SIR OLIVER LODGE
From Socrates to Galileo, as from the Church's early martyrs to its latest victims, runs the same story of conflict between the free human spirit and the repressive environment of custom acting through personal will or through constituted power.
When in 1633 Galileo, standing before the Inquisition at Rome, denied his own great work and swore that earth stood still, science staggered under the heavy blow. Galileo was being punished, not directly for the great astronomical discoveries he had made with his telescope, but for asserting that they proved, or that he believed in, the Copernican system. This declared that the earth moved, while the churchmen had interpreted the Bible to mean that it did not.
Thus science, threatened in the person of its greatest leader, terrified by his sufferings, no longer dared proclaim the thing it saw. Descartes and many another thinker, though throbbing with the eagerness of the new dawning light, hushed their voices, hid their views. They were philosophers, not martyrs. What this newly roused vigor of thought might have accomplished except for the repressive hand of the Church we cannot tell. As it was, the supremacy of intellect passed away from Catholic Italy, turned from the South to the North, from Galileo to Newton and Leibnitz. The forced recantation of the great astronomer thus stands out as one of the events which have changed the course of destiny.
In 1615 Pope Paul V wrote requesting Galileo to come to Rome to explain his views. He went, was well received, made a special friend of Cardinal Barberino—an accomplished man in high position, who became, in fact, the next Pope. Galileo showed cardinals and others his telescope, and to as many as would look through it he showed Jupiter's satellites and his other discoveries. He had a most successful visit. He talked, he harangued, he held forth in the midst of fifteen or twenty disputants at once, confounding his opponents and putting them to shame.
His method was to let the opposite arguments be stated as fully and completely as possible, himself aiding, and often adducing, the most forcible and plausible arguments against his own views; and then, all having been well stated, he would proceed to utterly undermine and demolish the whole fabric, and bring out the truth in such a way as to convince all honest minds. It was this habit that made him such a formidable antagonist. He never shrank from meeting an opposing argument, never sought to ignore it or cloak it in a cloud of words. Every hostile argument he seemed to delight in, as a foe to be crushed, and the better and stronger they sounded the more he liked them. He knew many of them well, he invented a number more, and, had he chosen, could have out-argued the stoutest Aristotelian on his own grounds. Thus did he lead his adversaries on, almost like Socrates, only to ultimately overwhelm them in a more hopeless rout. All this in Rome, too, in the heart of the Catholic world. Had he been worldly-wise, he would certainly have kept silent and unobtrusive till he had leave to go away again. But he felt like an apostle of the new doctrines, whose mission it was to proclaim them even in this centre of the world and of the Church.
Well, he had an audience with the Pope—a chat an hour long—and the two parted good friends, mutually pleased with each other.
He writes that he is all right now, and might return home when he liked. But the question began to be agitated whether the whole system of Copernicus ought not to be condemned as impious and heretical. This view was persistently urged upon the Pope and college of cardinals, and it was soon to be decided upon.
Had Galileo been unfaithful to the Church he could have left them to stultify themselves in any way they thought proper, and himself had gone; but he felt supremely interested in the result, and he stayed. He writes:
"So far as concerns the clearing of my own character, I might return home immediately; but although this new question regards me no more than all those who for the last eighty years have supported those opinions both in public and private, yet, as perhaps I may be of some assistance in that part of the discussion which depends on the knowledge of truths ascertained by means of the sciences which I profess, I, as a zealous and Catholic Christian, neither can nor ought to withhold that assistance which my knowledge affords, and this business keeps me sufficiently employed."
It is possible that his stay was the worst thing for the cause he had at heart. Anyhow, the result was that the system was condemned, and both the book of Copernicus and the epitome of it by Kepler were placed on the forbidden list,[33] and Galileo himself was formally ordered never to teach or to believe the motion of the earth.
He quitted Rome in disgust, which before long broke out in satire. The only way in which he could safely speak of these views now was as if they were hypothetical and uncertain, and so we find him writing to the Archduke Leopold, with a presentation copy of his book on the tides, the following:
"This theory occurred to me when in Rome while the theologians were debating on the prohibition of Copernicus' book, and of the opinion maintained in it of the motion of the earth, which I at that time believed: until it pleased those gentlemen to suspend the book, and declare the opinion false and repugnant to the Holy Scriptures. Now, as I know how well it becomes me to obey and believe the decisions of my superiors, which proceed out of more knowledge than the weakness of my intellect can attain to, this theory which I send you, which is founded on the motion of the earth, I now look upon as a fiction and a dream, and beg your highness to receive it as such. But as poets often learn to prize the creations of their fancy, so in like manner do I set some value on this absurdity of mine. It is true that when I sketched this little work I did hope that Copernicus would not, after eighty years, be convicted of error; and I had intended to develop and amplify it further, but a voice from heaven suddenly awakened me, and at once annihilated all my confused and entangled fancies."
