I suppose most people would figure that a newborn has not committed any crimes. That fact does not seem to go very far in blocking humans from committing atrocious things as they gain the ability. Not all of us the same , influence and situations vary. I could think of good Americans lynching people in the last century . I could thing of Germans in ww2 eliminating people , not just in special camps but as groups of armed executioners.

People can be incomprehensibly awful. It is clear we were born into sin. I think it would be well if we were all born again and start building better paths.

Societies have processes for taking raw infants and turning them into productive adult members. At least according to some definitions. The values and the methods are where the controversies ensue. There's also the question of how much influence the church or the state should have over the individual. All good questions.

People can commit atrocities and do. We expect more from humans. But it's our expectations that make us outraged or disappointed.

I don't understand sin as a concept. I understand destructive behaviors, but they're not the same thing. Sin seems to have a lot to do with the ideal, the holy, the pure, and those seem to me to be bizarre abstractions that do more harm than good.

Maksukov, I have been troubled by the words and ideas of ideal, the Holy, the pure. They seem ambiguous at best, lacking any real meaning sometimes. I actually suspect that these words have real potential to contain bad ,harmful, ideas. They can be evil. I think racist groups have used each of those words to malignant intent. There are other hurtful uses of those words. I do not know of any use of those words which to my view do not fall short of being good.

I know of no other useful way of thinking of sin other than as destructive behavior. I think that is the fundamental meaning in religious use. I have heard it distorted to other purpose at times. I think those distortions can manipulate people because they rely upon the assumed underlying meaning of destructive behavior. If someone says racemixing is unholy and impure they are saying it is destructive behavior but using the fuzzy meanings of holy or purity to pass the idea on to the unsuspecting.

In Germany, especially in the Protestant part of it, the
war was even more bitter, and it lasted through the first half
of the eighteenth century. Eminent Lutheran doctors of
divinity flooded the country with treatises to prove that the
Copernican theory could not be reconciled with Scripture.
In the theological seminaries and in many of the universities
where clerical influence was strong they seemed to sweep
all before them ; and yet at the middle of the century we
find some of the clearest-headed of them aware of the fact
that their cause was lost.*

In 1757 the most enlightened perhaps in the whole line
of the popes, Benedict XIV, took up the matter, and the
Congregation of the Index secretly allowed the ideas of Co-
pernicus to be tolerated. Yet in 1765 Lalande, the great
French astronomer, tried in vain at Rome to induce the
authorities to remove Galileo's works from the Index. Even
at a date far within our own nineteenth century the authori-
ties of many universities in Catholic Europe, and especially
those in Spain, excluded the Newtonian system. In 1771 the
greatest of them all, the University of Salamanca, being
urged to teach physical science, refused, making answer as
follows: " Newton teaches nothing that would make a good


* For Cassini's position, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xiii, p. 175.
For Riccioli, see Daunou, Etudes Historiqties, vol. ii, p. 439- I' o^ Bossuet, see
Bertrand, p. 41. For Hutchinson, see Lyell, Principles of Geology, p. 48. For
Wesley, see his work, already cited. As to Boscovich, his declaration, mentioned
in the text, was in 1746, but in 1785 he seemed to feel his position in view of his-
tory, and apologized abjectly : Bertrand, pp. 60, 61. See also Whewell's notice of
Le Sueur and Jacquier's introduction to their edition of Newton's Principia. For
the struggle in (iermany, see Zoeckler, Geschichte der Beziehutigen zivischen Theo-
logie und Natur^vissenschaft, vol. ii, pp. 45 et seq.


logician or metaphysician ; and Gassendi and Descartes do
not agree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does."

Vengeance upon the dead also has continued far into our
own century. On the 5th of May, 1829, a great multitude
assembled at Warsaw to honour the memory of Copernicus
and to unveil Thorwaldsen's statue of him.

Copernicus had lived a pious, Christian life ; he had been
beloved for unostentatious Christian charity ; with his re-
ligious belief no fault had ever been found ; he was a canon
of the Church at Frauenberg, and over his grave had been
written the most touching of Christian epitaphs. Naturally,
then, the people expected a religious service ; all was under-
stood to be arranged for it ; the procession marched to the
church and waited. The hour passed, and no priest ap-
peared ; none could be induced to appear. Copernicus,
gentle, charitable, pious, one of the noblest gifts of God to
religion as well as to science, was evidently still under the
ban. Five years after that, his book was still standing on
the Index of books prohibited to Christians.

