, poor though it be, for the conduct of
the Inquisition. But what excuse can we devise for the humiliating
confession and abjuration of Galileo? Why did this master-spirit of the
age--this high-priest of the stars--this representative of science--this
hoary sage, whose career of glory was near its consummation--why did he
reject the crown of martyrdom which he had himself coveted, and which,
plaited with immortal laurels, was about to descend upon his head? If,
in place of disavowing the laws of Nature, and surrendering in his own
person the intellectual dignity of his species, he had boldly asserted
the truth of his opinions, and confided his character to posterity, and
his cause to an all-ruling Providence, he would have strung up the
hair-suspended sabre, and disarmed for ever the hostility which
threatened to overwhelm him. The philosopher, however, was supported
only by philosophy; and in the love of truth he found a miserable
substitute for the hopes of the martyr. Galileo cowered under the fear
of man, and his submission was the salvation of the church. The sword of
the Inquisition descended on his prostrate neck; and though its stroke
was not physical, yet it fell with a moral influence fatal to the
character of its victim, and to the dignity of science.

In studying with attention this portion of scientific history, the
reader will not fail to perceive that the Church of Rome was driven into
a dilemma, from which the submission and abjuration of Galileo could
alone extricate it. He who confesses a crime and denounces its
atrocity, not only sanctions but inflicts the punishment which is
annexed to it. Had Galileo declared his innocence, and avowed his
sentiments, and had he appealed to the past conduct of the Church
itself, to the acknowledged opinions of its dignitaries, and even to the
acts of its pontiffs, he would have at once confounded his accusers, and
escaped from their toils. After Copernicus, himself a catholic priest,
had _openly_ maintained the motion of the earth, and the stability of
the sun:--after he had dedicated the work which advocated these opinions
to Pope Paul III., on the express ground that the _authority of the
pontiff_ might silence the calumnies of those who attacked these
opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture:--after the Cardinal
Schonberg and the Bishop of Culm had urged Copernicus to publish the new
doctrines;--and after the Bishop of Ermeland had erected a monument to
commemor