Books Received.
From D. APPLETON & Co., New York:
Mental Science; a Compendium of Psychology, and the History of Philosophy. Designed as a text-book for High-Schools and Colleges.
By Alexander Bain, M.A., Professor of Logic and Mental Philosophy in the University of Aberdeen, author of "The Senses and the Intellect," "The Emotions of the Will," etc. etc.
Pp. 428; Appendix, 99. 1868.
From CHARLES SCRIBNER & Co., New York:
Guyot's Elementary Geography for Primary Classes.
Felter's First Lessons in Numbers. An illustrated Table Book designed for elementary instruction.
Footprints Of Life; Or, Faith And Nature Reconciled.
By Philip Harvey, M.D.
New York: Samuel R. Wells. 1868.
D. & J. SADLIER & Co., New York:
Outlines of the History of Ireland.
Being the substance of a lecture recently delivered at Honesdale.
By Rev. J. J. Doherty.
In behalf of the Sunday-schools.
Pp. 35.
A new edition of Carleton's Valentine McClutchy.
The Catholic World.
Vol. VIII., No. 46 January, 1869.
Galileo-Galilei,
The Florentine Astronomer.
1564-1642.
[Footnote 141]
[Footnote 141: Galileo—The Roman Inquisition. Cincinnati. 1844.
Galileo e l'Inquisizione. Marino-Marini. Roma. 1850.
Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques en Italie. Par Libri. Paris. 1838.
Notes on the Ante-Galilean Copernicans. Prof. De Morgan. London. 1855.
Opere di Galileo-Galilei. Alberi. Firenze. 1842-1856. 16 vols. imp. 8vo.
Galileo-Galilei, sa Vie, son Procès et ses Contemporains. Par Philarète Chasles. Paris. 1862.
Galileo and the Inquisition. By R. Madden. London. 1863.
Galilée, sa Vie, ses Découvertes et ses Travaux. Par le Dr. Max Parchappe. Paris. 1866.
Galilée. Tragédie de M. Ponsard. Paris. 1866.
La Condamnation de Galilée. Par M. l'Abbé Bouix. Arras. 1866.
Articles on Galileo, in Dublin Review. 1838-1865.
Articles on Galileo, in Revue des Deux Mondes. 1841-1864.
Mélanges Scientifiques et Littéraires. Par J. B. Biot. 3 vols. Paris. 1858.
Galilée, les Droits de la Science et la Méthode des Sciences Physiques. Par Thomas Henri Martin. Paris. 1868.]
"Even so great a man as Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with scorn. … Bacon had not all the means of arriving at a sound conclusion which are within our reach; and which secure people who would not have been worthy to mend his pens from falling into his mistakes."
—Macaulay.
An Unwritten Chapter.
Galileo's "connection with a political party, unfriendly to religion as well as to the papal government," is correctly referred to by the Edinburgh Review as one of the causes of his difficulties concerning a question upon which Copernicus met with none whatever.
Our space will not permit us to treat this interesting chapter of the Galileo story, or we might show that not only such a connection, but Galileo's associations with the partisans and friends of such men (and in some cases with the men themselves) as Sarpi, (Fra Paolo,) Antonio de Dominis, etc. etc., contributed powerfully to encourage in him an insulting aggressiveness that even the indulgent admonition of 1616 could not restrain.
In various ways, these men stirred up strife that might otherwise have slumbered, and instigated Galileo to fresh infractions of a rule by which he had solemnly promised to abide. They are referred to by the North British Review (Nov., 1860) in energetic language as "the band of sceptics who hounded him on to his ruin."
In like manner, since we have spoken of the treatment of Urban at Galileo's hands, we cannot, for want of space, dwell upon the personal bearing of Urban toward him after the trial was resolved upon. The law that compelled the trial was as binding upon the pope as upon any layman. It had to be fulfilled; but so far as Urban's personal demeanor and acts are evidence, there was nothing in them, and nothing in his heart, but kindness, forbearance, and generosity toward the offender; and it will be remembered that he carried these so far as to allow the decree of the Inquisition to go forth unsigned and unconfirmed by him.
If revenge for any conceived personal affront had actuated him, he could, by his signature and approval, have given that decree a vigor and a value it could never otherwise possess.
We resume the thread of our relation, and proceed to recount the main facts of
The Trial.
Galileo was now summoned to Rome to answer for his infraction of the injunction of 1616.
The summons was issued September 23d, 1632. There was, however, neither hurry nor precipitation; and after a delay of some months, caused partly by Galileo's endeavors to have the trial deferred, partly by his illness, and partly by the prevalence of an epidemic in Florence, he reached Rome on the 13th of February, 1633, and became the guest of the Tuscan ambassador.
Still there appears to have been no haste with the proceedings, and Galileo passed his time in perfect freedom, surrounded by his friends and the attentions of his noble host, who could not help remarking that this was the first instance he had ever heard of in which a person cited before the Inquisition—even though they were nobles or bishops or prelates—was not held in strict confinement.
When, at last, Galileo's presence at the holy office was absolutely indispensable, the best and most commodious rooms were placed at his disposition, and his formal interrogatory commenced April 12th.
On the termination of this preliminary examination, he was assigned the more spacious and pleasant apartments of the Fiscal of the Inquisition.
"Galileo," says Mr. Drinkwater, "was treated with unusual consideration;" and Sir David Brewster states that "during the whole trial, which had now commenced, Galileo was treated with the most marked indulgence."
On the 22d of April, the commissary charged with the conduct of the trial was ready to proceed, but postponed it on Galileo's statement that he was suffering from severe pain in his thigh.
So matters rested, until, on the 30th, Galileo asked for a resumption of the examination, and presented a complete and utter disavowal of his book and its principles. He declared that, having again read over his Dialogues, in order to examine whether, contrary to his express intention, he had inadvertently disobeyed the decree of 1616, he found that two arguments were too strongly presented; that they were not conclusive, and could be easily refuted. "If I had to present them now," he said, "I should assuredly do it in terms that would deprive them of the weight they apparently have, but which in reality they do not possess."
His error, he admitted, arose from a vain ambition, pure ignorance and inadvertence: "E stato dunque l'error mio, e lo confesso, di una vana ambitione, e di una pura ignoranza e inavertenza."
Galileo's Voluntary Retraction.
Here the examination closed for the day; but Galileo voluntarily returned, and reopened it with the declaration ("et post paululum rediens dixit") that he had not held the condemned opinion of the earth's motion, and that he was ready, if time were granted him, to prove it clearly.
"I will take up," said he, "the argument in my Dialogues, and will refute with all possible energy the arguments presented in favor of that opinion."
He closes by reiterating his request to be allowed the opportunity of putting these resolutions in execution: "Prego dunque questo S. Tribunals che voglia concorrer meco in questa buona risolutione col concedermi facoltà di poterle metter in effetto."
It is painful to see a man's convictions so lightly held. Why, all this voluntary proffer is more than was imposed on Galileo by the decree of 1616, and no more than assumed by the decree of 1633, not yet pronounced!
