Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/269

Rh In 1604 a new star suddenly appeared in the heavens. It was discovered in October and quickly grew to be brighter than Jupiter. By the end of March, 1605, it had diminished to the brightness of a star of the third magnitude and in about a year it had vanished from sight. Its career was like that of the new star of 1572—Tycho's star. Galileo delivered three lectures on the new star to crowded audiences. He enforced upon the Aristotelians the conclusion that the heavens were not incorruptible, as they maintained. Here was a glaring proof of it. The star had no parallax. Hence it was far beyond our atmosphere. It was no ‘meteor,’ as they also maintained. These just conclusions were advanced with rasping criticisms of the old philosophy and the breach with his colleagues was widened still further.

In 1597 Kepler sent his Prodromus to Galileo, who writes to thank him for it, saying:

I count myself happy, in the search after truth, to have so great an ally as your self. . . . I have been for many years an adherent of the Copernican system. . . . I have collected many arguments for the purpose of refuting (the commonly accepted hypothesis), but I do not venture to the light of publicity for fear of sharing the fate of our master Copernicus, who, although he has earned immortal fame with some, yet with very many—so great is the number of fools—has become an object of ridicule and scorn.

It is to be noticed that Galileo (like Copernicus himself) dreaded the ridicule of fools. It is probable that neither of them feared the discipline of the church, or even considered it likely to be exerted.

The revolution in men's ideas to be worked by the Copernican system was not understood in the sixteenth century. It was regarded as a scientific hypothesis—an absurd one, contrary to scripture, Tycho Brahe had said. Its theological import was appreciated first by Lutherans and afterwards in Italy. Pope Paul III., to whom Copernicus dedicated his book in 1543, received it ‘with pleasure.’ A second edition was printed in 1566 without exciting the slightest adverse remark. It was not until the time of Galileo that men began to see that the accepted order of heaven and earth was inverted by the new doctrine. The earth was no longer the center of the universe. The planets were not made for man, who was dethroned not only in science, but in philosophy and theology as well. It remained for more modern times to appreciate that as it was by man himself that man was so dethroned, a new glory had been added to his crown.

All men find it painful to face novel ideas, and it is but natural to seek and find sufficient reasons for avoiding painful thoughts. When they are once familiar, new pleasures are discovered; and not until then do they begin to gain acceptance. Kepler ‘shuddered’ at the very idea of an infinite universe. Even he had not completely shaken off the Ptolemaic conception of a limited world. The authority of the