CHAPTER V.
The Church and the New Astronomy: Conclusion.
ASTRONOMICAL thought on the Continent was more hampered, in the Catholic countries especially, by the restrictive opinions of the Church. Yet in 1757, when the decree prohibiting all books dealing with the Copernican doctrine was removed from the Index, that system had already long been adopted by the more celebrated academies of Europe, for so Mme. de Premontval claimed in 1750; and it was then reaching out to non-scientific readers, through simple accounts for "ladies and others not well versed in these somewhat technical matters."[389] The great landmark in the development of the doctrine was the publication of Newton's Principia in 1687, though its effect in Europe was of course slower in being felt than it was in England. Newton's work and that of the astronomers immediately following him was influential except where the Church's prohibitions still held sway.
During this period, the books published in free Holland were more outspoken in their radical acceptance or in their uncertainty of the truth than were those published in the Catholic countries. Christian Huygens's treatises on the plurality of worlds not only fully accepted the Copernican doctrine, but like those of Bishop Wilkins in England, deduced therefrom the probability that the other planets are inhabited even as the earth is. A writer[390] on the sphere in 1697 stated the different theories of the universe so that his readers might choose the one that to them appeared the most probable. He himself preferred the Cartesian explanation as the simplest and most convenient of all, "though it should be held merely as an hypothesis and not as in absolute agreement with the truth." Pierre Bayle[391] also explained the different systems, but appears himself to waver between the Copernican and the Tychonic conceptions. He used, however, the old word "perigee" (nearness to the earth) rather than the Newtonian "perihelion" (nearness to the sun). His objections to the Copernican doctrine have a familiar ring: It is contrary to the evidence of the senses; a stone would not fall back to its starting-place, nor could a bird return to her nest; the earth would not be equidistant from the horizon and the two poles; and lastly it is contrary to the Scriptures. Only a few years later, however, De Maupertius wrote that no one at that day (1744) doubted any longer the motion of the earth around its axis, and he believed with Newton that the laws of gravity applied to the universe as well as to the earth. Then he proceeded to explain the Copernican system which he favored on the ground of its greater probability.[392]
Even in 1750, Mme. de Premontval thought it wiser to publish in Holland her little life of her father, Le Méchaniste Philosophe. This Jean Piegeon, she claimed, was the first man in France to make spheres according to the Copernican system. An orphan, he was educated by a priest; then took up carpentry and mechanics. When he tried to make a celestial sphere according to the Ptolemaic system, he became convinced of its falsity because of its complexities. Therefore he plunged into a study of the new system which he adopted. His first Copernican sphere was exhibited before Louis XIV at Versailles in 1706 and was bought by the king and presented to the Académie des Sciences.[393] The second was taken to Canada by one of the royal officials. Public interest in his work was keen; even Peter the Great, who was then in Paris, visited his workroom.[394] M. Piegeon also wrote a book on the Copernican system.[395]
It seems, however, as though M. Piegeon were slightly in advance of his age, or more daring, perhaps, than his contemporaries, for there was almost no outspoken support of the Copernican system at this time in France. Even Cassini of the French Académie des Sciences did not explicitly support it, though he spoke favorably of it and remarked that recent observations had demonstrated the revolutions of each planet around the sun in accordance with that supposition.[396] But the great orator, Bossuet, (1627-1703), clung to the Ptolemaic conception as alone orthodox, and scriptural.[397] Abbé Fénelon (1651-1715) writing on the existence of God, asked: "Who is it who has hung up this motionless ball of the earth; who has placed the foundations for it," and "who has taught the sun to turn ceasely and regularly in spaces where nothing troubles it?"[398] And a writer on the history of the heavens as treated by poets, philosophers and Moses (1739), tells Gassendi, Descartes and many other great thinkers that their ideas of the heavens are proved vain and false by daily experience as well as by the account of Creation; for the most enlightened experience is wholly and completely in accord with the account of Moses. This book was written, the author said, for young people students of philosophy and the humanities, also for teachers.[399]
