Pioneers of Science Part 10

This young man had now come to the throne as Cosmo II., and to him Galileo wrote saying how much he should like more time and leisure, how full he was of discoveries if he only had the chance of a reasonable income without the necessity of consuming so large a portion of his time in elementary teaching, and practically asking to be removed to some position in the Court. Nothing was done for a time, but negotiations proceeded, and soon after the discovery of Jupiter's satellites Cosmo wrote making a generous offer, which Galileo gladly and enthusiastically accepted, and at once left Padua for Florence. All his subsequent discoveries date from Florence.

Thus closed his brilliant and happy career as a professor at the University of Padua. He had been treated well: his pay had become larger than that of any Professor of Mathematics up to that time; and, as you know, immediately after his invention of the telescope the Venetian Senate, in a fit of enthusiasm, had doubled it and secured it to him for life wherever he was. To throw up his chair and leave the place the very next year scarcely seems a strictly honourable procedure. It was legal enough no doubt, and it is easy for small men to criticize a great one, but nevertheless I think we must admit that it is a step such as a man with a keen sense of honour would hardly have taken.

One quite feels and sympathizes with the temptation. Not emolument, but leisure; freedom from hara.s.sing engagements and constant teaching, and liberty to prosecute his studies day and night without interference: this was the golden prospect before him. He yielded, but one cannot help wis.h.i.+ng he had not.

As it turned out it was a false step--the first false step of his public career. When made it was irretrievable, and it led to great misery.

At first it seemed brilliant enough. The great philosopher of the Tuscan Court was courted and flattered by princes and n.o.bles, he enjoyed a world-wide reputation, lived as luxuriously as he cared for, had his time all to himself, and lectured but very seldom, on great occasions or to a few crowned heads.

His position was in fact a.n.a.logous to that of Tycho Brahe in his island of Huen.

Misfortune overtook both. In Tycho's case it arose mainly from the death of his patron. In Galileo's it was due to a more insidious cause, to understand which cause aright we must remember the political divisions of Italy at that date.

Tuscany was a Papal State, and thought there was by no means free.

Venice was a free republic, and was even hostile to the Papacy. In 1606 the Pope had placed it under an interdict. In reply it had ejected every Jesuit.

Out of this atmosphere of comparative enlightenment and freedom into that hotbed of mediaevalism and superst.i.tion went Galileo with his eyes open. Keen was the regret of his Paduan and Venetian friends; bitter were their remonstrances and exhortations. But he was determined to go, and, not without turning some of his old friends into enemies, he went.

Seldom has such a man made so great a mistake: never, I suppose, has one been so cruelly punished for it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 51.--Map of Italy.]

We must remember, however, that Galileo, though by no means a saint, was yet a really religious man, a devout Catholic and thorough adherent of the Church, so that he would have no dislike to place himself under her sway. Moreover, he had been born a Tuscan, his family had lived at Florence or Pisa, and it felt like going home. His theological att.i.tude is worthy of notice, for he was not in the least a sceptic. He quite acquiesces in the authority of the Bible, especially in all matters concerning faith and conduct; as to its statements in scientific matters, he argues that we are so liable to misinterpret their meaning that it is really easier to examine Nature for truth in scientific matters, and that when direct observation and Scripture seem to clash, it is because of our fallacious interpretation of one or both of them.

He is, in fact, what one now calls a "reconciler."

It is curious to find such a man prosecuted for heresy, when to-day his opinions are those of the orthodox among the orthodox. But so it ever is, and the heresy of one generation becomes the commonplace of the next.

He accepts Joshua's miracle, for instance, not as a striking poem, but as a literal fact; and he points out how much more simply it could be done on the Copernican system by stopping the earth's rotation for a short time, than by stopping the sun and moon and all the host of heaven as on the old Ptolemaic system, or again by stopping only the sun and not any of the other bodies, and so throwing astronomy all wrong.

This reads to us like satire, but no doubt it was his genuine opinion.

These Scriptural reconciliations of his, however, angered the religious authorities still more. They said it was bad enough for this heretic to try and upset old _scientific_ beliefs, and to spoil the face of _Nature_ with his infidel discoveries, but at least he might leave the Bible alone; and they addressed an indignant remonstrance to Rome, to protect it from the hands of ignorant laymen.

Thus, wherever he turned he encountered hostility. Of course he had many friends--some of them powerful like Cosmo, all of them faithful and sincere. But against the power of Rome what could they do? Cosmo dared no more than remonstrate, and ultimately his successor had to refrain from even this, so enchained and bound was the spirit of the rulers of those days; and so when his day of tribulation came he stood alone and helpless in the midst of his enemies.