The edition of the Index published in 18 19 was as inexo-
rable toward the works of Copernicus and Galileo as its
predecessors had been; but in the year 1820 came a crisis.
Canon Settele, Professor of Astronomy at Rome, had written
an elementary book in which the Copernican system was
taken for granted. The Master of the Sacred Palace, An-
fossi, as censor of the press, refused to allow the book to be
printed unless Settele revised his work and treated the Co-
pernican theory as merely a hypothesis. On this Settele ap-
pealed to Pope Pius VII, and the Pope referred the matter
to the Congregation of the Holy Ofifice. At last, on the 16th
of August, 1820, it was decided that Settele might teach the
Copernican system as established, and this decision was ap-
proved by the Pope. This aroused considerable discussion,
but finally, on the nth of September, 1822, the cardinals of
the Holy Inquisition graciously agreed that '* the printing
and publication of works treating of the motion of the earth
and the stability of the sun, in accordance with the general
opinion of modern astronomers, is permitted at Rome."
This decree was ratified by Pius VII, but it was not until
thirteen years later, in 1835, that there was issued an edition
of the Index from which the condemnation of works defend-
inof the double motion of the earth was left out.

This was not a moment too soon, for, as if the previous
proofs had not been sufficient, each of the motions of the
earth was now absolutely demonstrated anew, so as to be
recognised by the ordinary observer. The parallax of fixed
stars, shown by Bessel as well as other noted astronomers in
1838, clinched forever the doctrine of the revolution of the
earth around the sun, and in 1851 the great experiment of
Foucault with the pendulum showed to the human eye the
earth in motion around its own axis. To make the matter
complete, this experiment was publicly made in one of the
churches at Rome by the eminent astronomer, Father Sec-
chi, of the Jesuits, in 1852 — just two hundred and twenty
years after the Jesuits had done so much to secure Galileo's
condemnation.*


* For good statements of the final action of the Church in the matter, see
Gebler; also Zoeckler, ii, 352. See also Bertrand, Fondateurs de Astronomie
moderne, p. 61 ; Flammarion, Vie de Copernic, chap. ix. As to the time when the
decree of condemnation was repealed, there have been various pious attempts to
make it earlier than the reality. Artaud, p. 307, cited in an apologetic article in
the Dublin Review, September, 1865, says that Galileo's famous dialogue was pub-
lished in 1714, at Padua, entire, and with the usual approbations. The same article
also declares that in 1818 the ecclesiastical decrees were repealed by Pius VII
in full Consistory. Whewell accepts this ; but Cantu, an authority favourable to
the Church, acknowledges that Copernicus's work remained on the Index as late as
1835 (Cantu, Histoire universelle, vol. xv, p. 483) ; and with this Th. Martin, not
less favourable to the Church, but exceedingly careful as to the facts, agrees ; and
the most eminent authority of all, Prof. Reusch, of Bonn, in his Der hidex der
verbotenen BUchcr, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, p. 396, confirms the above statement in the
text. For a clear statement of Bradley's exquisite demonstration of the Coperni-
can theory by reasonings upon the rapidity of light, etc., and Foucault's exhibition
of the rotation of the earth by the pendulum experiment, see Hoefer, Histoire de
I Astronomie, pp. 492 et seq. For more recent proofs of the Copernican theory, by
the discoveries of Bunsen, Bischoff, Benzenburg, and others, see Jevons, Principles
of Science.

In vain did Galileo try to prove the existence of satel-
lites by showing them to the doubters through his telescope :
they either declared it impious to look, or, if they did look,
denounced the satellites as illusions from the devil. Good
Father Clavius declared that " to see satellites of Jupiter,
men had to make an instrument which would create them."
In vain did Galileo try to save the great truths he had dis-
covered by his letters to the Benedictine Castelli and the
Grand-Duchess Christine, in which he argued that literal
biblical interpretation should not be applied to science ; it
w^as answered that such an argument only made his heresy
more detestable ; that he was '* worse than Luther or Calvin."

The war on the Copernican theory which up to that
time had been carried on quietly, now flamed forth. It w^as
declared that the doctrine was proved false by the standing
still of the sun for Joshua, by the declarations that '* the
foundations of the earth are fixed so firm that they can not
be moved," and that the sun " runneth about from one end
of the heavens to the other." *

But the little telescope of Galileo still swept the heavens,
and another revelation was announced — the mountains and
valleys in the moon. This brought on another attack. It
was declared that this, and the statement that the moon
shines by light reflected from the sun, directly contradict
the statement in Genesis that the moon is *' a great light."
To make the matter worse, a painter, placing the moon in a
religious picture in its usual position beneath the feet of the
Blessed Virgin, outlined on its surface mountains and val-
leys ; this was denounced as a sacrilege logically resulting
from the astronomer's heresy.

Still another struggle was aroused when the hated tele-
scope revealed spots upon the sun, and their motion indicat-
ing the sun's rotation. Monsignor Elci, head of the Univer-
sity of Pisa, forbade the astronomer Castelli to mention these
spots to his students. Father Busaeus, at the University of
Innspruck, forbade the astronomer Scheiner, who had also
discovered the spots and proposed a safe explanation of
them, to allow the new discovery to be known there. At
the College of Douay and the University of Louvain this
discovery was expressly placed under the ban, and this be-
came the general rule among the Catholic universities and
colleges of Europe. The Spanish universities were espe-
cially intolerant of this and similar ideas, and up to a recent
period their presentation was strictly forbidden in the most
important university of all— that of Salamanca.

