But Galileo had only performed half his task by the happy adjustment of the difficulties affecting himself; the more important and grander part of it, the preservation of the Copernican system from the interdict of the Church, had yet to be accomplished. His letter of 6th February to Picchena tells him of the favourable turn in his own affairs, as well as of the noble purposes by which he was animated. He writes:—
“My business, so far as it concerns myself, is completed; all the exalted personages who have been conducting it have told me so plainly, and in a most obliging manner, and have assured me that people are fully convinced of my uprightness and honour, and of the devilish malice and injustice of my persecutors. As far as this point is concerned, therefore, I might return home without delay, but there is a question concerning my own cause which does not concern myself alone, but all those who, during the last eighty years, have advocated in printed works or private letters, in public lectures or private conversations, a certain opinion, not unknown to your Grace, on which they are now proposing to pronounce judgment. In the conviction that my assistance may be of use in the investigation of the matter, as far as a knowledge of those truths is concerned which are proved by the science to which I have devoted myself, I neither can nor ought to neglect to render this assistance, while I shall thereby follow the dictates of my conscience and Christian zeal.”[134]
This was magnanimous, and Galileo was entitled, as few others were, to appear as the advocate of science. But unfortunately his warm and perhaps too solicitous efforts for the Copernican cause had a result precisely opposite to the one he intended. He was still under the great delusion that the Roman curia must above all things be convinced of the correctness of the Copernican doctrines. He therefore sought out scepticism on the subject everywhere in the eternal city, combated it eagerly and apparently with signal success. In many of the first houses in Rome, such as the Cesarini’s, Ghislieri’s, and others, he unfolded before numerous audiences his views about the construction of the universe. He always began these discourses by carefully enumerating all the arguments for the Ptolemaic system, and then proved that they were untenable by the telling arguments with which his own observations had so abundantly supplied him; and as he not seldom added the biting sarcasm of his wit to serious demonstration, thus bringing the laugh on his side, he prepared signal defeats for the orthodox views of nature.[135]
But by this method he obviously took a false standpoint. He would not see that the Romanists cared far more for the authority of Scripture than for the recognition of the laws of nature; that his system, running counter to orthodox interpretation of the Bible, was opposed to the interests of the Church. And as his tactics were founded upon a purely human way of looking at things, and he erroneously imagined that the true system of the universe would be of greater importance, even to the servants of the Church, than her own mysteries, it was but a natural consequence of these false premises that, instead of attaining his end, he only widened his distance from it.
CHAPTER VI.
THE INQUISITION AND THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM, AND THE ASSUMED PROHIBITION TO GALILEO.
Adverse Opinion of the Inquisition on Galileo’s Propositions.—Admonition by Bellarmine, and assumed Absolute Prohibition to treat of the Copernican Doctrines.—Discrepancy between Notes of 25th and 26th February.—Marini’s documents.—Epinois’s Work on Galileo.—Wohlwill first doubts the Absolute Prohibition.—Doubts confirmed by Gherardi’s Documents.—Decree of 5th March, 1616, on the Copernican system.—Attitude of the Church.—Was the Absolute Prohibition ever issued to Galileo?—Testimony of Bellarmine in his favour.—Conclusions.
The Inquisition, perhaps still incensed by Galileo’s active propagandism, even among the learned world of Rome, and by his brilliant defence of the new system, now hastened to bring to a conclusion the transactions which had been going on for a considerable time against it. A decree of 19th February, 1616, summoned the Qualifiers of the Holy Office (they were not judges exactly, but had to give their opinion as experts) and required them to give their opinion on the two following propositions in Galileo’s work on the solar spots:—
I. The sun is the centre of the world, and immovable from its place.