ntre of the universe. The certain
fact that the doctrine of the plurality of worlds was entertained (I do
not say adopted) by them, proves sufficiently that they cannot have
believed the earth to be fixed and central. The idea of other worlds
like our earth is manifestly inconsistent with the belief that the earth
is the central body around which the whole universe revolves.

That this is so is well illustrated by the fate of the unfortunate
Giordano Bruno. He was one of the first disciples of Copernicus, and,
having accepted the doctrine that the earth travels round the sun as one
among his family of planets, was led very naturally to the belief that
the other planets are inhabited. He went farther, and maintained that as
the earth is not the only inhabited world in the solar system, so the
sun is not the only centre of a system of inhabited worlds, but each
star a sun like him, about which many planets revolve. This was one of
the many heresies for which Bruno was burned at the stake. It is easy,
also, to recognise in the doctrine of many worlds as the natural sequel
of the Copernican theory, rather than in the features of this theory
itself, the cause of the hostility with which theologians regarded it,
until, finding it proved, they discovered that it is directly taught in
the books which they interpret for us so variously. The Copernican
theory was not rejected--nay, it was even countenanced--until this
particular consequence of the theory was recognised. But within a few
years from the persecution of Bruno, Galileo was imprisoned, and the
last years of his life made miserable, because it had become clear that
in setting the earth adrift from its position as centre of the
universe, he and his brother Copernicans were sanctioning the belief in
other worlds than ours. Again and again, in the attacks made by
clericals and theologians upon the Copernican theory, this lamentable
consequence was insisted upon. Unconscious that they were advancing the
most damaging argument which could be conceived for the cause they had
at heart, they maintained, honestly but unfortunately, that with the new
theory came the manifest inference that our earth is not the only and by
no means the most important world in the universe--a doctrine manifestly
inconsistent (so they said) with the teachings of the Scriptures.

It was naturally only by a slow progression that men were able to
advance into the domain spread before them by the Copern