chair (1591), but only to accept a higher position at Padua, on a salary
of one hundred and eighty florins,--not, however, adequate to his
support, so that he was obliged to take pupils in mathematics. To show
the comparative estimate of that age of science, the fact may be
mentioned that the professor of scholastic philosophy in the same
university was paid fourteen hundred florins. This was in 1592; and the
next year Galileo invented the thermometer, still an imperfect
instrument, since air was not perfectly excluded. At this period his
reputation seems to have been established as a brilliant lecturer rather
than as a great discoverer, or even as a great mathematician; for he was
immeasurably behind Kepler, his contemporary, in the power of making
abstruse calculations and numerical combinations. In this respect Kepler
was inferior only to Copernicus, Newton, and Laplace in our times, or
Hipparchus and Ptolemy among the ancients; and it is to him that we owe
the discovery of those great laws of planetary motion from which there
is no appeal, and which have never been rivalled in importance except
those made by Newton himself,--laws which connect the mean distance of
the planets from the sun with the times of their revolutions; laws which
show that the orbits of planets are elliptical, not circular; and that
the areas described by lines drawn from the moving planet to the sun are
proportionable to the times employed in the motion. What an infinity of
calculation, in the infancy of science,--before the invention of
logarithms,--was necessary to arrive at these truths! What fertility of
invention was displayed in all his hypotheses; what patience in working
them out; what magnanimity in discarding those which were not true! What
power of guessing, even to hit upon theories which could be established
by elaborate calculations,--all from the primary thought, the grand
axiom, which Kepler was the first to propose, that there must be some
numerical or geometrical relations among the times, distances, and
velocities of the revolving bodies of the solar system! It would seem
that although his science was deductive, he invoked the aid of induction
also: a great original genius, yet modest like Newton; a man who avoided
hostilities, yet given to the most boundless enthusiasm on the subjects
to which he devoted his life. How intense his raptures! "Nothing holds
me," he writes, on discovering his great laws; "I will indulge in my
sacred fury. I will boast of the golden vessels I have stolen from the
Egyptians. If you forgive me, I rejoice. If you are angry, it is all the
same to me. The die is cast; the book is written,--to be read either
now, or by posterity, I care not which. It may well wait a century for a
reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
We do not see this sublime repose in the attitude of Galileo,--this
falling back on his own conscious greatness, willing to let things take
their natural course; but rather, on the other hand, an impatience under
contradiction, a vehement scorn of adversaries, and an intellectual
arrogance that gave offence, and impeded his career, and injured his
fame. No matter how great a man may be, his intellectual pride is always
offensive; and when united with sarcasm and mockery it will make bitter
enemies, who will pull him down.
Galileo, on his transfer to Padua, began to teach the doctrines of
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 _éclat_, frequently to one thousand persons
(scarcely less than what Abélard 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: _Cynthioe figuras oemulatur 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 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 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."