A Budget of Paradoxes Volume I Part 7

"Why should we hesitate to allow the earth's motion," must be altered into "I cannot concede the earth's motion."

(p. 7.) "_Copernicus._ Addo etiam, quod satis absurdum videretur, continenti sive locanti motum adscribi, et non potius contento et locato, quod est terra. _Emend._ Addo etiam difficilius non esse contento et locato, quod est Terra, motum adscribere, quam continenti."[147]

We must not say it is absurd to refuse motion to the _contained_ and _located_, and to give it to the containing and locating; say that neither is more difficult than the other.

(p. 7.) "_Copernicus._ Vides ergo quod ex his omnibus probabilior sit mobilitas Terrae, quam ejus quies, praesertim in cotidiana revolutione, tanquam terrae maxime propria. _Emend._ _Vides_ ... delendus est usque ad finem capitis."[148]

Strike out the whole of the chapter from this to the end; it says that the motion of the earth is the most probable hypothesis.

(Cap. 9. lib. i. p. 7.) "_Copernicus._ c.u.m igitur nihil prohibeat mobilitatem Terrae, videndum nunc arbitror, an etiam plures illi motus conveniant, ut possit una errantium syderum existimari. _Emend._ c.u.m igitur Terram moveri a.s.sumpserim, videndum nunc arbitror, an etiam illi plures possint convenire motus."[149]

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We must not say that nothing prohibits the motion of the earth, only that having _a.s.sumed_ it, we may inquire whether our explanations require several motions.

(Cap. 10. lib. i. p. 9.) "_Copernicus._ Non pudet nos fateri ... hoc potius in mobilitate terrae verificari. _Emend._ Non pudet nos a.s.sumere ... hoc consequenter in mobilitate verificari."[150]

(Cap. 10. lib. i. p. 10.) "_Copernicus._ Tanta nimirum est divina haec. Opt.

Max. fabrica. _Emend._ Dele illa verba postrema."[151]

(Cap. ii. lib. i.[152]) "_Copernicus._ De triplici motu telluris demonstratio. _Emend._ De hypothesi triplicis motus Terrae, ejusque demonstratione."[153]

(Cap. 10. lib. iv. p. 122.[154]) "_Copernicus._ De magnitudine horum trium siderum, Solis, Lunae, et Terrae. _Emend._ Dele verba _horum trium siderum_, quia terra non est sidus, ut facit eam Copernicus."[155]

We must not say we are not ashamed to _acknowledge_; _a.s.sume_ is the word.

We must not call this a.s.sumption a _Divine work_. A chapter must not be headed _demonstration_, but _hypothesis_. The earth must not be called a _star_; the word implies motion.

It will be seen that it does not take much to reduce Copernicus to pure hypothesis. No personal injury being done to the author--who indeed had been 17 years out of {96} reach--the treatment of his book is now an excellent joke. It is obvious that the Cardinals of the Index were a little ashamed of their position, and made a mere excuse of a few corrections.

Their mode of dealing with chap. 8, this _problematice videtur loqui, ut studiosis satisfiat_,[156] is an excuse to avoid corrections. But they struck out the stinging allusion to Lactantius[157] in the preface, little thinking, honest men, for they really believed what they said--that the light of Lactantius would grow dark before the brightness of their own.

THE CONVOCATION AT OXFORD EQUALLY AT FAULT.

1622. I make no reference to the case of Galileo, except this. I have pointed out (_Penny Cycl. Suppl._ "Galileo"; _Engl. Cycl._ "Motion of the Earth") that it is clear the absurdity was the act of the _Italian_ Inquisition--for the private and personal pleasure of the Pope, who _knew_ that the course he took would not commit him as _Pope_--and not of the body which calls itself the _Church_. Let the dirty proceeding have its right name. The Jesuit Riccioli,[158] the stoutest and most learned Anti-Copernican in Europe, and the Puritan Wilkins, a strong Copernican and Pope-hater, are equally positive that the Roman _Church_ never p.r.o.nounced any decision: and this in the time immediately following the ridiculous proceeding of the Inquisition. In like manner a decision of the Convocation of Oxford is not a law of the _English_ Church; which is fortunate, for that Convocation, in 1622, came to a decision quite as absurd, and a great deal {97} more wicked than the declaration against the motion of the earth.

The second was a foolish mistake; the first was a disgusting surrender of right feeling. The story is told without disapprobation by Anthony Wood, who never exaggerated anything against the university of which he is writing eulogistic history.

In 1622, one William Knight[159] put forward in a sermon preached before the University certain theses which, looking at the state of the times, may have been improper and possibly of seditious intent. One of them was that the bishop might excommunicate the civil magistrate: this proposition the clerical body could not approve, and designated it by the term _erronea_,[160] the mildest going. But Knight also declared as follows:

"Subditis mere privatis, si Tyrannus tanquam latro aut stuprator in ipsos faciat impetum, et ipsi nec potestatem ordinariam implorare, nec alia ratione effugere periculum possint, in presenti periculo se et suos contra tyrannum, sicut contra privatum gra.s.satorem, defendere licet."[161]

That is, a man may defend his purse or a woman her honor, against the personal attack of a king, as against that of a private person, if no other means of safety can be found. The Convocation sent Knight to prison, declared the proposition _"falsa_, periculosa, et _impia_," and enacted that all applicants for degrees should subscribe this censure, and make oath that they would neither hold, teach, nor defend Knight's opinions.

