Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/148

142 mechanics and it is the crowning glory of Galileo's life. It attracted instant and universal attention, and at the age of seventy-four Galileo was again recognized by all Europe as a master of science—a founder of doctrine. The troubles of his later years grew light in the satisfaction of his legitimate pride.

Myths have grown up about the history of Galileo that it is not necessary to destroy. The whole distressing story has been told in authentic documents. He never suffered bodily torture; he was humiliated and discredited. He never even dared to whisper: E pur se muove. His history, though misinterpreted, has been of the deepest service to the world. It affords a symbol around which the rights of men to freedom of thought have clustered. Just as Benedict Arnold serves as the type of a traitor, so Galileo has been made to serve as a martyr of science. But he was no martyr. A true martyr does not abjure his opinions even in presence of the rack. While his recantation may be excused, it does not testify to moral greatness. We may add a paragraph from Gebler:

Party interests and passions have to a great extent and with few exceptions, guided the pens of those who have written on Galileo's life. The one side has lauded him as an admirable martyr of science, and ascribed more cruelty to the Inquisition than it really inflicted on him; the other has thought proper to enter the lists as defender of the Inquisition, and to wash it white at Galileo's expense. Historic truth contradicts both.

Galileo was a genius of the first order. His title to lasting fame rests principally on his investigations in mechanics and physics, on the theory of the pendulum, the law of falling bodies, the invention of the thermometer, and on the intelligence with which he employed his unique opportunity for telescopic discoveries. His popular reputation will, however, always be based upon his re-invention of the telescope, his advocacy and proof of the Copernican system, his sufferings from the Inquisition, his torture, his abjuration, his seclusion at Arcetri. He will remain preeminently the martyr for science.