Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/139

Rh us say, from holding or defending anarchistic opinions and forbidding him from holding, teaching or defending such opinions in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing. The latter prohibition is more formal. It is not more absolute. The annotation of February 26, 1616, is received throughout the process by the Inquisitors as exact in all particulars. It is not denied by Galileo; he says merely that he does not recall certain parts of it. It does not formally appear that the witnesses to it were called to testify. If they had been called their recorded testimony would have settled certain points that must now be settled from the text of the annotation itself. I can see no reason to doubt that the words of the text mean precisely what they say.

This is perhaps the place to say that the documents of Galileo's process have been examined again and again and that each examination has proved that the papers have not been tampered with in any manner and that they represent the case as it was understood by the Holy Office with minute accuracy. The hearing for the first day was closed with further questions and answers. Galileo was asked whether after the aforesaid command was issued to him he received permission to write the Dialogues. He replied: “After receiving the command aforesaid I did not ask permission to write the book. . . because I did not consider that in writing it I was acting contrary to, far less disobeying, the command not to hold, defend, or teach, the said opinion.” The next questions relate to the printing of the book and Galileo is asked if he had informed the censor of the command aforesaid. He replies: “I did not say anything about the command to the master of the palace. . . for I have neither maintained nor defended the opinion that the earth moves and the sun is stationary in that book, but have rather demonstrated the opposite of the Copernican opinion and shown that the arguments of Copernicus are weak and not conclusive.” Galileo's defense is here outlined. It is to be that he did not ‘hold’ the Copernican opinion after 1616. Not holding it, he did not defend it, nor teach it. Hence he had disobeyed no command, he maintains, although it is obvious to all that the Dialogues, like his other writings, are a brilliant defense of the system of Copernicus.

An apartment of ‘three large and comfortable rooms’ was assigned to Galileo in the Palace of the Holy Office, as he was their prisoner. His servants stayed with him. His meals were sent in by the devoted Niccolini, to whom he wrote every day with perfect freedom. His own account of the proceedings of the first day of his examination is as follows:

I arrived in Rome on the tenth of February and I was placed in the clement charge of the Inquisition and of the Sovereign pontiff, Urban VIII., who esteemed me although I could not rhyme epigrams and little love-sonnets. I