Such are the consequences of placing the instruction of
men's minds in the hands of those mainly absorbed in saving
men's souls. Nothing could be more in accordance with
the idea recently put forth by sundry ecclesiastics, Catholic
and Protestant, that the Church alone is empowered to pro-
mulgate scientific truth or direct university instruction.
But science gained a victory here also. Observations of
the solar spots were reported not only from Galileo in Italy,
but from Fabricius in Holland. Father Scheiner then en-
deavoured to make the usual compromise between theology
and science. He promulgated a pseudo-scientific theory,
which only provoked derision.

The war became more and more bitter. The Dominican
Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, " Ye men
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this
wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name ushered in
sharper weapons ; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that
''geometry is of the devil," and that" mathematicians should
be banished as the authors of all heresies." The Church
authorities gave Caccini promotion.

* See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii.


Father Lorini proved that Galileo's doctrine was not only
heretical but '-atheistic," and besought the Inquisition to
intervene. The Bishop of Fiesole screamed in rage against
the Copernican system, publicly insulted Galileo, and de-
nounced him to the Grand-Duke. The Archbishop of Pisa
secretly sought to entrap Galileo and deliver him to the In-
quisition at Rome. The Archbishop of Florence solemnly
condemned the new doctrines as unscriptural ; and Paul V,
while petting Galileo, and inviting him as the greatest astron-
omer of the world to visit Rome, was secretly moving the
Archbishop of Pisa to pick up evidence against the astron-
omer.

But by far the most terrible champion who now ap-
peared was Cardinal Bellarmin, one of the greatest theo-
logians the world has known. He was earnest, sincere,
and learned, but insisted on making science conform to
Scripture. The weapons which men of Bellarmin's stamp
used were purely theological. They held up before the
world the dreadful consequences w^hich must result to
Christian theology were the heavenly bodies proved to
revolve about the sun and not about the earth. Their
most tremendous dogmatic engine was the statement that
'' his pretended discovery vitiates the whole Christian plan
of salvation." Father Lecazre declared " it casts suspicion
on the doctrine of the incarnation." Others declared, " It
upsets the whole basis of theology. If the earth is a
planet, and only one among several planets, it can not be
that any such great things have been done specially for it as
the Christian doctrine teaches. If there are other planets,
since God makes nothing in vain, they must be inhabited ;
but how can their inhabitants be descended from Adam?
How can they trace back their origin to Noah's ark ? How
can they have been redeemed by the Saviour?" Nor was
this argument confined to the theologians of the Roman
Church ; Melanchthon, Protestant as he was, had already
used it in his attacks on Copernicus and his school.

Are we doubling back over some of the same territory? Check to see if anybody is reading?

I have been impressed that though the general outline of the story is well engraved in my mind the memory of the length and endurance of the resistence to the light of day surprises me. A memory trace tells me I have let some of that fade. I was still in grade school when I read an adult history of the development of science. Basics of the discoveries of individuals were presented with methods and a bit of biography. Galileo became a chlld hood hero and I pursued a small telescope and the study of astronomy for a few years thereafter. I kept a suspicion of religious authority knowing they may be tempted to claim to know about things about which they are in possession only of ignorance.

I find myself asking why the perseverance? I admit to a bit of prejudice against Missouri synod as the most backward ingrown narrow variety of American Lutheranism but fighting Copernicus in the19th century?

Is it purely for power that they have portrayed themselves to history as consummate creators of ignorance? A devotee of power would have better sense I suspect. They are unable to convince Nipper that the Bible actually teaches an earth which does not move nor that the idea is necessary for faith. Yet for them they seemed to think faith rested upon the foundation of an earth at the center of the universe.

I was going to come up with a clever explanation for this but have not and instead find myself annoyed.

No, you were born to the left!

Wrong as usual.

Looks like I did repost some of the Galileo material. I'll clean it up shortly and get us back into the post-Galileo era.

Maksukov, my annoyance was not with your repeat but with the bizarre lengths that the resistance to learning went. I am still asking my self why.

I am not writing a full statement, just a couple notes to invite thoughts.
It is a revolution in thought to shift from using reason as primary and mistrusting observation to accepting that reason can lead us astray.People were slow to accept that reality may be different than reason says it should be.

Is there a connection to the fact that timing overlaps the period of witch hysteria?

Are both witch hysteria and fearing objective investigation tied to political instability?

Shall we call it superstitious fear. It seems possible that some of these people actual thought the telescope was tricking people.

Besides, obviously the earth is stable, anybody saying different is doing crazy talk to make people crazy.

The scientific revolution dawned at the same time as the Reformation. So Christianity was shattered by civil war. Extremism was everywhere because it was an existential crisis. The resistance was the old Kuhnian tension of the pending paradigm shift.

VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY
OVER GALILEO.

Any history of the victory of astronomical science over
dogmatic theology would be incomplete without some ac-
count of the retreat made by the Church from all its former
positions in the Galileo case.

