professed submission in his belief would enable his arguments in favour of the Copernican doctrine to pass unvisited; and the inquisitors were satisfied with a renunciation which they could not believe to be sincere. This artificial state, again, was probably one occasion of the furtive mode of insinuating his doctrines, so much employed by Galileo, which some of his historians admire as subtle irony, and others blame as insincerity. Nor do we see anything to lead us to believe that Galileo was not at all times ready to make such submissions as the spiritual tribunals required; although undoubtedly he was also very desirous of promoting the cause of what he conceived to be philosophical truth. The same absence of earnestness appears on the other side, in the courtesy and indulgence with which, as is now almost universally allowed, Galileo was treated throughout the course of the proceedings against him. For his being confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition, as his lot has sometimes been described, appears to have consisted principally in his being placed under some slight restrictions, first, in the house of Nicolini, the ambassador of his own sovereign, the Duke of Tuscany, and afterwards in the country-seat of Archbishop Piccolomini, one of his own warmest friends. It appears to be not going too far to suppose that the extravagant assumptions of the church of Rome, which it was impossible sincerely to allow, and necessary to evade by artifice, generated in the philosophers of Italy an

acuteness and subtlety, but also a suppleness and servility very different from the vigorous independent habits of thought of Germany and England.

But there remains something more to be attended to in the case of Galileo; for though the See of Rome might exaggerate the claims of religious authority, there is a question of no small real difficulty, which the progress of science often brings into notice, as it did then. The revelation on which our religion is founded, seems to declare, or to take for granted, opinions on points on which science also gives her decision; and we then come to this dilemma,—that doctrines, established by a scientific use of reason, may seem to contradict the declarations of revelation according to our view of its meaning;—and yet, that we cannot, in consistency with our religious views, make reason a judge of the truth of revealed doctrines. In the case of astronomy, on which Galileo was called in question, the general sense of cultivated and sober-minded men has long ago drawn the distinction between religious and physical tenets which is necessary to resolve this dilemma. On this point, it is reasonably held, that the phrases which are employed in Scripture respecting astronomical facts, are not to be made use of to guide our scientific opinions; they may be supposed to answer their end if they fall in with common notions, and are thus effectually subservient to the moral and religious import of revelation. But the establishment of this distinction was not accomplished without

VOL. I.

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long and distressing controversies. Nor, if we wish to include all cases in which the same dilemma may again come into play, is it easy to lay down an adequate canon for the purpose. For we can hardly foresee, beforehand, what part of the past history of the universe may eventually be found to come within the domain of science; or what bearing the tenets, which science establishes, may have upon our view of the providential and revealed government of the world. But without attempting here to generalise on this subject, there are two reflections which may be worth our notice: they are supported by what took place in reference to astronomy on the occasion of which we are speaking; and may, at other periods, be applicable to other sciences.

In the first place, the meaning which any generation puts upon the phrases of Scripture, depends, more than is at first sight supposed, upon the received philosophy of the time. Hence, while men imagine that they are contending for revelation, they are, in fact, contending for their own interpretation of revelation, unconsciously adapted to what they believe to be rationally probable. And the new interpretation, which the new philosophy requires, and which appears to the older school to be a fatal violence done to the authority of religion, is accepted by their successors without the dangerous results which were apprehended. When the language of Scripture, invested with its new meaning, has become familiar to men, it is found that the ideas

which it calls up, are quite as reconcileable as the former ones were, with the soundest religious views. And the world then looks back with surprise at the error of those who thought that the essence of revelation was involved in their own arbitrary version of some collateral circumstance. At the present day we can hardly conceive how reasonable men should have imagined that religious reflections on the stability of the earth, and the beauty and use of the luminaries which revolve round it, would be interfered with by its being acknowledged that this rest and motion are apparent only.

In the next place, we may observe that those who thus adhere tenaciously to the traditionary or arbitrary mode of understanding Scriptural expressions of physical events, are always strongly condemned by succeeding generations. They are looked upon with contempt by the world at large, who cannot enter into the obsolete difficulties with which they encumbered themselves; and with pity by the more considerate and serious, who know how much sagacity and right-mindedness are requisite for the conduct of philosophers and religious men on such occasions; but who know also how weak and vain is the attempt to get rid of the difficulty by merely denouncing the new tenets as inconsistent with religious belief, and by visiting the promulgators of them with severity such as the state of opinions and institutions may allow. The prosecutors of Galileo are still held up to the scorn and aversion of man

kind; although, as we have seen, they did not act till it seemed that their position compelled them to do so, and then proceeded with all the gentleness and moderation which were compatible with judicial forms.

Sect. 5.-The Heliocentric Theory confirmed on Physical considerations.-(Prelude to Kepler's Astronomical Discoveries.)

By physical views, I mean, as I have already said, those which depend on the causes of the motions of matter, as, for instance, the consideration of the nature and laws of the force by which bodies fall downwards. Such considerations were necessarily and immediately brought under notice by the examination of the Copernican theory; but the loose and inaccurate notions which prevailed respecting the nature and laws of force, prevented, for some time, all distinct reasoning on this subject, and gave truth little advantage over error. The formation of a new science, the science of motion and its causes, was requisite, before the heliocentric system could have justice done it with regard to this part of the subject.

This discussion was at first carried on, as was to be expected, in terms of the received, that is, the Aristotelian doctrines. Thus, Copernicus says that terrestrial things appear to be at rest when they have a motion according to nature, that is, a circular