Alas, poor Galileo! Of such stuff martyrs never yet were made.
It seems strange that this phase and these incidents of the trial should never have been commented upon, as showing the scientific question to be entirely secondary in the estimation of the Congregation.
Had that question been the only point or the important point, this voluntary retraction, confession of judgment, plea of guilty, offer of reparation, and self-imposed sentence on the part of Galileo should have been more than sufficient to end the case, and leave naught for the tribunal to do but to put the self-imposed sentence in legal form.
But not so. As Galileo well knew, he might have gone on to the end of his life teaching, in peace and honor, the astronomy taught by Copernicus and others for the previous century. Copernicanism was not his crime, and therefore his retraction, as made, could not reach his criminal infraction of the decree of 1616, and of his own solemn pledges, nor could it modify the accusation of deception in the matter of the license to print his Dialogues, and the improper means taken to obtain that license.
The Trial Goes On.
On the same day Galileo made his voluntary retraction, he was permitted to return to the palace of the Tuscan ambassador.
On the 10th of May, he was notified that a further delay of eight days would be allowed him for the preparation of a defence, when he immediately presented it already prepared, in a written statement of two pages, accompanied by the Bellarmine certificate of 1616.
Meanwhile, the Congregation deliberated; and such was the friendly feeling in Rome toward Galileo that, as late as the 21st of May, Cardinal Capponi thought he would be acquitted.
Giuducci asserted it positively, and Archbishop Piccolomini made preparations to take Galileo with him to Sienna as his guest.
A large mass of documentary evidence, letters, reports, etc., had accumulated in the case, and on the 16th of June a preliminary decree was entered, by which Galileo was enjoined from writing either for or against the theory of the earth's motion, ("injuncto ei ne de cetero scripto vel verbo tractet amplius quovis modo de mobilitate terrae nec de stabilitate soils et e contra" etc.)
On the 21st of June, Galileo was interrogated, and stated in his replies that, before the decree of 1616, he had held both opinions as to the sun or the earth being the centre of the world; but that since that time, convinced of the prudence of his superiors, all doubt had ceased in his mind, and he had adopted as true and undoubted the opinion of Ptolemy; that in his Dialogues he had explained the proofs that might be urged against one or the other system, but without deciding for either.
To this he was answered that he asserts positively the immobility of the sun and the movement of the earth, and that he must make up his mind to acknowledge the truth, or that he should be proceeded against according to the law and the facts of the case, "devenietur contra ipsum ad remedia juris et facti opportuna."
Again Galileo replies that he neither holds nor has held that opinion of Copernicus since he received the order to abandon it.
Being admonished that, if he does not tell the truth, he refuses under penalty of torture, "et ei dicto quod dicat veritaiem alias devenietur ad torturam," he replies, "Io son qua per far l'obedienza e non ho tennta questa opinione dopo la determinatione fatta come ho detto," "I am here to make my submission. I do not hold and have not held this opinion since the determination taken as I have already stated."
"Et cum nihil aliud" proceeds the record, "posset haberi in executionem decreti, habita ejus subscriptione, remissus fuit ad locum suum." [Footnote 142]
(Signed) Io, Galileo-Galilei,
"ho deposto come di sopra.."
[Footnote 142: "And as nothing else remained to be done, he signed the record, and was sent back to his place of abode.">[
On the following day, (Wednesday, June 22d, 1633,) Galileo appeared again before the Congregation to hear the decree in his case, and pronounce his abjuration.
The Decree [Footnote 143]
[Footnote 143: So far as it relates to the scientific question, this decree was suspended by Benedict XIV., and repealed in full consistory by Pius VII. Meantime, his Dialogues were repeatedly published in Italy with all the usual ecclesiastical approbations. The edition in the Astor Library is that of Padua, 1744, and shows what we here state.]
was based upon and mainly taken up with the recital of the proceedings of 1615, the injunction of 1616, the violation of that injunction, the effect of the Bellarmine certificate, the violation of Galileo's pledges, the improper means taken to obtain the license to print his Dialogues, and his confessions and excuses. There was no discussion of the scientific question.
"Wherefore," recites the decree, "as here," namely, in the Bellarmine certificate, "there is no mention made of two particular articles of the said precepts—that is to say, that you should not teach—doceri—and in any manner—quovis modo—write of the same doctrine, you argued that it was to be believed that in the course of fourteen or sixteen years those things passed out of your memory, and that, on account of the same forgetfulness, you were silent about that precept when you solicited a license for publishing the said work of yours. And this was not said by you to excuse error, but, as it is ascribed, rather to a vainglorious ambition than to malice. But this very certificate produced by you in your defence rather aggravates the charge against you, since in it, it is declared that the said opinion was contrary to Scripture, and nevertheless you dared to treat of it, to defend it, and even to argue in favor of its probability. Neither did that certificate give you the faculty, as you interpret it, so artfully and subtly extorted by you, since you did not make known the prohibition that had been imposed on you. But as it appeared to us that you did not speak the entire truth with respect to your intention, we indicated that it was necessary to proceed to a rigorous examination of you, in which, without prejudice to the other things which were confessed by you, and which are deduced against you with respect to your intention, you answered Catholically.
"Which things, therefore, having duly considered, and examined into the merits of this cause, together with the above-mentioned confessions and excuses of yours, and whatever other matters should be rightly seen and considered, we come to the following definitive sentence against you:
"We say, judge, and declare that you, the above-named Galileo, on account of those things set forth in the documents of this trial, and which have been confessed by you as above stated, have rendered yourself to this holy office vehemently suspected of heresy; that is, that you believed and hold that doctrine which is false and contrary to the sacred Scriptures, namely, that the sun is the centre of the orbit of the world, and that it moves not from east to west, and that the earth moves, and is not the centre of the world; and that an opinion can be held and defended as probable, after it had been declared and defined as contrary to the sacred Scriptures. And consequently, that you have incurred all the censures and penalties by the sacred canons and other general constitutions and particular statutes promulgated against delinquencies of this kind, from which it is our pleasure that you should be absolved; provided, first, that with a sincere heart and faith, not feigned, before us you abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, and every other heresy and error contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church, by that formula which is presented to you. But lest this grave fault of yours, and pernicious error and transgression, should remain unpunished altogether, and for the time to come that by more caution you should avoid them and be an example to others, that they should abstain from this sort of crime, we decree and by public edict prohibit the book of the Dialogues of Galileo-Galilei; we condemn you to the prison of the holy office during our pleasure; and as a solitary penance, we prescribe that for three years you shall once a week recite the seven penitential psalms; reserving to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking away in whole or in part the above-mentioned penalties and penances.
"And thus we say, pronounce, and by sentence declare," etc.
Then followed Galileo's abjuration of his errors and heresies; that is to say, abjuration of his error as to the earth's movement, and of his heresy as to the decisions of the Congregation.
