1564-1642.
The history of the life and labours of Galileo is pregnant with a
peculiar interest to the general reader, as well as to the philosopher.
His brilliant discoveries, the man of science regards as his peculiar
property; the means by which they were made, and the developement of his
intellectual character, belong to the logician and to the philosopher;
but the triumphs and the reverses of his eventful life must be claimed
for our common nature, as a source of more than ordinary instruction.
The lengthened career which Providence assigned to Galileo was filled up
throughout its rugged outline with events even of dramatic interest. But
though it was emblazoned with achievements of transcendent magnitude,
yet his finest discoveries were the derision of his contemporaries, and
were even denounced as crimes which merited the vengeance of Heaven.
Though he was the idol of his friends, and the favoured companion of
princes, yet he afterwards became the victim of persecution, and spent
some of his last hours within the walls of a prison; and though the
Almighty granted him, as it were, a new sight to descry unknown worlds
in the obscurity of space, yet the eyes which were allowed to witness
such wonders, were themselves doomed to be closed in darkness.