en he scoffs at those who affirm the earth to be in form of a
globe. So that it ought not to seem strange to the intelligent if any
such should likewise now deride us. The mathematics are written for
mathematicians, to whom (if I deceive not myself) these labours of mine
shall seem to add something, as also to the commonweal of the Church
whose government is now in the hands of Your Holiness."

It is such as Lactantius who would now condemn Copernicus unread, and
produce authorities of the Scripture, of divines, and of councils in
support of their condemnation. I hold these authorities in reverence,
but I hold that in this instance they are used for personal ends in a
manner very different from the most sacred intention of the Holy Church.
I am ready to renounce any religious errors into which I may run in this
discourse, and if my book be not beneficial to the Holy Church may it be
torn and burnt; but I hold that I have a right to defend myself against
the attacks of ignorant opponents.

The doctrine of the movement of the earth and the fixity of the sun is
condemned on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the
sun moving and the earth standing still. The Scriptures not being
capable of lying or erring, it followeth that the position of those is
erroneous and heretical who maintain that the sun is fixed and the earth
in motion.

It is piously spoken that the Scriptures cannot lie. But none will deny
that they are frequently abstruse and their true meaning difficult to
discover, and more than the bare words signify. One taking the sense too
literally might pervert the truth and conceive blasphemies, and give God
feet, and hands, and eyes, and human affections, such as anger,
repentance, forgetfulness, ignorance, whereas these expressions are
employed merely to accommodate the truth to the mental capacity of the
unlearned.

This being granted, I think that in the discussion of natural problems
we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and
demonstrations. Nor does God less admirably discover Himself to us in
nature than in Scripture, and having found the truth in nature we may
use it as an aid to the true exposition of the Scriptures. The
Scriptures were intended to teach men those things which cannot be
learned otherwise than by the mouth of the Holy Spirit; but we are meant
to use our senses and reason in discovering for ourselves things within
their scope and capacity, and hen