_Galileo treats his opponents with severity and sarcasm--He is
aided by the sceptics of the day--The Church party the most
powerful--Galileo commences the attack, and is answered by Caccini,
a Dominican--Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, in
support of the motion of the Earth and the stability of the Sun---
Galileo visits Rome--Is summoned before the Inquisition, and
renounces his opinions as heretical--The Inquisition denounces the
Copernican System--Galileo has an audience of the Pope, but still
maintains his opinions in private society--Proposes to find out the
Longitude at Sea by means of Jupiter's Satellites--His negociation
on this subject with the Court of Spain--Its failure--He is unable
to observe the three Comets of 1618, but is involved in the
controversy to which they gave rise._
The current of Galileo's life had hitherto flowed in a smooth and
unobstructed channel. He had now attained the highest objects of earthly
ambition. His discoveries had placed him at the head of the great men of
the age; he possessed a professional income far beyond his wants, and
even beyond his anticipations; and, what is still dearer to a
philosopher, he enjoyed the most perfect leisure for carrying on and
completing his discoveries. The opposition which these discoveries
encountered, was to him more a subject for triumph than for sorrow.
Prejudice and ignorance were his only enemies; and if they succeeded for
a while in harassing his march, it was only to lay a foundation for
fresh achievements. He who contends for truths which he has himself been
permitted to discover, may well sustain the conflict in which
presumption and error are destined to fall. The public tribunal may
neither be sufficiently pure nor enlightened to decide upon the issue;
but he can appeal to posterity, and reckon with confidence on "its sure
decree."
The ardour of Galileo's mind, the keenness of his temper, his clear
perception of truth, and his inextinguishable love of it, combined to
exasperate and prolong the hostility of his enemies. When argument
failed to enlighten their judgment, and reason to dispel their
prejudices, he wielded against them his powerful weapons of ridicule
and sarcasm; and in this unrelenting warfare, he seems to have forgotten
that Providence had withheld from his enemies those very gifts which he
had so liberally received. He who is allowed to take the start of his
species, and to penetrate the veil which conceals from common minds the
mysteries of nature, must not expect that the world will be patiently
dragged at the chariot wheels of his philosophy. Mind has its inertia as
well as matter; and its progress to truth can only be insured by the
gradual and patient removal of the obstructions which surround it.
The boldness--may we not say the recklessness--with which Galileo
insisted upon making proselytes of his enemies, served but to alienate
them from the truth. Errors thus assailed speedily entrench themselves
in general feelings, and become embalmed in the virulence of the
passions. The various classes of his opponents marshalled themselves for
their mutual defence. The Aristotelian professors, the temporising
Jesuits, the political churchmen, and that timid but respectable body
who at all times dread innovation, whether it be in religion or in
science, entered into an alliance against the philosophical tyrant who
threatened them with the penalties of knowledge.
The party of Galileo, though weak in numbers, was not without power and
influence. He had trained around him a devoted band, who idolised his
genius and cherished his doctrines. His pupils had been appointed to
several of the principal professorships in Italy. The enemies of
religion were on this occasion united with the Christian philosopher;
and there were, even in these days, many princes and nobles who had felt
the inconvenience of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and who secretly
abetted Galileo in his crusade against established errors.
Although these two parties had been long dreading each others power, and
reconnoitring each others position, yet we cannot exactly determine
which of them hoisted the first signal for war. The church party,
particularly its highest dignitaries, were certainly disposed to rest on
the defensive. Flanked on one side by the logic of the schools, and on
the other by the popular interpretation of Scripture, and backed by the
strong arm of the civil power, they were not disposed to interfere with
the prosecution of science, however much they may have dreaded its
influence. The philosophers, on the contrary, united the zeal of
innovators with that firmness of purpose which truth alone can inspire.
Victorious in every contest, they were flushed with success, and they
panted for a struggle in which they knew they must triumph.
In this state of warlike preparation Galileo addressed a letter, in
1613, to his friend and pupil, the Abbe Castelli, the object of which
was to prove that the Scriptures were not intended to teach us science
and philosophy. Hence he inferred, that the language employed in the
sacred volume in reference to such subjects should be interpreted only
in its common acceptation; and that it was in reality as difficult to
reconcile the Ptolemaic as the Copernican system to the expressions
which occur in the Bible.
A demonstration was about this time made by the opposite party, in the
person of Caccini, a Dominican friar, who made a personal attack upon
Galileo from the pulpit. This violent ecclesiastic ridiculed the
astronomer and his followers, by addressing them sarcastically in the
sacred language of Scripture--"Ye men of _Galilee_, why stand ye here
looking up into heaven?" But this species of warfare was disapproved of
even by the church; and Luigi Maraffi, the general of the Dominicans,
not only apologised to Galileo, who had transmitted to him a formal
complaint against Caccini, but expressed the acuteness of his own
feelings on being implicated in the "brutal conduct of thirty or forty
thousand monks."