The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult.
A little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skillful use of
that time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius,
that the Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go,
but how men go to heaven, and a free use of explosive rhet-
oric against the pursuing army of scientists, sufficed.

But in the older Church it was far less easy. The re-
treat of the sacro-scientific army of Church apologists lasted
through two centuries.

In spite of all that has been said by these apologists,
there no longer remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal
infallibility was committed fully and irrevocably against the
double revolution of the earth. As the documents of Gali-
leo's trial now published show, Paul V, in 1616, pushed on
with all his might the condemnation of Galileo and of the
works of Copernicus and of all others teaching the motion of
the earth around its own axis and around the sun. So,
too, in the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, and in all the
proceedings which led up to it and which followed it, Urban
VIll was the central figure. Without his sanction no action
could have been taken.

True, the Pope did not formally sign the decree against
the Copernican theory then; but this came later. In 1664
Alexander VII prefixed to the Index containing the con-
demnations of the works of Copernicus and Galileo and '' all
books which affirm the motion of the earth " a papal bull
signed by himself, binding the contents of the Index upon
the consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed and ap-
proved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly,
the condemnation of " all books teaching the movement of
the earth and the stability of the sun."*

* See Rev. William W. Roberts, The Pontifical Decrees against the Doctrine


The position of the mother Church had been thus made
especially difficult ; and the first important move in retreat
by the apologists was the statement that Galileo was con-
demned, not because he affirmed the motion of the earth,
but because he supported it from Scripture. There was a
slight appearance of truth in this. Undoubted!y Galileo's
letters to Castelli and the grand duchess, in which he at-
tempted to show that his astronomical doctrines were not
opposed to Scripture, gave a new stir to religious bigotry.
For a considerable time, then, this quibble served its pur-
pose ; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's con-
demnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan,
in his wish to gain favour from the older Church.

But nothing can be more absurd, in the light of the origi-
nal documents recently brought out of the Vatican archives,
than to make this contention now. The letters of Gali-
leo to Castelli and the Grand-Duchess were not published
until after the condemnation; and, although the Archbishop
of Pisa had endeavoured to use them against him, they were
but casually mentioned in 1616, and entirely left out of view
in 1633. What was condemned in 1616 by the Sacred Con-
gregation held in the presence of Pope Paul V, as ''absurd,
false in theology, and heretical, because absolutely contrary to
Holy Scripture,'' was the proposition that '' the sun is the cen-
tre about which the earth revolves " ; and what was condemned
as ''absurd, false in philosophy, and from a theologic point of
viezv, at least, opposed to the true faith,'' was the proposition
that " the earth is not the centre of the universe and immovable,
but has a diurnal motion."

And again, what Galileo was made, by express order of
Pope Urban, and by the action of the Inquisition under
threat of torture, to abjure in 1633, was " the error and heresy
of the movement of the earth."

What the Index condemned under sanction of the bull
issued by Alexander VII in 1664 was, ''all books teaching the
movement of the earth and the stability of the sun

Not one of these condemnations was directed against
Galileo ''for reconciling his ideas with Scripture."

Having been dislodged from this point, the Church apol-
ogists sought cover under the statement that Galileo was
condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy and want of
respect toward the Pope.

There was a slight chance, also, for this quibble: no
doubt Urban VIII, one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, was in-
duced by Galileo's enemies to think that he had been treated
with some lack of proper etiquette: first, by Galileo's adhe-
sion to his own doctrines after his condemnation in 1616;
and, next, by his supposed reference in the Dialogue of 1632
to the arguments which the Pope had used against him.

But it would seem to be a very poor service rendered to
the doctrine of papal infallibility to claim that a decision so
immense in its consequences could be influenced by the
personal resentment of the reigning pontiff.

Again, as to the first point, the very language of the
various sentences shows the folly of this assertion ; for these
sentences speak always of "heresy," and never of ''con-
tumacy." As to the last point, the display of the original
documents settled that forever. They show Galileo from
first to last as most submissive toward the Pope, and patient
under the papal arguments and exactions. He had, indeed,
expressed his anger at times against his traducers ; but to
hold this the cause of the judgment against him is to de-
grade the whole proceedings, and to convict Paul V, Urban

* For the original trial documents, copied^ carefully from the Vatican manu-
scripts, see the Roman Catholic authority, L'Epinois, especially p. 35, where the
principal document is given in its original Latin ; see also Gebler, Die Aden des
Galilei' schen Processes, for still more complete copies of the same documents. For
minute information regarding these documents and their publication, see Favaro,
Miscellanea Galileana Inedita, forming vol. xxii, part iii, of the Memoirs of the
Venetian Institute for 1887, and especially pp. 891 and following.


VIII, Bellarmin, the other theologians, and the Inquisition,
of direct falsehood, since they assigned entirely different rea-
sons for their conduct. From this position, therefore, the
assailants retreated."

