Page:Galileo (1918).djvu/54

48 Holy Office to pronounce judgment and then summon the offender to recant.

Those well qualified to form an opinion on the proceedings of the Commission came to the conclusion that the Copernican doctrines would not be condemned "Ex Cathedrâ," but probably "corrected" in order to maintain the decree of 1616. After a month's sittings the Commission reported that Galileo had, in spite of all warnings, treated the earth's motion as a fact and not merely an hypothesis, that he had attributed the tides to this untrue assumption as to the earth's motion round the sun, and lastly, that he had deceived the authorities by suppressing all mention of the command laid upon him in 1616. This third point is evidently the only one on which verbal corrections would be of no avail, and we now see the deadly effect of the unsigned minute of the earlier proceedings, of which a fuller account has already been given (in Chapter V.). It is evident that on this charge the whole strength of the case against Galileo depended. It does not seem to have occurred to anybody to doubt the validity of the written evidence of the minute, which clearly does not represent the sense of the proceedings to which it refers, as we have pointed out in dealing with Cardinal Bellarmine's admonition. The clique which was working against Galileo must have rejoiced when this unexpected weapon appeared; and Cardinal Bellarmine himself, who, as we have seen, though opposed to the new doctrines was not so strongly prejudiced as to have his sense of justice obscured, could no longer rise to explain the true state of affairs at the time of the minute of 1616. There was no question raised as to the want of a signature authenticating the minute, because, there being no legal trial, no legal points such as this could be brought up.

On the findings of the Commission the Pope sent word