Galileo — Astronomical Discoveries (ii)
by John Lord, LL. D.
Galileo has now attained the highest object of his
ambition. He is at the head, confessedly, of all the scien-
tific men of Europe. He has an ample revenue; he is
independent, and has perfect leisure. Even the Pope
is gracious to him when he makes a visit to Rome;
while cardinals, princes, and ambassadors rival one an-
other in bestowing upon his attention and honors.
But there is no height of fortune from which a man
may not fall; and it is usually the proud, the ostenta-
tious, and the contemptuous who do fall, since they
create envy, and are apt to make social mistakes. Gal-
lileo continued to exasperate his enemies by his arro-
gance and sarcasms. "They refused to be dragged at
his chariot-wheels." "The Aristotelian professors," says
Brewster, "the temporizing Jesuits, the political church-
men, and that timid but respectable body who at all
times dread innovation, whether it be in legislation of
science, entered into an alliance against the philosoph-
ical tyrant who threatened them with the penalties of
knowledge." The church dignitaries were especially
hostile, since they thought the tendency of Galileo's
investigations was to undermine the Bible. Flanked
by the logic f the schools and the popular interpreta-
tion of Scripture, and backed by the civil power, they
were eager for war. Galileo wrote a letter to his friend
the Abbé Castelli, the object of which was "to prove
that the Scriptures were not intended to teach science
and philosophy," but to point out the way to salvation.
He was indiscreet enough to write a longer letter of
seventy pages, quoting the Fathers in support of his
views, and attempting to show that Nature and Scrip-
ture could not speak a different language. It was this
reasoning which irritated the dignitaries of the Church
more than his discoveries, since it is plain that the
literal language of Scripture upholds the doctrine that
the sun revolves around the earth. He was wrong or
foolish in trying to harmonize revelation and science.
He should have advanced his truths of science and left
them to take care of themselves. He should not have
meddled with the dogmas of his enemies: not that he
was wrong in doing so, but it was not polite or wise;
and he was not called upon to harmonize Scripture
with science.
So his enemies busily employed themselves in collect-
ing evidence against him. They laid their complaints
before the Inquisition of Rome, and on the occasion
of paying a visit to that city, he was summoned be-
fore that tribunal which has been the shame and the
reproach of the Catholic Church. It was a tribunal
utterly incompetent to sit upon his case, since it was
ignorant of science. In 1615 it was decreed that Gali-
leo should renounce his obnoxious doctrines, and pledge
himself neither to defend nor publish them in the future.
And Galileo accordingly, in dread of prison, appeared
before Cardinal Bellarmine and declared that he would
renounce the doctrines he had defended. The cardinal
was not an ignorant man. He was the greatest theolo-
gian in the Catholic Church; but his bitterness and ran-
cor in reference to the new doctrines were as marked
as his scholastic learning. The Pope, supposing that
Galileo would adhere to his promise, was gracious and
kind.
But the philosopher could not resist the temptation
of ridiculing the advocates of the old system. He
called them "paper philosophers." In private he made
a mockery of his persecutors. One Saisi undertook to
prove from Suidas that the Babylonians used to cook
eggs by whirling them swiftly on a sling; to which he
replied: "If Saisi insists on the authority of Suidas, that
the Babylonians cooked eggs by whirling them on a
sling, I will believe it. But I must add that we have
eggs and slings, and strong men to whirl them, yet
they will not become cooked; nay, if they were hot at
first, they more quickly become cool; and as there is
nothing wanting to us but to be Babylonians, it follows
that Being Babylonians is the true cause why the eggs
became hard." Such was his prevailing mockery and
ridicule. "Your Eminence," write one of his friends
to the Cardinal D'Este, "would be delighted if you
could hear him hold forth in the midst of fifteen or
twenty, all violently attacking him, sometimes in one
house, and sometimes in another; but he is armed after
such a fashion that he laughs them all to scorn."
