[30] This doctrine is thus announced. 1. That the same rays of light falling upon the same point of an object will turn into all sorts of colours by the various inclination of the object. 2. That colours begin to appear when two pulses of light are blended so well and so near together that the sense takes them for one.
[31] This effect is so great, that at the distance of four inches from the point of divergence, the angular inflexion of the red rays of the first fringe is 12′ 6″, while at the distance of about twenty feet, it is only 3′ 55″.
[32] See the twenty-ninth query at the end of his Optics, where the sides of a ray are compared with the poles of a magnet.
[33] The English edition was reprinted at London in 1714, 1721, and 1730, and the Latin one at London in 1706, 1719, 1721, 1728, at Lausanne in 1740, and at Padua in 1773.
[34] When James I. went to Copenhagen in 1590, to conclude his marriage with the Princess Anne of Denmark, he spent eight days under the roof of Tycho at Uraniburg. As a token of his gratitude, he composed a set of Latin verses in honour of the astronomer, and left him a magnificent present at his departure. He gave him also his royal license for the publication of his works in England, and accompanied it with the following complimentary letter:—
“Nor am I acquainted with these things on the relation of others, or from a mere perusal of your works, but I have seen them with my own eyes, and heard them with my own ears, in your residence at Uraniburg, during the various learned and agreeable conversations which I there held with you, which even now affect my mind to such a degree, that it is difficult to decide whether I recollect them with greater pleasure or admiration.”
[35] The cube, the sphere, the tetrahedron, the octohedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron.
[36] Simon Marius, mathematician to the Marquis of Brandenburg, assures us that he discovered the satellites of Jupiter in November, 1609.
[37] It is distinctly stated in the sentence of the Inquisition, that Galileo’s enemies had charged him with having abjured his opinions in 1616, and affirmed that he had been punished by the Inquisition. In order to refute these calumnies, Galileo applied to Cardinal Bellarmine for a certificate to prove that he neither abjured his opinions nor suffered any punishment for them; but that the doctrine of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun was only denounced to him as contrary to Scripture, and as one which could not be defended or maintained. Cardinal Bellarmine drew up such a certificate in his own handwriting.
[38] Theoricæ Medicearum planetarum ex causis physicis deductæ. Flor. 1666, 4to.