and look upon their judgments as rash and contemptible."

Copernicus clearly recognized not only the relative position of the earth, but also her relative magnitude. He says the magnitude of the world is so great that the distance of the earth from the sun has no apparent magnitude when compared with the sphere of the fixed stars.

[Sidenote: Early correction of the Copernican theory.] To the earth Copernicus attributed a triple motion--a daily rotation on her axis, an annual motion round the sun, a motion of declination of the axis. The latter seemed to be necessary to account for the constant direction of the pole; but as this was soon found to be a misconception, the theory was relieved of it. With this correction, the doctrine of Copernicus presents a clear and great advance, though in the state in which he offered it he was obliged to retain the mechanism of epicycles and eccentrics, because he considered the planetary motions to be circular.

It was the notion that, since the circle is the most simple of all geometrical forms, it must therefore be the most natural, which led to this imperfection. His work was published in 1543. He died a few days after he had seen a copy.

Against the opposition it had to encounter, the heliocentric theory made its way slowly at first. Among those who did adopt it were some whose connexion served rather to r.e.t.a.r.d its progress, because of the ultraism of their views, or the doubtfulness of their social position. [Sidenote: Giordano Bruno of Nola.] Such was Bruno, who contributed largely to its introduction into England, and who was the author of a work on the Plurality of Worlds, and of the conception that every star is a sun, having opaque planets revolving round it--a conception to which the Copernican system suggestively leads. Bruno was born seven years after the death of Copernicus. He became a Dominican, but, like so many other thoughtful men of the times, was led into heresy on the doctrine of transubstantiation. Not concealing his opinions, he was persecuted, fled, and led a vagabond life in foreign countries, testifying that wherever he went he found scepticism under the polish of hypocrisy, and that he fought not against the belief of men, but against their pretended belief. [Sidenote: He teaches the heliocentric theory,] For teaching the rotation of the earth he had to flee to Switzerland, and thence to England, where, at Oxford, he gave lectures on cosmology.

Driven from England, France, and Germany in succession, he ventured in his extremity to return to Italy, and was arrested in Venice, where he was kept in prison in the Piombi for six years without books, or paper, or friends. Meantime the Inquisition demanded him as having written heretical works. He was therefore surrendered to Rome, and, after a farther imprisonment of two years, tried, excommunicated, and delivered over to the secular authorities, to be punished "as mercifully as possible, and without the shedding of his blood," the abominable formula for burning a man alive. He had collected all the observations that had been made respecting the new star in Ca.s.siopeia, 1572; he had taught that s.p.a.ce is infinite, and that it is filled with self-luminous and opaque worlds, many of them inhabited--this being his capital offence.

He believed that the world is animated by an intelligent soul, the cause of forms but not of matter; that it lives in all things, even such as seem not to live; that every thing is ready to become organized; that matter is the mother of forms and then their grave; that matter and the soul of the world together const.i.tute G.o.d. His ideas were therefore pantheistic, "Est Deus in n.o.bis." In his "Cena de le Cenere" he insists that the Scripture was not intended to teach science, but morals only.

The severity with which he was treated was provoked by his a.s.severations that he was struggling with an orthodoxy that had neither morality nor belief. This was the aim of his work ent.i.tled "The triumphant Beast."

[Sidenote: and is burnt alive as a heretic.] He was burnt at Rome, February 16, 1600. With both a present and prophetic truth, he n.o.bly responded, when the atrocious sentence was pa.s.sed upon him, "Perhaps it is with greater fear that ye pa.s.s this sentence upon me than I receive it." His tormentors jocosely observed, as the flames shut him out forever from view, that he had gone to the imaginary worlds he had so wickedly feigned.