Galileo, after his admonition from the Inquisition,
and his promise to hold his tongue, did keep compara-
tively quiet for a while, amusing himself with mechan-
ics, and striving to find out a new way of discovering
longitude at sea. But the want of better telescopes
baffled his efforts; and even to-day it is said "that no
telescope has yet been made which is capable of observ-
ing at sea the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, by which
on shore this method of finding longitude has many
advantages."
On the accession of a new Pope (1623), Urban VIII.,
who had been his friend as Cardinal Barberini, Galileo,
after eight years of silence, thought that he might now
venture to publish his great work on the Ptolemaic and
Copernican systems, especially as the papal censor also
had been his friend. But the publication of the book
was delayed nearly two years, so great were the obsta-
cles to be surmounted, and so prejudiced and hostile
was the Church to the new views. At last it appeared
in Florence in 1632, with a dedication to the Grand
Duke,——not the Cosimo who had rewarded him, but his
son Ferdinand, who was a mere youth. It was an un-
fortunate thing for Galileo to do. He had pledged his
word not to advocate the Copernican theory, which was
already sufficiently established in the opinions of phi-
losophers. The form of the book was even offensive, in
the shape of dialogues. One of them he ridiculed under the
name of Simplicio. This was supposed to mean the
Pope himself,——so they made the Pope believe, and he
was furious. Old Cardinal Bellarmine roared like a
lion. The whole Church, as represented by its dignita-
ries, seemed to be against him. The Pope seized the
old weapons of the Clements and the Gregorians to hurl
upon the daring innovator; but delayed to hurl them,
since he dealt with a giant, covered not only by the
shield of the Medici, but that of Minerva. So he
convened a congregation of cardinals, and submitted
to them the examination of the detested book. The
author was summoned to Rome to appear before the
Inquisition, and answer at its judgement-seat the charges
against him as a heretic. The Tuscan ambassador
expostulated with his Holiness against such a cruel
thing, considering Galileo's age, infirmities, and fame,
——all to no avail. He was obliged to obey the sum-
mons. At the age of seventy this venerated philoso-
pher, infirm, in precarious health, appeared before the
Inquisition of cardinals, not one of whom had any
familiarity with abstruse speculations, or even with
mathematics.
Whether out of regard to his age and infirmities, or
to his great fame and illustrious position as the great-
est philosopher of his day, the cardinals treat Galileo
with unusual indulgence. Though a prisoner of the
Inquisiton, and completely in its hands, with power of
life and death, it would seem that he is allowed every
personal comfort. His table is provided by the Tuscan
ambassador; a servant obeys his slightest nod; he
sleeps in the luxurious apartment of the fiscal of that
dreaded body; he is even liberated on the responsi-
bility of the cardinal; he is permitted to lodge in the
palace of the ambassador; he is allowed time to make
his defence; those holy Inquisitors would not unneces-
sarily harm a hair on his head. Nor was it probably
their object to inflict bodily torments: these would
call out sympathy and degrade the tribunal. It was
enough to threaten these torments, to which they did
not wish to resort except in case of necessity. There
is no evidence that Galileo was personally tortured.
He was indeed a martyr, but not a sufferer except in
humiliated pride. Probably the object of his enemies
was to silence him, to degrade him, to expose his
name to infamy, to arrest the spread of his doctrines,
to bow his old head in shame, to murder his soul, to
make him stab himself, and be his own executioner, by
an act which all posterity should regard as unworthy
of his name and cause.
After a fitting time has elapsed,——four months of
dignified session,——the mind of the Holy Tribunal is
made up. Its judgement is ready. On the 22nd of
June, 1633, the prisoner appears in penitential dress
at the convent of Minerva, and the presiding cardinal,
in his scarlet robes, delivers the sentence of the Court,
——that Galileo, as a warning to others, and by way of
salutary penance, be condemned to the formal prison
of the Holy Office, and be ordered to recite once a
week the seven Penitential Psalms for the benefit of
his should,——apparently a light sentence, only to be
nominally imprisoned a few days, and to repeat those
Psalms which were the life of blessed saints in mediæ-
val times. But this was nothing. He was required to
recant, to abjure the doctrines he had taught; not
in private, but publicly before the world. Will he
recant? Will he subscribe himself an imposter? Will
he abjure the doctrines on which his fame rests? Oh,
tell it not in Gath! The timid, infirm, life-loving old
patriarch of science falls. He is not great enough for
martyrdom. He chooses shame. In an evil hour this
venerable sage falls down upon his knees before the
assembled cardinals, and reads aloud this recantation:
"I, Galileo Galilei, aged seventy, on my knees before
you most reverend lords, and having my eye on the
Holy Gospel, which I do touch with my lips, thus
publish and declare, that I believe, and always have
believed, and always will believe every article which
the Holy Catholic Roman Church holds and teaches.
