im for a
time. A few steps more and he will be on the brow of the hill; a short
piece of table-land, and then the descent begins.

In dealing with these historic events will you allow me to repudiate
once for all the slightest sectarian bias or meaning? I have nothing to
do with Catholic or Protestant as such. I have nothing to do with the
Church of Rome as such. I am dealing with the history of science. But
historically at one period science and the Church came into conflict. It
was not specially one church rather than another--it was the Church in
general, the only one that then existed in those countries.
Historically, I say, they came into conflict, and historically the
Church was the conqueror. It got its way; and science, in the persons of
Bruno, Galileo, and several others, was vanquished. Such being the
facts, there is no help but to mention them in dealing with the history
of science. Doubtless _now_ the Church regards it as an unhappy victory,
and gladly would ignore this painful struggle. This, however, is
impossible. With their creed the churchmen of that day could act in no
other way. They were bound to prosecute heresy, and they were bound to
conquer in the struggle or be themselves shattered.

But let me insist on the fact that no one accuses the ecclesiastical
courts of crime or evil motives. They attacked heresy after their
manner, as the civil courts attacked witchcraft after _their_ manner.
Both erred grievously, but both acted with the best intentions.

We must remember, moreover, that his doctrines were scientifically
heterodox, and the university professors of that day were probably quite
as ready to condemn them as the Church was. To realize the position we
must think of some subjects which _to-day_ are scientifically heterodox,
and of the customary attitude adopted toward them by persons of widely
differing creeds.

If it be contended now, as it is, that the ecclesiastics treated Galileo
well, I admit it freely: they treated him as well as they possibly
could. They overcame him, and he recanted; but if he had not recanted,
if he had persisted in his heresy, they would--well, they would still
have treated his soul well, but they would have set fire to his body.
Their mistake consisted not in cruelty, but in supposing themselves the
arbiters of eternal truth; and by no amount of slurring and glossing
over facts can they evade the responsibility assumed by them on account
of this mistaken attitu