[Footnote 151: "And lately a certain prelate has published a pamphlet, in which he says that the moon, traversing the heavens, attracts and draws after her a mass of water which continually follows," etc.]
Here Sagredo stops him abruptly, saying, "For heaven's sake, Signor Simplicio, let us have no more of that; for it is a mere loss of time to listen to it, as well as to confute it, and you simply do injustice to your judgment by regarding such or similar puerilities."
No wonder, as Bailli says, "la foule d'astronomes etaient centre!" [Footnote 152]
[Footnote 152: "The mass of astronomers were of the contrary opinion.">[
Galileo died in profound ignorance of the true tidal theory, and the credit of pointing it out is ascribed by Mr. Drinkwater to the College of Jesuits at Coimbra.
But more than all this, Galileo had already made great mistakes, and committed errors that were publicly rectified by his contemporaries.
Thus, one of the most remarkable astronomical phenomena of the age, the three comets of 1618, was totally misunderstood by Galileo, who pronounced them atmospheric meteors.
The Jesuit Grassi, in his treatise De Tribus Cometis, (1618,) had the merit of explaining what had baffled Galileo, who at first held them to be planets moving in vast ellipses around the sun.
Charity For All.
In referring to these errors of Galileo, Laplace says that it would be unjust to judge him with the same rigor as one who should refuse at present to believe the motion of the earth, confirmed by the numerous discoveries made in astronomy since that period.