And as I have written a book in which I have main-
tained that the sun is the centre, which doctrine is re-
pugnant to the Holy Scriptures, I, with sincere heart
and unfeigned faith, do abjure and detest, and curse the
said error and heresy, and all other errors contrary to
said Holy Church, whose penance I solemnly swear to
observe faithfully, and all other penances which have
been or shall be laid upon me."
It would appear from this confession that he did
not declare his doctrines false, only that they were in
opposition to the Scriptures; and it is also said that as
he arose from his knees he whispered to a friend, "It
does move, nevertheless." As some excuse for him, he
acted with the certainty that he would be tortured if
he did not recant; and at the worst he had only
affirmed that his scientific theory was in opposition to
the Scriptures. He had not denied his master, like
Peter; he had not recanted the faith like Cranmer; he
had simply yielded for fear of bodily torments, and
therefore was not sincere in the abjuration which he
made to save his life. Nevertheless, his recantation
was a fall, and in the eyes of the scientific world per-
haps greater than that of Bacon. Galileo was false to
philosophy and himself. Why did he suffer himself to
be conquered by priests and despised? Why did so bold
and witty and proud a man betray his cause? Why
did he not accept the penalty of intellectual freedom,
and die, if he must? What was life to him, dis-
eased, infirm, and old? What had he more to gain?
Was it not a good time to die and consummate his
protests? Only one hundred and fifty years before,
one of his countrymen had accepted torture and death
rather than recant his religious opinions. Why could
not Galileo have been as great in martyrdom as Savon-
arola? He was a renowned philosopher and brilliant
as a man of genius,——but he was a man of the world;
he loved ease and length of days. He could ridicule and
deride opponents,——he could not suffer pain. He had a
great intellect, but not a great soul. There were flaws
in his morality; he was anything but a saint or hero.
He was great in mind, and yet he was far from being
great in character. We pity him, while we exalt him.
Nor is he world harsh to him; it forgives him for his
services. The worst that can be said, is that he was not
willing to suffer ad die for his opinions: and how many
philosophers are there who are willing to be martyrs?
Nevertheless, in the eyes of philosophers he has dis-
graced himself. Let him then return to Florence, to
his own Arceti. He is a silenced man. But he is
silenced, not because he believed with Copernicus, but
because he ridiculed his enemies and confronted the
Church, and in the eyes of blinded partisans had
attacked divine authority. Why did Copernicus escape
persecution? The Church must have known that there
was something in his discoveries, and in those of Gali-
leo, worthy of attention. About this time Pascal
wrote: "It is vain that you have procured the con-
demnation of Galileo. That will never prove the earth
to be at rest. If unerring observation proves that it
turns round, not all mankind together can keep it from
turning, or themselves from turning with it."
But let that persecution pass. It is no worse than
other persecutions, either in Catholic or Protestant
ranks. It is no worse than burning witches. Not
only is intolerance in human nature, but there is a
repugnance among the learned to receive new opinions
when these interfere with their ascendency. The op-
position to Galileo's discoveries was no greater than
that of the Protestant Church, half a century ago, to
some of the inductions of geology. How bitter the
hatred, even in our times, to such men as Huxley and
Darwin! True, they have not proved their theories as
Galileo did; but they gave a great shock as he to the
minds of theologians. all science is progressive, yet
there are thousands who oppose its progress. And if
learning and science should establish a different mean-
ing to certain texts from which theological deductions
are drawn, and these premises be undermined, there
would be the same bitterness among the defenders of
the present system of dogmatic theology. Yet theology
will live, and never lose its dignity and importance;
only, some of its present assumptions may be discarded.
