ith 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 realise the position we
must think of some subjects which _to-day_ are scientifically
heterodox, and of the customary attitude adopted towards 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 attitude.

I am not here attacking the dogma of Papal Infallibility: it is
historically, I believe, quite unaffected by the controversy respecting
the motion of the earth, no Papal edict _ex cathedra_ having been
promulgated on the subject.

We left Galileo standing at his telescope and beginning his survey of
the heavens. We followed him indeed through a few of his first great
discoveries--the discovery of the mountains and other variety of surface
in the moon, of the nebulae and a multitude of faint stars, and lastly of
the four satellites of Jupiter.

This latter discovery made an immense sensation, and contributed its
share to his removal from Padua, which quickly followed it, as I shall
shortly narrate; but first I think it will be best to continue our
survey of his astronomical discoveries without regard to the place
whence they were made.

Before the end of the year Galileo had made another discovery--this time
on Saturn. But to guard against the host of plagiarists and impostors,
he published it in the form of an anagram, which, at the request of the
Emperor Rudolph (a request probably inspired by Kepler), he interpreted;
it ran thus: The furthest planet is triple.

Very soon after he found that Venus was changing from a full moon to a
half moon appearance. He announced this also by an anagram, and waited
till it should become a crescent, which it did.

This was a dreadful blow to the anti-Copernicans, for it removed the
last lingering dif