Page:An Index of Prohibited Books (1840).djvu/119

 all other charges connected with it, were of a merely circumstantial and secondary character. It was a natural, almost necessary consequence, that he should attempt to defend himself; and this could be done in no manner more imaginable, and indeed unexceptionable, than by endeavouring to prove the consistency of his philosophy with the Scriptures; and all the circumstances of the case were such as to make a man, even not very choleric, shew temper. But all this has no more to do with the sentence than, in our country and times, it would constitute the crime of a Socialist or Chartist who might have committed some obvious breach of the peace, that he attempted to justify his offence by the principles of his society, or by Magna Charta itself, if he could. Galileo might add to the original and substantial offence by unsuitable self-justification, and by provoking those who had the law in their hands. Both the vexatious enforcement of law, and complete evasion of it, are frequently, in imperfect governments, civil or ecclesiastical, or mixed, more the consequence of personal and very unworthy motives than of the nature or gravity of the offence legally visited — more the result of private resentment than of zeal