You may wonder, perhaps, why this man should excite so much more hostility than many another man who was suffered to believe and teach much the same doctrines unmolested. But no other man had made such brilliant and exciting discoveries. No man stood so prominently forward in the eyes of all Christendom as the champion of the new doctrines. No other man stated them so clearly and forcibly, nor drove them home with such brilliant and telling ill.u.s.trations.

And again, there was the memory of his early conflict with the Aristotelians at Pisa, of his scornful and successful refutation of their absurdities. All this made him specially obnoxious to the Aristotelian Jesuits in their double capacity both of priests and of philosophers, and they singled him out for relentless official persecution.

Not yet, however, is he much troubled by them. The chief men at Rome have not yet moved. Messages, however, keep going up from Tuscany to Rome respecting the teachings of this man, and of the harm he is doing by his pertinacious preaching of the Copernican doctrine that the earth moves.

At length, in 1615, Pope Paul V. wrote requesting him to come to Rome to explain his views. He went, was well received, made a special friend of Cardinal Barberino--an accomplished man in high position, who became in fact the next Pope. Galileo showed cardinals and others his telescope, and to as many as would look through it he showed Jupiter's satellites and his other discoveries. He had a most successful visit. He talked, he harangued, he held forth in the midst of fifteen or twenty disputants at once, confounding his opponents and putting them to shame.

His method was to let the opposite arguments be stated as fully and completely as possible, himself aiding, and often adducing the most forcible and plausible arguments against his own views; and then, all having been well stated, he would proceed to utterly undermine and demolish the whole fabric, and bring out the truth in such a way as to convince all honest minds. It was this habit that made him such a formidable antagonist. He never shrank from meeting an opposing argument, never sought to ignore it, or cloak it in a cloud of words.

Every hostile argument he seemed to delight in, as a foe to be crushed, and the better and stronger they sounded the more he liked them. He knew many of them well, he invented a number more, and had he chosen could have out-argued the stoutest Aristotelian on his own grounds. Thus did he lead his adversaries on, almost like Socrates, only to ultimately overwhelm them in a more hopeless rout. All this in Rome too, in the heart of the Catholic world. Had he been worldly-wise, he would certainly have kept silent and un.o.btrusive till he had leave to go away again. But he felt like an apostle of the new doctrines, whose mission it was to proclaim them even in this centre of the world and of the Church.

Well, he had an audience with the Pope--a chat an hour long--and the two parted good friends, mutually pleased with each other.

He writes that he is all right now, and might return home when he liked.

But the question began to be agitated whether the whole system of Copernicus ought not to be condemned as impious and heretical. This view was persistently urged upon the Pope and College of Cardinals, and it was soon to be decided upon.

Had Galileo been unfaithful to the Church he could have left them to stultify themselves in any way they thought proper, and himself have gone; but he felt supremely interested in the result, and he stayed. He writes:--

"So far as concerns the clearing of my own character, I might return home immediately; but although this new question regards me no more than all those who for the last eighty years have supported those opinions both in public and private, yet, as perhaps I may be of some a.s.sistance in that part of the discussion which depends on the knowledge of truths ascertained by means of the sciences which I profess, I, as a zealous and Catholic Christian, neither can nor ought to withhold that a.s.sistance which my knowledge affords, and this business keeps me sufficiently employed."

It is possible that his stay was the worst thing for the cause he had at heart. Anyhow, the result was that the system was condemned, and both the book of Copernicus and the epitome of it by Kepler were placed on the forbidden list,[11] and Galileo himself was formally ordered never to teach or to believe the motion of the earth.

He quitted Rome in disgust, which before long broke out in satire. The only way in which he could safely speak of these views now was as if they were hypothetical and uncertain, and so we find him writing to the Archduke Leopold, with a presentation copy of his book on the tides, the following:--

"This theory occurred to me when in Rome whilst the theologians were debating on the prohibition of Copernicus's book, and of the opinion maintained in it of the motion of the earth, which I at that time believed: until it pleased those gentlemen to suspend the book, and declare the opinion false and repugnant to the Holy Scriptures. Now, as I know how well it becomes me to obey and believe the decisions of my superiors, which proceed out of more knowledge than the weakness of my intellect can attain to, this theory which I send you, which is founded on the motion of the earth, I now look upon as a fiction and a dream, and beg your highness to receive it as such. But as poets often learn to prize the creations of their fancy, so in like manner do I set some value on this absurdity of mine. It is true that when I sketched this little work I did hope that Copernicus would not, after eighty years, be convicted of error; and I had intended to develop and amplify it further, but a voice from heaven suddenly awakened me, and at once annihilated all my confused and entangled fancies."

This sarcasm, if it had been in print, would probably have been dangerous. It was safe in a private letter, but it shows us his real feelings.

