Copernicus,--a much greater genius than he, and yet one who
provoked no enmities, although he made the greatest revolution in
astronomical knowledge that any man ever made, since he was in no
haste to reveal his discoveries, and stated them in a calm and
inoffensive way. I doubt if new discoverers in science meet with
serious opposition when men themselves are not attacked, and they
are made to appeal to calm intelligence, and war is not made on
those Scripture texts which seem to controvert them. Even
theologians receive science when science is not made to undermine
theological declarations, and when the divorce of science from
revelation, reason from faith, as two distinct realms, is
vigorously insisted upon. Pascal incurred no hostilities for his
scientific investigations, nor Newton, nor Laplace. It is only
when scientific men sneer at the Bible because its declarations
cannot always be harmonized with science that the hostilities of
theologians are provoked. And it is only when theologians deny
scientific discoveries that seem to conflict with texts of
Scripture, that opposition arises among scientific men. It would
seem that the doctrines of Copernicus were offensive to churchmen
on this narrow ground. It was hard to believe that the earth
revolved around the sun, when the opinions of the learned for two
thousand years were unanimous that the sun revolved around the
earth. Had both theologian and scientist let the Bible alone,
there would not have been a bitter war between them. But
scientists were accused by theologians of undermining the Bible;
and the theologians were accused of stupid obstinacy, and were
mercilessly exposed to ridicule.
That was the great error of Galileo. He made fun and sport of the
theologians, as Samson did of the Philistines; and the Philistines
of Galileo's day cut off his locks and put out his eyes when the
Pope put him into their power,--those Dominican inquisitors who
made a crusade against human thought. If Galileo had shown more
tact and less arrogance, possibly those Dominican doctors might
have joined the chorus of universal praise; for they were learned
men, although devoted to a bad system, and incapable of seeing
truth when their old authorities were ridiculed and set at nought.
Galileo did not deny the Scriptures, but his spirit was mocking;
and he seemed to prejudiced people to undermine the truths which
were felt to be vital for the preservation of faith in the world.
And as some scientific truths seemed to be adverse to Scripture
declarations, the transition was easy to a denial of the
inspiration which was claimed by nearly all Christian sects, both
Catholic and Protestant.
The intolerance of the Church in every age has driven many
scientists into infidelity; for it cannot be doubted that the
tendency of scientific investigation has been to make scientific
men incredulous of divine inspiration, and hence to undermine their
faith in dogmas which good men have ever received, and which are
supported by evidence that is not merely probable but almost
certain. And all now that seems wanting to harmonize science with
revelation is, on the one hand, the re-examination of the Scripture
texts on which are based the principia from which deductions are
made, and which we call theology; and, on the other hand, the
rejection of indefensible statements which are at war with both
science and consciousness, except in those matters which claim
special supernatural agency, which we can neither prove nor
disprove by reason; for supernaturalism claims to transcend the
realm of reason altogether in what relates to the government of
God,--ways that no searching will ever enable us to find out with
our limited faculties and obscured understanding. When the two
realms of reason and faith are kept distinct, and neither
encroaches on the other, then the discoveries and claims of science
will meet with but little opposition from theologians, and they
will be left to be sifted by men who alone are capable of the task.
Thus far science, outside of pure mathematics, is made up of
theories which are greatly modified by advancing knowledge, so that
they cannot claim in all respects to be eternally established, like
the laws of Kepler and the discoveries of Copernicus,--the latter
of which were only true in the main fact that the earth revolves
around the sun. But even he retained epicycles and excentrics, and
could not explain the unequal orbits of planetary motion. In fact
he retained many of the errors of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Much,
too, as we are inclined to ridicule the astronomy of the ancients
because they made the earth the centre, we should remember that
they also resolved the orbits of the heavenly bodies into circular
motions, discovered the precession of the equinoxes, and knew also
the apparent motions of the planets and their periods. They could
predict eclipses of the sun and moon, and knew that the orbit of
the sun and planets was through a belt in the heavens, of a few
degrees in width, which they called the Zodiac. They did not know,
indeed, the difference between real and apparent motion, nor the
distance of the sun and stars, nor their relative size and weight,
nor the laws of motion, nor the principles of gravitation, nor the
nature of the Milky Way, nor the existence of nebulae, nor any of
the wonders which the telescope reveals; but in the severity of
their mathematical calculations they were quite equal to modern
astronomers.
