IN STARRY SKIES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 49, 26 August 1926, Page 17

IN STARRY SKIES

GALILEO AND THE INQUISITION

THE RUIN OF A GREAT LIFE

(By "Omega Centauri.") Celeste, in the convent at Arcetri, writes: — "Last night there came a dreadful word from Rome For my dear lord and father, summoning him Befofe the inquisitors there, to take his trial . At three score years and ten. There is a threat Of torture, if his lips will not deny The truth his eyes have seen. You know my father, You know me, too. You nover will believe That he and I are enemies of the faith. Could I, who put away all earthly love, Deny the Cross to which I nailed this flesh? Could he who on the night when all those heavens * Opened above us, with their circling worlds, Knelt with me, crushed beneath the weight of glory, Forget the Maker of that glory now? You'll not believe it. Neither would the Church, Had not his enemies poisoned all the springs And fountain-heads of truth. "I am not afraid Of any truth that they can bring against him; But, O, my friend, I more than fear their lies. I do not fear the justice of our God; But I do fear the vanity of men." —Alfred Noyes. In 1610 Galileo was invited to Florence by Cosimo, Duke of Tuscany. The offer was a most tempting one. Ho was to be liberally provided for and to be absolutely free from the daily routine of lectures, and thus would be able to devote his whole time to research. He loriged moreover to return to his Tuscan home. He therefore decided to accept the invitation, although he had been most liberally treated in Padua. The decision was a most fateful and unfortunate one. It naturally offended the "Venetians who had so lately doubled his salary and granted him a pension for life, and it soon brought him into the conflict with the authorities of the Church which embittered the rest of his life. Tuscany lay under the direct influence of Koine, and it was inevitable that the public expression there of scientific opinions such as Galileo held would lead to trouble. As long as Galileo confined his attention to Mechanics and Hydrostatics he was safe, but it was far otherwise when he returned to Astronomy. In 16J1 he visited Bomo and exhibited his telescope. He met with a most enthusiastic reception, but his enemies were already gathering evidence against him. His discourse on floating bodies, which appeared in 1612, aroused violent opposition from the Aristotelians. In 1613 his friend Castelli found it necessary to defend the Copernican doctrines against theological opinions, and Galileo wrote a long letter to him maintaining that the scriptures were not intended to teach science and philosophy, next year Caccini gave a violent denunciation of the new astronomy, and attacked and ridiculed Galileo from the pu}P«Ho used as his text "Ye Men of Galiliee, why stand yo looking up into Heaven " This attack may possibly have been intended to be a trap. Anyhow it induced Galileo to publish in .reply a letter of seventy pages. On sth February, 1615, his letter to Castelli was laid before the Inquisition, and he received a semi-official warning of his danger. Towards the end of the year he went to Rome, probably in answer to a summons.

In February, 1616, the Court dew ded that the doctrines that the earth rotates and that the sun is the centre of the system are absurd in philosophy and formally heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. Galileo was admonished not to hold, teach, or defend the condemned doctrines. Galileo promised to obey the injunction. He appears to have believed that the Church would allow the theory to be held as a hypothesis as long as it was not stated as a fact. As no abjuration or penance was imposed, Galileo did not take a very serious view of the situation. He was, however, a sincere Catholic: He did not want to quarrel with the Church, and for seven years he lived in retirement, maintaining an almost unbroken silence. The appearance of three comets in 1618 involves him in one more controversy. He was too unwell to observe these bodies himself, but although he maintained the mistaken view that they were atmospheric phenomena, his treatise on them was received with acclamation.

When Galileo received his first injunction he was only fifty-two years ol age. He was then fit for at least another quarter of a century of useful work. There is no knowing what his genius might have accomplished had not his researches been blocked ana his scientific intercourse stifled in this dismal manner. Nothing could prevent him from using his mind, but itwas a sad deprivation for him to have to refrain from discussing his ideas with scientific friends.

In 1623 Paul V. died, and on Bth August, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini was elected to the Pontifical Throne as Urban VIII. Galileo wks convinced that this event would usher in a new era of tolerance for him. Maffeo was a warm personal friend. Galileo, therefore made a special journey to Rome to congratulate him on his accession. The visit was a great success. He was warmly received. Urban wrote to Ferdinand, who had succeeded Cosimo as Duke of Tuscany, praising Galileo not only for his literary distinction but also for his virtue and piety/ Galileo now made a fatal mistake. Considering that the special marks of favour bostowed on him by the Pope were au indication that it was safe to be more outspoken, he set to work on a new book which he called Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems. By putting all his ideas into the mouths of others, and merely reporting imaginary conversations, he may have hoped to keep the letter of his promise of 1616. He certainly broke its spirit. Of ' the three who took part in the discussion, Salviati acted as the expounder of Copormcan views. Sagrado was an intelligent listener and Simplicio an adherent of the older views. Throughout the discussion the Copernican had very much the best of the arguments. The book was a powerful exposition written in lively and beautiful language, and when at last it appeared in 1632 it mot with a chorus of applause. -The Master of the Sacred Palace immediately recognised that he had made a mistake in permitting its publication, and he ordered the sequestration of every copy in Italy. Galileo's enemies now persuaded the Pope that he had been deliberately held up to ridicule, as some of his opinions were put into the mouth of Simplicio. Whether this influenced him or not, he soon concluded that tho work was definitely heretical, containing tho most perverse matter that could come into a reader's iiands.

On lat October, 1632, Galileo was therefore ordered to appear before the inquisition. The trial dragged on for eight months, but on 22nd. June, 1637, Galileo was compelled to kneel before the cardinals to receive sentence. Under threat of torture ho was compelled

to repudiate and abjure his heresies and was condemned to imprisonment during the pleasure of the Inquisition. Galileo submitted. In judging him for his part in this painful scene, we must remember that he had had a more complicated problem than that which Bruno faced With such magnificent courage. Bruno defied his persecutors to the very last, and died fearlessly for the truth. He was convinced that his enemies were entirely in the wrong. Galileo, on the other hand, was a devout Catholic, his favourite daughter a saintly nun. He did not wish to show any antagonism to the Church, although'its agents were ignorant and cruel. We cannot help wishing that he, also, had refused to deny the truth, but we can realise to some slight extent the terrible mental agony and the conflicting emotions to which he was exposed. His daughter, worn out by the anxieties of his trial, was at the point of death, beseeching him to return by trying to cheer him by sending him tho blessings and good wishes of the nuns.

"If you "Were only near mo, I could want no

more, Your garden looks as if it missed your

love. The unpruued branches lean against

the wall . , . To look for you. The walks run wild with flowers. » Even your watch tower seems to wait

for you; And, though the fruit is not so good

this year (The vines were hurt by hail, I think,

and thieves Have climbed the wall too often for

the pears), The crop of peas' is good, and only waits Your hand to gather it."

—Alfred Noyes. The conditions of Galileo 'a imprisonment were soon relaxed, and he was allowed to have one interview with his daughter on her deathbed. But even then he was directed to spend his remaining days in perpetual solitude. Bro-ken-hearted, but indomitable in spirit,, he returned to his lonely work. By extending and completing his treatise on motion, he paved the way for Newton's dynamical- work. But his sufferings were not yet over. In 1638 he was stricken with blindness, and this was followed later by almost total deafness. His bodily infirmities led to some relaxation in the conditions of his confinement, and some time before his death, which came on Bth January, 1643, he was cheered by a visit from Milton. Viviani, his last disciple, says:

"Well I recall That day of days. There-was the faint-

est breath Among his garden cypress-trees. They dreamed

Dark, on a sky too beautiful for tears,

And the first star was trembling overhead, 7 When, quietly as a mesaengor from heaven, Moving unseen, through his own purer realm, Amongst the shadows of our mortal world, A young man, with a strange light on his face, Knocked at the door of Galileo's house. His name was Milton. And Galileo rising to his feet And turning on him those unseeing eyes That had searched heaven and seen so many worlds, Said to him, "You have found me." —Alfred Noyes.