Finally, the Copernicans were utterly silenced by the unanswerable argument of throwing up a stone.
"Would they please explain," was asked of them, "why, if the earth moved, the stone, being thrown directly upward, should fall on the spot from which it was thrown?"
The Copernicans were silent, for they could assign no reason. "In the sixteenth century," says Professor De Morgan, "the wit of man could not imagine how, if the earth moved, a stone thrown directly upward would tumble down upon the spot it was thrown from." It was reserved for a man who was born on the same day Galileo died to furnish the reason.
Astronomy In 1633.
To one seeking for a demonstrated system, astronomy was then a hopeless chaos of irreconcilable facts—an impenetrable jungle of conflicting theories. That such was the actual condition of the science in Galileo's day, we find fully recognized and aptly described by a distinguished English Protestant, a great name in English literature, who, himself "an exact mathematician" and astronomer, was most active in research and observation precisely during the period of Galileo's greatest fame. We refer to Burton, author of the celebrated Anatomy of Melancholy.
This remarkable book was written by Burton during the years extending from 1614 to 1621, when the first edition was published. The subsequent editions of 1624, 1628, 1632, and 1638 were all issued during the life of the author, who died in 1639, a succession of years precisely covering the period of Galileo's controversies and trials; and yet its author, vicar of St. Thomas and rector of Segrave, (Church of England as by law established,) who never misses an opportunity ever so slight of giving Catholicity a thrust or a stab, makes 'mere mention' of Galileo's condemnation thus: "These paradoxes of the earth's motion which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as heretical."
The truth is, that in that day the course pursued by the Congregation at Rome was generally approved even by Protestants. In their eyes, nothing but a paradox was condemned. Having exhausted all his proof, where does Galileo leave our exact English mathematician, who evidently read and knew of everything published on the subject in his day?
Why, Burton speaks of "that main paradox of the earth's motion now so much in question," and devotes five full pages to a presentation of all the theories then current, giving Galileo's as of no more value than the others! He thus sums them up:
"One offends against natural philosophy, another against optic principles, a third against mathematical, as not answering to astronomical observations. One puts a great space between Saturn's orb and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypothesis, he makes the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to the five upper planets; to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnal motion; eccentrics and epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formerly exploded; and so, dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currant, [Footnote 149] as a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself: reforms some and mars all. In the mean time, the world is tossed in a blanket amongst them, they hoist the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and go at their pleasures: one saith the sun stands; another, he moves; a third comes in, taking them all at rebound, and lest there should any paradox be wanting, he finds certain spots and clouds in the sun. …