We thus give, in all their crudity, and without comment, the only portion of the trial and the decree at all available to the advocates of the old version of the Galileo story. Let them make the most of it.
The Record Of The Trial Of Galileo,
or the Procès Verbal, still exists in all its original integrity. The history of these documents is singular. The archives of the Inquisition at Rome were carried off to Paris at some time during the reign of Napoleon. Lord Brougham says in 1809. M. Biot (who cites M. Delaborde, Directeur des Archives Françaises) says in 1811. A French translation of the Galileo trial, begun by order of Napoleon, was completed down to April 30th, 1633. Just before the Hundred Days, Louis XVIII. desired to see the documents, and all the papers connected with the trial were brought to his apartments. His hasty flight from Paris soon followed, and the MSS. were forgotten and lost sight of. When the plundered archives were returned to Rome, it was found that the Galileo trial was not among them. Reclamation was made, and it was not until 1846 that Louis Philippe had the documents returned by M. Rossi. They are now in the Vatican.
In this connection, it is an interesting fact to note that seventy folio volumes of the archives of the Inquisition are now in the library of the University of Dublin. The archives at Rome were plundered a second time in 1849, whether by Garibaldians or French is not known. The plunder was brought to Paris by a French officer, and there, in 1850, sold to the late Duke of Manchester, who sold them to the Rev. Mr. Gibbings, a Protestant clergyman of the Irish Establishment. Mr. Gibbings again sold them to the late Dr. Wall, vice-provost of the university, aided by Dr. Singer, Bishop of Meath, who presented them to the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
We return to the Galileo record. In 1850, Signor Marino-Marini, Prefect of the Vatican Archives, published Galileo e l'Inquizitione. This Signor Marini is the same who is so highly spoken of by William von Humboldt. (See Schlesier's Lives of the Humboldts.) His work originally appeared in the form of a discourse addressed to the Archaeological Academy of Rome.
Looked for with anxiety, the book was received with some disappointment. Instead of the text, and the entire text of the trial, Signor Marini gave extracts and fragments, stating at the same time that the French, who had these documents in their possession so many years, had not dared to publish them, because they were disappointed at not finding in them what they sought for.
To this it was objected—and the point was well taken—"Why, then, did not you publish the whole?" The truth is, the choice of Signor Marini for the task was unfortunate. An excellent scholar and accomplished man, he was yet too timid or too narrow-minded for it, and undertook the function of an advocate rather than the far more important one of a historian.
He shrank from the publicity of such passages as, "Devenietur contra ipsum ad remedia juris et facti opportuna," "Alias devenietur ad torturam," as though we were not aware of the universality of the use of torture in all the criminal procedure of all Europe, and that the Inquisition took it not from ecclesiastical, but from the secular tribunals of the day; as though we did not only deplore, but openly reprobate, the fact, and as though we did not hold the Inquisition responsible for the odium it has entailed on the Catholic Church, very much, we presume, as any right-minded Protestant holds star-chambers and Elizabethan tortures responsible for burdens they find hard to bear.
A distinguished French writer, M. Henri de l'Epinois, expressed his regret to the present prefect of the Vatican Archives as to the unsatisfactory manner in which Sig. Marini had presented the Galileo record, whereupon the Rev. Father Theiner immediately offered to place all the documents at his disposition for any examination or publication he might wish to make. The result is M. L'Epinois's work, Galilée, son Procès, sa Condamnation, d'après des Documens Inédits, in which are given all the original passages omitted by Marini.
The record of the trial covers two hundred and twenty pages, and includes, besides the interrogatories and replies of Galileo and of several witnesses, sixty-three letters, orders, opinions, depositions, etc., besides the various decrees and Galileo's defence and abjuration.
The interrogatories are all in Latin, the answers in Italian.
Thus, for example, where Galileo is examined as to the publication of his Dialogues, the record runs:
"Interrogate. An si ostenderet sibi dictus liber paratus sit illum recognoscere tanquam suum?
"Respondit. Spero di si che mi sara monstrato il libro lo riconoscero.
"Et sibi ostenso uno ex libris Florentiae impressis, anno 1632, cujus titulus est Dialogo di Galileo-Galilei linceo, in quo agitur de duobus sistematibus mundi, et per ipsum bene viso et inspecto, dixit: lo conosco questo libro benissimo, et e uno di quelli stampati in Fiorenza, et lo conosco come mio e da me composto.
"Interrogatus. An pariter recognoscat omnia et singula in dicto libro contenta tanquam sua?
"Respondit. Io conosco questo libro mostratomi, ch'è uno di quelli stampati in Fiorenza e tutto quello che in esso si contiene lo riconosco come composto da me."
"E Pur Si Muove!"
The temptation of the dramatic effect of this phrase has been too strong for writers who should have known better than to give it currency. In the declamation of a school exhibition, we are not surprised to find it; but from a serious historian it comes with a bad grace. M. Ponsard has, of course, preserved it in his drama.
It is simply fable, and like the "Up, Guards, and at them!" of Lord Wellington, "un de ces mots de circonstance inventés après coup." [Footnote 144]
[Footnote 144: "One of those impromptus composed at leisure.">[
"Unstable, timorous, equivocating, and supple," says Philarète Chasles, "he never had the heart to exclaim, 'E pur si muove!'" He never exhibited that heroical resistance which has been attributed to him.
The penitential shirt or sack is also fabulous, notwithstanding even so distinguished a man as Cousin speaks of Galileo as "forcé d'abjurer á genoux, en chemise, son plus beau titre de gloire." [Footnote 145]
[Footnote 145: "Forced to abjure on his knees, and clad in a shirt, his noblest title to greatness.">[
Value Of The Decree.
A few words—and but few are needed—as to the common assertion that the Catholic Church, claiming infallibility in matters of faith, decided the doctrine of the earth's immobility to be a truth affirmed in the Scriptures. Granting the decree of the Inquisition in the case of Galileo to have been all that is claimed against it, it was, after all, nothing but a decree of the Inquisition; no more, no less.
And first, what was the Inquisition?
The Inquisition forms no permanent or essential part of the organization of the Catholic Church. It was always a purely local tribunal, and the original appointment of its officers as quaesitores fidei, or inquisitors, seems to have been designed to prevent civil wars on the score of religion. The prevailing sentiment as well as the positive jurisprudence of the middle ages approved the punishment of heresy by temporal penalties. Indeed, such principles, abhorrent to us, seem to have come down out of the so-called dark ages far toward our own time. For full confirmation of this statement, you may read John Calvin's treatise in defence of persecuting measures, in which he maintains the lawfulness of putting heretics to death; and for illustration, you may peruse the account of his treatment of Castellio and Servetus, who found Calvin's reasoning of such peculiar strength that they did not survive its application; or his letter to Somerset, (1548:) "You have two kinds of mutineers: the one are a fanatical people, who, under color of the gospel, would set all to confusion; the others are stubborn people in the superstition of the Antichrist of Rome. These altogether do deserve to be well punished by the sword." (See Froude's History of England, vol. v.) Charming impartiality!
