Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/134

128 keenly relished irony and sarcasm. They were now laughing openly at the overthrow of the scholastics. The universities, the Jesuits and many of the clergy, on the other hand, were solidly arrayed against Galileo. The Jesuits were especially inimical. In a juncture like this everything depended upon the Pope. Galileo confidently expected his support, but he had misread the Pope's mind from the very first. The Pope was surrounded by Galileo's enemies. Every point that would tell was made against the book and its author. The dangers that lurked in the Copernican doctrine were exposed; Galileo's former interpretations of Holy Writ were set forth as monstrous, coming, as they did, from the pen of a layman; their obvious weaknesses were pointed out; he was denounced as a rebel to church authority, which had forbidden any one to teach the Copernican doctrine (March 5, 1616); the Pope was convinced that Galileo had intended to portray him in the character of Simplicius.

It is absolutely certain that Galileo had no such intention. Under the circumstances it would have been madness for him to alienate his powerful friend and patron. Exactly why he closed his Dialogues with the quotation of the Pope's own words (spoken to Galileo in 1624) it is impossible to say. To us, in the light of events, the quotation seems an inconceivable blunder. But Galileo was very far from a blunderer. He was skilled in fine logic and with his pen. The closing words of the Dialogues (containing the quotation) can be read so as to express a humble submission to authority. It was beyond a doubt, Galileo's intention that they should be so read; it is equally certain that the submission was only perfunctory; the reckless irony of all that preceded them made the quoted words appear as mere foolishness in the mouth of the foolish Simplicius. The very name—Simplicius—was offensive to the Pope. It was not until after July, 1636, that he expressed himself as convinced that Galileo had intended no disrespect. It was then too late. On July 26, 1636, Galileo writes: “I hear from Rome that his Eminence Cardinal Antonio Barberini and the French ambassador (de Noailles) have seen his Holiness and tried to convince him that I never had the least idea of perpetrating so sacrilegious an act as to make game of his Holiness, as my malicious foes have persuaded him, which has been the prime cause of all my troubles.” The prime cause was Urban's conviction that Galileo had brought scandal into the church by teaching a doctrine which was, as yet, unproved.

The storm was about to break. From now onward the story is fully told in the official documents of the inquisition. The further sale of the Dialogues was prohibited. Galileo's conduct was referred to a special commission of theologians and men versed in science to investigate. That it was not directly sent to the Holy Office was a