Galileo had now obtained wealth, reputation, station, and high honors. His pupils were received as professors. His disciples and correspondents were philosophers, princes, and prelates. Opposition was for him but a bridge to triumph, and even his scientific errors were not noticed to his detriment. Not his the fate of Kepler and Tycho Brahe, compelled to seek in exile the hospitality of an opposing faith. Not his the essays of the discouraged Fulton, jeered at up to the instant that demonstration silenced cavil. Not his the labors of sad and silent nights, destined only to see the light when the hand that traced them was cold in the tomb. Not his the constant struggle with years of poverty, of hope deferred, in spite of which Columbus found a new world, not, like Galileo's, visible in the vault of heaven, but unseen, unknown, beyond the trackless wave.
He wrote and spoke ex cathedra, and, whether with or without proofs, in a tone of overbearing confidence. When argument failed to enlighten the judgment of his adversaries, says Lardner, "and reason to dispel their prejudices, he wielded against them his powerful weapons of ridicule and sarcasm." His progress was a triumphant march. Sovereigns received his dedications, and learned academies sought a reflection of his fame in sending forth his works with all the illustration of their high authority. The path to the full establishment of the Copernican system was open and broad before him; but the pride of the man [Footnote 127] was stronger than the modest science of the philosopher, and he made it rugged and difficult by obstacles of his own erection. He strove not for truth, but victory.
[Footnote 127: Like Cicero, Galileo was "avidior gloriae quam satis est," a phrase used by himself when on his defence.]
The Copernican Theory
was, so to speak, born, cradled, nurtured and developed in the Church and under the very shadow of St. Peter's.
Nicholas Copernicus was a priest, acquired his scientific education at Bologna, was shortly afterward appointed to a professorship in Rome, where he lectured many years, and announced and discussed his theory of the solar system long before it was published. The printing of his great work was long urged in vain by Cardinal Scomberg, who sent money to defray the expense. The Bishop of Culm superintended its publication, and Copernicus dedicated it to the Head of the Church, Pope Paul III., on the express ground "that the authority of the pontiff might silence the calumnies of those who attacked these opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture." It was well understood that the authority of the pontiff might be relied on; for in 1533, ten years before the publication of De Revolutionibus by Copernicus, John Albert Widmanstadt, just arrived in Rome from Germany, was invited by Pope Clement VII. to give in his presence at the Vatican an explanation of the Copernican system. Widmanstadt accordingly delivered a lecture on the subject in the garden of the Vatican; and his holiness, in token of his high gratification, presented the distinguished German a valuable Greek manuscript, (long preserved at Monaco, and now belonging to the royal library at Munich,) on the fly-leaf of which is recorded, by Widmanstadt, the gift and the incident connected with it.
From that time (1533) to 1610, a period of seventy-seven years, the Copernican theory was widely discussed and written upon throughout Europe. Lectures were delivered and books published in Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, without let or hindrance, in which the new system was thoroughly debated and, to a great extent, controverted—controverted, too, far more bitterly by astronomers than theologians. It was, moreover, discussed amongst all classes of men. So much so, indeed, that it was publicly satirized in a farce put upon the stage at Elbing. So great, however, was the personal popularity of Copernicus that the piece was hissed.
Intentionally or not, the impression has been strongly made on the English and American Protestant mind that before Galileo the new system scarcely existed, and that he was the first to announce it to the astonished and benighted priests and cardinals at Rome. In like manner a certain amount of literary industry appears to have been used to pass over in comparative silence the merit of Copernicus and his fellow-priests—simply because they were priests. [Footnote 128]
[Footnote 128: In the interest of truth and historical accuracy, it is highly gratifying to be able to point out a signal and honorable exception in the following passage, which we read in the National Quarterly Review, a Protestant periodical published in this city: "Thus we are bound to admit, as beyond all dispute, that not only was the system of the universe now universally received founded by a priest of the church which is said to be an enemy to science, but that it was a bishop and cardinal of the same church who, above all others, took most pains to have the system promulgated to the world. It was, in fact, they who paid all the expenses of printing the work, and finally, it was to the head of the church the book was dedicated; nor was it dedicated to the pope without his having given full permission, and it is further proved that Paul III. had not given the permission until he had made himself acquainted with the character of the work."—National Quarterly Review, October, 1868, p. 219.]
Much of this reprehensible effort is chargeable to English literature, and even Hallam, fair and honorable usually, is not free from the reproach of an apparent fear of stating boldly that Copernicus was a Catholic priest.