More than a hundred years afterward, Calvin's followers embodied his doctrine in their solemn confession of faith, wherein they say (Westminster Confession, ch. xxiii.) that "the civil magistrate hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed."
Although inquisitors existed in Italy from the time of Innocent IV., their authority was so rarely exercised that it was scarcely known until Paul III., in the year 1545, organized the Congregation of the Inquisition, consisting of six cardinals. To these were added two more by Pius V. They formed a strictly ecclesiastical tribunal, charged with matters regarding the integrity of faith throughout the world; their duty being to examine and censure erroneous propositions, condemn and proscribe bad books, inflict ecclesiastical censures on clergymen convicted of error, and exercise a superintendence over the local tribunals of faith.
It still exists, acts, and exercises its ecclesiastical attributes.
But however powerful to suppress opinion or to exact obedience the Inquisition might be within the limits of its own special jurisdiction, we have never yet heard that any decree of any inquisition ever determined a question of faith, or, in other words, ever attempted to usurp the functions of a general council.
Even Riccioli, the original source, up to within a few years, of all accounts of the trial and sentence of Galileo, and himself one of the strongest theological opponents of the theory of the earth's motion, expressly protests against the assertion that any declaration whatever had been made on the subject by the church itself. He says: "The Sacred Congregation of Cardinals, taken apart from the Supreme Pontiff, does not make propositions to be of faith, even though it should actually define them to be of faith, or the contrary ones heretical. Wherefore, since no definition upon this matter has as yet issued from the Supreme Pontiff, nor from any council directed and approved by him, it is not yet of faith that the sun moves and the earth stands still by force of the decree of the Congregation; but at most and alone, by the force of the sacred Scriptures to those to whom it is morally evident that God has revealed it. Nevertheless, Catholics are bound, in prudence and obedience, at least so far as not to teach the contrary."
And yet, plain as is this distinction, men of professedly theological acquirements, for the sake of inflicting a wound on the church, systematically ignore it whenever they have "a point" to make with the Galileo story.
And the distinction is not only plain at the present day, but was expressly made at the time of Galileo's trial. "It was not in the power of the holy office to declare it (Galileo's scientific theory) or any other doctrine heresy; it would take an OEcumenical Council for that." (Letter of September 4th, 1632: Cardinal Magalotti to Galileo.) Even Descartes, six months after the trial, remarks that the decision of the Inquisition had received the ratification of neither pope nor council.
The Torture.
The relators of the torture fable ask us to believe that an old man bending under the weight of seventy years, after undergoing imprisonment and mental anguish, suffered the peine forte et dure of torture on the 21st of June, and on the next day was capable of remaining more than an hour on his knees to receive his sentence, and then, unaided, arose, stamped his foot, and thundered out, "E pur si muove!" Truly a vigorous performance, but not more hardy than the story which relates it.
No; these fables can no longer have place in history; and we know positively that Galileo, who, on the evening of June 24th, after his three days' detention at the holy office, (the sentence of imprisonment being immediately commuted by the pope,) was conducted by Niccolini to the Villa Medici, and who, on the 6th of July, old as he was, was able to walk four miles without inconvenience, could not have been tortured on the 21st of June.
"Those who undertake," says the German Protestant Von Reumont, "to accuse the Inquisition on this point, are forced to have recourse to fiction."
Lord Brougham, after an examination of the case, says, in his Analytical View of the Principia, that "the supposition of Galileo having been tortured is entirely disproved by Galileo's own account of the lenity with which he was treated."
Biot dismisses the matter thus: "II y a là une réunion d'invraisemblances qui ne permet pas de concevoir raisonnablement un soupçon pareil." [Footnote 146]
[Footnote 146: "There is here such a conjunction of improbabilities as to exclude all reasonable possibility of such a suspicion.">[
Galileo survived his sentence eight years. Is it credible that, during that long period spent in intimate personal intercourse and literary correspondence with his friend, no word or hint of complaint of such an outrage as torture should have escaped his lips?
Castelli was constantly with him to the hour of his death, and heard no whisper of it.
In August, 1638, writing to Bernegger, Galileo could boast that neither the freedom nor the vigor of his spirit was repressed.
Three months before his death, with the certainty of its approach, he sent for Torricelli, and spent long hours in unreserved discourse with him. Not a word of torture!
Finally, in his last letter, just three weeks before his death, to Beccherini, he bewails his endurances and his troubles in a spirit that could not and did not fail to unseal his lips for everything he had to say in the spirit of complaint; but here, too, not a word of torture!
The majority of the French feuilletonists on the Ponsard drama manifest disappointment at not finding any torture, and straightway seek solace in such reflections as, "Ainsi, Galilée ne fut point mis à la torture; on en a aujourd'hui la pleine certitude."! [Footnote 147]
[Footnote 147: "Thus, then, Galileo was not put to the torture. Of that we now have the fullest certainty.">[
But the feuilletonist wants to know if the persecutions, bitterness, and vexation of every kind to which Galileo was subjected were not the equivalent of physical torture?
And what, then, does he take to be the equivalent of the irony, sarcasm, ingratitude, and insult gratuitously heaped upon Urban, the kind friend and liberal benefactor of Galileo?
No reasonable doubt can now exist as to the fact that it was not Galileo's assertion of the hypothesis of the earth's rotation that brought him into trouble. It was his intemperance of language, impatience of wise counsel, disregard of sacred obligations, violation of solemn promises, and above all, his insane perversity in dragging the scriptural element into the controversy. Of the scores of distinguished adherents, disciples, advocates, and professors of the heliocentric doctrine, Galileo alone gave annoyance and created difficulty.
To the extent of examining and discussing the question scientifically, the freedom at Rome was perfect. But when the point was reached when it was gratuitously thrust into collision with Scripture, a degree of demonstration was needed that could not be produced.
After The Trial.
To complete the chronological statement of events, it is only necessary to add that on the 6th of July Galileo left Rome for Sienna, where he remained with Archbishop Piccolomini, one of his most intimate friends, until the month of December. He then returned to his own home at Arcetri, near Florence.
It was here he received the oft-described and well-known visit of Milton, then in the prime of youth. In 1638, he transferred his residence to Florence, where he occupied himself with scientific pursuits, his negotiation with Holland for the use of his discovery concerning the longitude, the publication of his book Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze at Leyden, (1638,) correspondence with scientific men, and visits from his friends.
He died on the 8th of January, 1642, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
"The noblest eye," wrote his friend Father Castelli, announcing his death, "which nature ever made, is darkened; an eye so privileged and gifted with such rare powers that it may truly be said to have seen more than the eyes of all that are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all that are to come."
We now pass to the consideration of the exact condition of
The Scientific Question
as it existed in 1633, leaving, of course, aside all discussion of its theological or scriptural connection.