If Copernicus revolutionized astronomy by proving the sun to be the
centre of motion to our planetary system, Galileo gave it an
immense impulse by his discoveries with the telescope. These did
not require such marvellous mathematical powers as made Kepler and
Newton immortal,--the equals of Ptolemy and Hipparchus in
mathematical demonstration--but only accuracy and perseverance in
observations. Doubtless he was a great mathematician, but his fame
rests on his observations and the deductions he made from them.
These were more easily comprehended, and had an objective value
which made him popular: and for these discoveries he was indebted
in a great measure to the labors of others,--it was mechanical
invention applied to the advancement of science. The utilization
of science was reserved to our times; and it is this utilization
which makes science such a handmaid to the enrichment of its
votaries, and holds it up to worship in our laboratories and
schools of technology and mines, not merely for itself, but also
for the substantial fruit it yields.
It was when Galileo was writing treatises on the Structure of the
Universe, on Local Motion, on Sound, on Continuous Quantity, on
Light, on Colors, on the Tides, on Dialing,--subjects that also
interested Lord Bacon at the same period,--and when he was giving
lectures on these subjects with immense eclat, frequently to one
thousand persons (scarcely less than what Abelard enjoyed when he
made fun of the more conservative schoolmen with whom he was
brought in contact), that he heard, while on a visit to Venice,
that a Dutch spectacle-maker had invented an instrument which was
said to represent distant objects nearer than they usually
appeared. This was in 1609, when he, at the age of fifty-five, was
the idol of scientific men, and was in the enjoyment of an ample
revenue, giving only sixty half-hours in the year to lectures, and
allowed time to prosecute his studies in that "sweet solitariness"
which all true scholars prize, and without which few great
attainments are made. The rumor of the invention excited in his
mind the intensest interest. He sought for the explanation of the
fact in the doctrine of refraction. He meditated day and night.
At last he himself constructed an instrument,--a leaden organ pipe
with two spectacle glasses, both plain on one side, while one of
them had its opposite side convex, and the other its second side
concave.
This crude little instrument, which magnified but three times, he
carries in triumph back to Venice. It is regarded as a scientific
toy, yet everybody wishes to see an instrument by which the human
eye indefinitely multiplies its power. The Doge is delighted, and
the Senate is anxious to secure so great a curiosity. He makes a
present of it to the Senate, after he has spent a month in showing
it round to the principal people of that wealthy city; and he is
rewarded for his ingenuity with an increase of his salary, at
Padua, to one thousand florins, and is made professor for life.
He now only thinks of making discoveries in the heavens; but his
instrument is too small. He makes another and larger telescope,
which magnifies eight times, and then another which magnifies
thirty times; and points it to the moon. And how indescribable his
satisfaction, for he sees what no mortal had ever before seen,--
ranges of mountains, deep hollows, and various inequalities! These
discoveries, it would seem, are not favorably received by the
Aristotelians; however, he continues his labors, and points his
telescope to the planets and fixed stars,--but the magnitude of the
latter remain the same, while the planets appear with disks like
the moon. Then he directs his observations to the Pleiades, and
counts forty stars in the cluster, when only six were visible to
the naked eye; in the Milky Way he descries crowds of minute stars.
Having now reached the limit of discovery with his present
instrument, he makes another of still greater power, and points it
to the planet Jupiter. On the 7th of January, 1610, he observes
three little stars near the body of the planet, all in a straight
line and parallel to the ecliptic, two on the east and one on the
west of Jupiter. On the next observation he finds that they have
changed places, and are all on the west of Jupiter; and the next
time he observes them they have changed again. He also discovers
that there are four of these little stars revolving round the
planet. What is the explanation of this singular phenomenon? They
cannot be fixed stars, or planets; they must then be moons.
Jupiter is attended with satellites like the earth, but has four
instead of one! The importance of this last discovery was of
supreme value, for it confirmed the heliocentric theory. Old
Kepler is filled with agitations of joy; all the friends of Galileo
extol his genius; his fame spreads far and near; he is regarded as
the ablest scientific man in Europe.
