od)_, how can a son murder his father
without the permission and will of God? For this reason Saint Augustine
and Martin Luther have written _de servo arbitrio_.

But since theological arguments serve only those who believe in the
concept of a god, which is not given to us by science, we take recourse
to the laws which we observe in force and matter, and to the law of
causality. If modern science has discovered the universal link which
connects all phenomena through cause and effect, which shows that every
phenomenon is the result of causes which have preceded it; if this is
the law of causality, which is at the very bottom of modern scientific
thought, then it is evident that the admission of free thought is
equivalent to an overthrow of this law, according to which every effect
is proportionate to its cause. In that case, this law, which reigns
supreme in the entire universe, would dissolve itself into naught at
the feet of the human being, who would create effects with his free will
not corresponding to their causes! It was all right to think so at a
time when people had an entirely different idea of human beings. But the
work of modern science, and its effect on practical life, has resulted
in tracing the relations of each one of us with the world and with our
fellow beings. And the influence of science may be seen in the
elimination of great illusions which in former centuries swayed this or
that part of civilized humanity. The scientific thought of Copernicus
and Galilei did away with the illusions which led people to believe that
the earth was the center of the universe and of creation.

Take Cicero's book _de Officiis_, or the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante, and
you will find that to them the earth is the center of creation, that the
infinite stars circle around it, and that man is the king of animals: a
geocentric and anthropocentric illusion inspired by immeasurable
conceit. But Copernicus and Galilei came and demonstrated that the earth
does not stand still, but that it is a grain of cosmic matter hurled
into blue infinity and rotating since time unknown around its central
body, the sun, which originated from an immense primitive nebula.
Galilei was subjected to tortures by those who realized that this new
theory struck down many a religious legend and many a moral creed. But
Galilei had spoken the truth, and nowadays humanity no longer indulges
in the illusion that the earth is the center of creation.

But men