Without going back so far as Pythagoras, the new system in 1633 was not original with Galileo, nor even with Copernicus, who is said to have received the germ of his new doctrine at Bologna from the hypothesis of Dominicus Maria on the variability of the axis of the earth; and it would be most interesting, did space allow, to review the intellectual struggles of the predecessors (ad astra) of the Polish priest with a theory they felt to be true, but were powerless to demonstrate even to themselves.
Among these men were:
1. The great mystical theologian, Richard of St. Victor, who described the true method of physical inquiry in terms which Francis Bacon might have adopted. "It would not be easy at the present day," says Dr. Whewell, (Philosophy of Discovery, pp. 52-53,) "to give a better account of the object of physical science."
2. Celius Calcagnini, (born 1479,) who published (Tiraboschi says divolgò, which may or may not mean simply printing) a work in which he endeavored to prove "quod coelum stet, terra autem moveatur."
3. Cardinal Cusa, sometimes called Nicholas the Cusan, an intellectual giant of his time, the highest expression, probably, of the active mental movement that marked the 15th century. He was equally distinguished in science, in letters, and in philosophy, and in 1436, at the Council of Basle, proposed the reform of the calendar afterward carried out by the pope. His knowledge of astronomy was, for his time, profound, and he asserted and published that "the sun is at rest, the earth moves," ("istam terram in veritate moveatur.") [Footnote 148]
[Footnote 148: "That heaven is motionless, but that the earth moves.">[
4. Novara, the preceptor of Copernicus; for it is certain that Copernicus found his new doctrine in Italy.
5. Jerome of Tallavia, whose papers are said to have fallen into the hands of Copernicus.
6. Leonardo da Vinci, who, in 1510, connected his theory of bodies with the earth's motion, "showing," as Whewell says, "that the heliocentric doctrines were fermenting in the minds of intelligent men, and gradually assuming clearness and strength."
Although Da Vinci constructed no system of explanation, he nevertheless held the motion of the earth, as appears from one of his manuscripts of the year 1500.
Some light may be thrown upon the actual condition of astronomical science during the Galileo period by a short statement of the arguments most in vogue between
Ptolemaists And Copernicans,
and of what the latter had to present in the way of proof.
The Copernicans contended generally for the greater simplicity of their system, and the incredibility of the enormous velocity which the sphere of the fixed stars must have if the ancient system be true. To this it was answered that God doeth wonders without number.
But the earth would corrupt and putrefy without motion, whereas the heavens are incorruptible. To which the answer was ready that wind would give sufficient motion.
But the most movable part of man is underneath, since he walks with his feet; whence the most unworthy part of the universe, the earth, should be movable.
Objected that, if the earth moves, the head of a man moves faster than his feet.
But again, "Rest is nobler than motion, and therefore ought to belong to the sun, the noble body."
Replied to, "For the same reason, the moon and all the planets ought to rest."
Again, "The lamp of the world ought to be in the centre." Answered by, "A lamp is frequently hung up from a roof to enlighten the floor."
"Can we fancy," asked the Copernicans, "that God has not acted on a scheme so impressive and so beautiful as ours?"
"Can we fancy," replied their opponents, "that this earth is constantly in motion, which we feel to be the stablest of all things? that our senses are given to deceive us? that during the greater part of our lives we cling to the earth with our head downward?"
Finally, the Copernicans were utterly silenced by the unanswerable argument of throwing up a stone.
"Would they please explain," was asked of them, "why, if the earth moved, the stone, being thrown directly upward, should fall on the spot from which it was thrown?"
The Copernicans were silent, for they could assign no reason. "In the sixteenth century," says Professor De Morgan, "the wit of man could not imagine how, if the earth moved, a stone thrown directly upward would tumble down upon the spot it was thrown from." It was reserved for a man who was born on the same day Galileo died to furnish the reason.
Astronomy In 1633.
To one seeking for a demonstrated system, astronomy was then a hopeless chaos of irreconcilable facts—an impenetrable jungle of conflicting theories. That such was the actual condition of the science in Galileo's day, we find fully recognized and aptly described by a distinguished English Protestant, a great name in English literature, who, himself "an exact mathematician" and astronomer, was most active in research and observation precisely during the period of Galileo's greatest fame. We refer to Burton, author of the celebrated Anatomy of Melancholy.
This remarkable book was written by Burton during the years extending from 1614 to 1621, when the first edition was published. The subsequent editions of 1624, 1628, 1632, and 1638 were all issued during the life of the author, who died in 1639, a succession of years precisely covering the period of Galileo's controversies and trials; and yet its author, vicar of St. Thomas and rector of Segrave, (Church of England as by law established,) who never misses an opportunity ever so slight of giving Catholicity a thrust or a stab, makes 'mere mention' of Galileo's condemnation thus: "These paradoxes of the earth's motion which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as heretical."
The truth is, that in that day the course pursued by the Congregation at Rome was generally approved even by Protestants. In their eyes, nothing but a paradox was condemned. Having exhausted all his proof, where does Galileo leave our exact English mathematician, who evidently read and knew of everything published on the subject in his day?
Why, Burton speaks of "that main paradox of the earth's motion now so much in question," and devotes five full pages to a presentation of all the theories then current, giving Galileo's as of no more value than the others! He thus sums them up:
"One offends against natural philosophy, another against optic principles, a third against mathematical, as not answering to astronomical observations. One puts a great space between Saturn's orb and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypothesis, he makes the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to the five upper planets; to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnal motion; eccentrics and epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formerly exploded; and so, dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currant, [Footnote 149] as a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself: reforms some and mars all. In the mean time, the world is tossed in a blanket amongst them, they hoist the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and go at their pleasures: one saith the sun stands; another, he moves; a third comes in, taking them all at rebound, and lest there should any paradox be wanting, he finds certain spots and clouds in the sun. …
[Footnote 149: "While they avoid one mistake, they run into the contrary.">[
And thus they disagree amongst themselves, old and new, irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolemaeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfraganus, thus Tycho, thus Ramerus, thus Raeslinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus and his adherents," etc.
Not a word here of Galileo.
The whole chapter is very curious, and will well repay the trouble of reading. See pages 323 to 329, London edition.
Notwithstanding his condition of paradox as seen by disinterested men of science, Galileo claimed three propositions as settled:
First. The system was demonstrated.
Second. He demonstrated it.
Third. His was the honor of furnishing the demonstration from the flux and reflux of the tides.
To these three propositions it is replied that the system was not at that day demonstrated by Galileo or by any one else, and that his tidal argument was worthless.
Indeed, a sufficient answer is found in the simple statement, in which all astronomers must certainly accord, that before the time of Sir Isaac Newton there was nothing to make the Copernican system more plausible and reasonable than the Ptolemaic theory, because the English astronomer first explained the one law on which planetary revolutions depended.
The theory of the earth's rotation was, in 1633, barely a matter of induction—strong, it is true, yet nothing more than induction. Strong, if the two arguments taken from the phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter are duly weighed; but weak without them.