This vigorous but spasmodic determination of the Church to defend herself was not without effect. It enabled her to hold fast the timid, the time-servers, the superficial. [Sidenote: Lord Bacon. Rejects the Copernican doctrine.] Among such may be mentioned Lord Bacon, who never received the Copernican system. With the audacity of ignorance, he presumed to criticize what he did not understand, and, with a superb conceit, disparaged the great Copernicus. He says, "In the system of Copernicus there are many and grave difficulties; for the threefold motion with which he enc.u.mbers the earth is a serious inconvenience, and the separation of the sun from the planets, with which he has so many affections in common, is likewise a harsh step; and the introduction of so many immovable bodies in nature, as when he makes the sun and stars immovable, the bodies which are peculiarly lucid and radiant, and his making the moon adhere to the earth in a sort of epicycle, and some other things which he a.s.sumes, are proceedings which mark a man who thinks nothing of introducing fictions of any kind into nature, provided his calculations turn out well." The more closely we examine the writings of Lord Bacon, the more unworthy does he seem to have been of the great reputation which has been awarded to him. The popular delusion to which he owes so much originated at a time when the history of science was unknown. They who first brought him into notice knew nothing of the old school of Alexandria. This boasted founder of a new philosophy could not comprehend, and would not accept, the greatest of all scientific doctrines when it was plainly set before his eyes.

It has been represented that the invention of the true method of physical science was an amus.e.m.e.nt of Bacon's hours of relaxation from the more laborious studies of law and duties of a court. His chief admirers have been persons of a literary turn, who have an idea that scientific discoveries are accomplished by a mechanico-mental operation.

[Sidenote: The practical uselessness of his philosophy.] Bacon never produced any great practical result himself, no great physicist has ever made any use of his method. He has had the same to do with the development of modern science that the inventor of the orrery has had to do with the discovery of the mechanism of the world. Of all the important physical discoveries, there is not one which shows that its author made it by the Baconian instrument. Newton never seems to have been aware that he was under any obligation to Bacon. Archimedes, and the Alexandrians, and the Arabians, and Leonardo da Vinci did very well before he was born; the discovery of America by Columbus and the circ.u.mnavigation by Magellan can hardly be attributed to him, yet they were the consequences of a truly philosophical reasoning. But the investigation of nature is an affair of genius, not of rules. No man can invent an organon for writing tragedies and Epic poems. Bacon's system is, in it own terms, an idol of the theatre. It would scarcely guide a man to a solution of the riddle of aelia Laelia Crispis, or to that of the charade of Sir Hilary.

[Sidenote: His scientific errors.] Few scientific pretenders have made more mistakes than Lord Bacon. He rejected the Copernican system, and spoke insolently of its great author; he undertook to criticise adversely Gilbert's treatise "De Magnete;" he was occupied in the condemnation of any investigation of final causes, while Harvey was deducing the circulation of the blood from Aquapendente's discovery of the valves in the veins; he was doubtful whether instruments were of any advantage, while Galileo was investigating the heavens with the telescope. Ignorant himself of every branch of mathematics, he presumed that they were useless in science, but a few years before Newton achieved by their aid his immortal discoveries. It is time that the sacred name of philosophy should be severed from its long connexion with that of one who was a pretender in science, a time-serving politician, an insidious lawyer, a corrupt judge, a treacherous friend, a bad man.

[Sidenote: Adoption of the Copernican doctrine.] But others were not so obtuse as Bacon. Gilbert, one of the best of the early English experimentalists, an excellent writer on magnetism, adopted the views of Copernicus. Milton, in "Paradise Lost," set forth in language such as he only could use the objections to the Ptolemaic, and the probabilities of the Copernican system. Some of the more liberal ecclesiastics gave their adhesion. Bishop Wilkins not only presented it in a very popular way, but also made some sensible suggestions explanatory of the supposed contradictions of the new theory to the Holy Scriptures. It was, however, among geometricians, as Napier, Briggs, Horrox, that it met with its best support. On the continent the doctrine was daily making converts, and nightly gathering strength from the accordance of the tables of the motions of the heavenly bodies calculated upon its principles with actual observation.

[Sidenote: Invention of the telescope.] It is by no means uninteresting to notice the different cla.s.ses of men among whom this great theory was steadily winning its way. Experimental philosophers, Republican poets, Episcopal clergymen, Scotch lords, West of England schoolmasters, Italian physicists, Polish pedants, painstaking Germans, each from his own special point of view, was gradually receiving the light, and doubtless, from such varied influence, the doctrine would have vindicated its supremacy at last, though it might have taken a long time. On a sudden, however, there occurred a fortunate event, which led forthwith to that result by a new train of evidence, bringing the matter, under the most brilliant circ.u.mstances, clearly to the apprehension of every one. This great and fortunate event was the invention of the telescope.

