per,
Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 512. For skilful use of De Cusa's
view in order to mitigate censure upon the Church for its treatment
of Copernicus's discovery, see an article in the Catholic World for
January, 1869. For a very exact statement, in the spirit of judicial
fairness, see Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, p. 275, and
pp. 379, 380. In the latter, Whewell cites the exact words of De Cusa
in the De Docta Ignorantia, and sums up in these words: "This train
of thought might be a preparation for the reception of the Copernican
system; but it is very different from the doctrine that the sun is the
centre of the planetary system." Whewell says: "De Cusa propounded the
doctrine of the motion of the earth more as a paradox than as a reality.
We can not consider this as any distinct anticipation of a profound and
consistent view of the truth." On De Cusa, see also Heller, vol. i, p.
216. For Aristotle's views, and their elaboration by St. Thomas Aquinas,
see the De Coelo et Mundo, sec. xx, and elsewhere in the latter. It is
curious to see how even such a biographer as Archbishop Vaughan slurs
over the angelic Doctor's errors. See Vaughan's Life and Labours of St.
Thomas of Aquin, pp. 459, 460.

As to Copernicus's danger at Rome, the Catholic World for January, 1869,
cites a speech of the Archbishop of Mechlin before the University of
Louvain, to the effect that Copernicus defended his theory at Rome, in
1500, before two thousand scholars; also, that another professor taught
the system in 1528, and was made apostolic notary by Clement VIII. All
this, even if the doctrines taught were identical with Copernicus as
finally developed--which is simply not the case--avails nothing
against the overwhelming testimony that Copernicus felt himself in
danger--testimony which the after-history of the Copernican theory
renders invincible. The very title of Fromundus's book, already cited,
published within a few miles of the archbishop's own cathedral, and
sanctioned expressly by the theological faculty of that same University
of Louvain in 1630, utterly refutes the archbishop's idea that the
Church was inclined to treat Copernicus kindly. The title is as
follows: Ant-Aristarchus sive Orbis-Terrae Immobilis, in quo decretum
S. Congregationis S. R. E. Cardinal. an. M.DC.XVI adversus
Pythagorico-Copernicanos editum defenditur, Antverpiae, MDCXXI.
L'Epinois, Galilee, Paris, 1867, lays stress, p. 14, on the broachin