God will never be dethroned from the world he gov-
erns; but some of his ways may appear to be different
from what was once supposed. And all science is not
only progressive, but it appears to be bold and scornful
and proud,——at least, its advocates are and ever have
been contemptuous of all other departments of knowl-
edge but its own. So narrow and limited is the human
mind in the midst of its triumphs. So full of preju-
dices are even the learned and the great.
Let us turn then to give another glance at the fallen
philosopher in his final retreat at Arceti. He lives
under restrictions. But hey allow hi leisure and
choice wines, of which he is fond, and gardens and
friends; and many come to do him reverence. He
amuses his old age with the studies of his youth and
manhood, and writes dialogues on Motion, and even
discovers the phenomena of the moon's libration; and
by means of the pendulum he gives additional impor-
tance to astronomical science. But he is not allowed
to leave his retirement, not even to visit his friends in
Florence. The wrath of the Inquisition still pursues
him, even in his villa at Arceti in the suburbs of
Florence. Then renewed afflictions come. He loses
his daughter, who was devoted to him; and her death
nearly plunges him into despair. The bulwarks of
his heart break down; a flood of grief overwhelms his
stricken soul. His appetite leaves him; his health
forsakes him; his infirmities increase upon him. His
right eye loses its power,——that eye that had seen more
of the heavens than the eyes of all who had gone
before him. He became blind and deaf, and cannot
sleep, afflicted with rheumatic pains and maladies for-
lorn. No more for him is rest, or peace, or bliss; still
less the glories of his brighter days,——the sight of glit-
tering fields, the gems of heaven, without which
"Neither breath of Morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower
Glittering with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
nor grateful evening mild, . . . is sweet."
No more shall he gaze on features that he loves, on
stars, or trees, or hills. No more to him
"Returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, ir herds, or human face divine;
But clouds, instead, and ever-during dark
Surround" [him].
It was in those dreary desolate days at Arceti,
"Unseen
In manly beauty Milton stood before him,
Gazing in reverent awe,——Milton, his guest,
Just then come forth, all life and enterprise;
While he in his old age, . . .
. . . exploring with his staff,
His eyes upturned as to the golden sun,
His eyeballs rolling."
This may have been the punishment of his recanta-
tion,——not Inquisitorial torture, but the consciousness
that he had lost his honor. Poor Galileo! thine illus-
trious visitor, when his affliction came, could cast his
sightless eyeballs inward, and see and tell "things un-
attempted yet in prose or rhyme,"——not
"Rocks, caves, lakes, bogs, fens, and shades of death,
. . . . . . . . .
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds
. . . . . . . . .
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire,"
but of eternal Providence," and "Eden with surpass-
ing glory crowned," and our first parents," and of
"salvation," "goodness infinite," of "wisdom," which
when we know we need no higher though all the stars
we know by name,———
"All secrets of the deep, all Nature's works,
Or works of God in heaven, or air, or sea."