The next rally was made about the statement that the
persecution of Galileo was the result of a quarrel between
Aristotelian professors on one side and professors favouring
the experimental method on the other. But this position
was attacked and carried by a very simple statement. If
the divine guidance of the Church is such that it can be
dragged into a professorial squabble, and made the tool of a
faction in bringing about a most disastrous condemnation of
a proved truth, how did the Church at that time differ from
any human organization sunk into decrepitude, managed
nominally by simpletons, but really by schemers? If that
argument be true, the condition of the Church was even
worse than its enemies have declared it ; and amid the jeers
of an unfeeling world the apologists sought new shelter.

The next point at which a stand was made was the asser-
tion that the condemnation of Galileo was " provisory " ; but
this proved a more treacherous shelter than the others. The
wordinof of the decree of condemnation itself is a sufficient
answer to this claim. When doctrines have been solemnly
declared, as those of Galileo were solemnly declared under
sanction of the highest authority in the Church, " contrary
to the sacred Scriptures," " opposed to the true faith," and
"false and absurd in theology and philosophy " — to say that
such declarations are *' provisory " is to say that the truth
held by the Church is not immutable ; from this, then, the
apologists retreated.

Still another contention was made, in some respects more
curious than any other : it was, mainly, that Galileo "was
no more a victim of Catholics than of Protestants ; for they

* The invention of the " contumacy " quibble seems due to Monsignor Marini,
who appears also to have manipulated the original documents to prove it. Even
Whewell was evidently somewhat misled by him, but Whewell wrote before L'Epi-
nois had shown all the documents, and under the supposition that Marini was
an honest man.

more than the Catholic theologians impelled the Pope to the
action taken."

But if Protestantism could force the papal hand in a
matter of this magnitude, involving vast questions of belief
and far-reaching questions of policy, what becomes of "in-
errancy " — of special protection and guidance of the papal
authority in matters of faith ?

While this retreat from position to position was going on,
there was a constant discharge of small-arms, in the shape of
innuendoes, hints, and sophistries : every effort was made to
blacken Galileo's private character : the irregularities of his
early life were dragged forth, and stress was even laid upon
breaches of etiquette ; but this succeeded so poorly that
even as far back as 1850 it was thought necessary to cover
the retreat by some more careful strategy.

This new strategy is instructive. The original docu-
ments of the Galileo trial had been brought during the
Napoleonic conquests to Paris; but in 1846 they were re-
turned to Rome by the French Government, on the express
pledge by the papal authorities that they should be pub-
lished. In 1850, after many delays on various pretexts, the
long-expected publication appeared. The personage charged
with presenting them to the world was Monsignor Marini.
This ecclesiastic was of a kind w^hich has too often afflicted
both the Church and the world at large. Despite the solemn
promise of the papal court, the wily Marini became the in-
strument of the Roman authorities in evading the promise.
By suppressing a document here, and interpolating a state-
ment there, he managed to give plausible standing-ground
for nearly every important sophistry ever broached to save
the infallibility of the Church and destroy the reputation of
Galileo. He it was who supported the idea that Galileo
was " condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy."

The first effect of Monsignor Marini's book seemed use-
ful in covering the retreat of the Church apologists. Aided
by him, such vigorous writers as Ward were able to throw

* See the Rev. A. M. Kirsch on Professor Huxley and Evolution, in The Amer-
ican Catholic Quarterly, October, 1877. The article is, as a whole, remarkably
fair-minded, and in the main just, as to the Protestant attitude, and as to the
causes underlying the whole action against Galileo.

up temporary intrenchments between the Roman authori-
ties and the indignation of the world.

But some time later came an investigator very different
from Monsignor Marini. This was a Frenchman, M. L'Epi-
nois. Like Marini, L'Epinois was devoted to the Church ;
but, unlike Marini, he could not lie. Having obtained ac-
cess in 1867 to the Galileo documents at the Vatican, he
published several of the most important, without suppres-
sion or pious-fraudulent manipulation. This made all the
intrenchments based upon Marini's statements untenable.
Another retreat had to be made.

And now came the most desperate effort of all. The
apologetic army, reviving an idea which the popes and the
Church had spurned for centuries, declared that the popes
as popes had never condemned the doctrines of Copernicus
and Galileo ; that they had condemned them as men simply ;
that therefore the Church had never been committed to
them ; that the condemnation was made by the cardinals of
the Inquisition and Index ; and that the Pope had evidently
been restrained by interposition of Providence from signing
their condemnation. Nothing could show the desperation
of the retreating party better than jugglery like this. The
fact is, that in the official account of the condemnation by
Bellarmin, in 1616, he declares distinctly that he makes this
condemnation "in the name of His Holiness the Pope.""^

Again, from Pope Urban downward, among the Church
authorities of the seventeenth century the decision was al-
ways acknowledged to be made by the Pope and the Church.
Urban VIII spoke of that of 1616 as made by Pope Paul V
and the Church, and of that of 1633 as made by himself and
the Church. Pope Alexander, VII in 1664, in his bull Speai-
latores, solemnly sanctioned the condemnation of all books
affirming the earth's movement. f

When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the de-

* See the citation from the Vatican manuscript given in Gebler, p. 78.