The thesis, in the form given, was unnecessary and improper. Though strong opinions of the king's rights were advanced at the time, yet no one ventured to say that, {98} ministers and advisers apart, the king might _personally_ break the law; and we know that the first and only attempt which his successor made brought on the crisis which cost him his throne and his head. But the declaration that the proposition was _false_ far exceeds in all that is disreputable the decision of the Inquisition against the earth's motion. We do not mention this little matter in England. Knight was a Puritan, and Neal[162] gives a short account of his sermon. From comparison with Wood,[163] I judge that the theses, as given, were not Knight's words, but the digest which it was customary to make in criminal proceedings against opinion. This heightens the joke, for it appears that the qualifiers of the Convocation took pains to present their condemnation of Knight in the terms which would most unequivocally make their censure condemn themselves. This proceeding took place in the interval between the two proceedings against Galileo: it is left undetermined whether we must say pot-kettle-pot or kettle-pot-kettle.

Liberti Fromondi.... Ant-Aristarchus, sive orbis terrae immobilis.

Antwerp, 1631, 8vo.[164]

This book contains the evidence of an ardent opponent of Galileo to the fact, that Roman Catholics of the day did not consider the decree of the _Index_ or of the _Inquisition_ as a declaration of their _Church_. Fromond would have been glad to say as much, and tries to come near it, but confesses he must abstain. See _Penny Cyclop. Suppl._ "Galileo," and _Eng.

Cycl._ "Motion of the Earth." The author of a celebrated article in the _Dublin Review_, in defence of the {99} Church of Rome, seeing that Drinkwater Bethune[165] makes use of the authority of Fromondus, but for another purpose, sneers at him for bringing up a "musty old Professor." If he had known Fromondus, and used him he would have helped his own case, which is very meagre for want of knowledge.[166]

Advis a Monseigneur l'eminentissime Cardinal Duc de Richelieu, sur la Proposition faicte par le Sieur Morin pour l'invention des longitudes.

Paris, 1634, 8vo.[167]

This is the Official Report of the Commissioners appointed by the Cardinal, of whom Pascal is the one now best known, to consider Morin's plan. See the full account in Delambre, _Hist. Astr. Mod._ ii. 236, etc.

THE METIUS APPROXIMATION.

Arithmetica et Geometria practica. By Adrian Metius. Leyden, 1640, 4to.[168]

This book contains the celebrated approximation _guessed at_ by his father, Peter Metius,[169] namely that the diameter is {100} to the circ.u.mference as 113 to 355. The error is at the rate of about a foot in 2,000 miles.

Peter Metius, having his attention called to the subject by the false quadrature of d.u.c.h.esne, found that the ratio lay between 333/106 and 377/120. He then took the liberty of taking the mean of both numerators and denominators, giving 355/113. He had no right to presume that this mean was better than either of the extremes; nor does it appear positively that he did so. He published nothing; but his son Adrian,[170] when Van Ceulen's work showed how near his father's result came to the truth, first made it known in the work above. (See _Eng. Cyclop._, art. "Quadrature.")

ON INHABITABLE PLANETS.

A discourse concerning a new world and another planet, in two books.

London, 1640, 8vo.[171]

Cosmotheoros: or conjectures concerning the planetary worlds and their inhabitants. Written in Latin, by Christia.n.u.s Huyghens. This translation was first published in 1698. Glasgow, 1757, 8vo. [The original is also of 1698.][172]

The first work is by Bishop Wilkins, being the third edition, [first in 1638] of the first book, "That the Moon may be a Planet"; and the first edition of the second work, {101} "That the Earth may be a Planet." [See more under the reprint of 1802.] Whether other planets be inhabited or not, that is, crowded with organisations some of them having consciousness, is not for me to decide; but I should be much surprised if, on going to one of them, I should find it otherwise. The whole dispute tacitly a.s.sumes that, if the stars and planets be inhabited, it must be by things of which we can form some idea. But for aught we know, what number of such bodies there are, so many organisms may there be, of which we have no way of thinking nor of speaking. This is seldom remembered. In like manner it is usually forgotten that the _matter_ of other planets may be of different chemistry from ours. There may be no oxygen and hydrogen in Jupiter, which may have _gens_ of its own.[173] But this must not be said: it would limit the omniscience of the _a priori_ school of physical inquirers, the larger half of the whole, and would be very _unphilosophical_. Nine-tenths of my best paradoxers come out from among this larger half, because they are just a little more than of it at their entrance.

There was a discussion on the subject some years ago, which began with

The plurality of worlds: an Essay. London, 1853, 8vo. [By Dr. Wm.

Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge]. A dialogue on the plurality of worlds, being a supplement to the Essay on that subject.

[First found in the second edition, 1854; removed to the end in subsequent editions, and separate copies issued.][174]

A work of skeptical character, insisting on a.n.a.logies which prohibit the positive conclusion that the planets, stars, etc., are what we should call _inhabited_ worlds. It produced {102} several works and a large amount of controversy in reviews. The last predecessor of whom I know was

Plurality of Worlds.... By Alexander Maxwell. Second Edition. London, 1820, 8vo.