And yet, thou stricken observer of the heavenly
bodies! hadst thou but known what marvels would be
revealed by the power of thy wondrous instrument
after thou should'st be laid lifeless and cold beneath the
marble floor of Santa Croce, at the age of seventy-eight,
without a monument (although blessed on his death-
bed by Pope Urban), having died a prisoner of the
Inquisition, yet not without having rendered to astro-
nomical science services of utmost value,——even thou
might have died rejoicing, as one of the greatest bene-
factors of the world. And thy discoveries shall be
forever held in gratitude; they shall herald others of
even greater importance. Newton shall prove that
the different planets are attracted to the sun in the
inverse ratio of the squares of their distances; that
the earth has a force on the moon identical with the
force of gravity, and that all celestial bodies, to the
utmost boundaries of space, mutually attract each
other; that all particles of matter are governed by
the same law,——the great law of gravitation, by which
"astronomy," in the language of Whewell, "passed
from boyhood to manhood, and by which law the
great discoverer added more to the realm of science
than any man before or since his day." And after
Newton shall pass away, honored and lamented, and
be buried with almost royal pomp in the vaults of
Westminster, Halley and other mathematicians shall
construct lunar tables, by which longitude shall be
accurately measured on the pathless ocean. Lagrange
and Laplace shall apply Newtonian theory to de-
determine the secular inequalities of celestial motion;
they shall weigh absolutely the amount of matter in
the planets; they shall show how far their orbits de-
viate from circles; and they shall enumerate the cycles
of changes detected in the circuit of the moon. Clai-
raut shall remove the perplexity occasioned by the
seeming discrepancy between the observed and com-
puted motions of the moon's perigee. Halley shall
demonstrate the importance of observations of the tran-
sit of Venus as the only certain way of obtaining the
sun's parallax, and hence the distance of the sun from
the earth; he shall predict the return of that myste-
rious body which we call a comet. Herschel shall con-
struct a telescope which magnifies two thousand times,
and add another planet to our system beyond the
mighty orb of Saturn. Römer shall estimate the
velocity of light from the eclipse of Jupiter's satel-
lites. Bessel shall pass the impassable gulf of space
and measure the distance of some of the fixed stars,
although such is the immeasurable space between the
earth and those distant suns that the parallax of only
about thirty has yet been discovered with our finest
instruments,——so boundless is the material universe,
so vast are the distances, that light, travelling one hun-
dred and sixty thousand miles with every pulsation of
the blood, will not reach us from some of those remote
worlds in one hundred thousand years. So marvellous
shall be the victories of science, that the perturbations
of the planets in their courses shall reveal the exist-
ence of a new one more distant than Uranus, and
Leverrier shall tell at what part of the heavens that
star shall first be seen.
So far as we have discovered, the universe which
we have observed with telescopic instruments has no
limits that mortals can define, and in comparison with
its magnitude our earth is less than a grain of sand,
and is so old that no genius can calculate and no imag-
ination can conceive when it had its beginning. All that
we know is, that suns exist at distances we cannot
define. But around what center do they revolve? Of
what are they composed? Are they inhabited by intel-
ligent and immortal beings? Do we know that they
are not eternal, except from the divine declaration that
there was a time when the Almighty fiat went forth
for this grand creation? Creation involves a creator;
and can the order and harmony seen in Nature's laws
exist without supreme intelligence and power? Who,
then, and what, is God? "Canst thou by searching find
out Him? Knowest thou the ordinances of Heaven?
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or
loose the bands of Orion?" What an atom is this world
in the light of science! Yet what dignity has man by
the light of revelation! What majesty and power and
glory has God! What goodness, benevolence, and love,
that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without
His notice,——that we are the special objects of His
providence and care! Is there an imagination so lofty
that will not be oppressed with the discoveries that
even the telescope has made?
Ah, to what exalted heights reason may soar when
allied with faith! How truly it should elevate us
above the evils of this brief and busy existence to
the conditions of that other life,——
"When the soul,
Advancing ever to the Source of light
And all perfection, lives, adores, and reigns
in cloudless knowledge, purity, and bliss!"
AUTHORITIES.
Dekambre, Histoire de l'Astronomie; Arago, Histoire de l'Astronomie;
Life of Galileo, in Cabinet Library; Life of Galileo, by Brewster; Lives of
Galileo, by Italian and Spanish Literary Men; Whewell's History of Inductive
Sciences; Plurality of Worlds; Humboldt's Cosmos; Nichols' Architecture
of the Heavens; Chalmers' Astronomical Discourses; Life of Kepler,
Library of Useful Knowledge; Brewster's Life of Tycho Brahe, of Kepler,
and of Sir Isaac Newton; Mitchell's Stellar and Planetary Worlds; Brad-
ley's Correspondence; Airy's Reports; Voiron's History of Astronomy;
Philosophical Transactions; Everett's Orations of Galileo; Life of Coper-
nicus; Bayly's Astronomy; Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. Astronomy;
Proctor's Lectures.
from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume III, Part II: Renaissance and Reformation, pp. 447 - 463
©1883, by John Lord.
©1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York
Posted May 20, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC
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