For references by Urban VIII to the condemnation as made by Pope Paul V
see pp. 136, 144, and elsewhere in Martin, who much against his will is forced to
allow this. See also Roberts, Pontifical Decrees against the Earth's Movement,
and St. George Mivart's article, as above quoted ; also Reusch, Index der verbo-
tenen Bucher^ Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, pp. 29 et seq.


cision against Copernicus and Galileo was not sanctioned by
the Church as such, an eminent theological authority, Father
Lecazre, rector of the College of Dijon, publicly contra-
dieted him, and declared that it *' was not certain cardinals,
but the supreme authority of the Church," that had con-
demned Galileo ; and to this statement the Pope and other
Church authorities gave consent either openly or by silence.
When Descartes and others attempted to raise the same
point, they were treated with contempt. Father Castelli,
who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost
just what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes
it for granted, in his letter to the papal authorities, that it
was made by the Church. Cardinal Querenghi, in his let-
ters ; the ambassador Guicciardini, in his dispatches; Po-
lacco, in his refutation ; the historian Viviani, in his biog-
raphy of Galileo— all writing under Church inspection and
approval at the time, took the view that the Pope and the
Church condemned Galileo, and this was never denied at
Rome. The Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest the-
ologian of the time (Bellarmin), took the same view. Not
only does he declare that he makes the condemnation ** in
the name of His Holiness the Pope," but we have the Roman
Index, containing the condemnation for nearly two hundred
years, prefaced by a solemn bull of the reigning Pope bind-
ing this condemnation on the consciences of the whole
Church, and declaring year after year that '' all books which
affirm the motion of the earth" are damnable. To attempt
to face all this, added to the fact that Galileo was required
to abjure "the heresy of the movement of the earth" by
written order of the Pope, was soon seen to be impossible.
Against the assertion that the Pope was not responsible we
have all this mass of testimonv, and the bull of Alexander
VII in 1664.

This contention, then, was at last utterly given up by
honest Catholics themselves. In 1870 a Roman Catholic
clergyman in England, the Rev. Mr. Roberts, evidently
thinking that the time had come to tell the truth, published
a book entitled The Pontifical Decrees against the Earth! s Move-
inent, and in this exhibited the incontrovertible evidences
that the papacy had committed itself and its infallibility
fully against the movement of the earth. This Catholic
clergyman showed from the original record that Pope Paul V,
in 1616, had presided over the tribunal condemning the doc-
trine of the earth's movement, and ordering Galileo to give
up the opinion. He showed that Pope Urban VIII, in 1633,
pressed on, directed, and promulgated the final condemna-
tion, making himself in all these ways responsible for it.
And, finally, he showed that Pope Alexander VII, in 1664,
by his bull attached to the Index,
condemning "all books which afiirm the motion of the
earth," had absolutely pledged the papal infallibility against
the earth's movement. He also confessed that under the
rules laid down by the highest authorities in the Church,
and especially by Sixtus V and Pius IX, there was no escape
from this conclusion.

Various theologians attempted to evade the force of the
.argument. Some, like Dr. Ward and Bouix, took refuge in
verbal niceties; some, like Dr. Jeremiah Murphy, comforted
themselves with declamation. The only result was, that in
1885 came another edition of the Rev. Mr. Roberts's work,
even more cogent than the first ; and, besides this, an essay
by that eminent Catholic, St. George Mivart, acknowledging
the Rev. Mr. Roberts's position to be impregnable, and
declaring virtually that the Almighty allowed Pope and
Church to fall into complete error regarding the Copernican
theory, in order to teach them that science lies outside their
province, and that the true priesthood of scientific truth
rests with scientific investigators alone.*

In spite, then, of all casuistry and special pleading, this
sturdy honesty ended the controversy among Catholics
themselves, so far as fair-minded men are concerned.

In recalling it at this day there stand out from its later
phases two efforts at compromise especially instructive, as
showing the embarrassment of militant theology in the nine-
teenth century.

The first of these was made by John Henry Newman in
the days when he was hovering between the Anglican and
Roman Churches. In one of his sermons before the Univer-
sity of Oxford he spoke as follows :

" Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is sta-
tionary, and science that the earth moves and the sun is
comparatively at rest. How can we determine which of
these opposite statements is the very truth till we know
what motion is ? If our idea of motion is but an accidental
result of our present senses, neither proposition is true and
both are true : neither true philosophically ; both true for
certain practical purposes in the system in which they are
respectively found."

In all anti-theological literature there is no utterance
more hopelessly skeptical. And for what were the youth of
Oxford led into such bottomless depths of disbelief as to any
real existence of truth or any real foundation for it ? Sim-
ply to save an outworn system of interpretation into which
the gifted preacher happened to be born.