However, he was left comparatively quiet for a time. He was getting an old man now, and pa.s.sed the time studiously enough, partly at his house in Florence, partly at his villa in Arcetri, a mile or so out of the town.

Here was a convent, and in it his two daughters were nuns. One of them, who pa.s.sed under the name of Sister Maria Celeste, seems to have been a woman of considerable capacity--certainly she was of a most affectionate disposition--and loved and honoured her father in the most dutiful way.

This was a quiet period of his life, spoiled only by occasional fits of illness and severe rheumatic pains, to which the old man was always liable. Many little circ.u.mstances are known of this peaceful time. For instance, the convent clock won't go, and Galileo mends it for them. He is always doing little things for them, and sending presents to the Lady Superior and his two daughters.

He was occupied now with problems in hydrostatics, and on other matters unconnected with astronomy: a large piece of work which I must pa.s.s over. Most interesting and acute it is, however.

In 1623, when the old Pope died, there was elected to the Papal throne, as Urban VIII., Cardinal Barberino, a man of very considerable enlightenment, and a personal friend of Galileo's, so that both he and his daughters rejoice greatly, and hope that things will come all right, and the forbidding edict be withdrawn.

The year after this election he manages to make another journey to Rome to compliment his friend on his elevation to the Pontifical chair. He had many talks with Urban, and made himself very agreeable.

Urban wrote to the Grand Duke Ferdinand, son of Cosmo:--

"For We find in him not only literary distinction but also love of piety, and he is strong in those qualities by which Pontifical good will is easily obtainable. And now, when he has been brought to this city to congratulate Us on Our elevation, We have very lovingly embraced him; nor can We suffer him to return to the country whither your liberality recalls him without an ample provision of Pontifical love. And that you may know how dear he is to Us, We have willed to give him this honourable testimonial of virtue and piety. And We further signify that every benefit which you shall confer upon him, imitating or even surpa.s.sing your father's liberality, will conduce to Our gratification."

Encouraged, doubtless, by these marks of approbation, and reposing too much confidence in the individual good will of the Pope, without heeding the crowd of half-declared enemies who were seeking to undermine his reputation, he set about, after his return to Florence, his greatest literary and most popular work, _Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems_. This purports to be a series of four conversations between three characters: Salviati, a Copernican philosopher; Sagredo, a wit and scholar, not specially learned, but keen and critical, and who lightens the talk with chaff; Simplicio, an Aristotelian philosopher, who propounds the stock absurdities which served instead of arguments to the majority of men.

The conversations are something between Plato's _Dialogues_ and Sir Arthur Helps's _Friends in Council_. The whole is conducted with great good temper and fairness; and, discreetly enough, no definite conclusion is arrived at, the whole being left in abeyance as if for a fifth and decisive dialogue, which, however, was never written, and perhaps was only intended in case the reception was favourable.

The preface also sets forth that the object of the writer is to show that the Roman edict forbidding the Copernican doctrine was not issued in ignorance of the facts of the case, as had been maliciously reported, and that he wishes to show how well and clearly it was all known beforehand. So he says the dialogue on the Copernican side takes up the question purely as a mathematical hypothesis or speculative figment, and gives it every artificial advantage of which the theory is capable.

This piece of caution was insufficient to blind the eyes of the Cardinals; for in it the arguments in favour of the earth's motion are so cogent and unanswerable, and are so popularly stated, as to do more in a few years to undermine the old system than all that he had written and spoken before. He could not get it printed for two years after he had written it, and then only got consent through a piece of carelessness or laziness on the part of the ecclesiastical censor through whose hands the ma.n.u.script pa.s.sed--for which he was afterwards dismissed.

However, it did appear, and was eagerly read; the more, perhaps, as the Church at once sought to suppress it.

The Aristotelians were furious, and represented to the Pope that he himself was the character intended by Simplicio, the philosopher whose opinions get alternately refuted and ridiculed by the other two, till he is reduced to an abject state of impotence.

The idea that Galileo had thus cast ridicule upon his friend and patron is no doubt a gratuitous and insulting libel: there is no telling whether or not Urban believed it, but certainly his countenance changed to Galileo henceforward, and whether overruled by his Cardinals, or actuated by some other motive, his favour was completely withdrawn.

The infirm old man was instantly summoned to Rome. His friends pleaded his age--he was now seventy--his ill-health, the time of year, the state of the roads, the quarantine existing on account of the plague. It was all of no avail, to Rome he must go, and on the 14th of February he arrived.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 52.--Portrait of Galileo.]

His daughter at Arcetri was in despair; and anxiety and fastings and penances self-inflicted on his account, dangerously reduced her health.