Page:The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe.djvu/76

 and sentence. Instead, he ordered copies of both to be sent to all inquisitors and papal nuncios that they might notify all their clergy and especially all the professors of mathematics and philosophy within their districts, particularly those at Florence, Padua and Pisa. This was done during the summer and fall of 1633. From Wilna in Poland, Cologne, Paris, Brussels, and Madrid, as well as from all Italy, came the replies of the papal officials stating that the order had been obeyed. He evidently intended to leave no ground for a remark like that of Fromundus about the earlier condemnation.

Galileo was thus brought so low that the famous remark, "Eppur si muove," legend reports him to have made as he rose to his feet after his abjuration, is incredible in itself, even if it had appeared in history earlier than its first publication in 1761. But his discoveries and his fight in defence of the system did much both to strengthen the doctrine itself and to win adherents to it. The appearance of the moon as seen through a telescope destroyed the Aristotelian notion of the perfection of heavenly bodies. Jupiter's satellites gave proof by analogy of the solar system, though on a smaller scale. The discovery of the phases of Venus refuted a hitherto strong objection to the Copernican system; and the discovery of the spots on the sun led to his later discovery of the sun's axial rotation, another proof by analogy of the axial rotation of the earth. Yet he swore the Ptolemaic conception was the true one.

The abjuration of Galileo makes a pitiful page in the history of thought and has been a fruitful source of controversy for nearly three centuries. He was unquestionably a sincere and loyal Catholic, and accordingly submitted to the punishment decreed by the authorities. But in his abjuration he plainly perjured himself, however fully he may be pardoned for it because of the extenuating circumstances. Had he not submitted and been straitly imprisoned, if not burned, the world would indeed

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