The other utterance was suggested by De Bonald and
developed in the Dublin Review y as is understood, by one of
Newman's associates. This argument was nothing less than
an attempt to retreat under the charge of deception against
the Almighty himself. It is as follows : " But it may well

* For this crushing answer by two eminent Roman Catholics to the sophistries
cited — an answer which does infinitely more credit to the older Church than all
the perverted ingenuity used in concealing the truth or breaking the force of it —
see Roberts and St. George Mivart, as already cited.

be doubted whether the Church did r____ the progress of
scientific truth. What r____ it was the circumstance
that God has thought fit to express many texts of Scripture
in words which have every appearance of denying the
earth's motion. But it is God who did this, not the Church ;
and, moreover, since he saw fit so to act as to r____ the
progress of scientific truth, it would be little to her dis-
credit, even if it were true, that she had followed his ex-
ample."

*****Poster's note: the board software censors a perfectly legimate word here: r-e-t-a-r-d. It is used in an appropriate and not hurtful way. Oh well.

This argument, like Mr. Gosse's famous attempt to rec-
oncile geology to Genesis — by supposing that for some in-
scrutable purpose God deliberately deceived the thinking
world by giving to the earth all the appearances of develop-
ment through long periods of time, while really creating it
in six days, each of an evening and a morning — seems only
to have awakened the amazed pity of thinking men. This,
like the argument of Newman, was a last desperate effort
of Anglican and Roman divines to save something from the
wreckage of dogmatic theology.*

All these well-meaning defenders of the faith but wrought
into the hearts of great numbers of thinking men the idea
that there is a necessary antagonism between science and
religion. Like the landsman who lashes himself to the
anchor of the sinking ship, they simply attached Christian-
ity by the strongest cords of logic which they could spin



* For the quotation from Newman, see his Sermons on the Theory of Religious
Beliefs sermon xiv, cited by Bishop Goodwin in Contemporary Review for January,
1892. For the attempt to take the blame off the shoulders of both Pope and car-
dinals and place it upon the Almighty, see the article above cited, in the Dublin
Revieza, September, 1865, p. 419, and July, 1871, pp. i57 ^i ^eq. For a good sum-
mary of the various attempts, and for replies to them in a spirit of judicial fairness,
see Th. Martin, Vie de Galilee, though there is some special pleading to save the
infallibility of Pope and Church. The bibliography at the close is very valuable-
For details of Mr. Gosse's theory, as developed in his Omphalos, see the chapter on
Geology in this work. As to a still later attempt, see Wegg-Prosser, Galileo and
his Judges, London, 1889, the main thing in it being an attempt to establish,
against the honest and honourable concessions of Catholics like Roberts and Mivart^
sundry far-fetched and wire-drawn distinctions between dogmatic and disciplinary
bulls— an attempt which will only deepen the distrust of straightforward reasoners.
The author's point of view is stated in the words, " I have maintained that the
Church has a right to lay her restraining hand on the speculations of natural
science " (p. 167).

to these mistaken ideas in science, and, could they have had
their way, the advance of knowledge would have ingulfed
both together.

On the other hand, what had science done for religion?
Simply this : Copernicus, escaping persecution only by
death ; Giordano Bruno, burned alive as a monster of im-
piety ; Galileo, imprisoned and humiliated as the worst of
misbelievers; Kepler, accused of "throwing Christ's king-
dom into confusion with his silly fancies " ; Newton,
bitterly attacked for " dethroning Providence," gave to
religion stronger foundations and more ennobling concep-
tions.

Under the old system, that princely astronomer, Al-
phonso of Castile, seeing the inadequacy of the Ptolemaic
theory, yet knowing no other, startled Europe with the blas-
phemy that, if he had been present at creation, he could
have suggested a better order of the heavenly bodies.
Under the new system, Kepler, filled with a religious
spirit, exclaimed, " I do think the thoughts of God." The
difference in religious spirit between these two men marks
the conquest made in this long struggle by Science for
Religion.*

Nothing is more unjust than to cast especial blame for
all this resistance to science upon the Roman Church. The
Protestant Church, though rarely able to be so severe, has
been more blameworthy. The persecution of Galileo and
his compeers by the older Church was mainly at the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century ; the persecution of Robert-
son Smith, and Winchell, and Woodrow, and Toy, and the
young professors at Beyrout, by various Protestant authori-
ties, was near the end of the nineteenth century. Those
earlier persecutions by Catholicism were strictly in accord-
ance with principles held at that time by all religionists,
Catholic and Protestant, throughout the world ; these later
persecutions by Protestants were in defiance of principles
which all Protestants to-day hold or pretend to hold, and
none make louder claim to hold them than the very sects

* As a pendant to this ejaculation of Kepler may be cited the words of Lin-
naeus : '' Deum dmnipotentem a tergo transeunteni vidi et obstupui"

which persecuted these eminent Christian men of our day,
men whose crime was that they were intelligent enough to
accept the science of their time, and honest enough to
acknowledge it.

Most unjustly, then, would Protestantism taunt Catholi-
cism for excluding knowledge of astronomical truths from
European Catholic universities in the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries, while real knowledge of geological and
biological and anthropological truth is denied or pitifully
diluted in so many American Protestant colleges and uni-
versities in the nineteenth century.