The Jesuit order, still a power in Europe in the early 18th century, was bound to the support of the traditional view, which led them into some curious positions in connection with the discoveries made in astronomy during this period. Thus the famous Jesuit astronomer Boscovich (1711-1787) published in Rome in 1746 a study of the ellipticity of the orbits of planets which necessitated the use of the Copernican position; he stated he had assumed it as true merely to facilitate his labors. In the second edition (1785) published some years after the removal from the Index of the decree against books teaching the Copernican doctrine (at his instigation, it is claimed),[400] he added a note to this passage asking the reader to remember the time and the place of its former publication.[401] Just at the end of the preceding century, one of the seminary fathers at Liège maintained that were the earth to move, being made up of so many and divers combustible materials, it would soon burst into flames and be reduced to ashes![402]
During the 18th century at Louvain the Copernican doctrine was warmly supported, but as a theory. A MS. of a course given there in 1748 has come down to us, in which the professor, while affirming its hypothetical character, described it as a simple, clear and satisfactory explanation of the phenomena, then answered all the objections made against it by theologians, physicists, and astronomers.[403] A few years earlier, (1728) a Jesuit at Liège, though well acquainted with Newton's work, declared: "For my part I do not doubt the least in the world that the earth is eternally fixed, for God has founded the terrestrial globe, and it will not be shaken."[404] Another priest stated in the first chapter of his astronomy that the sun and the planets daily revolve around the earth; then later on, he explained the Copernican and the Tychonic schemes and the Cartesian theory of motion with evident sympathy.[405] Two others, one a Jesuit in 1682 at Naples,[406] the other in 1741 at Verona, frankly preferred the Tychonic system, and the latter called the system found by "Tommaso Copernico" a mere fancy.[407] Still another priest, evidently well acquainted with Bradley's work, as late as in 1774 declared that there was nothing decisive on either side of the great controversy between the systems.[408] At this time, however, a father was teaching the Copernican system at Liège without differentiating between thesis and hypothesis.[409] And a Jesuit, while he denied (1772) universal gravitation, the earth's movement, and the plurality of inhabited worlds, declared that the Roman Congregation had done wrong in charging these as heretical suggestions. In fact, M. Monchamp, himself a Catholic priest at Louvain, declared that the Newtonian proofs were considered by many in the 18th century virtually to abrogate the condemnation of 1616 and 1633; hence the professors of the seminary at Liège had adopted the Copernican system.[410]
The famous French astronomer Lalande, in Rome in 1757 when the Inquisition first modified its position, tried to persuade the authorities to remove Galileo's book also from the Index; but his efforts were unavailing, because of the sentence declared against its author.[411] In 1820 Canon Settele was not allowed by the Master of the Sacred Palace to publish his textbook because it dealt with the forbidden subject. His appeal to the Congregation itself resulted, as we have seen, in the decree of 1822 removing this as a cause for prohibition. Yet as late as in 1829, when a statue to Copernicus was being unveiled at Warsaw, and a great convocation had met in the church for the celebration of the mass as part of the ceremony, at the last moment the clergy refused in a body to attend a service in honor of a man whose book was on the Index.[412]
Thus the Roman Catholic Church by reason of its organization and of its doctrine requiring obedience to its authority was more conspicuous for its opposition as a body to the Copernican doctrine, even though as individuals many of its members favored the new system. But the Protestant leaders were quite as emphatic in their denunciations, though less influential because of the Protestant idea of the right to individual belief and interpretation. Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Turrettin,[413] Owen, and Wesley are some of the notable opponents to it. And when the scientific objections had practically disappeared, those who interpreted the Scriptures literally were still troubled and hesitant down to the present day. Not many years ago, people flocked to hear a negro preacher of the South, Brother Jasper, uphold with all his ability that the sun stood still at Joshua's command, and that today "the sun do move!" Far more surprising is this statement in the new Catholic Encyclopedia under "Faith," written by an English Dominican: