part ii. p. 63.

The account which we have now given of the trial and the sentence of Galileo, is pregnant with the deepest interest and instruction. Human nature is here drawn in its darkest colouring; and in surveying the melancholy picture, it is difficult to decide whether religion or philosophy has been most degraded. While we witness the presumptuous priest pronouncing infallible the decrees of his own erring judgment, we see the high-minded philosopher abjuring the eternal and immutable truths which he had himself the glory of establishing. In the ignorance and prejudices of the age--in a too literal interpretation of the language of Scripture--in a mistaken respect for the errors that had become venerable from their antiquity--and in the peculiar position which Galileo had taken among the avowed enemies of the church, we may find the elements of an apology, poor though it be, for the conduct of the Inquisition. But what excuse can we devise for the humiliating confession and abjuration of Galileo? Why did this master-spirit of the age--this high-priest of the stars--this representative of science--this hoary sage, whose career of glory was near its consummation--why did he reject the crown of martyrdom which he had himself coveted, and which, plaited with immortal laurels, was about to descend upon his head? If, in place of disavowing the laws of Nature, and surrendering in his own person the intellectual dignity of his species, he had boldly asserted the truth of his opinions, and confided his character to posterity, and his cause to an all-ruling Providence, he would have strung up the hair-suspended sabre, and disarmed for ever the hostility which threatened to overwhelm him. The philosopher, however, was supported only by philosophy; and in the love of truth he found a miserable substitute for the hopes of the martyr. Galileo cowered under the fear of man, and his submission was the salvation of the church. The sword of the Inquisition descended on his prostrate neck; and though its stroke was not physical, yet it fell with a moral influence fatal to the character of its victim, and to the dignity of science.

In studying with attention this portion of scientific history, the reader will not fail to perceive that the Church of Rome was driven into a dilemma, from which the submission and abjuration of Galileo could alone extricate it. He who confesses a crime and denounces its atrocity, not only sanctions but inflicts the punishment which is annexed to it. Had Galileo declared his innocence, and avowed his sentiments, and had he appealed to the past conduct of the Church itself, to the acknowledged opinions of its dignitaries, and even to the acts of its pontiffs, he would have at once confounded his accusers, and escaped from their toils. After Copernicus, himself a catholic priest, had _openly_ maintained the motion of the earth, and the stability of the sun:--after he had dedicated the work which advocated these opinions to 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:--after the Cardinal Schonberg and the Bishop of Culm had urged Copernicus to publish the new doctrines;--and after the Bishop of Ermeland had erected a monument to commemorate his great discoveries;--how could the Church of Rome have appealed to its pontifical decrees as the ground of persecuting and punishing Galileo? Even in later times, the same doctrines had been propagated with entire toleration: Nay, in the very year of Galileo's first persecution, Paul Anthony Foscarinus, a learned Carmelite monk, wrote a pamphlet, in which he illustrates and defends the mobility of the earth, and endeavours to reconcile to this new doctrine the passages of Scripture which had been employed to subvert it. This very singular production was dated from the Carmelite convent at Naples; was dedicated to the very reverend Sebastian Fantoni, general of the Carmelite order; and, sanctioned by the ecclesiastical authorities, it was published at Naples in 1615, the very year of the first persecution of Galileo.

Nor was this the only defence of the Copernican system which issued from the bosom of the Church. Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, published, in 1622, "_An Apology for Galileo_," and he even dedicates it to D. Boniface, Cardinal of Cajeta. Nay, it appears from the dedication, that he undertook the work at the command of the Cardinal, and that the examination of the question had been entrusted to the Cardinal by the Holy Senate. After an able defence of his friend, Campanella refers, at the conclusion of his apology, to the suppression of Galileo's writings, and justly observes, that the effect of such a measure would be to make them more generally read, and more highly esteemed. The boldness of the apologist, however, is wisely tempered with the humility of the ecclesiastic, and he concludes his work with the declaration, that in all his opinions, whether written or to be written, he submits himself to the opinions of the Holy Mother Church of Rome and to the judgment of his superiors.

By these proceedings of the dignitaries, as well as the clergy of the Church of Rome, which had been tolerated for more than a century, the decrees of the pontiffs against the doctrine of the earth's motion were virtually repealed; and Galileo might have pleaded them with success in arrest of judgment. Unfortunately, however, for himself and for science, he acted otherwise. By admitting their authority, he revived in fresh force these obsolete and obnoxious enactments; and, by yielding to their power, he riveted for another century the almost broken chains of spiritual despotism.

It is a curious fact in the annals of heresy and sedition, that opinions maintained with impunity by one individual, have, in the same age, brought others to the stake or to the scaffold. The results of deep research or extravagant speculation seldom provoke hostility, when meekly announced as the deductions of reason or the convictions of conscience. As the dreams of a recluse or of an enthusiast, they may excite pity or call forth contempt; but, like seed quietly cast into the earth, they will rot and germinate according to the vitality with which they are endowed. But, if new and startling opinions are thrown in the face of the community--if they are uttered in triumph or in insult--in contempt of public opinion, or in derision of cherished errors, they lose the comeliness of truth in the rancour of their propagation; and they are like seed scattered in a hurricane, which only irritates and blinds the husbandman. Had Galileo concluded his _System of the World_ with the quiet peroration of his apologist Campanella, and dedicated it to the Pope, it might have stood in the library of the Vatican, beside the cherished though equally heretical volume of Copernicus.

In the abjuration of his opinions by Galileo, Pope Urban VII. did not fail to observe the full extent of his triumph; and he exhibited the utmost sagacity in the means which he employed to secure it. While he endeavoured to overawe the enemies of the church by the formal promulgation of Galileo's sentence and abjuration, and by punishing the officials who had assisted in obtaining the license to print his work, he treated Galileo with the utmost lenity, and yielded to every request that was made to diminish, and almost suspend, the constraint under which he lay. The sentence of abjuration was ordered to be publicly read at several universities. At Florence the ceremonial was performed in the church of Santa Croce, and the friends and disciples of Galileo were especially summoned to witness the public degradation of their master. The inquisitor at Florence was ordered to be reprimanded for his conduct; and Riccardi, the master of the sacred palace, and Ciampoli, the secretary of Pope Urban himself, were dismissed from their situations.

Galileo had remained only four days in the prison of the Inquisition, when, on the application of Niccolini, the Tuscan ambassador, he was allowed to reside with him in his palace. As Florence still suffered under the contagious disease which we have already mentioned, it was proposed that Sienna should be the place of Galileo's confinement, and that his residence should be in one of the convents of that city. Niccolini, however, recommended the palace of the Archbishop Piccolomoni as a more suitable residence; and though the Archbishop was one of Galileo's best friends, the Pope agreed to the arrangement, and in the beginning of July Galileo quitted Rome for Sienna.

After having spent nearly six months under the hospitable roof of his friend, with no other restraint than that of being confined to the limits of the palace, Galileo was permitted to return to his villa near Florence under the same restrictions; and as the contagious disease had disappeared in Tuscany, he was able in the month of December to re-enter his own house at Arcetri, where he spent the remainder of his days.