Nor has Protestantism the right to point with scorn to
the Catholic Index and to lay stress on the tact that nearly
every really important book in the last three centuries
has been forbidden by it, so long as young men in so many
American Protestant universities and colleges are nursed
with " ecclesiastical pap " rather than with real thought,
and directed to the works of " solemnly constituted im-
postors," or to sundry " approved courses of reading,"
while they are studiously kept aloof from such leaders in
modern thought as Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Draper, and
Lecky.

It may indeed be justly claimed by Protestantism that
some of the former strongholds of her bigotry have be-
come liberalized ; but, on the other hand, Catholicism can
point to the fact that Pope Leo XIII, now happily reign-
ing, has made a noble change as regards open dealing
with documents. The days of Monsignor Marini, it may
be hoped, are gone. The Vatican Library, with its masses
of historical material, has been thrown open to Protestant
and Catholic scholars alike, and this privilege has been
freely used by men representing all shades of religious
thought.

As to the older errors, the whole civilized world was at
fault, Protestant as well as Catholic. It was not the fault
of religion ; it was the fault of that short-sighted linking of
theological dogmas to scriptural texts which, in utter de-
fiance of the words and works of the Blessed Founder
of Christianity, narrow-minded, loud-voiced men are ever
prone to substitute for religion. Justly is it said by one of
the most eminent among contemporary Anglican divines,
that " it is because they have mistaken the dawn for a
conflagration that theologians have so often been foes of
light."*


* For an exceedingly striking statement, by a Roman Catholic historian of
genius, as to the popular demand for persecution and the pressure of the lower
strata in ecclesiastical organizations for cruel measures, see Balmes's Le Protestan-
t'sme compare au Catholicisme, etc., fourth edition, Paris, 1855, vol. ii. Archbishop
Spaulding has something of the same sort in his Miscellanies. L'Epinois, Galilee,
pp. 22 ei seq., stretches this as far as possible to save the reputation of the Church
in the Galileo matter. As to the various branches of the Protestant Church in
England and the United States, it is a matter of notoriety that the smug, well-to-
do laymen, whether elders, deacons, or vestrymen, are, as a rule, far more prone to
heresy-hunting than are their better educated pastors. As to the cases of Messrs.
Winchell, Woodrow, Toy, and the professors at Beyrout, with details, see the
chapter in this series on The Fall of Maft and Anthropology. Among Protestant
historians who have been recently allowed full and free examination of the treas-
ures in the Vatican Library, and even those involving questions between Catholi-
cism and Protestantism, are Von Sybel, of Berlin, and Philip SchafT, of New York.
It should be added that the latter went with commendatory letters from eminent
prelates of the Catholic Church in Europe and America. For the closing citation,
see Canon Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 432.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM ''SIGNS AND WONDERS'' TO LAW IN THE

HEAVENS.

I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.

Few things in the evolution of astronomy are more sug-
gestive than the struggle between the theological and the
scientific doctrine regarding comets — the passage from the
conception of them as fire-balls flung by an angry God for
the purpose of scaring a wicked world, to a recognition of
them as natural in origin and obedient to law in movement.
Hardly anything throws a more vivid light upon the dan-
ger of wresting texts of Scripture to preserve ideas which
observation and thought have superseded, and upon the
folly of arraying ecclesiastical power against scientific dis-
covery."

Out of the ancient world had come a mass of beliefs re-
garding comets, meteors, and eclipses ; all these were held
to be signs displayed from heaven for the warning of man-
kind. Stars and meteors were generally thought to presage
happy events, especially the births of gods, heroes, and
great men. So firmly rooted was this idea that we con-
stantly find among the ancient nations traditions of lights in
the heavens preceding the birth of persons of note. The
sacred books of India show that the births of Crishna and of
Buddha were announced by such heavenly lights. The

* The present study, after its appearance in the Popular Science Monthly as a
" new chapter in the Warfare of Science," was revised and enlarged to nearly its
present form, and read before the American Historical Association, among whose
papers it was published, in 1887, under the title of A History of the Doctrine of
Comets.


sacred books of China tell of similar appearances at the
births of Yu, the founder of the first dynasty, and of the in-
spired sage, Lao-tse. According to the Jewish legends, a
star appeared, and was seen by the
Magi of Egpyt, who informed the king ; and when Abraham
was born an unusual star appeared in the east. The Greeks
and Romans cherished similar traditions. A heavenly light
accompanied the birth of Esculapius, and the births of va-
rious Ccesars were heralded in like manner.

The same conception entered into our Christian sacred
books. Of all the legends which grew in such luxuriance
and beauty about the cradle of Jesus of Nazareth, none ap-
peals more directly to the highest poetic feeling than that
given by one of the evangelists, in which a star, rising in
the east, conducted the wise men to the manger where the
Galilean peasant-child— the Hope of Mankind, the Light of
the World— was lying in poverty and helplessness.