Page:The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe.djvu/82

 by Thomas Feyens, or Fienus, a professor at the school of medicine in the University of Louvain. Thus Catholic, Protestant, and unbeliever, Feyens, Melancthon, Bacon and Bodin, all had recourse to the same arguments to oppose this seemingly absurd doctrine.

Froidmont, or Fromundus, the good friend and colleague of Feyens at Louvain, was also much interested in these matters, so much so that some thought he had formerly accepted the Copernican doctrine and "only fled back into the camp of Aristotle and Ptolemy through terror at the decree of the S. Congregation of Cardinals." His indignant denial of this imputation of turn-coat in 1634 is somewhat weakened by reference to his Saturnalitiæ Coenæ (1615) in which he suggests that, if the Copernican doctrine is admitted, then Hell may be in the sun at the center of the universe rather than in the earth, in order to be as far as possible from Paradise. He also refers in his De Cometa (1618) to the remark of Justus-Lipsius that this paradox was buried with Copernicus, saying "You are mistaken, O noble scholar: it lives, and it is full of vigor even now among many," thus apparently not seeing serious objection to it. M. Monchamp summarizes Froidmont's point of view as against Aristotle and Ptolemy, half for Copernicus and wholly for Tycho Brahe.

Froidmont's best known books are the two he wrote in answer to a defense of the Copernican position first by Philip Lansberg, then by his son. The ''Ant-Aristarchus sive Orbis Terræ Immobilis, Liber unicus in quo decretum S. Congregationis S. R. E. Cardinal. an. 1616, adversus Pythagorico-Copernicanous editum, defenditur'', appeared in 1631 before Galileo's condemnation. The Jesuit Cavalieri wrote to Galileo in May about it thus: "I have run it through, and verily it states the Copernican theory and the arguments in its favor with so much skill and efficacy that he seems to have understood it very well indeed. But he refutes them with so little force that he seems

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