The discovery of the satellites of Jupiter was called by Herschel "the holding turn of the Copernican system," but Galileo had no conception of its value; he passed it by as insignificant, and settled down complacently upon the flux and reflux of the tides as the crowning proof. To this proof, and to no other, he clung during the citation of 1616.
Astronomers express great surprise that Galileo makes no mention of the belts of Jupiter, although they are visible with the aid of the smallest glass.
Zucchi, a Jesuit, was the first to note them in Rome, (1630.) In like manner, the discovery of the spots on the sun do not appear to have benefited him in ascertaining the sun's rotation. "Galilée," says Arago, "n'a pas non plus la moindre apparence de droit à la découverte du mouvement de rotation du soleil. On a vu les taches; aucune conséquence de cette observation n'est indiquée." [Footnote 150]
[Footnote 150: "Neither has Galileo the slightest apparent claim to the discovery of the sun's rotation. The spots are observed, but no deduction is drawn from the observation.">[
The oversights concerning Jupiter are the more remarkable as Galileo's labors in investigation of the satellites were long and exhausting. It is only within a few years that this fact has been ascertained through the discovery by Professor Alberi of a long series of observations of the satellites of Jupiter, with tables and ephemerides drawn up for the purpose of comparing the longitude.
These manuscripts, described as a "mighty monument of his labors"—and doubtless they must be, for all his calculations were necessarily made without the aid of logarithms—were found in the Pitti Palace library, and are published by Alberi in the fifth volume of his magnificent edition of Galileo's work.
Herschel says that the science of astronomy was yet in its infancy at the period of Newton's death, and after all that Newton had done for it. What, then, must we think of its condition in the hands of Galileo, with his toy telescope, his fallacious tidal theory, and his necessary ignorance of the great discoveries that followed him?
In 1618, he published his Theory of the Tides. In 1623, he again puts it forward in a letter to Ingulfi; and finally devotes the fourth and last day of the Dialogue to the development of the same argument.
Nay, more, in this dialogue he scoffs at the simplicity of Kepler, who has had the temerity, after his (Galileo's) satisfactory explanation of the phenomena, to listen to such stuff as the occult properties of the moon's influence on the tides, and other like puerilities! We find by reference to a marginal note in the Padua edition of the Dialogues at the Astor Library, that a prelate, Girolamo Borro, wrote a pamphlet setting forth the theory of the moon's influence on the tides, and Simplicio is made to quote him: "E ultimamente certo prelato ha publicato un tratello dove dice che la luna vagando per il cielo attrae e solleva verso di se un cumulo d'acqua, il quale va continualmente seguitanclo," etc. [Footnote 151]
[Footnote 151: "And lately a certain prelate has published a pamphlet, in which he says that the moon, traversing the heavens, attracts and draws after her a mass of water which continually follows," etc.]
Here Sagredo stops him abruptly, saying, "For heaven's sake, Signor Simplicio, let us have no more of that; for it is a mere loss of time to listen to it, as well as to confute it, and you simply do injustice to your judgment by regarding such or similar puerilities."
No wonder, as Bailli says, "la foule d'astronomes etaient centre!" [Footnote 152]
[Footnote 152: "The mass of astronomers were of the contrary opinion.">[
Galileo died in profound ignorance of the true tidal theory, and the credit of pointing it out is ascribed by Mr. Drinkwater to the College of Jesuits at Coimbra.
But more than all this, Galileo had already made great mistakes, and committed errors that were publicly rectified by his contemporaries.
Thus, one of the most remarkable astronomical phenomena of the age, the three comets of 1618, was totally misunderstood by Galileo, who pronounced them atmospheric meteors.
The Jesuit Grassi, in his treatise De Tribus Cometis, (1618,) had the merit of explaining what had baffled Galileo, who at first held them to be planets moving in vast ellipses around the sun.
Charity For All.
In referring to these errors of Galileo, Laplace says that it would be unjust to judge him with the same rigor as one who should refuse at present to believe the motion of the earth, confirmed by the numerous discoveries made in astronomy since that period.
And John Quincy Adams, in a memorable discourse delivered at Cincinnati in 1843, says of Tycho Brahe, (who maintained that the earth is immovable in the centre of the universe,) "The religion of Tycho in the encounter with his philosophy obtained a triumph honorable to him, but erroneous in fact."
All which maybe very true; and if Laplace and Mr. Adams err at all, they err certainly on the side of charity and kindness.
But are we to have one standard of justice for one class of men, and a far different one for another class? Is that which is excusable in an Italian and honorable in a Danish astronomer, ignorant, bigoted, and vile in a cardinal? Or is there any good reason why that which in Denmark is a "triumph of religion" should in Rome become a "victory of ignorance"?
Tycho Brahe, in his day a profound astronomer, noble and wealthy, devoting his whole life to science in unremitting observation of the heavens, with the aid of the most complete and costly apparatus in existence at the time, might surely be supposed to have reached a safer conclusion than an ignorant churchman.
And how, moreover, could such a churchman be expected to pin his faith to the sleeve of an astronomer like Galileo, whose errors and blunders were frequent and serious, and who, when in his conjectures he stumbled upon the truth, could hardly distinguish it from error, and was therefore as likely to give a bad as a good reason for his doctrine? Or, as M. Biot admirably expresses it, "si l'état imparfait de cette science l'exposait ainsi à donner parfois de mauvaises raisons comme bonnes, il faut pardonner à ses adversaires de n'avoir pas pu toujours distinguer les bonnes des mauvaises." [Footnote 153]
[Footnote 153: "If the imperfection of this science thus made him liable to give bad reasons for good, his adversaries should surely be pardoned for not always being able to distinguish the good from the bad.">[
Anti-Catholic controversialists will persist in endowing the Galileo period with an amount of astronomical and physical science that then had no existence. Intelligent, industrious, and learned the cardinals of Galileo's day certainly were; but it is absurd to attribute to them or to their times a knowledge of the Copernican system, as afterward explained by Kepler, Newton, and two centuries of men of science. Kepler's Laws of the Universe were not published until 1619, and even then, and long years afterward, who could possibly apply them until Newton's discoveries gave them force and authority?
If our modern sciolists, who prattle so much about "the ignorant and bigoted court of Rome," knew enough to be a little modest, they might take to heart the reflection of the great English essayist, and remember it is no merit of theirs that prevents them from falling into the mistakes of a cardinal "whose pens they are not worthy to mend." It certainly was asking a great deal of men that they should abandon settled tradition, the teachings of authority, the evidence of their senses, and the warrant of Scripture, as they understood it, to embrace a strange, startling, and incomprehensible doctrine, in no degree better off in demonstration than the old one. Even the weight of scientific authority was in their favor, as is readily seen when we look at the relative strength of
Copernican and Anti-Copernican.
Tycho Brahe was far from being alone in his dissent from Copernicus and Galileo. Saving only the bright spot made by Kepler and a few of his disciples, all Germany, France, and England were still in comparative darkness, and it is difficult to believe that at the period of Galileo's trial there were as many avowed Copernicans in all Europe together as in the single city of Rome.