From the character of Caccini, and the part which he afterwards played
in the persecution of Galileo, we can scarcely avoid the opinion that
his attack from the pulpit was intended as a snare for the unwary
philosopher. It roused Galileo from his wonted caution; and stimulated,
no doubt, by the nature of the answer which he received from Maraffi, he
published a long letter of seventy pages, defending and illustrating his
former views respecting the influence of scriptural language on the two
contending systems. As if to give the impress of royal authority to this
new appeal, he addressed it to Christian, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, the
mother of Cosmo; and in this form it seems to have excited a new
interest, as if it had expressed the opinion of the grand ducal family.
These external circumstances gave additional weight to the powerful and
unanswerable reasoning which this letter contains; and it was scarcely
possible that any man, possessed of a sound mind, and willing to learn
the truth, should refuse his assent to the judicious views of our
author. He expresses his belief that the Scriptures were designed to
instruct mankind respecting their salvation, and that the faculties of
our minds were given us for the purpose of investigating the phenomena
of nature. He considers Scripture and nature as proceeding from the same
divine author, and, therefore, incapable of speaking a different
language; and he points out the absurdity of supposing that professors
of astronomy will shut their eyes to the phenomena which they discover
in the heavens, or will refuse to believe those deductions of reason
which appeal to their judgment with all the power of demonstration. He
supports these views by quotations from the ancient fathers; and he
refers to the dedication of Copernicus's own work to the Roman Pontiff,
Paul III., as a proof that the Pope himself did not regard the new
system of the world as hostile to the sacred writings. Copernicus, on
the contrary, tells his Holiness, that the reason of inscribing to him
his new system was, that the authority of the Pontiff might put to
silence the calumnies of some individuals, who attacked it by arguments
drawn from passages of Scripture twisted for their own purpose.
It was in vain to meet such reasoning by any other weapons than those of
the civil power. The enemies of Galileo saw that they must either crush
the dangerous innovation, or allow it the fullest scope; and they
determined upon an appeal to the inquisition. Lorini, a monk of the
Dominican order, had already denounced to this body Galileo's letter to
Castelli; and Caccini, bribed by the mastership of the convent of St
Mary of Minerva, was invited to settle at Rome for the purpose of
embodying the evidence against Galileo.
Though these plans had been carried on in secret, yet Galileo's
suspicions were excited; and he obtained leave from Cosmo to go to Rome
about the end of 1615.[29] Here he was lodged in the palace of the
Grand Duke's ambassador, and kept up a constant correspondence with the
family of his patron at Florence; but, in the midst of this external
splendour, he was summoned before the inquisition to answer for the
heretical doctrines which he had published. He was charged with
maintaining the motion of the earth, and the stability of the sun--with
teaching this doctrine to his pupils--with corresponding on the subject
with several German mathematicians--and with having published it, and
attempted to reconcile it to Scripture, in his letters to Mark Velser in
1612. The inquisition assembled to consider these charges on the 25th of
February 1615; and it was decreed that Galileo should be enjoined by
Cardinal Bellarmine to renounce the obnoxious doctrines, and to pledge
himself that he would neither teach, defend, nor publish them in future.
In the event of his refusing to acquiesce in this sentence, it was
decreed that he should be thrown into prison. Galileo did not hesitate
to yield to this injunction. On the day following, the 26th of February,
he appeared before Cardinal Bellarmine, to renounce his heretical
opinions; and, having declared that he abandoned the doctrine of the
earth's motion, and would neither defend nor teach it, in his
conversation or in his writings, he was dismissed from the bar of the
inquisition.
[29] It is said that Galileo was cited to appear at Rome on this
occasion; and the opinion is not without foundation.
Having thus disposed of Galileo, the inquisition conceived the design of
condemning the whole system of Copernicus as heretical. Galileo, with
more hardihood than prudence, remained at Rome for the purpose of giving
his assistance in frustrating this plan; but there is reason to think
that he injured by his presence the very cause which he meant to
support. The inquisitors had determined to put down the new opinions;
and they now inserted among the prohibited books Galileo's letters to
Castelli and the Grand Duchess, Kepler's epitome of the Copernican
theory, and Copernicus's own work on the revolutions of the heavenly
bodies.
Notwithstanding these proceedings, Galileo had an audience of the Pope,
Paul V., in March 1616. He was received very graciously, and spent
nearly an hour with his Holiness. When they were about to part, the Pope
assured Galileo, that the congregation were not disposed to receive upon
light grounds any calumnies which might be propagated by his enemies,
and that, as long as he occupied the papal chair, he might consider
himself as safe.
These assurances were no doubt founded on the belief that Galileo would
adhere to his pledges; but so bold and inconsiderate was he in the
expression of his opinions, that even in Rome he was continually engaged
in controversial discussions. The following very interesting account of
these disputes is given by Querenghi, in a letter to the Cardinal
D'Este:--
"Your eminence would be delighted with Galileo if you heard him holding
forth, as he often does, in the midst of fifteen or twenty, all
violently attacking him, sometimes in one house, sometimes in another.
