ox views on a variety of subjects, and did not hesitate to
propound them even after he had returned to Italy.

The Copernican doctrine of the motion of the earth was one of his
obnoxious heresies. Being persecuted to some extent by the Church, Bruno
took refuge in Venice--a free republic almost independent of the
Papacy--where he felt himself safe. Galileo was at Padua hard by: the
University of Padua was under the government of the Senate of Venice:
the two men must in all probability have met.

Well, the Inquisition at Rome sent messengers to Venice with a demand
for the extradition of Bruno--they wanted him at Rome to try him for
heresy.

In a moment of miserable weakness the Venetian republic gave him up, and
Bruno was taken to Rome. There he was tried, and cast into the dungeons
for six years, and because he entirely refused to recant, was at length
delivered over to the secular arm and burned at the stake on 16th
February, Anno Domini 1600.

This event could not but have cast a gloom over the mind of lovers and
expounders of truth, and the lesson probably sank deep into Galileo's
soul.

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 w