In Germany, the new system was almost universally rejected, and Wolfgang Menzel, in his History of Germany, speaks of it as "die unter den Protestanten in Deutschland noch iminer bezweifelte Wahrheit des Copernikanischen Welt-systems." [Footnote 154:]
[Footnote 154: "The even yet (by German Protestants) contested truth of the Copernican system.">[
The frontispiece to Riccioli's Almagestum Novum, Astor Library copy, published in 1651, presents a curious illustration of the prevalent estimate of the new doctrines. A figure with a pair of balances is seen weighing the Tychonian against the Copernican system, and the truth of the former is shown by its overwhelming preponderance. Riccioli cites fourteen authors who up to that day had written in favor of the Copernican theory, and thirty-seven who had written against it. He adduces seventy arguments in favor of the Tychonian, and can find but forty-nine in support of the Copernican; consequently, the mere force of numbers proves the improbability of the latter.
In France, Ramus, the Huguenot Royal Professor at Paris, utterly refused the doctrine ten years after the death of Galileo.
Thomas Lydiat, a distinguished English astronomer of his day, and so good a scholar as to come victorious out of a controversy on chronology with Scaliger, openly opposed the Copernican system in his Praelectio Astronomica, (1605.) In fact, no man of astronomical acquirements of that day, and for more than fifty years afterward, dared risk the success of a book by putting in it anything favoring the Copernican theory.
Even as late as 1570, we find John Dee, an English Copernican, who, despairing of the ignorant prejudice around him, would not so much as hint at the existence of the system in his preface to Billingsley's Euclid.
In Great Britain, the system was discredited by the illustrious Gilbert. Milton, too, seems to have doubted it. Its most active opponent was Alexander Rosse, a voluminous Scotch writer, alluded to in Hudibras.
Hume tells us Lord Bacon "rejected the system of Copernicus with the most positive disdain." [Footnote 155] It is but fair to say, though, that this statement, like too many of Hume's, should be qualified. It is true that in his De Augmentis Bacon says that the absurdity and complexity of the Ptolemaic system has driven men to the doctrine of the earth's motion, which is clearly false, "quod nobis constat falsissimum esse;" but, on the other hand, in the Novum Organum, he distinctly speaks of the question of the earth's motion as one to be examined. Now, the latter work, although published before, was written after the De Augmentis, which is less serious and argumentative than the Novum Organum.
[Footnote 155: Macaulay should have said, "theory of Copernicus," instead of "theory of Galileo." Bacon never credited Galileo with a system, and did not hold his scientific merits in much esteem.]
Even in 1705, the Hon. E. Howard published in London a work entitled Copernicans of all Sorts Convicted.
In 1806, Mercier, a Frenchman, wrote to prove "l'impossibilité des systèmes de Copernic et de Newton;" and even so recently as 1829 an individual was found so retrograde as to publish a work entitled The Universe as it is; wherein the Hypothesis of the Earth's Motion is Refuted, etc., by W. Woodley.
The Undemonstrated Problem.
And now, having spied out the nakedness of the astronomic land throughout Europe, let us return for a moment to the scientific position of the tribunal that tried Galileo.
What solid proof was presented to it? None whatever. And those familiar with the history of astronomy will readily recognize the fact that, so far from seeing in the new opinion a scientific novelty, they recognized in it substantially the old hypothesis of Pythagoras, which, after obtaining credit for more than five hundred years, was triumphantly displaced by the Ptolemaic theory; which was that the earth is a solid globe at rest in the centre of the universe, with the various planetary bodies revolving in larger and larger circles, according to the order of their distances.
The new doctrine had not even the form of a system:
"'Twas neither shape nor feature."
Indeed, as has been truly said, it was nothing more than a paradox for the support of which its authors had to draw upon their own resources.
High astronomical authority, Délambre, thus sums up the utter absence of proof, in Galileo's time, of the theory of the earth's rotation:
"What solid reason could induce the ancients to disbelieve the evidence of their senses? Yes, and even despite the immense progress which astronomy has subsequently made, have the moderns themselves been able to allege any one direct proof of the diurnal motion of the earth, previous to the voyage of Richer to Cayenne, where he was obliged to shorten his pendulum? Have they been able to discover one positive demonstration to the point, to prove the annual revolution of the earth, before Roemer measured the velocity of light, and Bradley had observed and calculated the phenomena of the aberration?
"Previous to these discoveries, and that of universal gravitation, were not the most decided Copernicans reduced to mere probabilities? Were they not obliged to confine themselves to preaching up the simplicity of the Copernican system, as compared with the absurd complexity of that of Ptolemy?"
What "solid reason," indeed, could be given? But Galileo in his presumption did not consider himself reduced to "mere probabilities," and, relying on his tidal fallacies and unexplained phenomena, sought to pass hypothesis for dogma, and his ipse dixit for demonstration.
Of the great discoveries enumerated by Délambre, Galileo was necessarily ignorant, and we must insist upon the fact that the cardinals and the Inquisition were equally ignorant of them.
There was, in reality, no astronomical science in Galileo's time worth speaking of, except as we compare it with the astronomy that preceded it, which is the only fair test of its value. Compared with what Ptolemy knew, it was twilight.
Compared with what we know, it was darkness.
It is moderate to say that in 1633 astronomy was in its infancy. To all that was then known, add Kepler's magnificent labors, Torricelli's discovery, Newton's principle of gravitation, and all the English astronomer did for science—come down to the year 1727, in which he died, and what was the condition of astronomical science even then?
Herschel has told us: "The legacy of research which was left us by Newton was indeed immense. To pursue through all its intricacies the consequences of the law of gravitation; to account for all the inequalities of the planetary movements, and the infinitely more complicated and to us more important ones of the moon; and to give, what Newton himself certainly never entertained a conception of, a demonstration of the stability and permanence of the system under all the accumulated influence of its internal perturbations; this labor and this triumph were reserved for the succeeding age, and have been shared in succession by Clairault, D'Alembert, Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace. Yet so extensive is this subject, and so difficult and intricate the purely mathematical inquiries to which it leads, that another century may yet be required to go through the task."
The Legacy Of Research
left by Newton may truly be called "immense." And Herschel does well to modify his statement as to the "triumph," and postpone it yet another century.
For it must be borne in mind that no astronomical system is a strictly verifiable fact. The circulation of the blood is a verifiable fact, and it has been verified. No announcement of the discovery of a new demonstration of its truth could now attract any attention on account of its merits as proof.
Not so as to the earth's motion. The proofs of that have always been merely referential and cumulative. The final, the crowning point of demonstration has never been made, and probably never can be reached. Who can say that he ever saw the earth move? Hence it is that every successive item of cumulative evidence is hailed with pleasure and excitement. Thus was it with Torricelli's, Newton's, Richer's, Roemer's, and Bradley's discoveries; thus with all the brilliant inventions in mechanics by means of which the illustration and explanations of these discoveries became possible—explanations which, after all, not one man in a thousand can understand.