This sarcasm, if it had been in print, would probably have been dangerous. It was safe in a private letter, but it shows us his real feelings. However, he was left comparatively quiet for a time. He was getting an old man now, and passed the time studiously enough, partly at his house in Florence, partly at his villa in Arcetri, a mile or so out of the town.
Here was a convent, and in it his two daughters were nuns. One of them, who passed under the name of Sister Maria Celeste, seems to have been a woman of considerable capacity—certainly she was of a most affectionate disposition—and loved and honored her father in the most dutiful way.
This was a quiet period of his life, spoiled only by occasional fits of illness and severe rheumatic pains, to which the old man was always liable. Many little circumstances are known of this peaceful time. For instance, the convent clock won't go, and Galileo mends it for them. He is always doing little things for them, and sending presents to the lady superior and his two daughters.
He was occupied now with problems in hydrostatics and on other matters unconnected with astronomy: a large piece of work which I must pass over. Most interesting and acute it is, however.
In 1623, when the old Pope died, there was elected to the papal throne, as Urban VIII, Cardinal Barberino, a man of very considerable enlightenment, and a personal friend of Galileo's, so that both he and his daughters rejoice greatly, and hope that things will come all right, and the forbidding edict be withdrawn.
The year after this election he manages to make another journey to Rome to compliment his friend on his elevation to the pontifical chair. He had many talks with Urban, and made himself very agreeable.
Encouraged, doubtless, by marks of approbation, and reposing too much confidence in the individual good-will of the Pope, without heeding the crowd of half-declared enemies who were seeking to undermine his reputation, he set about, after his return to Florence, his greatest literary and most popular work, Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems. This purports to be a series of four conversations between three characters. Salviati, a Copernican philosopher; Sagredo, a wit and scholar, not specially learned, but keen and critical, and who lightens the talk with chaff; Simplicio, an Aristotelian philosopher, who propounds the stock absurdities which served instead of arguments to the majority of men.
The Aristotelians were furious, and represented to the Pope that he himself was the character intended by Simplicio, the philosopher whose opinions get alternately refuted and ridiculed by the other two, till he is reduced to an abject state of impotence.
The infirm old man was instantly summoned to Rome. His friends pleaded his age—he was now seventy—his ill-health, the time of year, the state of the roads, the quarantine existing on account of the plague. It was all of no avail; to Rome he must go, and on February 14th he arrived.
His daughter at Arcetri was in despair; and anxiety and fastings and penances self-inflicted on his account dangerously reduced her health.
At Rome he was not imprisoned, but he was told to keep indoors and show himself as little as possible. He was allowed, however, to stay at the house of the Tuscan ambassador instead of in jail.
By April he was removed to the chambers of the Inquisition and examined several times. Here, however, the anxiety was too much, and his health began to give way seriously; so, before long, he was allowed to return to the ambassador's house; and, after application had been made, was allowed to drive in the public garden in a half-closed carriage. Thus in every way the Inquisition dealt with him as leniently as they could. He was now their prisoner, and they might have cast him into their dungeons, as many another had been cast. By whatever they were influenced—perhaps the Pope's old friendship, perhaps his advanced age and infirmities—he was not so cruelly used.
Still, they had their rules; he must be made to recant and abjure his heresy; and, if necessary, torture must be applied. This he knew well enough, and his daughter knew it, and her distress may be imagined. Moreover, it is not as if they had really been heretics, as if they hated or despised the Church of Rome. On the contrary, they loved and honored the Church. They were sincere and devout worshippers, and only on a few scientific matters did Galileo presume to differ from his ecclesiastical superiors: his disagreement with them occasioned him real sorrow; and his dearest hope was that they could be brought to his way of thinking and embrace the truth.
