Galileo and His Judges

by F. R. Wegg-Prosser

I have already said that Galileo would have been wiser if he had entirely left alone the question of the interpretation of Scripture; but it must always be remembered that it was not he but his opponents who commenced the discussion on that particular head. They were weak in the astronomical argument; and they tried to damage their opponent by attacking him on Scriptural grounds. It is difficult to understand what Dr. Ward means by the forcible language I have just quoted, nor how a principle of Scriptural interpretation, adopted at the present day by every one, could have been in Galileo’s time false, proud, irreverent, and dangerous.[18] Dr. Ward grounds his argument, however, on an idea that he had, to the effect that the Copernican system in Galileo’s day was “scientifically unlikely:” this, however, is just the reverse of the truth. It was unproved; and, as I have repeatedly said, it is not even now proved to absolute demonstration.

It is also true that certain most powerful arguments for it were not then available, as I shall hereafter have occasion to show at more length; but it was not scientifically unlikely. Galileo had indirectly damaged the cause by using a certain erroneous argument in its favour; but then his discoveries had simply pulverised the great rival system of Ptolemy, and no astronomer, who knew what he was about, could do otherwise than choose between Copernicus and Tycho Brahé, each of these being of course somewhat modified in detail. Now the theory of Tycho Brahé was a new one, still newer than that of Copernicus, and had all the appearance of a temporary makeshift; it was not probable that it would receive much approbation in the long run, as in fact it never did. Probability (I mean, of course, in a purely scientific sense) pointed strongly to the Copernican theory even in Galileo’s time; and after Kepler’s celebrated laws had been published, far more strongly still than before. Of course, as Dr. Ward points out, there may be other reasons of so cogent a nature as to outweigh scientific probability; but that is not now the question: he denies even the existence of this latter at the period we are treating of; and on this point he was evidently misinformed.

It is said that the Cardinals of the Index or Inquisition consulted some astronomers before formulating their decrees, and this is likely enough; as there is odium medicum in these days, there was doubtless odium astronomicum in those days.

And we may easily imagine how the philosophers who believed in the infallibility of Aristotle looked with horror and perhaps contempt on the School of Galileo. If people once persuade themselves that physical science is to be learnt merely from tradition, or from à priori arguments, they will naturally have an antipathy to the discoveries made by actual observation and experiment. If men such as these were called in to advise the Cardinals, we may well admit it as a mitigating circumstance, forbidding us to pass a severe judgment on the conduct of the ecclesiastical tribunals. It is no part of my contention, and indeed the very reverse, to lay excessive blame on the Congregations of the Index and Inquisition; but neither, on the other hand, do I understand why we should give them our unqualified approval.

I feel that the opinion I have expressed above, and which might otherwise be considered by some persons as presumptuous towards the ecclesiastical authorities, receives great confirmation, and at the same time what is tantamount to an acquittal from all disrespect to the Church and her authority, by the following extract which I give from the article entitled, “Dr. Mivart on Faith and Science,” published in the October number of The Dublin Review (1887), by the Bishop of Newport and Menevia, the Right Rev. J. C. Hedley. Not only does the high character of the author, both as a theologian and a man of scientific knowledge, give a sanction to all that is contained in the article, but the Review in which it appears, having for its proprietor another Bishop and an able ecclesiastic for its acting editor, carries with it a stamp of Catholic authority such as few periodicals possess. After some other remarks the Bishop of Newport proceeds thus:

I do not by any means wish to deny that the case of Galileo has had an important effect on the action of Church authorities. It seems quite clear that it has made them more cautious in pronouncing on the interpretation of Scripture when the sacred text speaks of natural phenomena. The reason of this is not so much the fact that science has proved authority wrong in one case, as because that case, taking it with all its circumstances, was one the like of which can never happen again. The Galilean controversy marked the close of a period and the opening of a new one. The heliocentric view was the first step in modern scientific expression. Before the days of Galileo men spoke of what they saw with the naked eye, and on the surface of things; thenceforth they were to use the telescope and the microscope; they investigated the bowels of the earth and the distances of the heavens. It was a far-reaching and most pregnant generalisation when men first took in the idea that the arrangements which their books had hitherto called by the expression “nature” were merely a very few of the most obvious aspects of a vast organisation, which could be, and which must be, searched into by observation. At once a multitude of familiar phrases lost their meaning, and many accepted truths had to be dethroned.

And the effect of the discussion in the days of Galileo was not only to make men revise their formularies about the earth’s motion, but to impress them most forcibly with the possibility that such a process might have to be gone through about a very large number of other things. The prevailing views were held by the Church authorities as by every one else. They were not really a part of the Divine revelation. Some people thought they were, and (we may admit it was a misfortune) the very authorities who had to pronounce, used language which was to some extent mistaken in the same direction. On the other hand, it is clear now that men of mark and standing asserted over and over again, that the new theories need not in any point contradict Holy Scripture. It was a matter which was not clear all at once. It is often not immediately evident that novel scientific views do or do not contradict Revelation. They have to be made precise, to be qualified, to be analysed, and that by fallible men. During the process many Catholics will naturally make mistakes, and there is no reason why, now and then, Church authority itself should not make a mistake in this particular matter. When the requisite reflection has had time to be made, then it is seen, as it was in the case of the views under discussion, that what was held by Catholic persons was something quite apart from Catholic faith. And we have no objection to admit that reflection was quickened, and caution was deepened by the case of Galileo. In this sense, and not in any other, that case may be called “emancipatory.” If the Church authorities ever feel themselves called upon to pronounce on the dates or the authorship of the Hexateuch, or on the formation of Adam’s body, they will proceed—we may say it without suspicion of undutifulness—with more enlightened minds than the Congregations which condemned Galileo.

The teaching Church is composed of fallible men, who must sometimes, in certain departments, make mistakes, and who must learn by experience as other men learn. The part of a dutiful Catholic is to lessen the effect of mistaken decisions by prudent silence or respectful remonstrance in the proper quarter, and not to make scandal worse by inept generalisations and unnecessary bitterness.

Further on, the Bishop says:

I do not decline to face the difficulty of Galileo’s compulsory retractation. It seems to me that either Galileo had sufficiently strong reasons to prevent his mind from making the retractation or not. I think it possible he had not. It does not seem that he had anything like evidence that the earth moved. If he had not, there was no reason why he should not assent to a strong expression of authority, that authority being one to which he owed filial obedience.... Still, if Galileo had present to his mind strong proof of the correctness of his own teachings, I do not hesitate to say that he was wrong, and, indeed, committed sin, in making the retractation demanded.

On the purely astronomical question whether Galileo had evidence that the Earth moved, I presume that the Bishop means conclusive evidence; for evidence of some kind he surely had; not conclusive, it is true, but good as far as it went. Long before Galileo was tried by the tribunal of the Inquisition, his contemporary, Kepler, had published those important astronomical laws which still bear his name, and which tended powerfully to corroborate the theory of the Earth’s motion. Apart, however, from this, as I have already intimated, I think there was good ground for the opinion in question.

This, however, is to some extent a digression. I have quoted the Bishop principally in order to strengthen, by his high authority, the line of argument I have ventured to pursue, which, in effect, is this: that the principle on which the Roman Congregations acted in Galileo’s case was sound, but the application of it in the particular instance mistaken and injudicious.