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 strongest evidence for the credibility of his depositions. We recur first, simply to the letters of the time of the first trial, in which there is not only no trace of the assumed absolute prohibition, but Galileo openly expresses his satisfaction that his enemies have not succeeded in obtaining an entire prohibition of the Copernican theory, and he again and again mentions that the hypothetical discussion of it still remains open. And the attitude maintained by him during the seventeen years towards the new system is in entire conformity with the decree of the Congregation of the Index of 5th March, 1616, which was in force for everybody, but not with the categorical prohibition of the Commissary-General of the Holy Office. This is shown by his eagerness to get his work on Copernicus published in the very year 1616; by his sending the treatise on the tides to the Archduke Leopold of Austria, in 1618; by the discussion of the Copernican theory in his "Il Saggiatore," in 1623; by his efforts in 1624 to get the clause of 5th March, 1616, abolished by the new, and, as he thought, more tolerant Pope (there is no trace that he tried to get any special prohibition to himself revoked); by his reply to Ingoli of the same date, which treated exclusively of the marked defence of the Copernican theory; and finally, by the writing of the famous "Dialogues" themselves, in which he made every endeavour not to come into collision with the published decree of 1616, while the very authorship of the work would have infringed an absolute command to silence on the Copernican system.

We now go back to the first hearing of Galileo. Although his statements, in spite of his submissiveness, obviously contradict the assertion of the Inquisitor, that he had, in 1616, received an injunction not to hold, teach, or defend the Copernican opinions in any way, the Inquisitor does not take the least pains to solve the enigma. Everything is also omitted on the part of the judges which might have cleared up the point; for example, to summon the witnesses, whose names are on the note of 26th February, 1616, and confront