This condition of things could not go on. From February to June the suspense lasted. On June 20th he was summoned again, and told he would be wanted all next day for a rigorous examination. Early in the morning of the 21st he repaired thither, and the doors were shut. Out of those chambers of horror he did not reappear till the 24th. What went on all those three days no one knows. He himself was bound to secrecy. No outsider was present. The records of the Inquisition are jealously guarded. That he was technically tortured is certain; that he actually underwent the torment of the rack is doubtful. Much learning has been expended upon the question, especially in Germany. Several eminent scholars have held the fact of actual torture to be indisputable—geometrically certain, one says—and they confirm it by the hernia from which he afterward suffered, this being a well-known and frequent consequence.
Other equally learned commentators, however, deny that the last stage was reached. For there are five stages all laid down in the rules of the Inquisition, and steadily adhered to in a rigorous examination, at each stage an opportunity being given for recantation, every utterance, groan, or sigh being strictly recorded. The recantation so given has to be confirmed a day or two later, under pain of a precisely similar ordeal.
The five stages are: (1) The official threat in the court; (2) the taking to the door of the torture-chamber and renewing the official threat; (3) the taking inside and showing the instruments; (4) undressing and binding upon the rack; (5) territio realis. Through how many of these ghastly acts Galileo passed I do not know. I hope and believe not the last.
There are those who lament that he did not hold out, and accept the crown of martyrdom thus offered to him. Had he done so we know his fate—a few years' languishing in the dungeons, and then the flames. Whatever he ought to have done, he did not hold out—he gave way. At one stage or another of the dread ordeal he said: "I am in your hands. I will say whatever you wish." Then was he removed to a cell while his special form of perjury was drawn up.
The next day, clothed as a penitent, the venerable old man was taken to the convent of Minerva, where the cardinals and prelates were assembled for the purpose of passing judgment upon him.
The judgment sentences him: (1) To the abjuration, (2) to formal imprisonment for life, (3) to recite the seven penitential psalms every week.
Ten cardinals were present; but, to their honor, be it said, three refused to sign; and this blasphemous record of intolerance and bigoted folly goes down the ages with the names of seven cardinals immortalized upon it. This having been read, he next had to read word for word the abjuration which had been drawn up for him, and then sign it.
THE ABJURATION OF GALILEO
"I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, being brought personally to judgment, and kneeling before your Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords Cardinals, General Inquisitors of the universal Christian republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands, swear that I have always believed, and now believe, and with the help of God will in future believe, every article which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome holds, teaches, and preaches. But because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office altogether to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the sun is the centre and immovable, and forbidden to hold, defend, or teach the said false doctrine in any manner, and after it hath been signified to me that the said doctrine is repugnant with the Holy Scripture, I have written and printed a book, in which I treat of the same doctrine now condemned, and adduce reasons with great force in support of the same, without giving any solution, and therefore have been judged grievously suspected of heresy; that is to say, that I held and believed that the sun is the centre of the universe and is immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and is movable; willing, therefore, to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of every Catholic Christian, this vehement suspicion rightfully entertained toward me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to Holy Church; and I swear that I will never more in future say or assert anything verbally, or in writing, which may give rise to a similar suspicion of me; but if I shall know any heretic, or anyone suspected of heresy, that I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be; I swear, moreover, and promise, that I will fulfil and observe fully, all the penances which have been or shall be laid on me by this Holy Office. But if it shall happen that I violate any of my said promises, oaths, and protestations (which God avert!), I subject myself to all the pains and punishments which have been decreed and promulgated by the sacred canons, and other general and particular constitutions, against delinquents of this description. So may God help me, and his Holy Gospels which I touch with my own hands. I, the above-named Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above, and in witness thereof with my own hand have subscribed this present writing of my abjuration, which I have recited word for word. At Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, June 22, 1633. I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand."
Those who believe the story about his muttering to a friend, as he rose from his knees, "E pur si muove" ("And yet it does move"), do not realize the scene.
There was no friend in the place. It would have been fatally dangerous to mutter anything before such an assemblage. He was by this time an utterly broken and disgraced old man; wishful, of all things, to get away and hide himself and his miseries from the public gaze; probably with his senses deadened and stupefied by the mental sufferings he had undergone, and no longer able to think or care about anything—except perhaps his daughter—certainly not about any motion of this wretched earth.
Far and wide the news of the recantation spread. Copies of the abjuration were immediately sent to all universities, with instructions to the professors to read it publicly. At Florence, his home, it was read out in the cathedral church, all his friends and adherents being specially summoned to hear it.
For a short time more he was imprisoned in Rome, but at length was permitted to depart, nevermore of his own will to return.