[Sidenote: Galileo constructs one.] It is needless to enter on any examination of the authors.h.i.+p of this invention. It is enough for our purpose to know that Lippershey, a Dutchman, had made one toward the close of 1608, and that Galileo, hearing of the circ.u.mstance, but without knowing the particulars of the construction, in April or May of the following year invented a form of it for himself. Not content with admiring how close and large it made terrestrial objects, he employed it for examining the heavens. [Sidenote: Telescopic astronomical discoveries.] On turning it to the moon, he found that she has mountains casting shadows, and valleys like those of the earth. The discovery of innumerable fixed stars--not fewer than forty were counted by him in the well-known group of the Pleiades--up to that time unseen by man, was felt at once to offer an insuperable argument against the opinion that these bodies were created only to illuminate the night; indeed, it may be said that this was a death-blow to the time-honoured doctrine of the human destiny of the universe. Already Galileo began to encounter vulgar indignation, which accused him loudly of impiety. On January 7th, 1610, he discovered three of Jupiter's satellites, and a few days later the fourth. To these he gave the designation of the Medicean stars, and in his "Sidereal Messenger" published an account of the facts he had thus far observed. As it was perceived at once that this planet offered a miniature representation of the ideas of Copernicus respecting the solar system, this discovery was received by the astronomical party with the liveliest pleasure, by the ecclesiastical with the most bitter opposition, some declaring that it was a mere optical deception, some a purposed fraud, some that it was sheer blasphemy, and some, fairly carrying out to its consequences the absurd philosophy of the day, a.s.serted that, since the pretended satellites were invisible to the naked eye, they must be useless, and, being useless, they could not exist. Continuing his observations, Galileo found that Saturn differs in an extraordinary manner from other planets; but the telescope he used not being sufficient to demonstrate the ring, he fell into the mistake that the body of the planet is triple. This was soon followed by the discovery of the phases of Venus, which indisputably established for her a motion round the sun, and actually converted what had hitherto, on all hands, been regarded as one of the weightiest objections against the Copernican theory, into a most solid support. "If the doctrine of Copernicus be true, the planet Venus ought to show phases like the moon, which is not the case;" so said the objectors. Copernicus himself saw the difficulty, and tried to remove it by suggesting that the planet might be transparent. The telescope of Galileo for ever settled the question by showing that the expected phases do actually exist.

[Sidenote: Commencing opposition to Galileo.] In the garden of Cardinal Bandini at Rome, A.D. 1611, Galileo publicly exhibited the spots upon the sun. He had observed them the preceding year. Goaded on by the opposition his astronomical discoveries were bringing upon him, he addressed a letter in 1613 to the Abbe Castelli, for the purpose of showing that the Scriptures were not intended as a scientific authority.

This was repeating Bruno's offence. Hereupon the Dominicans, taking alarm, commenced to attack him from their pulpits. It shows how reluctantly, and with what misgivings the higher ecclesiastics entered upon the quarrel, that Maraffi, the general of the Dominicans, apologized to Galileo for what had taken place. The astronomer now published another letter reiterating his former opinions, a.s.serting that the Scriptures were only intended for our salvation, and otherwise defending himself, and recalling the fact that Copernicus had dedicated his book to Pope Paul III.

[Sidenote: He is summoned to Rome.] Through the suggestion of the Dominicans, Galileo was now summoned to Rome to account for his conduct and opinions before the Inquisition. He was accused of having taught that the earth moves; that the sun is stationary; and of having attempted to reconcile these doctrines with the Scriptures. The sentence was that he must renounce these heretical opinions, and pledge himself that he would neither publish nor defend them for the future. [Sidenote: Is condemned by the Inquisition,] In the event of his refusal he was to be imprisoned. With the fate of Bruno in his recollection, he a.s.sented to the required recantation, and gave the promise demanded. The Inquisition then proceeded to deal with the Copernican system, condemning it as heretical; the letters of Galileo, which had given rise to the trouble, were prohibited; also Kepler's epitome of the Copernican theory, and also the work of Copernicus. [Sidenote: which condemns the Copernican system.] In their decree prohibiting this work "De Revolutionibus," the Congregation of the Index, March 5, 1616, denounced the new system of the universe as "that false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy Scriptures."