Post-Galilean Astronomy.
A few words in addition to what we have already said concerning the great discoveries made since Galileo's time, and we close.
Three of these discoveries, without which the Copernican theory as to demonstration would be but little better off than the Ptolemaic, merit special mention. They are:
First. The Newtonian theory of gravitation.
Second. The discovery of the shortened pendulum, showing the diurnal motion of the earth.
Third. The velocity and aberration of light, showing the annual motion.
It is scarcely necessary to enter into any detail concerning the so generally known, great, and universal principle of gravitation.
The Shortened Pendulum.
Up to the year 1672, no doubt had been entertained of the spherical figure of the earth, and, as a consequence, of the equality of all the degrees of the meridian; so that one being known, the whole circumference was determined.
In that year, the French Academy of Sciences, then occupied in the measurement of an arc in the meridian, sent the astronomer Richer to Cayenne, on the coast of South America, to make observations of the sun's altitude.
In the course of these observations he was surprised to find that a superior clock, furnished with a pendulum which vibrated seconds, was found to lose nearly two minutes and a half a day.
The astonishment created by the report of this fact in France was very great, particularly after the accuracy of the clock had been fully tested.
Other scientific men then visited different points on the coasts of Africa and South America, and were convinced of the absolute necessity of shortening the pendulum to make it vibrate seconds in those latitudes.
The phenomenon was explained by Newton in the Third Book of his Principia (1687)—see p. 409 et seq., American edition—where he shows it to be a necessary consequence of the earth's rotation on its axis, and of the centrifugal force created by it. That force, in modifying the gravity, gives to the earth an oblate spheroidal figure, more elevated at the equator than on the poles, and makes bodies fall and pendulums vibrate more slowly in low than in high latitudes.
There is, unfortunately, such a thing as national jealousy even in science, and to such a motive only can we ascribe the fact that Newton's explanation was not accepted in France until presented by Huyghens, several years afterward, in a different and less accurate form.
The Velocity And Aberration Of Light.
In the entire range of scientific literature, there are few chapters of greater interest than those which recount the rise and gradual development of all the principles involved in the triumphant demonstration of these two beautiful discoveries.
They admirably illustrate the total ignorance of Galileo concerning a problem upon which he experimented with utter failure, as also the slow pace of scientific progress, and the necessity of the co-operative efforts of many men and many sciences to perfect it.
It required the genius and research of Roemer, Bradley, Molyneux, Arago, Fizeau, Foucault, and Struve, joined to the patient experiment and mechanical skill of Bréguet, Bessel, and Graham—the labor of all these men extending through a period of one hundred and ninety years (1672 to 1862)—to complete its demonstration.
And first, as to the velocity of light. In 1672, Roemer, a Danish astronomer residing in France, began observations on the satellites of Jupiter and their eclipses, which resulted in the discovery of progressive transmission of light and the determination of the value of its velocity. Up to his day, it had almost become a fixed principle that the passage of light through space was absolutely instantaneous.
From the time of Galileo, an immense mass of exact calculations of the eclipses of the first satellite of Jupiter had been accumulating, and Roemer found that at certain times the satellite came out of the shadow later, and at other times sooner, than it should have done, and this variation could not be accounted for on any known principles. Remarking that it always came too late from the shadow when the earth in its annual movement was at more than its mean distance from Jupiter, and too soon when it was at less, he formed the conjecture that light requires an appreciable time to traverse space.
Becoming satisfied of the truth of his theory, he, in September, 1676, announced to the French Academy of Sciences that an emersion of the first satellite, to take place, on the 16th of November following, would occur ten minutes later than it should according to ordinary calculation.
The event verified his prediction. Nevertheless, doubters and cavillers abounded, and Roemer's theory was not accepted without dispute. It was claimed that the delays and accelerations in the immersions and emersions, instead of being attributed to change of position of the observer, and to the progressive transmission of light, might be regarded as indicating a real perturbation in the movement of the satellite, due to a cause not yet discovered.
These doubts were removed fifty years later by the English astronomer Bradley, who discovered the phenomenon of aberration, which consists in an apparent displacement which all the stars and planets experience on account of the combination of the velocity of the earth with the velocity of light.
Bradley's discovery was accidental. A superior instrument, constructed by Graham, and destined to observe with the greatest precision the passage of the stars near the zenith, had been placed at the observatory of Kew for the purpose by Molyneux.
Bradley used this instrument to arrive at some precise data of the annual parallax of the stars. His first observations led him to the discovery of aberration, the details of which, of the highest possible interest, may be found in the Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society, No. 406, December, 1728.
Thus confirmed by Bradley, Roemer's progressive transmission of light became an incontestable fact.
Then followed the experiments projected by Arago to determine the velocity of light, (1838,) which for eleven years remained a merely ingenious suggestion, until realized by MM. Foucault and Fizeau.
From 1840 to 1842, Struve, in Russia, made numerous observations to obtain the exact value of aberration.
In 1856, the Institute of France awarded to M. Fizeau, for his successful demonstration of Arago's suggestion, the triennial prize of thirty thousand francs founded by the emperor, "for the work, or the discovery, which, in the opinion of the five academies of the institute, has done most honor and service to the country."
Finally, in 1862, M. Foucault, perfecting his apparatus, measured the velocity of light by an admirable experiment in physics, which renders not only sensible, but even measurable, the time employed by light to run over a path of twenty metres, (65 feet 7.4 inches,) although this time barely equals 1/15000000 of a second!
And yet, after all this, there still remains a doubt as to positive certainty of accuracy in the calculations.
The sun's parallax, calculated from observations of the last transit of Venus over the disk of the sun in 1769, is fixed at 8.58 seconds, and on this basis is ascertained the distance from the earth to the sun.
For reasons too long to detail here, many distinguished astronomers are not entirely satisfied with the determination of 8.58 seconds, and prefer to wait for the next transit of Venus, in 1874, for a full and satisfactory solution of all doubts on the subject!
Conclusion And A Proposition.
Thus, after a lapse of two hundred and thirty-five years, filled with unremitting labor and triumphant results in the field of astronomical discovery, it appears from the showing of those most competent to judge that something yet remains to be produced in the way of demonstration of the astronomical system as now accepted.
We will not ask those who differ with us concerning the Galileo question to wait another century—the period assigned by Sir John Herschel as "requisite"! Herschel gave that opinion in 1828, which would send us to A.D. 1928 "to go through the task."
As it might not probably be convenient either for us or for those who differ with us to resume the controversy in that year, namely, 1928, we will—in the spirit of compromise, and taking all the rest for granted—content ourselves with and abide by the "satisfactory solution" promised for 1874, to which period it would seem proper, on scientific grounds, to adjourn any attempt to show that a system not yet proved in 1868 was, nevertheless, fully demonstrated in 1633.