His enemies are now dismayed and perplexed. The principal
professor of philosophy at Padua would not even look through the
wonderful instrument. Sissi of Florence ridicules the discovery.
"As," said he, "there are only seven apertures of the head,--two
eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth,--and as there are only
seven days in the week and seven metals, how can there be seven
planets?"
But science, discarded by the schools, fortunately finds a refuge
among princes. Cosimo de' Medici prefers the testimony of his
senses to the voice of authority. He observes the new satellites
with Galileo at Pisa, makes him a present of one thousand florins,
and gives him a mere nominal office,--that of lecturing
occasionally to princes, on a salary of one thousand florins for
life. He is now the chosen companion of the great, and the
admiration of Italy. He has rendered an immense service to
astronomy. "His discovery of the satellites of Jupiter," says
Herschel, "gave the holding turn to the opinion of mankind
respecting the Copernican system, and pointed out a connection
between speculative astronomy and practical utility."
But this did not complete the catalogue of his discoveries. In
1610 he perceived that Saturn appeared to be triple, and excited
the curiosity of astronomers by the publication of his first
"Enigma," Altissimam planetam tergeminam observavi. He could not
then perceive the rings; the planet seemed through his telescope to
have the form of three concentric O's. Soon after, in examining
Venus, he saw her in the form of a crescent: Cynthiae figuras
aemulatur mater amorum, "Venus rivals the phases of the moon."
At last he discovers the spots upon the sun's disk, and that they
all revolve with the sun, and therefore that the sun has a
revolution in about twenty-eight days, and may be moving on in a
larger circle, with all its attendant planets, around some distant
centre.
Galileo has now attained the highest object of his ambition. He is
at the head, confessedly, of all the scientific 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 another in
bestowing upon him attention and honors.
But there is no height of fortune from which a man may not fall;
and it is usually the proud, the ostentatious, and the contemptuous
who do fall, since they create envy, and are apt to make social
mistakes. Galileo continued to exasperate his enemies by his
arrogance and sarcasms. "They refused to be dragged at his
chariot-wheels." "The Aristotelian professors," says Brewster,
"the temporizing Jesuits, the political churchmen, and that timid
but respectable body who at all times dread innovation, whether it
be in legislation or science, entered into an alliance against the
philosophical 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 of the schools and the
popular interpretation of Scripture, and backed by the civil power,
they were eager for war. Galileo wrote a letter to his friend the
Abbe 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 of 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
Scripture 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 politic or wise; and he was not called upon to
harmonize Scripture with science.
So his enemies busily employed themselves in collecting 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 before 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 Galileo should renounce his obnoxious
doctrines, and pledge himself neither to defend nor publish them in
future. And Galileo accordingly, in dread of prison, appeared
before Cardinal Bellarmine and declared that he would renounce the
doctrines he had defended. This cardinal was not an ignorant man.
He was the greatest theologian of the Catholic Church; but his
bitterness and rancor 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 became 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," writes 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 comparatively quiet for a while,
amusing himself with mechanics, 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 observing 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 obstacles 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 unfortunate
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 philosophers. The form of the book was even
offensive, in the shape of dialogues, where some of the chief
speakers were his enemies. 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
dignitaries, seemed to be against him. The Pope seized the old
weapons of the Clements and the Gregories 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 judgment-
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 summons. At the age of seventy this
venerated philosopher, 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 greatest philosopher of his
day, the cardinals treat Galileo with unusual indulgence. Though a
prisoner of the Inquisition, 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 responsibility of a 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 unnecessarily harm a hair
of 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 judgment
is ready. On the 22d 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 soul,--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 mediaeval 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 maintained that the
sun is the centre, which doctrine is repugnant 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 perhaps greater
than that of Bacon. Galileo was false to philosophy and himself.
Why did he suffer himself to be conquered by priests he 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
die he must? What was life to him, diseased, 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 religions opinions. Why could not Galileo have been as
great in martyrdom as Savonarola? 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 the world harsh to him; it forgives him for his
services. The worst that can be said, is that he was not willing
to suffer and die for his opinions: and how many philosophers are
there who are willing to be martyrs?