But he is armed after such fashion that he laughs all of them to scorn;
and even if the novelty of his opinions prevents entire persuasion, he
at least convicts of emptiness most of the arguments with which his
adversaries endeavour to overwhelm him. He was particularly admirable on
Monday last in the house of Signor Frederico Ghisilieri; and what
especially pleased me was, that before replying to the contrary
arguments, he amplified and enforced them with new grounds of great
plausibility, so as to leave his adversaries in a more ridiculous
plight, when he afterwards overturned them all."
The discovery of Jupiter's satellites suggested to Galileo a new method
of finding the longitude at sea. Philip III. had encouraged astronomers
to direct their attention to this problem, by offering a reward for its
solution; and in those days, when new discoveries in science were
sometimes rejected as injurious to mankind, it was no common event to
see a powerful sovereign courting the assistance of astronomers in
promoting the commercial interests of his empire. Galileo seems to have
regarded the solution of this problem as an object worthy of his
ambition; and he no doubt anticipated the triumph which he would obtain
over his enemies, if the Medicean stars, which they had treated with
such contempt, could be made subservient to the great interests of
mankind. During his residence at Rome in 1615 and 1616, Galileo had
communicated his views on this subject to the Comte di Lemos, the
Viceroy of Naples, who had presided over the council of the Spanish
Indies. This nobleman advised him to apply to the Spanish minister the
Duke of Lerma; and, through the influence of the Grand Duke Cosmo, his
ambassador at the court of Madrid was engaged to manage the affair. The
anxiety of Galileo on this subject was singularly great. He assured the
Tuscan ambassador that, in order to accomplish this object, "he was
ready to leave all his comforts, his country, his friends, and his
family, to cross over into Spain, and to stay as long as he might be
wanted at Seville or at Lisbon, or wherever it might be convenient to
communicate a knowledge of his method." The lethargy of the Spanish
court seems to have increased with the enthusiasm of Galileo; and though
the negotiations were occasionally revived for ten or twelve years, yet
no steps were taken to bring them to a close. This strange
procrastination has been generally ascribed to jealousy or indifference
on the part of Spain; but Nelli, one of Galileo's biographers, declares,
on the authority of Florentine records, that Cosmo had privately
requested from the government the privilege of sending annually to the
Spanish Indies two Leghorn merchantmen free of duty, as a compensation
for the loss of Galileo!
The failure of this negotiation must have been a source of extreme
mortification to the high spirit and sanguine temperament of Galileo.
He had calculated, however, too securely on his means of putting the new
method to a successful trial. The great imperfection of the time-keepers
of that day, and the want of proper telescopes, would have baffled him
in all his efforts, and he would have been subject to a more serious
mortification from the failure and rejection of his plan, than that
which he actually experienced from the avarice of his patron, or the
indifference of Spain. Even in the present day, no telescope has been
invented which is capable of observing at sea the eclipses of Jupiter's
satellites; and though this method of finding the longitude has great
advantages on shore, yet it has been completely abandoned at sea, and
superseded by easier and more correct methods.
In the year 1618, when no fewer than _three_ comets visited our system,
and attracted the attention of all the astronomers of Europe, Galileo
was unfortunately confined to his bed by a severe illness; but, though
he was unable to make a single observation upon these remarkable bodies,
he contrived to involve himself in the controversies which they
occasioned. Marco Guiducci, an astronomer of Florence, and a friend of
Galileo, had delivered a discourse on comets before the Florentine
Academy. The heads of this discourse, which was published in 1619,[30]
were supposed to have been communicated to him by Galileo, and this
seems to have been universally admitted during the controversy to which
it gave rise. The opinion maintained in this treatise, that comets are
nothing but meteors which occasionally appear in our atmosphere, like
halos and rainbows, savours so little of the sagacity of Galileo that we
should be disposed to question its paternity. His inability to partake
in the general interest which these three comets excited, and to employ
his powerful telescope in observing their phenomena, and their
movements, might have had some slight share in the formation of an
opinion which deprived them of their importance as celestial bodies.
But, however this may have been, the treatise of Guiducci afforded a
favourable point of attack to Galileo's enemies, and the dangerous task
was entrusted to Horatio Grassi, a learned Jesuit, who, in a work
entitled _The Astronomical and Philosophical Balance_, criticised the
discourse on comets, under the feigned name of Lotario Sarsi.
[30] Discorso delle Comete. Printed in the Opere di Galileo, vol.
vi., pp. 117-191.
Galileo replied to this attack in a volume entitled _Il Saggiatore_, or
_The Assayer_, which, owing to the state of his health, was not
published till the autumn of 1623.[31] This work was written in the form
of a letter to Virginio Cesarini, a member of the Lyncaean Academy, and
master of the chamber to Urban VIII., who had just ascended the papal
throne. It was dedicated to the Pontiff himself, and has been long
celebrated among literary men for the beauty of its language, though it
is doubtless one of the least important of Galileo's writings.
[31] Printed in the Opere di Galileo, vol. vi., pp. 191-571.