Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/138

132 to me that your Reverence and Signor Galileo act wisely in contenting yourselves with speaking ex suppositione and not with certainty."

"In the month of February, 1616, Signor Cardinal Bellarmine told me that as the opinion of Copernicus, if adopted absolutely, was contrary to Holy Scripture, it must neither be held or defended, but that it might be held hypothetically and written about in this sense." Here Galileo presented a copy of the certificate which declares that the doctrine of Copernicus 'is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore can not be defended or held.' The Inquisition then asked if any other command was communicated to him and if he would remember it, if what was then said was read aloud to him. Galileo replied: "I do not remember that anything else was said or enjoined upon me, nor do I know that I should remember what was said to me, even if it were read to me. I say freely what I do remember, because I do not think that I have in any way disobeyed the injunction, that is, have not by any means held or defended the said opinion that the earth moves and the sun is stationary." The Inquisition now remind Galileo that a command was issued to him, before witnesses, enjoining "that he must neither hold, defend nor teach that opinion in any way whatsoever.' The annotation commands Galileo to 'relinquish altogether' the Copernican opinion, and forbids him 'henceforth to hold, teach or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing; otherwise proceedings would be taken against him in the Holy Office; which injunction the said Galileo acquiesced in and promised to obey."

The Inquisition asks if Galileo remembers how and by whom the words first quoted were intimated to him. He replies: "I do not remember that the command was intimated to me by anybody but by the cardinal verbally; and I remember that the command was 'not to hold or defend.' It may be that 'and not to teach' was also there. I do not remember it, neither the definition 'in any way whatsoever,' but it may be that it was, for I thought no more about it, nor took any pains to impress the words on my memory, as a few months later I received the certificate now produced of the said Signor Cardinal Bellarmine, of twenty-sixth May, in which the injunction 'not to hold or defend' that opinion is expressly to be found. The two other definitions of the said injunction that have just been made known to me, namely, 'not to teach,' and 'in any way,' I have not retained in my memory, I suppose, because they are not mentioned in the said certificate on which I rely and which I have kept as a reminder."

Emphasis is laid by Gebler in his Galileo on the difference between an injunction 'not to teach' and one 'not to hold or defend.' I can see no essential difference between forbidding a citizen of Russia, let